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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: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:46AM (10 children)
Do most people really trust the UN? They are a political orgsnization with an agenda to self-perpetuate, not sure why they should be worthy of trust.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:49AM (4 children)
Also, it seems like all I ever hear from the UN is extrapolation of a trend continuing as is into the future. Do they do anything else data-wise?
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday February 05 2019, @03:03AM (2 children)
That's where the problem lies. If you look at the stats, most first-world nations have static or slightly shrinking populations. In the last few years, the population growth of the bogeymen countries (Muslim majority, which are heavily studied by people worried about bogeymen) have also started to drop dramatically, and in some cases go negative. That leaves only truly impoverished countries, mostly in Africa, where you need to have as many kids as possible to ensure (a) some survive and (b) you've got a workforce to look after you. So it could be that both parties are right, older trends were for indefinite growth, newer is for slow stagnation as there's no longer any need to breed like rabbits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:18PM
c) You have girls to sell for when you run out of cash
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 06 2019, @08:31PM
As if they are having more kids due to some logic. LMAO. They are having more kids because they don't have jobs, nor birth control, and are laying around fucking like monkeys all day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @10:03AM
Yes, yes they do. The analysis is based on population growth projections as compared to economic status (including future economic status) and based on historic population trends in the now rich countries. They don't just pull numbers out of their asses.
It's like layman trying to comment on software and say "can't they do anything right? Always bugs and that kenjinger doesn't work anymore!".. Little knowledge and dangers of it? Remember?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:50AM (1 child)
Same argument goes for you: AC is a political animal [wikipedia.org], with an agenda of self-perpetuation, why should I trust her/him?
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:04AM
You shouldn't, trust is a heuristic that could be useful but is often very dangerous. Nullius in verba.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:05AM
the guys whitewashing western invasions and wars ever since creating the fake country of israel to police the extraction of oil from the east down to overthrow maduro in venezuela right now and pretty much everything in between? no, not a drop of confidence
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 05 2019, @04:21AM
Of course not. Nobody ever agrees with the UN unless doing so advances their already fully formed agenda. It is a joke organization and has been since it was formed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @08:05AM
I certainly trust the UN. Who do you trust then?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:48AM (28 children)
If you are not adapted to your environment, you will not leave many descendants. Today's environment includes birth control, which is best overcome by mental traits. People of the future will have a burning desire to make children, not merely to go through the motions without producing anything.
Exponential growth will only be stopped by resource constraints. We are destined to fill the carrying capacity of Earth.
We'll have good times when that carrying capacity is increased, for example by advances in technology. We'll have bad times when the carrying capacity decreases, for example by civilization collapsing due to an excess of relatively parasitic people.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:54AM (9 children)
It doesn't follow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:09AM (8 children)
Perhaps you are in denial of human evolution, or at least that somehow the mind is magically excluded?
Consider the complex behaviors that cause people to have sex. We wouldn't have those behaviors except for the fact that evolution burned them into our DNA. Those behaviors were, in times past, wholly adequate for reproduction. Going forward, that isn't enough. Evolution will select for people who desire to reproduce.
People with the right traits already exist in our population. In time, their descendants will be numerous, and all others will be wiped from the Earth.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:19AM (1 child)
Perhaps you are in denial that extinction (for whatever the causes, lack of sex drive included) is still a reality.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday February 06 2019, @06:48PM
OK, so option one is we stop reproducing and go extinct; option two is we evolve to desire reproduction specifically (rather than just sex).
But as usual there is a third option...decouple reproduction (at least in the classical sense) from population growth. One way to do that is life extension; another is artificial wombs. We don't need to rely on blind mutations to drive natural selection in the right direction when we have genetic modification tech. We don't need to rely on hardwired instincts when we have logic. And don't forget the impacts of society/government as well -- we could, for example, simply pay women to get pregnant (well, we kinda do already, so just keep increasing it as needed.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:21AM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:32AM (1 child)
That has never happened. Homo S. has evolved to have few young and care for them.
