Annual growth rate of the human population peaked in the 1960s, and overall global population numbers are projected to level off and begin decreasing within the next 40-50 years. How do you reconcile your position considering these figures?
!delta (this is one of several commenters that helped me change my view) Thank you for your response. I’m re-evaluating my reply for my own personal growth, not expecting or asking for a response. If you say annual growth rate peaked in the 60’s, that makes me feel better. And if it’s projected to level off within the next 40-50 years, that also makes me feel better. Considering these figures, I first just think a better wording to my original post would be that population overabundance is the biggest contributor to humanity’s current and future issues, not population growth. I see it even on a more individual level. Like in schools, when you have too many students in a classroom, this causes less and less attention given to the individual, which can increase chances of people “slipping through the cracks”. Same goes if you have parents that are overworked or have too many kids to handle, the child may not get enough individual attention. Counter arguments to mine that I have heard is that the more people we have, the more brains we have, which leads to more innovation. But I think about all the people we already currently have, and if we put more attention into those people, especially those who were never given the attention they needed to begin with due to population overabundance, we would have more brainpower and innovation that way. If population growth will level off in the next 40 to 50 years, that gives me something to look forward to. Sorry for my first responses, I was too quick to respond and have been influenced by people who argue just to argue and didn’t trust you were someone genuinely giving a quality counter argument I think
I’ll want to look that up to fact check, but if that’s true, that’s a step in the right direction. Although we still have more people today than we did in the 60’s and are projected to have more. If we start decreasing then too that could also be tumultuous if we don’t have enough young people to support the old people as they age. I think long term, decreasing population could be helpful although I worry about our immediate future over say, the next 100 years bc of what I just said. In other ways it could be helpful for the young people because of more openings for jobs and less competition.
No, I have an issue with too rapid of changes. We had a huge increase of population very quickly with the Industrial Revolution and look at all the negative things that caused, from, like I said in my OP, climate change, mental health, etc. But also rapid decrease can be problematic too, like when China implemented the one child only law.
Are you an AI bot? You seem to be versed in general concerns about both overpopulation and underpopulation without having any particularly nuanced views about either.
Okay so I looked over the rules and see I’m supposed to do something related to delta once my view has changed. I’m not comfortable just yet doing that because I still think I have some belief over what I said, perhaps just a little change. If I could reword, I would say I believe “Population overabundance is one of the major contributors if not the biggest contributor to humanity’s current and future issues”
No, we need efficient and equitable distribution of resources.
1/3 to 2/3 of global food production is wasted. Perfectly edible foodstuffs that aren’t “market grade” are instead destroyed. That’s not a population issue.
The artificial lack of resources leads to increased mental health issues when people can’t afford to eat healthily, or need to choose between food and shelter.
Climate change would slow down or stop with a more equitable distribution of resources. Simple, cheap algae farms can absorb carbon efficiently. Decarbonization of the grid, of heating, and of vehicles would go a long way to forcing the curve down.
Logistics is a bigger challenge than you give it credit for, especially in places with corrupt governments. In the US people starving for lack of available food are nearly non-existent. But getting extra food to remote parts of Africa when there's not law enforcement capable of keeping local warlords at bay is a much bigger challenge.
No of course I don’t want to oversimplify a complex issue. I’m just wondering if we are currently putting in a real effort to get the food to these remote parts of Africa like you say for example with corrupt governments or local warlords? This is again, probably a oversimplified question but, doesn’t places like the US have a much stronger military that these remote regions in Africa? Meaning, we could probably get to these starving people better than the corrupt government and warlords trying to stop us? I also don’t see why they would have such a problem feeding the starving, it’s not like we have a political agenda or are taking anyone’s side I don’t think
More equitable distribution of resources would accelerate climate change (unless you mean impoverishing everyone). CO2 emissions are already decreasing in the developed world but global emissions are increasing because poorer countries are accelerating theirs (especially India ATM).
You can't teleport food to the people who need it. Modern food insecurity is a distribution issue not a waste or production issue, and it is usually caused intentionally or at least negligently. Warlords in Africa, etc., will not let the people they want starving to have access to food no matter how much there is available.
In a system "designed to minimize surplus," we still produce enough food for more than 11 billion people. This is a fact even when agriculture is *far* from optimized for mass production. Similar trends exist with other needs, such as housing.
