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Comment by pitaj | Hacker News Reader

Overpopulation is a myth

Edit: People are asking for proof of this. Unfortunately, I can't prove a negative. It's impossible. I will say this, though:

There is a long history of people claiming that overpopulation will happen, resulting in mass starvation and shortages across the globe. It never happened.

If you predict overpopulation will happen, then name a number. Whether it be global population or the a year in the future, make an estimate. We'll see if you fair better than those in the past.

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Every environment has a carrying capacity for any particular species. This is well observed and not a myth.

There are two myths:

* That we have any idea what that capacity is.

* That we're anywhere near close to it. The most conservative estimates say we can handle 2.5 billion more.

Please make a prediction about what you think the current carrying capacity is. Then, assuming you live 40 more years, it'll be long enough for you to see you were wrong.

People love their doom and gloom, but truthfully there is a lot of room left for human growth on this planet.

So maybe "carrying capacity" is not a myth, but "human overpopulation now" of the planet as a whole certainly is.

There's no mystery to how prior civilizations hit collapse events when I read comments like this. Every system has a limit, if you don't believe this is the case, you'll likely hit it in catastrophic fashion.

In the year 2018, you'd think people would be more focused on higher pursuits and inquiries about the Universe than just a joy ride from life to death and a maximization driven social trend to see how much money you can make and spend in a lifetime.

Anytime prior civilizations have forgotten about the fundamentals or considered themselves to be so technologically advanced to be beyond the impact of nature, there usually is a reckoning and that reckoning usually occurs at the peak of society when resources are being improperly dedicated to vanity and idiocy. There's a reason the hallmark structures of past civilizations are erected pretty close to their demise.

The Sun goes through cycles we have yet to fully understand. That alone could cause significant effects to the earth and its something we have zero control over. I'd think it would be a far better social culture to be focused on dedicating resources to exploring and studying the universe and fundamental nature therein than mining clown coins via bit flipping wasting energy/computing resources on a ponzi scheme. However, look how many billions are involved with this.. In a so called modern highly educated society.

As far as population goes, why does a human being feel entitled to have kids? Why are there so many poor individuals having kids? Why should we try to test the limit of nature's carrying capacity? Why do we continue to push the world population higher? We did we create economic models that depend on population growth? Again, a different kind of life from just popping out kids and enjoy the rides of life. A life of inquiry and the pursuit of understanding....

> There's a lot more room left for human growth on this planet

Until there's not or nature throws you a cyclical curve ball. See history for what the results are.

> There's no mystery to how prior civilizations hit collapse events when I read comments like this.

You're making my case for me. I'm sure there was some doom sayer in ancient Rome who predicted the world could never support more than 10 million people tops. Yet here we are at 7.7 billion and counting.

> In the year 2018, you'd think people would be more focused on higher pursuits [...]

You've clearly got some other agenda that you're trying to argue against. Feel free to try and tell everyone how they should live, but I'm not really interested. I was responding to claims of "overpopulation".

> Until there's not or nature throws you a cyclical curve ball. See history for what the results are.

Again, you're making my case for me. Sure plagues happened... I wouldn't be surprised if in 2200 some historian will look at the archives of messages like this and snicker you thought 7.7 billion was a lot. It also wouldn't shock me if once all the third world countries have birth control and health care that we find a natural equilibrium at 20-50 billion.

Agreed. Humans have the ability to alter that with technology.

Hunter gatherers can't exist in density like modern agricultural/industrial societies.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/04/angkor-wat-civil...

Local environments have carrying capacities; see eg. the Rwandan genocide for a reasonable convincing example of what happens when they are exceeded. However, I don't think we are anywhere near the carrying capacity of the planet as a whole, particularly since vast slabs of it are actively depopulating (Russia, Japan, rural areas of most industrialized countries, etc).

and yet people live in (and pay dearly for) ever-more-dense cities despite ample space outside.

I don't know under what assumptions you consider it a "myth", but the the planet cannot support the current population, with its current behavior. The main evidence for that is runaway climate change.

People are not going to change their behavior; maybe the problem will fix itself if people simply dwindle as a result of their actions.

Nobody has to be killed; dropping fertility could do it.

E.g. if fertility goes to zero, the species is finished. The living specimens will live out their lives (many of those being medically prolonged) and then that's it. Billions to zero in about a century.

Change doesn't always require people to change their behavior. See CFCs, leaded gasoline, others. I expect that electric cars will follow the same path.

And people have and will change their behavior, in response to regulations and market forces. Let meat, electricity, gasoline, etc. reflect their true prices, incorporating carbon externalities, and people will respond to that by adjusting their behavior.

We don't need collective action, we just need political will.

Source?

Concern about overpopulation is an ancient topic. Particularly in China, where they introduced the one-child policy in 1979 which, according to the Chinese government, prevented an additional population growth of about 400 million until it was phased out in 2015.

What does that even mean? If nothing else, the more people we have, the more pollution we could be creating, which can affect climate change.

And the more people we have, the larger the world economy, the greater the ability to undertake projects to mitigate climate change, alleviate suffering, etc.

Think about it like so: US carbon emissions are ~19 tons per person per year. Carbon offsets range wildly in price with $40 per ton a very conservative (high) estimate. So an American's carbon emissions "costs" < $1k a year. Even if this is off by a factor of 5, it is still small compared to an individual's productive capacity and earning potential.

If the US were to prioritize fighting climate change, then a larger and more powerful US economy would be a very good thing. Obviously that goes for other developed countries as well.

Stephen Pinker's Enlightenment Now is a great read supporting the arguments you're making here (among many other things).

Yes, Enlightenment Now makes one systematically reflect over humanity's progress; it repeatedly bludgeons the reader with illuminating data.

And speaking of Pinker ... looking forward to see him in person tonight here in Ghent, Belgium! He's coming for a discussion ("the night of the free thinker") :-)

Here is 1k$, where can i pick up my electric car?

You can keep my old Kia in exchange.

The point is that the cost of offsetting the CO2 emission from your Kia is on the order of hundreds of dollars per year. This doesn't require purchasing an electric car.

However when your old Kia dies and you go to replace it, you may find that an electric car is a better option.

Got anything to back that up?

Over population is a myth, but over consumption is not.

The world easily can support 15 billion Hunter gatherer humans. But, just the number alive today may far beat over consumption limits they started living like a median American.

The world isn't going to "end", but it will become a very uncomfortable place to live in.

How do you think the earth could support 15 billion hunter gatherer humans? Would that not require an enormous amount of arable space?

I should have rephrased it. I didn't quite mean hunter gatherers literally.

Rather I meant a (energy) consumption per capita that was similar to hunter gatherers. ie. people only lived to eat, have shelter and survive.

That we can support.

Everyone having cars, eating beef 7 days a week, massive amounts of waste and all the amenities that a median person in a developed country enjoys.....those things are out of reach.

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