You have confused humans with spiders or something.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @10:13AM
What a stupid comment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_eugenics#Pre-Galtonian_philosophies [wikipedia.org]
https://www.merseycare.nhs.uk/media/1749/disabiliyt-timeline-2013.pdf [merseycare.nhs.uk]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pipedwho on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:46AM (1 child)
What actually happens in evolution like this is that an out of control organism replicates until it either kills the host or is killed itself. If the population goes ape shit then people that can't control themselves will end up in the resource barren areas (whether by force or because they over consumed it). When that happens they die off and the more constrained breeders end up living in balance with the environment. This may occur as long term evolutionary swings between 'people breeding like rabbits', and 'people not breeding at all or at much lower rates'.
If people outstrip the ability of the planet to support them, then there will be competition for the remaining resources that may not be replenished fast enough causing famine and hardship to reduce the population by attrition. At some point the population will oscillate below its drain on the environment and things will start looking good. The 'breeders' will have more babies and the cycle will repeat.
However, it is an incorrect assumption that human breeding is binary. It is quite possible that breeding becomes a socially influenced or controlled phenomenon where it is a negative trait to have a desire to breed beyond the means of the environment to support it. This may come in the form of self imposed desires (eg. I have two kids, and now I'm happy), or in extreme cases by force (eg. the majority of living people force the governments to crack down on over breeding). This will inherently dampen any wild oscillations between eras of mass famine and plentiful bounty.
Unless overpopulation causes an armageddon of some sort (eg. WWIII, a genetic engineering project that sterilises the entire planet, catastrophic loss of existing resources, etc), then there is no reason to believe that it will fall into an endless decline. Imagine that the population drops down to X Million people (either suddenly or slowly for whatever reason). Assuming the remaining resources on the planet can easily support this many (and possibly many more), there is no reason that breeding will not naturally increase to maintain a 'comfortable' average population that neither stresses the environment or falls below a critical mass for civilisation to continue.
It is absurd to assume (absent armageddon) that the population of any sustainable region would reduce to a tribe/village quantity of people, and they all stand there and decide to just die off instead of having a few kids. In the same way it makes no sense to assume the population can continue rising indefinitely. There is a negative feedback loop between environmental sustainability and human population, and no reason to assume that there is no steady state solution to the problem with a comfortably dampened level of oscillation that can't be maintained.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday February 05 2019, @03:35AM
You're on the right track. These sorts of predictions are more fearmongering to generate book sales than useful warnings.
Life has had the ability to overpopulate ever since there's been life. But, populating to the max is not a viable long term strategy. A bust is an inevitable consequence of a boom. During the bust times, the organisms that boomed are so weak they are easily out competed and replaced. They may be in such bad shape that they die out even without competitors helping to nudge them into extinction. For instance, suppose during the boom they found and consumed every last member of all the prey or plant species they depend upon, leaving not even alternatives. All life today has deep seated instincts that maximize reproductive success. And success in reproduction is often more subtle than raw output. Those organisms that are extremely fecund are restrained by predation and other external factors.
In any case, thanks to our knowledge and the way our biology works, we are in control, and we do restrain ourselves. Look at all the hate that Octomom got. People have enormous families only when circumstances look favorable. 19th century America went through a population boom only because there was a great deal of land occupied by a very few natives who had no choice but to roll with the massive change that the far more numerous and technologically advanced Europeans were bringing. Today, the descendants of those huge families have much more modest family sizes.
(Score: 2) by ants_in_pants on Tuesday February 05 2019, @08:12PM
making evolutionary-psychology predictions is a lot like trying to predict earthquakes. Sure you might have the general idea down but there is seriously no way you can know with any degree of certainty.
-Love, ants_in_pants
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:18AM (2 children)
Why do you think that a painful childbearing/birth will not be outsourced to machines at the first opportunity?
Besides, people rarely have burning desire to have children. In past centuries they had a need to breed; today there is no need, and populations of first world countries goes down. Often a woman wants her first child, has her hands full with it, and cools down. In other cases men and women know ahead what a child will cost them, and walk away. A good deal of others understand (or should understand) that they are not fit to deal with children.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by deimtee on Tuesday February 05 2019, @07:44AM (1 child)
That's not how evolution works. The environment of selection now includes birth control. Doesn't matter if it's rare*, the desire to have children will be strongly selected for and will spread through subsequent generations. Of course that assumes our society continues in its current state for multiple generations.
