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Comment by ItsMe000001 | Hacker News Reader

I don't see why you called it myth. Just because it sort of works short term does not tell you anything about long term consequences. Earth has changed drastically with all the humans on it. You need a lot of optimism about solutions for global warming and pollution. The linked short "feel good" video asks an extreme question "Will this lead to the end of our civilization?" (pretend the other side made a ridiculous claim to make them look foolish and to easily counter what nobody said), takes an incredibly tiny number of data well selected to support the desired conclusion, and of course lots of colorful animations - I'm supposed to take that seriously? I find the myth that the myth is a myth to be too mythical for my taste.

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I think you misunderstand, the video isn't a happy colorful animation about an optimistic conclusion to humanity's problems. It discusses one specific problem: over-population. And distills a ton of data collected over the several decades to offer the conclusion.

Historical evidence supports that a decrease in mortality rates is followed by a decrease in birth rate. Here, check out the data for yourself[1]

The theory of population growth leading to resource depletion is fairly old. Thomas Malthus published this in 1798[2], but guess what: we're all still alive, despite growing over 7 billion in size, and the empirical evidence debunked this theory. There are a fairly large number of theories why this didn't happen, but that's off topic.

My point is:

- The shortage of resource because of over-population is an old theory, but we've seen no evidence to it yet.

- Population growth eventually slows down when the mortality rate decreases.

- The population growth rate is expected to begin slowing[3]

- Colorful animations help people understand a point, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong.

[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/Demographic-Transition-Mi...

[2]:https://www.intelligenteconomist.com/malthusian-theory/

[3]:https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/

> It discusses one specific problem: over-population

As I said, they make exactly zero effort to say anything of substance about that issue. Key word is "over". I refer back to my comment. They say something about "population" - but the vital "over-" part is not addressed at all. For good reason, that's a complex topic with mostly unknowns.

> Colorful animations help people understand a point, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong.

If there is no substance and the topic is complex and big than that alone is wrong already.

There are unknowns, yes, but that doesn't mean we can't build estimations and try to reduce the unknowns. That's how econometrics works. And that's how the UN came up with projected expectations: https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/

> My point is:

> - The shortage of resource because of over-population is an old theory, but we've seen no evidence to it yet.

There does indeed exist evidence that unrestrained population growth DOES lead to resource depletion and at least in this case [0] led to the eventual extinction of a population confined to an island.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthew_Island#Mammals

Isn’t this prone to inductive fallacy? Just because we’ve never seen overpopulation as problem doesn’t mean it won’t become one. Ultimately, earth as planet is finite.

>- Population growth eventually slows down when the mortality rate decreases.

But that worked in a world where people were reliant on children to work / take care of elders. I don't think the comparison between 40's occident and nows developing countries is of any worth. Also you can throw a lot of stuff in there : not the same social norms (occident is really individual centered, asia or africa don't seem to have suffered the same shift yet), not the same culture (child policies, cults, education access for women...). I really don't think your sentence is an universal rule. It happened once in a rather homogenical situations. Could we say the same about now ?

>- The population growth rate is expected to begin slowing

Expectations are not enough. And nothing will be inforced to provoke this. Also we're still above 2 children per women, which is too much considering the HUGE energy/consumption/overall spending cutouts we have to make to keep our planet and oceans alive.

> The shortage of resource because of over-population is an old theory, but we've seen no evidence to it yet.

That doesn't deny that it's still happening though. This sounds like the kind of argument Exxon, Nestle, or a logging company would use to continue siphoning up resources while saying "Well, we're all still alive, so no harm done." That's very short-sighted and limited thinking. There are many other consequences of an increasing population that by proxy contribute to resource depletion, such as pollution and over-development for example.

In a non-human comparison, look at the damage that happens when an invasive species enters a new environment and over-populates. The native flora and fauna suffer and the resources they rely on begin to disappear. Then we end up with a Lorax-like scenario.

> The shortage of resource because of over-population is an old theory, but we've seen no evidence to it yet.

Malthus only has to be right once for you to see the shortage. E.g. you can always pull water out of the well, until you can't. If you can say that with a straight face and pretend it's an argument, then I can say "you can't predict that it will never be a problem as long as humanity exists" and be just as right.

The only argument here is for how we will deal with the shortage - violently or by gradually reducing the birth rates.

> Population growth eventually slows down when the mortality rate decreases.

Population numbers themselves are meaningless without estimates of resource consumption. Nor is necessarily having a high population at the level of "not starving" level of prosperity something that we should be striving towards.

> The population growth rate is expected to begin slowing

Yes, it's already slowing, but see above for why it's meaningless that it is.

> Colorful animations help people understand a point, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong.

It also doesn't necessarily mean they tell the whole picture, the correct picture or contain any relevant information whatsoever.

One thing I wonder about is how much of a genetic component there is to the number of children people will have in a developed society.

If there is, after several generations, you can expect those genes to be much more prevalent in the society and for population growth to resume.

It doesn’t make any sense to me that overpopulation leading to resource exhaustion ha been debunked because the population has grown over 7 billion and it hasn’t happened yet. It brings to mind the image of a person falling off a skyscraper and plummeting to the ground thinking, “so far so good!”

> You need a lot of optimism about solutions for global warming and pollution.

I disagree. Unless you can show me a first-principle calculation for why a specific number should be "too much", then I don't think it's reasonable to assume that we're either above or below such a number. Don't get me wrong: I agree that such a number must exist. But you seem certain that we're above it, which isn't based on anything as far as I can tell.

It seems clear that, with the same level of technology, more people put more load on the environment than fewer people do. The question then becomes, are we currently putting "too much" load on the environment? I think that's where the dispute lies.

And since there is no clear definition of "too much", there is no provably correct answer to the question. One person looks around, sees what's happening to the oceans, the carbon dioxide level, and so on, and says "Of course it's too much!". Another looks around, sees things "pretty much the same as before", and says "clearly not too much".

> Earth has changed drastically with all the humans on it.

do you have earth scale measures for this? what is your threshold for drastic?

on most measures I can think of, earth is pretty much the same as it was 100k years ago. maybe you are suggesting humans have a drastic impact on other species on earth?

Geologically it is the same, a stone is a stone, true that. The creatures on it, both plants as well as animals, changed drastically by human intervention.

Example: https://mic.com/articles/84681/this-is-exactly-how-much-weig... (it's for this xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1338/)

Then there's the pollution, for example plastics (tiny particles) everywhere, example: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/06/plastic-...

We change(d) the atmosphere, from pollutants to CO2 levels.

Land for agriculture: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.AGRI.ZS -- much of it is to support livestock

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/08/human-footprint-...

Also, an up to 80% reduction in the biomass of fish stocks over the course of the past couple of centuries.

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