4 ms·

There's a whole sub-genre of science fiction written in the late 1950s which took for granted that in the future there would be wars for food and perpetual fami

by seldo 17y ago

There's a whole sub-genre of science fiction written in the late 1950s which took for granted that in the future there would be wars for food and perpetual famine due to an ongoing population explosion. The green revolution and birth control are the two simple but world-changing inventions that staved off that apocalypse, which seemed so inevitable at the time.

mynameishere 17y ago
Staved = Pushed back the date. .... I'm honestly not sure why people are dazzled by this guy. Partly it was...his specific intention to increase yields, which make him seem like a humanitarian. The Fordson tractor did more for agriculture (and, much much much more for the economy and day-to-day existence) than this guy. Is Henry Ford the greatest human being who ever lived?
- ardit33 17y ago
  Why so negative? It seems that Europe's population is actually declining, so is japan's, and a lot of advanced countries. If they keep feed themselves right now, they should be so even 100 years from now, given the same condition (unless we have some drastic global climatic change). it is the poor countries, whose economies are based in subsistence agriculture, that are having a huge population increase. So, the other question is, do you have to bring all these countries up to the level of western europe/japan/us in order to stop the population boom? if we have to, then there will certainly not be enough resources for everybody (especially if everybody has to live like american do)? I have a good counter example for this. You don't have to be super developed in order to have a clear stabilization of the population. Even my country's Albania (which has about 6kUSD gpd), population growth has halted (from 2.2 children per woman in 1990, to 1.7 last year). So, you don't have to get super developed to have a decline of 'overfertility'. It seems that bringing economies out of rural ones, and into more mixed (agriculture/services/technology), will help the population not to increase so much. It seems that this is a noble goal to achieve for the rest of the world, and this guy helped on it. And making crops more durable, and farmers more productive, will make people move out of villages and go to cities, and redirect economies to towards services/manufacturing/technologies, where education is more advantage, and having more kids is very expenvie.
  - raquo 17y ago
    I don't think that population increases are caused purely by poorness. Culture and rural environment are the most important factors, IMHO. The latter because if you're not living in the city you need kids to help you earn money, and you get the payoff from them faster, since they mostly don't go to (expensive) colleges etc. I hardly know anything about Albania, but I suppose it's far more urbanised than China and its culture is vastly different.
  - billswift 17y ago
    The problem is that the declining population is temporary. Every area with declining population, except perhaps Japan which I don't know enough about to say, has sub-populations with higher growth. Eventually, those populations are going to become large enough that the population as a whole will start growing again, and will continue increasing until it reaches the rate of the high-growth formerly-sub population. It's just a hiccup. Unless something external - singularity, war, whatever - intervenes.
    - JabavuAdams 17y ago
      Scarcity of resources is also a temporary (but serious) problem. So, pushing back the date of catastrophe far enough is exactly what's needed. Conditions are not static. Often buying more time is all that's necessary. How do you live for ever? Don't die.
      - billswift 17y ago
        Currently resources are not scarce except in the economic sense. But a growing population will eventually surpass ANY POSSIBLE resource base. Robin Hanson's most recent post on Overcoming Bias http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/09/limits-to-growth.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/09/limits-to-growth.html discusses this in some detail.
- seldo 17y ago
  My use of "staved off" was entirely intentional. I'm sure we'll hit apocalypse somehow... (P.S. "staved" by itself means "crushed inwards" ;-))
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
- kingsley_20 17y ago
  Are you kidding me? India's green revolution would have never happened without him, and that saved millions of people from almost certain starvation, death and malnutrition. He wanted to increase yields in order to feed people - saw a global problem problem, figured out a solution, sold it and made it happen - thats why he's awesome.

by seldo 17y ago

mynameishere 17y ago

Staved = Pushed back the date. .... I'm honestly not sure why people are dazzled by this guy. Partly it was...his specific intention to increase yields, which make him seem like a humanitarian. The Fordson tractor did more for agriculture (and, much much much more for the economy and day-to-day existence) than this guy. Is Henry Ford the greatest human being who ever lived?

ardit33 17y ago
Why so negative? It seems that Europe's population is actually declining, so is japan's, and a lot of advanced countries. If they keep feed themselves right now, they should be so even 100 years from now, given the same condition (unless we have some drastic global climatic change). it is the poor countries, whose economies are based in subsistence agriculture, that are having a huge population increase. So, the other question is, do you have to bring all these countries up to the level of western europe/japan/us in order to stop the population boom? if we have to, then there will certainly not be enough resources for everybody (especially if everybody has to live like american do)? I have a good counter example for this. You don't have to be super developed in order to have a clear stabilization of the population. Even my country's Albania (which has about 6kUSD gpd), population growth has halted (from 2.2 children per woman in 1990, to 1.7 last year). So, you don't have to get super developed to have a decline of 'overfertility'. It seems that bringing economies out of rural ones, and into more mixed (agriculture/services/technology), will help the population not to increase so much. It seems that this is a noble goal to achieve for the rest of the world, and this guy helped on it. And making crops more durable, and farmers more productive, will make people move out of villages and go to cities, and redirect economies to towards services/manufacturing/technologies, where education is more advantage, and having more kids is very expenvie.
- raquo 17y ago
  I don't think that population increases are caused purely by poorness. Culture and rural environment are the most important factors, IMHO. The latter because if you're not living in the city you need kids to help you earn money, and you get the payoff from them faster, since they mostly don't go to (expensive) colleges etc. I hardly know anything about Albania, but I suppose it's far more urbanised than China and its culture is vastly different.
- billswift 17y ago
  The problem is that the declining population is temporary. Every area with declining population, except perhaps Japan which I don't know enough about to say, has sub-populations with higher growth. Eventually, those populations are going to become large enough that the population as a whole will start growing again, and will continue increasing until it reaches the rate of the high-growth formerly-sub population. It's just a hiccup. Unless something external - singularity, war, whatever - intervenes.
  - JabavuAdams 17y ago
    Scarcity of resources is also a temporary (but serious) problem. So, pushing back the date of catastrophe far enough is exactly what's needed. Conditions are not static. Often buying more time is all that's necessary. How do you live for ever? Don't die.
    - billswift 17y ago
      Currently resources are not scarce except in the economic sense. But a growing population will eventually surpass ANY POSSIBLE resource base. Robin Hanson's most recent post on Overcoming Bias http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/09/limits-to-growth.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/09/limits-to-growth.html discusses this in some detail.
seldo 17y ago
My use of "staved off" was entirely intentional. I'm sure we'll hit apocalypse somehow... (P.S. "staved" by itself means "crushed inwards" ;-))
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
kingsley_20 17y ago
Are you kidding me? India's green revolution would have never happened without him, and that saved millions of people from almost certain starvation, death and malnutrition. He wanted to increase yields in order to feed people - saw a global problem problem, figured out a solution, sold it and made it happen - thats why he's awesome.