*it's actually not that rare. I've met plenty of people who really want kids.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday February 06 2019, @07:26PM
As have I. Some of those women who really want kids are physically incapable of doing so though. One has had her tubes surgically removed, all the while still saying how much she wants kids (but recognizing that, logically, it'd be an awful idea). Others still want kids, but gave up on it ever happening once they reached 40 or 50 and hadn't had any yet. There's a lot more to the issue than just wanting kids.
Having said that, a lot of the reason I see people forgoing reproduction these days is due to their personal economic situations. You've got kids with hundreds of thousands in student loan debt, who can't afford to see a doctor, who are *hopefully* responsible enough to realize that it's not a great idea to be having kids when you can't even afford *your own* healthcare and education. But that's probably an easy enough problem to solve if the situation really starts to look desperate -- just send some goons down to the maternity ward to give each new mother a big stack of cash! (Or more reasonable child care programs, but whatever works)
But until something changes, keep in mind that social factors do play into natural selection too. So you might not be selecting for a burning desire to have kids. You might be selecting for people who are too irresponsible to consider their own circumstances first. Or too irresponsible to use protection. Or you might be selecting for people from wealthy families, regardless of their own traits.
Irresponsible and wealthy...my god...THE FUTURE IS OVERRUN WITH TINY TRUMPS!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Gault.Drakkor on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:22AM (13 children)
Then how do you explain that any region that has reasonable health care (key indicator low child mortality) and reasonable education level of women has experienced a sharp drop of fecundity?
Ie look at G7 nations. Much more resources then many places, yet birthrate around 2.1 per couple in last few decades.
Women have a burning desire to have successful children reach adulthood. That is easier to do with fewer offspring low infant mortality. With education, women can understand this and make family planning decisions.
In other words, the broad general trend is quality over quantity for majority of humanity when it comes to more humanity.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:46AM (12 children)
Those G7 nations will not retain low fecundity long-term.
Reliable birth control is recent in human terms. It's only been 2 or 3 generations. That's not very much, although the selection pressure is high. It would take a few dozen generations to fully spread a strongly-selected trait throughout the entire world, starting from one person.
The optimal desire is to maximize the number of children who go on to have children and so on. In previous environments that our gene pool is well-adapted to, concern for survival made sense. Today, survival is nearly ensured in G7 nations, so it makes more sense to produce as many children as possible. People who do this will leave more offspring and thus a greater influence on the gene pool.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday February 05 2019, @06:05AM (11 children)
What is it like to be this...nihilistic, this completely mechanistic, this utterly joylessly zero-sum?
Do you truly think the human race is nothing more than the aggregate of its reproductive capacity? I will take quality of life over quantity any day. And, if this is just a dogwhistle about "OLAWD THE BROWN PEOPLEZ IS OUTBREEDIN' US WHITES!!!!!" then shove it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by deimtee on Tuesday February 05 2019, @08:04AM (10 children)
It may be a joyless picture, but nobody ever said nature was nice.
The AC is right, evolution hasn't stopped, it's just that the current selection conditions have changed to include birth control, modern society, the health and welfare systems. The drop in fecundity is temporary and will be evolved around in a few generations.
The solutions vary in their nastiness, but at some point the human race is going to have to pick one. Licence to reproduce is probably the least nasty ~ 2 kids and then sterilization.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @10:23AM (9 children)
No, no it will not. People don't have lots of kids because they have other things to do. As long as you have other things to worry about, you do not want to have lots of kids. If it wasn't for artificial birth control, everyone would have like 10+ kids today, but they DO NOT WANT. That's why there is a drop in number of kids.
You make stupid ass assumptions that people in the past wanted to have 12 kids. Most did not. But there was not much choice or understanding. This is not the case anymore.
The author is also completely wrong on the numbers. The main reason why there is a decline in numbers is because there is lots of people around. Which means competition for resources. You can't just move into middle of nowhere and claim homestead anymore. So you have less kids because we are already full. When we have 10x less people on the planet, maybe we'll reach equilibrium.
(Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Tuesday February 05 2019, @10:56AM (8 children)
Bolding added to highlight the important part.
No, I make the one assumption that people wanting more than 2 kids is an inheritable trait.
