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Comment by _0ffh | Hacker News Reader

I think western population development has gone sustainable largely due to social advancements re women. Not all parts of the world have yet had that kind of progress, and are still happily multiplying in an unsustainable way. Unless we manage to export this kind of progress, I fear we will not be able to avoid all overpopulation issues. One problem is that costly (in loss of lives) regional wars over resources and the enslavement of women as a means of replenishment for your armies are a circular feedback mechanism. Unless the circle of war and patriarchy is broken, some cultures will probably expand to their malthusian limits.

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> Not all parts of the world have yet had that kind of progress, and are still happily multiplying in an unsustainable way. Unless we manage to export this kind of progress, I fear we will not be able to avoid all overpopulation issues.

This is simply not true. Not even close.

I recommend watching:

https://www.gapminder.org/videos/will-saving-poor-children-l...

or, if you can spend more time,

https://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-the-facts-about-...

or any of Hans Rosling's TED talks. And you'll find that your statement I quoted above is simply wrong.

I've watched Rosling stuff before. What part of the linked videos do you think are evidence against? I maintain there are a number of countries that still have unsustainable population growth. I wouldn't want to pick any one out. But be my guest and have a look-see at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_i...

The population growth is basically a transitional state between high infant mortality / high birthrate to low infant mortality / low birthrate. There's no society in existence that had sustained "high birthrate / low infant mortality".

Play the following graph from 1800 to today:

https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$marker$axis_x$which=...

It's very clear where we're headed and we're actually closer to the stable point, given China and India are already near the birthrate of 2.

> ... are still happily multiplying in an unsustainable way.

See the graph above. This is already not true.

> Unless we manage to export this kind of progress

This has already happened mostly. Africa is the laggard currently but is already rapidly catching up, and it's crystal clear that we'll get there.

I recommend taking the gapminder.org test. I think you'll be surprised how wrong you are.

> the enslavement of women as a means of replenishment for your armies

What society has ever done that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Sabine_Women

We're they raping in order to replenish their armies? The claim is rather far fetched.

The word "rape" in this context is taken to mean abduction. This is then followed by the integration of the abductees into the abductor's society.

From the article: "At the festival, Romulus gave a signal, at which the Romans grabbed the Sabine women and fought off the Sabine men. The indignant abductees were soon implored by Romulus to accept Roman husbands".

That the second phase may have employed carrots as well as sticks does not detract from the fact that the Romans have thereby managed to expand their reproductive capacities while simultaneously contracting that of the rival Sabines.

Every society that denies women independence from men. I agree this is a sliding scale, but near the extreme end is this staple: Girls belong to the parents until such time as they are married off to a husband, who is then in effect their new owner. I take the liberty to call this slavery.

I was talking about forcing women into the army.

Oh my, that's what you thought I meant with "the enslavement of women as a means of replenishment for your armies"?

I fear that was a misunderstanding, good sir. I didn't mean that women were ever press ganged into the army, but into producing the next generation of recruits. Frankly, I actually lold when I got that just now! =)

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