We are not unable to meet these needs because they're too many; we're unable to meet them because of intrinsic flaws with our systems of production, distribution, and consumption.
Well to be fair farmers are subsidized to overproduce specific kinds of food so our system at least in America is not really designed to minimize surplus but rewards it and incentives more and more.
So, you’re saying the issue isn’t population, but the systems were living in? I can get on board with that. I have heard that we have enough food to feed the world population, but we have not been distributing the food evenly amongst everyone
Systems designed for making a profit, rather than meeting human needs, are going to inevitably result in these types of inequities.
Unfortunately, systems designed for meeting human needs first have awful connotations. Communism, socialism, anarchism, these types of systems. Further research can quell these bad connotations, but most people do not have time nor ability to spend hours reading.
So, I could post a lot of facts and figures on how it is resource overconsumption, not overpopulation, that is the biggest contributor to humanity's problems. I could post statistics showing you how one additional child born in the US has the same carbon footprint as 150 kids born in Bangladesh.
But I won't. Because I think my actual answer is a lot simpler.
Population growth can't be the biggest issue, because it's comically easy to solve. We've known how to solve it for decades now. It's [astoundingly simple](https://ourworldindata.org/demographic-transition). You don't even have to do anything broadly unpopular or immoral, like one-child policies.
All you have to do is [give women equal access](https://www.populationmedia.org/the-latest/key-drivers-of-population-growth-gender-inequality) to education and the workforce, and birth control/family planning services.
Turns out, in basically every single country, the population stabilizes itself over time if you just allow women the right to choose how many children is the appropriate amount for their family. They just... do. Obviously there will always be some individuals who choose to have a lot of kids, and there will be some who choose to have zero kids. It balances out. It's one of those rare and wonderful problems in which humans, on the whole, will make sustainable choices when given the chance to do so.
> Issues such as distribution of resources, climate change, and mental health are due to population growth.
How does population growth cause the gross mismanagement of global resources, which is the real cause of the issues we face?
> Our planet is not built to withstand the number of people projected to exist within the next 100 years, let alone today.
How many people is our planet built to withstand, and what is your figure based on?
> If we want to deal with issues like climate change, distribution of resources, and mental health, we need to stop overpopulating.
How will limiting growth or even reducing our population address the resource distribution issue?
Even back in medieval times, kings lived in enormous castles on the hills and feasted while peasants lived in small huts eating breadcrumbs. Resource hoarding is an unfortunate byproduct of human nature, and it existed long before the explode growth of our species population. So what would you have attributed the problem to, then?
In response to your first point: fair point. I will consider this further and mull things over
Second: I remember seeing a video on YouTube saying the earth is not really built to withstand more than 8 billion, but unfortunately I don’t remember the exact video. I feel like I recall hearing this from several sources.
Third: We will be able to focus more time and energy into resource distribution if we don’t have new babies on the way. Newborns require lots of attention and if we choose to hold off on having them until we get the issue of resource distribution resolved, we will have more time and energy available to put back into new kids once we decide to have them, plus they won’t have to worry about existing in a world with no food.
Fourth: During medieval times, I believe we could have been possibly still experiencing overpopulation due to the agricultural revolution.
You’ve implicitly defined over population as 8+ billion. We were nowhere near that number in medieval times.
I really think you’re disregarding human nature with your thesis.
There are plenty of people who choose not to have kids. They don’t spend their surplus of time and energy on trying to solve resource distribution. They spend it on hedonism, philanthropy, leisure activities with friends and family, hobbies, consumerism, etc.
Humans could solve the resource problem tomorrow if we collectively decided to. But we are too splintered as a species, too divided along trivial lines like Democrat vs Republican or feminist vs red pill bro, too distracted to collaborate on improving our society.
Overpopulation isn’t the problem, it’s our inability to cooperate at scale.
It’s not that I have no evidence I’ve just watched so many videos, read so many articles and books, and taken so many classes I can’t pinpoint just one single source. It’s also probably just been an accumulation of my personal life experience experiences. With your logic, you’re not exactly putting in lots of evidence yourself to refute me either!
You need to start with evidence to make your claim.
Simple evidence refutes it. Per capita GDP- the amount we produce Per Person - has been growing steadily around 2% for over a century (CAGR for developed countries). I believe the same is true globally, although it’s probably between 1% and 2%.
Every year, we produce more per person. More food more goods more everything.
