Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

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Any increase in someone's quality of life comes at someone else's expense.

Historically that has not been the case. Historically quality of life improvements have come from technological discoveries (e.g. penicillin) and social evolution (e.g. of the middle class). Who loses if penicillin is discovered? Who loses if some former serfs decide to become artisans instead?

The single biggest improvement in quality of life for most humans over most of history has probably come from improved hygienic practices. How does that come at someone's else's expense?

I also disagree with your specific claim that "Internet innovation" can't improve physical world problems. Would you claim books don't help solve the problem of clean water? Not literally, obviously; you can't use books to make clean water, except by ripping out pages and using them as water filters. But think how much harder it would be to solve the problem if books didn't exist. And the Internet is an innovation on the scale of printing.

I just finished the 2nd book by Jared Diamond (Collapse) and he claims that population growth diminishes the advantages of technological progress. Without penicillin, Internet, improved hygienic practices we wouldn't have nearly 7 billion people living on this planet right now.

At the current rate of population growth we'll have a density of 10 people per square foot (!) before year 3000, and the population growth is what usually follows a country's increased economic output.

You can't extrapolate historical population trends and expect them to be remotely accurate. Most current data shows population plateauing at around 10 Billion.

Most of the westernized world's population (US, Japan, Western Europe, Australia, etc) is either stagnant or decreasing - and almost every other country (China, India, Latin America) is moving towards that.

And the technology has more than made up for our population growth. Almost everyone would agree that the 7 Billion people we have today are far better off (on average) than the 1 Billion people we had 200 years ago.

I hope population does indeed plateau. But one twist is that the population subgroups that reproduce the most will over time become a larger portion of the population. As these subgroups grow, fertility trends may start to reverse.

Let me express my surprise: being downmodded for offering UCLA professor's anti-globalist claims for open discussion on HN isn't terribly encouraging.

You don't have to agree with me but why shut the conversation down? Am I offending anyone or posting fart jokes?

Meanwhile a lot of folks are debating either "technology and globalization" approach will work, and some of them aren't stupid. At least you downmodders could try to use some curiosity and open up a little to what they have to say.

That's a pity: while reading the book I was actually thinking about bringing this topic up for discussion on HN.

No one's shutting down the conversation. If you wanted to continue the conversation, there was already a reply waiting for you:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=489006

Jared Diamond isn't "anti-globalist". Collapse is a good book, but IIRC, he isn't attacking free trade, but the overuse of resources. They're two different things.

Interesting on the topic as well is Huxley's Brave New World Revisited. As I recall he postured that democratic systems would come under significant strain if the world population reached 2 billion. :-)

population growth is what usually follows a country's increased economic output.

Epic fail.

Some graphs:

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?v=24&v=67&c=mx... http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?v=24&v=67&c=in... http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?v=24&v=67&c=ch...

These graphs are showing you the results of population management. I never said we'll be growing in numbers like roaches, I was pointing out that advances in technology allow much higher population densities that would have been possible otherwise.

Look at nearly all European nations: they're much more populous now and have surplus of food, whereas they've been starving throughout mid-ages living off exact same lands.

One buck per fuck is more or less the price of not having children. If you live on $1/day, that's 4/7 of your living expenses!

Economic growth tends to reduce birthrates. European birthrates have dropped below replacement levels. The US is hovering around replacement, as is Japan and South Korea. Other developing countries are following this trend.

Technology does increase agricultural output, but within the 20'th century, rich people have fewer children.

Your problem is that you're focusing on the last ~200 years and only on countries that have successfully managed to avoid their populations outgrowing technological progress.

There have been many societies on this planet, and some of them have collapsed after peaking precisely because of population explosion due to "good times". Isolated collapses of ancient polynesian peoples have been studied particularly well.

In his recent letter Bill Gates has this graph that shows the correlatin between better health and less children for a family. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/annual-letter/Pages/2009-prev... (chart 3)

Bill G. explained that in the begining his foundation was focused on population control. But when they discovered that the single most important factor in population was health is when they started to focus in the most crucial sickness. His explanation is that parents simply try to optimize to have two children that can take care of them when they are old.

FYI, Diamond wrote many books before Collapse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Diamond#Books

www.storyofstuff.com

We have finite resources. By using resources we are either doing it at someone in the present times expense, or someone in the future. By keeping more people alive now, we are possibly reducing the longevity of the human race.

Just to play devils advocate :)

www.nonzero.org

We have infinite creativity. By finding more productive and innovative uses for resources we can make the world a better place for everyone. By keeping more people alive now we have more creative minds working on the problems that we face.

you can't use books to make clean water, except by ripping out pages and using them as water filters

I think you would do better by using books as kindling to boil water, killing any latent bacteria.

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