The rest is evolution. Learn some science, your feelz do not beat reality.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday February 06 2019, @07:44PM (7 children)
You can't select for one trait at a time in isolation. You assume that wanting more than two kids is an inheritable trait, and you also assume that this trait is strong enough to override anything else, and that it isn't coupled to anything else, and that the number of kids that one has is the only measure of "fitness" that matters.
Suppose instead we make one assumption that responsible/logical decision making is an inheritable trait. People who have this trait would see that infinite population growth is unsustainable, and would therefore refrain from having children when the population starts to get too high. By having fewer children, they would concentrate more resources on the children that they do have. They have more time and money to spend on each child's healthcare and education and social arrangements, making each of those children more fit than the children of the parents with the "have as many kids as you can" gene, therefore the responsibility gene will out-compete and prevail.
That story is probably bullshit. But so is yours.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday February 06 2019, @11:12PM (6 children)
In our current society we go to great lengths to not only keep everyone alive, but to help them have kids. eg IVF clinics.
Evolution is currently stalled, with the single exception of those people who have more kids are outbreeding those who have less.
The tautological outcome is that the people who have more kids are going to have more descendants in the future.
Not having kids is not an inheritable trait. Like the old joke, "If your parents didn't have any kids, neither will you."
People who are rational enough to look around and say "We have too many people, I won't have kids" are simply eliminating both themselves and that rationality from the gene pool.
I don't know how to say it any clearer, there seems to be some mental block where people like to think they are not animals and that evolution therefore doesn't apply. Maybe try applying your theory to breeding rabbits. Start selecting the ones that don't have any offspring and try to breed rabbits that don't make baby rabbits.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday February 07 2019, @12:25PM (5 children)
Having zero kids obviously can't be inherited, but having *fewer* is definitely an evolutionary advantage which could be passed on (there's even a name for this -- K selection), and logical decision making could be as well. All of those great medical wonders aren't always available to a typical janitor -- you need wealth too. Wealth often (though not always) comes from intelligence or from inheritance. Inheritance increases if your parents had fewer kids. Intelligence I think will also correlate with fewer kids. Plus fewer kids gives more time to focus on each child's education. Quantity doesn't always beat quality.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday February 07 2019, @03:59PM (4 children)
K-selection applies when resources are limited and dividing them amongst more offspring results in fewer of those offspring surviving than if those resources were concentrated on a few.
Selection effects can only work when there is actual selection, where resource deficiency results in actual non-survival.
We as a society have done our best to eliminate that. Almost everyone survives past procreation age, and the ones that don't are mostly a random selection.
The only selector left is how many kids you have.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday February 07 2019, @05:00PM (3 children)
No, it's not. It's just not based on raw instinct and brute force anymore. The new selectors are mostly social factors, although there are also things like "darwin awards" -- which mostly go to those who are completely incompetent at dealing with modern technology -- as well as disease -- I know more than one woman who is now because of cancer, PCOS, and other such issues. Just because you don't die doesn't mean you automatically get to pass on your genes. Just ask some of those "incels".
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday February 07 2019, @05:57PM (2 children)
New selectors? Unless they are killing people or effectively rendering them sterile then they are not selectors. Volunteering not to have kids is a selector, it is the same as being rendered sterile, and will be selected against.
Darwin awards are less than a fart in a hurricane. Car accidents - 30,000 out of 300,000,000 - would be barely noticeable, and that effect is diluted because it often isn't the victims fault.
Evolution is just a tautology. If you have more kids you have more kids. That's it. Noble goals, reason, and ethics don't matter to evolution. It is a cold remorseless process and it doesn't give a shit how upsetting or offensive people find that process. There is no way around it either. Any attempt is simply another selector. Start pushing zero-pop-growth propaganda and you select for those who ignore that propaganda. Promote birth control and you select for those who don't want it or are too stupid or careless to use it. Pick anything which reduces the number of kids people have and it will be selected against.
It may take a few generations for the effect to really show up, but the human race is pretty diverse and the behaviour to get around your limits will be out there somewhere, and will be selected for.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday February 07 2019, @07:43PM (1 child)
One person, alone, cannot have kids. Not yet anyway. Not everyone who wants kids but doesn't have any is a "volunteer", sometimes they're just screwed...or not screwed as the case may be...and that is a selector as well. This is why I mentioned "incels" -- short for "INVOLUNTARILY celebate". As dumb as I think those folks are, they do serve as a great example that just wanting it ain't enough.