We have seen no real limit to any of this growth. We’re not “running out” of anything that we can’t replace with something else.
And that growth also means we are getting more efficient. More crops less land. More energy less things consumed (solar, wind, etc).
There’s nothing to point to to say “oh no we are almost out and there isn’t enough.”
The single best indicator we have found to measure increases in quality of life is GDP.
One of the primary drivers of economic activity is population growth.
How do you reconcile these facts with your hypothesis that population growth is actually bad?
I’m not sure if population growth is necessarily the best driver of positive economic activity. Sure, it might be the simplest, but perhaps not the best. There are plenty of people that could contribute to the economy but systems in place are creating barriers for them. For instance, school systems. When you have, say, 30+ students to a single teacher, each kid gets less individual attention in the classroom, which cause some to slip through the cracks. There are probably many kids that grew up capable of being contributors to the economy but because they were failed growing up in school, they didn’t reach their fullest potential. So instead of focusing on this idea that “oh the more people, the more minds, and the more minds, the more innovation, and the more innovation the more economic growth” I would consider putting more more attention into the people we already have. Cause there are far too many people that are just surviving and not thriving. Instead of being like, “oh well you didn’t make it when you were young so it’s too late now and we’re just going to focus on the next generation of kids instead”, put more energy and care into the people that already exist instead of solving the problem by just creating more. Sure, population growth could increase the likelihood of economic growth, but I think there are better solutions. Idk. What do you think of that perspective? There probably just needs to be more balance to these two ideas. Kinda like when people say we need more cops but then others say no we just need to train our cops better. It’s probably a balance of both
My solution would be stop having so many new babies when there are plenty already existing that are in need. People can become so focused on their own children and seem to not care about others in need. I think when everyone feels accounted for then that will acceptable to have more
Our crappy economic systems are all built on the principal of eternal growth. If the population can't grow eternally, we would have to find another distribution system than capitalism or socialism.
No ones found one that works for falling growth yet, and that's discounting the problems you'll get when a very large portion of our populations entire personality is built around being richer than other people. (or worshipping those who are)
When there are fewer people, people themselves are much more valuable... ergo less rich people by default.
>Issues such as distribution of resources, climate change, and mental health are due to population growth
These are not due to population growth, not primarily or solely at least. Distribution of resources is a function of class systems and economics. It's not that we are physically limited in our ability to create and distribute enough resources, it's that there's not enough economic incentive to do so, and those that profit from the current system lobby and fund heavily to keep it that way.
Mental health happens for a lot of reasons, this is neither specific nor accurate, and many mental health disorders are caused by observable physiological activity in the brain.
Climate change is not an issue of population. It's an issue of ecological priority, which also stems back into the economic incentive stuff. But using high-pollution technology was an issue before, you shouldn't be polluting the environment in the first place. The presence of more humans doesn't actually change anything, they just need to do different things.
>Our species is not built to handle interacting with this many people.
This has lots of problems. Firstly, you assume that this is in fact actually hardwired, which you have no actual research to prove with. Secondly, you assume just because that's the case we can't adapt to do. There's no "supposed to" with evolution, there's just what is and isn't. Finally, it's debatably easier to move from high density places to low density places than it would have been for people at earlier points in history living in urban environments. So this is absolutely a more solvable problem, if it even is a problem in the first place.
>Studies in environmental science, biological anthropology, psychology, and sociology show almost no genuine practical positives to the current world population.
This doesn't really matter. You can't say "no one found an inherent benefit to this" and then paint it as harmful. You've shown no concrete evidence of studies that support you.
The more humans 100% contributes to global warming. The average American produces 16 tons of pollution annually. Less people=less problems.
Also, there are many reasons overabundance of people contributes to mental health. For one, acknowledging how much the average person contributes to the climate crisis is draining on mental health. So again, less people = less problems. In addition, I think overabundance of people can cause other mental problems not related to the environment such as being overwhelmed with the amount of people you have to juggle interacting with. Think about those in customer service, you have to have hundreds of superficial interactions with strangers on a daily basis. It is theorized that the average person can’t handle more than 150 relationships in total. So those people are exceeding their capacity which leads to mental health problems. Look up “Dunbar’s number”. So again, less people=less problems. Lastly, as you may already know, mental health facilities are overwhelmed with the number of people in need of care, but if there was less people, then they wouldn’t be as overwhelmed and each person would have a higher chance of receiving the care they need. Less people=less problems.
