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By 2050 there will be 9 billion carbon-burning, plastic-polluting, calorie-consuming people on the planet. By 2100, that number will balloon to 11 billion, pushing society into a Soylent Green scenario. Such dire population predictions aren't the stuff of sci-fi; those numbers come from one of the most trusted world authorities, the United Nations.
But what if they're wrong? Not like, off by a rounding error, but like totally, completely goofed?
That's the conclusion Canadian journalist John Ibbitson and political scientist Darrel Bricker come to in their newest book, Empty Planet, due out February 5th. After painstakingly breaking down the numbers for themselves, the pair arrived at a drastically different prediction for the future of the human species. "In roughly three decades, the global population will begin to decline," they write. "Once that decline begins, it will never end."
The World Might Actually Run Out of People (archive)
Who do you think is right ? The United Nations or Darrel Bricker/John Ibbitson ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:29AM (10 children)
Wealthy/powerful people are living just as long now as they always have for thousands of years, but cheap energy (oil, coal) is allowing more people to live like that. Even the bible says the max age is 120 years.
So, I see no evidence for progress towards "anti-aging" at all.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:32AM (3 children)
You'll know it when you see it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:50AM (2 children)
1) Governments and their corporate cronies have a motivation to kill off all the people who they owe pensions and social security.
- We can already see this in the US life expectancy dropping since the activation of Obamacare in ~2014 gave more people access to "healthcare" (ie, dangerous chemicals and surgical procedures).[1]
2) It seems we are likely due for a grand solar minimum in the next few decades.
- This is expected to have accompanying food shortages, volcanism, refugees fleeing towards the equator, etc.
[1] https://www.vox.com/2016/12/8/13875150/life-expectancy-us-dropped-first-time-decade [vox.com]
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2652 [nature.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:09AM (1 child)
That's all you've got? Maybe some big governments will decide against funding anti-aging research (unlikely, since governments are comprised of individuals, many of whom will want to live indefinitely). But they can't stop all research and countries won't act in lockstep.
Your link between Obamacare and a tiny decrease in life expectancy is tenuous at best. Americans were fat and using lots of different drugs before Obamacare. The companies and street dealers selling opioids just want to make money. A lot more needs to be done if you want the health care system to act as population control.
Your point #2 could be cancelled out by global warming, or simply not have the impact you think it will. And anti-aging research would continue despite turmoil. Progress will have to be made in the next decade or two if Silicon Valley billionaires want their chance at living forever. If they do make progress, it will trickle down, and could actually save people time and money if they aren't going to the hospital or nursing home for things like organ failure, strokes, dementia, etc.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:25AM
This isn't how government prevents something. They do it by funding BS research that sucks up all the oxygen from people who would actually get stuff done. See diet (food pyramid telling everyone to eat a low fat, high carb diet so they don't feel full), cancer (now it is "many diseases"), Alzheimer's (now it is "many diseases"),
Here is a better chart: https://www.popsci.com/sites/popsci.com/files/styles/655_1x_/public/images/2018/11/lifeexp_factors.png?itok=803Rzjzi&fc=50,50 [popsci.com]
You can clearly see it is due to "Suicide" (mental issues, possibly caused by antidepressants), "Drug Overdoses" (which includes blood pressure medications, etc; not just painkillers) and liver disease (caused by overworking the liver with too many toxic chemicals). But yea, they need to be more effective at getting people on these medications before they turn 60.
Sure, it also may not even happen (no one really understands the solar cycle).
Are they not just throwing money at the same people who generated the cancer, etc boondoggles mentioned above.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:44AM (5 children)
I thought "that can't be right" so I did a little search and you're correct, Genesis 6:3 [biblegateway.com] does say that.
However, I also found this and fell down a rabbithole of total bullshit. [gotquestions.org]
So, I'm not sure that quoting the Bible is that helpful really.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:53AM
I think the alternate reading is a stretch. I mean it says because man is "flesh" he will only live 120 years, and this does seem to actually be about the max lifespan.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @03:12AM (3 children)
The biggest Christian fail is taking shit in the bible literally, like it's some kind of exact historical record. At least the New Testament synoptic Gospels preaches spiritual love, oneness of man, and contains a positive message. But, the old testament is the opposite, full of negative reinforcement, examples of threat and punishment, repression of both positive and negative human traits, cultural rules and regulations, and feel good revenge stories to tell the oppressed. There's so much self contradiction of anything that looks remotely historical that it makes no sense to treat it any differently to the myths and legends of the Greek gods of mount Olympus.
The example in that gotquestions.org link perfectly shows the specious reasoning and self-justification that happens when something is assumed to be true and then all and any evidence to the contrary is ignored.
Dive deep into the spirituality of any of the main-stream religions and literal interpretations cease to be necessary or matter at all. Textual fundamentalism is one of the biggest fails of modern religions. Probably doesn't help that it started as a rebound against the politicised power structures that became entrenched within the 'clergy' prior to the printing press.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday February 05 2019, @06:09AM (2 children)
The NT is literally infinitely worse than the OT, because it contains (at least to people who can't read Koine...) a God who says he'll drop the majority of all humans who have ever lived into eternal, inescapable, conscious, endless torment.
Comparative religion is helpful in helping one notice that all gods, including Yahweh, are products of their times and will change along with those times. The pre-Exilic view of the afterlife was just that everyone went to Sheol; contact with the Zoroastrians gave the Jews a sense of linear rather than circular time, the concept of eschatology, and a fleshed-out system of reward and punishment in the afterlife, though the Zoroastrians seem to have taught the final annihilation of the evil rather than endless torture, which was a Greek idea.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Teckla on Wednesday February 06 2019, @02:10PM (1 child)
This is not accurate and something Christians debate. You seem to be picking the most uncharitable interpretation possible in order to bash your ideological enemies.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 06 2019, @03:27PM
Did you see the "at least to people who can't read Koine" part? I know very well what the difference between the words aionios and aidios is, or for that matter the difference between kolasis and timoria. But how many Christians to?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...