Absolutely. But first you have to get to the step of having more kids. For humans, that's usually about a twenty year journey that you have to be well adapted to in order to have any chance at all. Sure, we're not dying of the plague anymore, but that doesn't mean there's zero selection pressure during those years.
Right. The number of kids people *actually have*. Not the number they want, not the number they fantasize about, but the number that actually exists in reality. There is no single gene which controls that.
Yeah, and if the limit turns out to be that there's too many damn people on this planet, then that will be the limit that we will get around. And one of the ways to do that would be to have fewer kids. If you're living in a dirty crowded dystopian city, the person who wants to add more people and more strain on your resources isn't a perfect life partner, he's the asshole fucking everything up that nobody wants to be around. And society would select against that.
It's not like all I have to do is wish for babies and they'll start falling out of my pants. Does wanting kids make you more attractive to members of the opposite sex? I dunno, how often have you seen "I want to make babies with you as soon as possible" work as a pick-up line? 'cause I certainly never have. It's not enough to have a gene that makes you want kids, you also need a gene that helps you get a date, and a gene that helps your partner think you're worth the long-term commitment that having children generally entails. And those might require genes that make you more likely to succeed economically, or genes that increase muscle mass, or genes that improve intelligence. And any of those may, even as a side-effect, reduce the odds of having or wanting large numbers of kids. Or even if it doesn't reduce the desire, it might contain it -- just because you have the gene to WANT ten kids doesn't mean you'll actually have that many.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday February 08 2019, @04:59AM
That would require group selection, which is a discredited theory. Most of what seems to be group selection is actually kin selection.
I would recommend reading "The Extended Phenotype" by Richard Dawkins. It was not as big a hit as "The Selfish Gene" but in my opinion it provides extra insights over his earlier book. Although if you have the time and like reading, I advise reading both, starting with "The Selfish Gene". They are both very entertaining, as well as thought-provoking.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 05 2019, @03:47AM
Projecting our own political prejudices much, are we?
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 5, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:57AM (4 children)
...as soon as I see "in their new book", I understand that for almost every case, at least part of the motivation of the provision of whatever information is in the offing is to make money. It's an excellent first-order assumption.
When it comes specifically to predicting future population sizes, I'm pretty sure that...
--
My freind said he didn't understand cloning.
I said "That makes two of us."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:35AM (1 child)
^ winner
The trend of today does not necessarily make the trend of tomorrow. Many humans realize the world is too packed with humans, birthing more humans foremost becomes a cost decision, and sometimes it is an environmental decision if they are aware of over population.
If population declines it is likely that people will start having more kids again.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:44AM
If populations decline we will just ban birth control. And once we ban birth control only criminals will be childless.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:43AM
Anyone can estimate these numbers. It's just that the estimates usually aren't of much value.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:58PM
I'm pretty sure we won't have a decline without some major societal restructuring.
The rich want indefinite economic growth, an indefinite increasing population supports that, a shrinking population does not hence this will not happen easily.
When it starts to become a problem you can expect a lot of programs to encourage breeding. (Extra tax cuts, family driving lanes i.s.o. carpool lanes, .....)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:04AM (12 children)
Guess they haven't factored in straight up anti-aging, just modest increases in life expectancy. I wonder if they have taken a switch to driverless cars into account.
If they are right about a decline, great.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:18AM (11 children)
Exactly, an anti-aging breakthrough that extends life five years may be enough to get people to the next breakthrough that extends lifespan by 5 years. Repeat.
(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...
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:08AM (3 children)
> "Once that decline begins, it will never end"
Suuuure. A planet with 10 or 100 million humans will see them acting exactly as they do in a world with 7 or 10 billion.
Morons.
Don't they realize that after humanity drops below a million people, there just won't be enough to make the computers, networks, and all that other stuff that distracts us from banging around like rabbits, nor make contraceptives ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:48AM
You know, those two sentences work even better if you remove the period and line feed after "billion".
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 05 2019, @03:04AM
Exactly. There are plenty of sci-fi stories about overreacting to global warming and letting loose the next ice age, and that's many orders of magnitude more predictable and controllable than the current human population.