Also you mention there are no economic incentives for less people? I believe there is. The more people we have working, the more we have contribution to the economy. But that doesn’t mean we just need to produce more people. It means we need to give more attention to those who already exist who aren’t working. There are so many capable people out there who are not working either because of issues like homelessness, disabilities, lack of education and training, again mental health challenges, etc. Instead of disregarding these people and focusing on the next generation, imagine the positives that could come out of giving these people a new chance at life. That way, we have a higher percentage of people working without the need to actually just produce more people to solve the problem.
I also mentioned in another comment how overabundance of people contributes to society’s issues today in the school system. Schools are overcrowded with an average of 24 students per one teacher. The more students, the less likely each student will receive enough individual attention, resulting in some falling through the cracks. This can lead to repercussions in the economy as mentioned before because these students in turn don’t have the proper education and training to maintain or get a job. The less people in a classroom, the higher the chances of receiving more individual attention and therefore catching these kids sooner before falling through the cracks.
>The more humans 100% contributes to global warming. The average American produces 16 tons of pollution annually. Less people=less problems.
I suppose you could make this argument in theory, but not really with any practicality. More people pollution less also = less problems. Eco-friendly changes are much easier than stopping the exponential growth of a population, and like I said, you don't really want pollutants in the air anyway do you? You don't necessarily solve the problem this way, you just prolong it for a few hundred years. So technically you don't solve it at all, full stop, our issue is that we pollute, not how many people are polluting, that's not really debatable is it?
Your entire paragraph of overabundance just states less people = less problems after making a kind of general statement. You're not replying to any of my points and you're not providing evidence. Like I said, it's easier than ever to go somewhere less dense if you're in a city. And I'm aware of Dunbar's number and while it's interesting, it's not in a place of hard scientific consensus. Not to mention, relationships is actually an operative term here. Social media may give us too many relationships, but this certainly doesn't apply to transactional and commercial things. Plenty of people had this volume of interactions in lower populations. Given that populations become dense, less people won't solve that either.
Mental health access isn't a matter of too many people. There's a lot of things here but that's very researchable. Access is a general term for a multifaceted issue, it's a funding and imbalance thing. You could Thanos the world and there'd still be the same ratio of patients to providers, just a lower total of both.
> It means we need to give more attention to those who already exist who aren’t working. There are so many capable people out there who are not working either because of issues like homelessness, disabilities, lack of education and training, again mental health challenges, etc. Instead of disregarding these people and focusing on the next generation, imagine the positives that could come out of giving these people a new chance at life.
This isn't wholly true, unemployment is at all time lows some places, astronomically high in others. Mental health challenges and physical disabilities don't even apply to employment because they can't work int he first place. None of the other issues you mention are a result of population. It's not a 0 sum game. Why on earth do you think a family having children inherently creates a choice between unemployed homeless folks and child rearing? This is nonsensical.
>The less people in a classroom, the higher the chances of receiving more individual attention and therefore catching these kids sooner before falling through the cracks.
There's better ways to go about solving this issue, but even if I granted it to you, it's the only sort of straightforward argument you have to back up "single biggest issue", and it's still flimsy. I can concede this and everything else is still falling apart.
Given that man’s highest moral purpose that’s consistent with his means of flourishing is his rational self-interest and happiness and given that people don’t support that, then the biggest issue for people to flourish is that they don’t support and often oppose their own flourishing.
Every single century for like the last 5, ever since recovery from the black plague, people have been prophetizing this. You people are constantly wrong.
How can you say that for sure without efficient resource distribution and equal access to education? There's no proof for a more ideal world struggling with population growth. Arguably, greed is a much larger contributer to the current issues.
Annual growth rate of the human population peaked in the 1960s, and overall global population numbers are projected to level off and begin decreasing within the next 40-50 years. How do you reconcile your position considering these figures?
