Overpopulation – The Human Explosion Explained

If you're worried about overpopulation on Earth, check out Kurzgesagt's video on the topic. It's absolutely essential. ▶ this video

It's survivorship bias—where bias means skewed from the full distribution of choices people and societies made, not bias as in discrimination. Most of the families and societies that didn't prioritize population growth (by reproduction or immigration) aren't around to advocate for that approach's merits, whereas those that did are. Fun fact: for each human alive today there've been 15 deceased humans ever. As zombie apocalypses go, 15:1 doesn't sound too bad. Kurzgesagt has some interesting videos on human population if that's your style: link ▶ this video

> the likes of China and India are by far the biggest culprits while Africa is projected to quadruple it's population while rapidly industrializing. The growing number of people is the main problem. Bullshit. The western ignorance and entitlement is unreal. Americans and Europeans are responsible for the vast majority of historical CO2 emissions, while having a small fraction of the world's population. If someone is to be blamed for climate change, it's them. link What gives you the right to stop the rest of the world from industrializing? Look at the obscene CO2 emissions caused due to over-consumption in western countries: link Poor countries are going through the standard demographic transition model: link . You cannot blame them for having high birth rates, even Europe and America had high birth rates when they were poor. Birth rates in India and China are already below replacement, Africa's will also be later in the century. Do you think people in America are more entitled to have babies than in the rest of the world? The problem is not growing population, correlation is not causation. The root problem is lack of renewable tech that can sustain the modern quality of life for all humanity. I suggest watching this: ▶ this video It's high time people stopped the tiresome and senseless bitching about India/China/Africa having too many babies, and focused on renewable energy research instead.

> if the 1 billion "rich people" drop their emissions down to below average then the majority of the problem will still be here. True. But the "majority" is not as big as you think. > there will be 1 billion less wealthy people Just wrong. There are lots of ways to reduce emissions without any effect in wealth. Eating less meat is one example. > for no particular net gain. Very wrong, there are huge gains: link > I advocate the radical approach of encouraging people to have less children. I knew you would say this, I was just waiting for it. Global birth rates have been in freefall for decades now, it's tragic that people don't know about it. You'd assume that supposedly "better" education in western countries would make people more aware, but western governments are only concerned with maintaining global western hegemony which requires falsely accusing the rest of the world and keeping their citizens ignorant. Also, you can't force people to have less children, that's inhumane. I suggest you go through the following links. ▶ this video link link link link

The trend is universal, although some developing countries have not reached that stage yet. Kurzgesagt has a good video on this: ▶ this video

You don't need to have a high HDI society with free market principles and individual civil liberties. The requirements for limiting population are even lower. You just need to eradicate extreme poverty and provide decent healthcare and education. Most countries in the world are already on the path to meet these requirements (including major ones). Birth rates are in free fall across the world [1]. There's no one to get on board with "my ideals". [1] ▶ this video

That is what really matters because we can't really do much about population. We could talk about population if we had unusually high birth rates, but that's not true. A high birth rate was the default state of all humanity pre-industrialization. Poor countries with high birth rates that plummet as they get richer is normal . A large portion of the world is still poor. Every highly developed country used to have extremely high birth rates in the past. There is nothing unusual about this, this is standard demographic transition. If you care about freedom, you can't just force poor countries to have fewer children. You have to wait for them to get richer and develop, and birth rates will drop automatically. ▶ this video link

Pretty stupid thing to say. UN predicts 11B humans at peak. Certain new studies predict 9.7B. Global average birth rate is already close to replacement levels. The earth population that can enjoy life is not fixed at 2B, that's very myopic thinking. We should fund science & tech so that it's possible for 11B people to enjoy life without damaging the planet, instead of blaming the "others" based on racist anti-science attitudes and deliberately keeping them poor by punishing them economically. link ▶ this video link link link

the overpopulation mantra has been debunked so many times already. edit: since i'm getting downvoted for pointing out the obvious, here's links pointing out that overpopulation is a myth, even a racist one in some circumstances: wapo: link link link link kurzgesagt: ▶ this video the guardian: link nytimes: link link

> China would not be where it is without the great effort (though hamfistedly implemented) it put into controlling growth I would not advocate this authoritarian approach (I'm not saying you are). Part of the solution is what you said earlier, education. But population stabilizes on it's own as a country goes through the Demographic Transition. See: link Or for something more light-hearted: ▶ this video

Relevant Kurzgesagt video on overpopulation: ▶ this video I learnt about the overpopulation myth during my undergrad, but I'm continuously surprised by how many people (including Thanos) didn't know this. Edit: Here's a chart of expected population growths. It's expected to start slowing down[1] [1]: Select WORLD from the menu: link

I watched a video last night that was full of optimism. Pointed out that as countries got richer less children died and people had less children. So eventually the population will level off. It seemed to overlook the fact that we are currently using up resources 1.5 times faster than they are being replenished (amongst many other related problems). ▶ this video