New summary: "Some guys wrote a book and made shtuff up about future population trends. They imagined a scenario different from the one published by the UN. Their scenario is just as credible as the UN scenario because it's all a bunch of guessing and both are going to miss several important factors that mean neither is even close to correct."
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @03:58AM
10 to 100m people is probably too few. However you'd probably see the distribution change to maintain similar population densities.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:29AM
Let me get this straight, so after the 3 decade peak of 11 billion, when global warming is even more dire and no animal exists outside of a game preserve..... I should worry about the gradual decline of human numbers. OMG we need to do do something!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:34AM (2 children)
Both the UN and the journalists are not counting one influence: that of the khazar jews.
The world population would explode or decline if it were left to its own devices and random events and not calculated, plotted-in-detail events like world wars and (most of today's wars) etc. And in that case we could use statistical and other tools to analyze the situation and come to a conclusion and hence, do something about it.
All of that discounts the deep manipulation of events and infiltration of governments by the khazar jews.
Before some JIDF agent responds with 'the above information being incomplete' and nitpicking details, I know what you are. Many of us have read "The Gentleperson's guide to forum spies":
https://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm [cryptome.org]
https://pastebin.com/irj4Fyd5 [pastebin.com]
Anyone cooperating with the khazar jews is a traitor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @04:02AM (1 child)
The IJC [rationalwiki.org] is watching you, friend.
You will be liquidated. Not because you actually have a clue, but because we like to operate without commentary.
First, we'll make you watch while we eat your babies. Then we'll poison the well in your town.
Finally, we will kill you. MWAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @07:26AM
The above is what a JIDF agent sounds like. Complete trolling, a waste of time ... just like democracy.
Beware of the jew.
(Score: 3, Informative) by corey on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:35AM (12 children)
A few years ago when the world hit 7 billion, National Geographic had a special on it. They had some interesting articles about the future, one of which predicted that it would flatten out and stabilise, even decline a bit.
It was based on historical observations that as countries develop, the death rate falls due to better health care, but also the birth rate falls due to less risk. But also it falls due to women becoming more educated and working so they have less children.
Was really interesting. I can't remember what the peak was.
I stopped subscribing when they were bought by Murdoch (Fox).
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:43AM
Shit: guess I should have refreshed my browser: I just posted pretty much what you did.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:53AM (10 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:07AM
It sounds worthwhile to find that and put it online.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday February 05 2019, @03:09AM (2 children)
What makes you think it was a mistake? The same thing has happened with atmospheric CO2-level predictions. The UN is a political body, not a scientific one, and it shouldn't be at all surprising that their official predictions reflect politics more accurately than science.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 05 2019, @09:08AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday February 05 2019, @04:23PM
Because you said mistake, rather than "mistake" as is typically done to indicate that it was a "mistake" in name only. Nor does anything else in your post suggest you were using the term sarcastically. Words and language conventions have meaning, and I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume are using them appropriately to convey the meaning they intended.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 05 2019, @03:52AM (4 children)
It isn't just since the 90s, I've been hearing this story and reading about historical predictions since the 1960s that all continue to paint rosy pictures with one scary worst case scenario that continues to come true, but the rosier picture has to happen sooner or later, just keep waiting while we enjoy the ride...
Now I hear that China's "One Child" was never intended to stop population growth, just slow it down, and it was a great success... How in the hell can you call a program that produced millions of men without wives, while limiting couples to a single child for generations, yet population still increased at a rather strong rate (but slower than before the program) a success?
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @04:03AM
Except that's not true. Those missing women are there, they just aren't registered. And you see similar issues in the U.S. where there are significant numbers of men in excess of women in most of the Western states and some shortfalls in parts of the East and South. This is largely an issue of internal migration and declines in the numbers of men dying prematurely.
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 05 2019, @08:56AM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:26PM (1 child)
Did you lose them, or did the mind control ray make you destroy them ;-P
Sounds like a job for an eager kid, you know: somebody young enough to actually be affected by the BS in a seriously bad way. Jokes aside, I don't think the propaganda machine is strong enough to go destroying old newspaper microfilm/microfiche, but I do think it is strong enough to severely bias the historical information that's available online. The "Wayback Machine" is pretty good for what it covers, but it only reaches back about 25 years now.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1, Troll) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday February 05 2019, @06:54PM
Did you lose them, or did the mind control ray make you destroy them ;-P
When he realized they didn't support his hypothesis he shredded them.