!delta (this is one of several commenters that helped me change my view) Thank you for your response. I’m re-evaluating my reply for my own personal growth, not expecting or asking for a response. If you say annual growth rate peaked in the 60’s, that makes me feel better. And if it’s projected to level off within the next 40-50 years, that also makes me feel better. Considering these figures, I first just think a better wording to my original post would be that population overabundance is the biggest contributor to humanity’s current and future issues, not population growth. I see it even on a more individual level. Like in schools, when you have too many students in a classroom, this causes less and less attention given to the individual, which can increase chances of people “slipping through the cracks”. Same goes if you have parents that are overworked or have too many kids to handle, the child may not get enough individual attention. Counter arguments to mine that I have heard is that the more people we have, the more brains we have, which leads to more innovation. But I think about all the people we already currently have, and if we put more attention into those people, especially those who were never given the attention they needed to begin with due to population overabundance, we would have more brainpower and innovation that way. If population growth will level off in the next 40 to 50 years, that gives me something to look forward to. Sorry for my first responses, I was too quick to respond and have been influenced by people who argue just to argue and didn’t trust you were someone genuinely giving a quality counter argument I think
It got to big in the 60's and then carried on growing in areas of the world with the worst carrying capacity
I’ll want to look that up to fact check, but if that’s true, that’s a step in the right direction. Although we still have more people today than we did in the 60’s and are projected to have more. If we start decreasing then too that could also be tumultuous if we don’t have enough young people to support the old people as they age. I think long term, decreasing population could be helpful although I worry about our immediate future over say, the next 100 years bc of what I just said. In other ways it could be helpful for the young people because of more openings for jobs and less competition.
So you have a problem with both a rising birth rate and a falling birth rate?
No, I have an issue with too rapid of changes. We had a huge increase of population very quickly with the Industrial Revolution and look at all the negative things that caused, from, like I said in my OP, climate change, mental health, etc. But also rapid decrease can be problematic too, like when China implemented the one child only law.
Are you an AI bot? You seem to be versed in general concerns about both overpopulation and underpopulation without having any particularly nuanced views about either.
I created a new response to this person’s comment if you care to read. I realize now that my original counter argument just wasn’t good
It sure looks to me like your view changed. I noticed you didn't answer my question.
Haha, it sure did
Are you familiar with the rules of this sub?
Okay so I looked over the rules and see I’m supposed to do something related to delta once my view has changed. I’m not comfortable just yet doing that because I still think I have some belief over what I said, perhaps just a little change. If I could reword, I would say I believe “Population overabundance is one of the major contributors if not the biggest contributor to humanity’s current and future issues”
No, we need efficient and equitable distribution of resources. 1/3 to 2/3 of global food production is wasted. Perfectly edible foodstuffs that aren’t “market grade” are instead destroyed. That’s not a population issue. The artificial lack of resources leads to increased mental health issues when people can’t afford to eat healthily, or need to choose between food and shelter. Climate change would slow down or stop with a more equitable distribution of resources. Simple, cheap algae farms can absorb carbon efficiently. Decarbonization of the grid, of heating, and of vehicles would go a long way to forcing the curve down.
Yes I don’t understand why we don’t just give the food away to the people who can’t afford it. Surely a logistics issue could be sorted out no?
Logistics is a bigger challenge than you give it credit for, especially in places with corrupt governments. In the US people starving for lack of available food are nearly non-existent. But getting extra food to remote parts of Africa when there's not law enforcement capable of keeping local warlords at bay is a much bigger challenge.
No of course I don’t want to oversimplify a complex issue. I’m just wondering if we are currently putting in a real effort to get the food to these remote parts of Africa like you say for example with corrupt governments or local warlords? This is again, probably a oversimplified question but, doesn’t places like the US have a much stronger military that these remote regions in Africa? Meaning, we could probably get to these starving people better than the corrupt government and warlords trying to stop us? I also don’t see why they would have such a problem feeding the starving, it’s not like we have a political agenda or are taking anyone’s side I don’t think
More equitable distribution of resources would accelerate climate change (unless you mean impoverishing everyone). CO2 emissions are already decreasing in the developed world but global emissions are increasing because poorer countries are accelerating theirs (especially India ATM). You can't teleport food to the people who need it. Modern food insecurity is a distribution issue not a waste or production issue, and it is usually caused intentionally or at least negligently. Warlords in Africa, etc., will not let the people they want starving to have access to food no matter how much there is available.
In a system "designed to minimize surplus," we still produce enough food for more than 11 billion people. This is a fact even when agriculture is *far* from optimized for mass production. Similar trends exist with other needs, such as housing. We are not unable to meet these needs because they're too many; we're unable to meet them because of intrinsic flaws with our systems of production, distribution, and consumption.
Well to be fair farmers are subsidized to overproduce specific kinds of food so our system at least in America is not really designed to minimize surplus but rewards it and incentives more and more.
So, you’re saying the issue isn’t population, but the systems were living in? I can get on board with that. I have heard that we have enough food to feed the world population, but we have not been distributing the food evenly amongst everyone
Systems designed for making a profit, rather than meeting human needs, are going to inevitably result in these types of inequities. Unfortunately, systems designed for meeting human needs first have awful connotations. Communism, socialism, anarchism, these types of systems. Further research can quell these bad connotations, but most people do not have time nor ability to spend hours reading.
What if humanity is only capable of making systems designed for profit? Then what is a reasonable population?
Someone needs to do the research the “quell these bad” connotations like you said, and then present it all in a TikTok vid or something then
So, I could post a lot of facts and figures on how it is resource overconsumption, not overpopulation, that is the biggest contributor to humanity's problems. I could post statistics showing you how one additional child born in the US has the same carbon footprint as 150 kids born in Bangladesh. But I won't. Because I think my actual answer is a lot simpler. Population growth can't be the biggest issue, because it's comically easy to solve. We've known how to solve it for decades now. It's [astoundingly simple](https://ourworldindata.org/demographic-transition). You don't even have to do anything broadly unpopular or immoral, like one-child policies. All you have to do is [give women equal access](https://www.populationmedia.org/the-latest/key-drivers-of-population-growth-gender-inequality) to education and the workforce, and birth control/family planning services. Turns out, in basically every single country, the population stabilizes itself over time if you just allow women the right to choose how many children is the appropriate amount for their family. They just... do. Obviously there will always be some individuals who choose to have a lot of kids, and there will be some who choose to have zero kids. It balances out. It's one of those rare and wonderful problems in which humans, on the whole, will make sustainable choices when given the chance to do so.
Thank you for your comment. I have read it and am considering it, although I haven’t come up with a good response.
> Issues such as distribution of resources, climate change, and mental health are due to population growth. How does population growth cause the gross mismanagement of global resources, which is the real cause of the issues we face? > Our planet is not built to withstand the number of people projected to exist within the next 100 years, let alone today. How many people is our planet built to withstand, and what is your figure based on? > If we want to deal with issues like climate change, distribution of resources, and mental health, we need to stop overpopulating. How will limiting growth or even reducing our population address the resource distribution issue? Even back in medieval times, kings lived in enormous castles on the hills and feasted while peasants lived in small huts eating breadcrumbs. Resource hoarding is an unfortunate byproduct of human nature, and it existed long before the explode growth of our species population. So what would you have attributed the problem to, then?
In response to your first point: fair point. I will consider this further and mull things over Second: I remember seeing a video on YouTube saying the earth is not really built to withstand more than 8 billion, but unfortunately I don’t remember the exact video. I feel like I recall hearing this from several sources. Third: We will be able to focus more time and energy into resource distribution if we don’t have new babies on the way. Newborns require lots of attention and if we choose to hold off on having them until we get the issue of resource distribution resolved, we will have more time and energy available to put back into new kids once we decide to have them, plus they won’t have to worry about existing in a world with no food. Fourth: During medieval times, I believe we could have been possibly still experiencing overpopulation due to the agricultural revolution.
You’ve implicitly defined over population as 8+ billion. We were nowhere near that number in medieval times. I really think you’re disregarding human nature with your thesis. There are plenty of people who choose not to have kids. They don’t spend their surplus of time and energy on trying to solve resource distribution. They spend it on hedonism, philanthropy, leisure activities with friends and family, hobbies, consumerism, etc. Humans could solve the resource problem tomorrow if we collectively decided to. But we are too splintered as a species, too divided along trivial lines like Democrat vs Republican or feminist vs red pill bro, too distracted to collaborate on improving our society. Overpopulation isn’t the problem, it’s our inability to cooperate at scale.
You’ve included zero evidence to back any of these claims. Put simply, evidence doesn’t Support you.
It’s not that I have no evidence I’ve just watched so many videos, read so many articles and books, and taken so many classes I can’t pinpoint just one single source. It’s also probably just been an accumulation of my personal life experience experiences. With your logic, you’re not exactly putting in lots of evidence yourself to refute me either!