See my other post on how accurate they actually turned out. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday February 05 2019, @06:51PM
The Accuracy of Past Projections [nap.edu]
If you look at the graph:
1990: 3.3%
1992: 2.8%
1994: 1.7%
1996: 0.5%
So they started out pretty damn accurate and proceeded to get even more accurate through the 90's.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:41AM (3 children)
As people get more educated and are able to support themselves better, they have less kids.
That's one reason the west's population is in decline and immigration is needed: to support the current population.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:52AM
You need to work on that: FEWER kids (because kids are theoretically countable, unlike fluids and feelings)
No, we don't need immigration. That is called extinction. Wiping out our culture like that actually meets the UN's definition of genocide.
You might as well claim that we should reduce education in order to save ourselves. Well, there is more merit to that than there is to welcoming savages to destroy us.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 05 2019, @03:18AM
That's a very comforting bedtime story. If civilization lasts another 100 years, it will be because it (randomly) happened to be more or less correct.
As people in today's societies get more educated and are able to support themselves better, they tend to have less kids - so that they can focus on "me time" - having a life of their own after work and before they're too old and broken to enjoy the money they've made - they don't want to repeat the mistakes of their WWII fighting parents.
In a post scarcity economy, with improved medical care, what if having children to share your life with becomes the new fashionable thing to do with all your spare time? I live near a Catholic church, families with 5+ children are quite common in the general neighborhood here, a resurgence of that kind of faith could turn things around very quickly, even if the Pope finally grows a pair and comes out unambiguously supporting the use of contraception there can, and will, be other faith based movements which pursue the long term growth strategy of encouraging their followers to multiply like rabbits. When such a faith spreads, population booms follow.
Doom and gloom is not guaranteed, there are possible future scenarios with continuous improvement in the human condition - a cheap and plentiful fusion power based technological revolution would be a nice one, and there are a few others which might support populations of 20B and more. Without major advancements in many fields, population reduction would seem to be the more plausible route to continued civilization - but even that requires social revolutions just as improbable a Mr. Fusion.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:19PM
I propose, in order to encourage population growth, and tackle over education head-on, we change the 3 R's to Reading, Riding and 'Rithmatic.
(Score: 1) by beernutz on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:42AM (6 children)
This video has some excellent points on population.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FACK2knC08E [youtube.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:58AM (5 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:16AM (1 child)
That just takes a generation or two with access to better information. In the US there is a "problem" for Christian Churches, their congregations are shrinking and getting older because with access to information their children are able to see the bullshit.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 05 2019, @09:25AM
However, it wasn't Christians in the US I was referring to - they do indeed have good access to information that adequately counters their iron-age worldview. The billion I was referring to *deliberately* try to restrict access to information that might be contradictory to their 700-years-younger-yet-mysteriously-more-bronze-age-than-iron-age worldview.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by beernutz on Friday February 08 2019, @07:58PM
That seems like a valid point to me yes. I do wonder though it it is offset by the declining numbers of those joining religions. I don't have hard numbers to back that up, but i have a strong feeling that it is a valid trend.
(Score: 1) by beernutz on Friday February 08 2019, @08:06PM (1 child)
Btw, i absolutely LOVE your sig!
If vaccination works, then why doesn't Eucharist protect kids against Christianity?
Classic!
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday February 10 2019, @11:20AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:06PM (1 child)
Its all about the distribution of the population.
Most assuming 4.5 billion or more Africans.
History shows Africans can only reliably feed about 0.5 to maybe 1 billion Africans, with occasional famines and genocides culling the herd.
So ... looking at the famous UN 2012 graph, its clear that maybe 500 million Africans will be feeding themselves in 2100, but the other claimed 4B will be eating ... each other? Where the food comes from is very carefully ignored.
2100 is going to be post-oil post-fertilizer, nobody is going to be exporting or global transporting anything.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:31PM
Yea of little faith, Mr. Fusion to the rescue.
With unlimited cheap clean energy, we can re-extract fertilizer from seawater, vertical farm, desalinate, even turn lead into gold!!!
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end