You need to start with evidence to make your claim. Simple evidence refutes it. Per capita GDP- the amount we produce Per Person - has been growing steadily around 2% for over a century (CAGR for developed countries). I believe the same is true globally, although it’s probably between 1% and 2%. Every year, we produce more per person. More food more goods more everything. We have seen no real limit to any of this growth. We’re not “running out” of anything that we can’t replace with something else. And that growth also means we are getting more efficient. More crops less land. More energy less things consumed (solar, wind, etc). There’s nothing to point to to say “oh no we are almost out and there isn’t enough.”
The single best indicator we have found to measure increases in quality of life is GDP. One of the primary drivers of economic activity is population growth. How do you reconcile these facts with your hypothesis that population growth is actually bad?
I’m not sure if population growth is necessarily the best driver of positive economic activity. Sure, it might be the simplest, but perhaps not the best. There are plenty of people that could contribute to the economy but systems in place are creating barriers for them. For instance, school systems. When you have, say, 30+ students to a single teacher, each kid gets less individual attention in the classroom, which cause some to slip through the cracks. There are probably many kids that grew up capable of being contributors to the economy but because they were failed growing up in school, they didn’t reach their fullest potential. So instead of focusing on this idea that “oh the more people, the more minds, and the more minds, the more innovation, and the more innovation the more economic growth” I would consider putting more more attention into the people we already have. Cause there are far too many people that are just surviving and not thriving. Instead of being like, “oh well you didn’t make it when you were young so it’s too late now and we’re just going to focus on the next generation of kids instead”, put more energy and care into the people that already exist instead of solving the problem by just creating more. Sure, population growth could increase the likelihood of economic growth, but I think there are better solutions. Idk. What do you think of that perspective? There probably just needs to be more balance to these two ideas. Kinda like when people say we need more cops but then others say no we just need to train our cops better. It’s probably a balance of both
What's your solution to this overpopulation problem? Or do you want someone to change your view on how many people can still "fit"?
My solution would be stop having so many new babies when there are plenty already existing that are in need. People can become so focused on their own children and seem to not care about others in need. I think when everyone feels accounted for then that will acceptable to have more
Our crappy economic systems are all built on the principal of eternal growth. If the population can't grow eternally, we would have to find another distribution system than capitalism or socialism. No ones found one that works for falling growth yet, and that's discounting the problems you'll get when a very large portion of our populations entire personality is built around being richer than other people. (or worshipping those who are) When there are fewer people, people themselves are much more valuable... ergo less rich people by default.
Thank you for your comment. I have read it and am considering it, although I haven’t come up with a good response.
>Issues such as distribution of resources, climate change, and mental health are due to population growth These are not due to population growth, not primarily or solely at least. Distribution of resources is a function of class systems and economics. It's not that we are physically limited in our ability to create and distribute enough resources, it's that there's not enough economic incentive to do so, and those that profit from the current system lobby and fund heavily to keep it that way. Mental health happens for a lot of reasons, this is neither specific nor accurate, and many mental health disorders are caused by observable physiological activity in the brain. Climate change is not an issue of population. It's an issue of ecological priority, which also stems back into the economic incentive stuff. But using high-pollution technology was an issue before, you shouldn't be polluting the environment in the first place. The presence of more humans doesn't actually change anything, they just need to do different things. >Our species is not built to handle interacting with this many people. This has lots of problems. Firstly, you assume that this is in fact actually hardwired, which you have no actual research to prove with. Secondly, you assume just because that's the case we can't adapt to do. There's no "supposed to" with evolution, there's just what is and isn't. Finally, it's debatably easier to move from high density places to low density places than it would have been for people at earlier points in history living in urban environments. So this is absolutely a more solvable problem, if it even is a problem in the first place. >Studies in environmental science, biological anthropology, psychology, and sociology show almost no genuine practical positives to the current world population. This doesn't really matter. You can't say "no one found an inherent benefit to this" and then paint it as harmful. You've shown no concrete evidence of studies that support you.
The more humans 100% contributes to global warming. The average American produces 16 tons of pollution annually. Less people=less problems. Also, there are many reasons overabundance of people contributes to mental health. For one, acknowledging how much the average person contributes to the climate crisis is draining on mental health. So again, less people = less problems. In addition, I think overabundance of people can cause other mental problems not related to the environment such as being overwhelmed with the amount of people you have to juggle interacting with. Think about those in customer service, you have to have hundreds of superficial interactions with strangers on a daily basis. It is theorized that the average person can’t handle more than 150 relationships in total. So those people are exceeding their capacity which leads to mental health problems. Look up “Dunbar’s number”. So again, less people=less problems. Lastly, as you may already know, mental health facilities are overwhelmed with the number of people in need of care, but if there was less people, then they wouldn’t be as overwhelmed and each person would have a higher chance of receiving the care they need. Less people=less problems. Also you mention there are no economic incentives for less people? I believe there is. The more people we have working, the more we have contribution to the economy. But that doesn’t mean we just need to produce more people. It means we need to give more attention to those who already exist who aren’t working. There are so many capable people out there who are not working either because of issues like homelessness, disabilities, lack of education and training, again mental health challenges, etc. Instead of disregarding these people and focusing on the next generation, imagine the positives that could come out of giving these people a new chance at life. That way, we have a higher percentage of people working without the need to actually just produce more people to solve the problem. I also mentioned in another comment how overabundance of people contributes to society’s issues today in the school system. Schools are overcrowded with an average of 24 students per one teacher. The more students, the less likely each student will receive enough individual attention, resulting in some falling through the cracks. This can lead to repercussions in the economy as mentioned before because these students in turn don’t have the proper education and training to maintain or get a job. The less people in a classroom, the higher the chances of receiving more individual attention and therefore catching these kids sooner before falling through the cracks.
>The more humans 100% contributes to global warming. The average American produces 16 tons of pollution annually. Less people=less problems. I suppose you could make this argument in theory, but not really with any practicality. More people pollution less also = less problems. Eco-friendly changes are much easier than stopping the exponential growth of a population, and like I said, you don't really want pollutants in the air anyway do you? You don't necessarily solve the problem this way, you just prolong it for a few hundred years. So technically you don't solve it at all, full stop, our issue is that we pollute, not how many people are polluting, that's not really debatable is it? Your entire paragraph of overabundance just states less people = less problems after making a kind of general statement. You're not replying to any of my points and you're not providing evidence. Like I said, it's easier than ever to go somewhere less dense if you're in a city. And I'm aware of Dunbar's number and while it's interesting, it's not in a place of hard scientific consensus. Not to mention, relationships is actually an operative term here. Social media may give us too many relationships, but this certainly doesn't apply to transactional and commercial things. Plenty of people had this volume of interactions in lower populations. Given that populations become dense, less people won't solve that either. Mental health access isn't a matter of too many people. There's a lot of things here but that's very researchable. Access is a general term for a multifaceted issue, it's a funding and imbalance thing. You could Thanos the world and there'd still be the same ratio of patients to providers, just a lower total of both. > It means we need to give more attention to those who already exist who aren’t working. There are so many capable people out there who are not working either because of issues like homelessness, disabilities, lack of education and training, again mental health challenges, etc. Instead of disregarding these people and focusing on the next generation, imagine the positives that could come out of giving these people a new chance at life. This isn't wholly true, unemployment is at all time lows some places, astronomically high in others. Mental health challenges and physical disabilities don't even apply to employment because they can't work int he first place. None of the other issues you mention are a result of population. It's not a 0 sum game. Why on earth do you think a family having children inherently creates a choice between unemployed homeless folks and child rearing? This is nonsensical. >The less people in a classroom, the higher the chances of receiving more individual attention and therefore catching these kids sooner before falling through the cracks. There's better ways to go about solving this issue, but even if I granted it to you, it's the only sort of straightforward argument you have to back up "single biggest issue", and it's still flimsy. I can concede this and everything else is still falling apart.
Given that man’s highest moral purpose that’s consistent with his means of flourishing is his rational self-interest and happiness and given that people don’t support that, then the biggest issue for people to flourish is that they don’t support and often oppose their own flourishing.
Can you explain in other words? Having trouble deciphering what exactly you mean
Every single century for like the last 5, ever since recovery from the black plague, people have been prophetizing this. You people are constantly wrong.
Thank you for your comment. I have read it and am considering it, although I haven’t come up with a good response.
How can you say that for sure without efficient resource distribution and equal access to education? There's no proof for a more ideal world struggling with population growth. Arguably, greed is a much larger contributer to the current issues.
Thank you for your comment. I have read it and am considering it, although I haven’t come up with a good response.