Population Decline and the Future of Humanity | Empty Planet | A Review

Is the global population about to explode beyond the carrying capacity of the Earth? Or are we facing a population decline so precipitous that we won't be able to transition securely? I examine these questions and more in this book review.
Opinions vary wildly on this topic. Have something to add to the discussion? I'd love to hear what you have to say in the comments.
Chapters:
01:38 Background & Context
05:13 History and Demographic Transition Model
08:16 Urbanisation & Women's Empowerment
11:01 Fertility Trends Today
14:44 Complexity (& Fallibility) of Population Projections
18:15 Effects of Population Decline
23:04 A Divisive Solution
28:33 Criticisms:
- 29:01 Skewed Representation of Research
- 32:13 The Missing Factor: Climatic Elephant in the Room
40:04 Closing
***
Social:
Instagram: / leabonheim
Goodreads: / reading
Medium: / bonheimlea
Attributions and gratitude:
Video by Engin Akyurt @ www.pexels.com/video/empty-sw...
Sound Effect by Mixit @ mixkit.co/free-sound-effects/...
Research:
overshoot.footprintnetwork.or...
overpopulation-project.com/ca...
population.un.org
ourworldindata.org
www.science.org
www.sciencedirect.com/science... [paper showing why anthropic extinction makes more sense than climate-caused theory]
***

[@martinwallace5734]

I strongly agree that ecological damage is not strictly related to population size. Some of the worst environmental degradation - deforestation, species endangerment, wanton pollution of rivers with industrial waste - in Australia happened when the population was a fraction of its current size. Smaller will not necessarily be better. Laws, attitudes, awareness, accountability are all more important than population size. A shrinking human population will not necessarily mean a better environment if mentalities don't change.

[@readingintrees]

100%

[@rey_nemaattori]

It's not a causation, but there's certainly a correlation. More people require more food, metals, minerals and fuels so the impact will be greater. It's just in the past 70 years we've become much more aware of the destruction we've wrought, allowing us to minimize the impact a lot.

[@Kevin_Street]

Hello there! I'm not sure why KZbin recommended your video to me, but I'm glad it did. That was a really interesting and challenging discussion of their book. It says something about the strength of your ability to discuss these issues that I haven't read the book, but was still fascinated by your discussion of it. I think you're absolutely right that the authors didn't consider the negative effects of climate change and how it will effect their predictions. But that's probably because most people are still in a state of denial when it comes to climate change, and feel like we'll figure out something or it'll be proved inaccurate in some way. I mean, how do you factor in what sounds like absolute chaos and collapse? We've never faced a possibility like this before.

[@readingintrees]

Thank you! I'm not sure that it does speak to my discursive abilities that I held your interest. I mean, I hope I didn't garble things too badly. :) But I'm glad you stuck with the video. Excuse me, but something you said compels me to respond excessively! :D I think your point about denial, even in circles like that which Bricker and Ibbitson inhabit - circles that had the privilege of extensive education and contacts, special access to information, and freedom of movement, speaks to the often boxed-in disciplinary perspectives we take (neither Bricker nor Ibbitson are demographers btw). I think, when we are investigating a problem, we often draw on a discrete set of tools and terms, and it feels like a breach of acceptable conduct to start being.... interdisciplinary. But the climate crisis goes beyond the need for an interdisciplinary approach, imho. I've gotten to the point where I feel like everything else is contingent upon how we respond to this crisis, and the irony is that it's such an all-encompassing thing, that people have trouble incorporating it into their worldviews. Like, even if they acknowledge it's there, a lot of people can't assimilate it so that it becomes a salient factor they can see acting on other things in their lives and that they have to respond rationally to. This is true of anyone. National leaders, scientists, environmentalists. Me. If I may be presumptuous, you. As you mention, this is unprecedented. Humans have never had to adapt to a new epoch at this speed.

[@BartdeBoisblanc]

Reading in Trees, you mentioned the bottleneck humans sevived in the past. The next bottleneck we will face is not population but energy.

[@readingintrees]

If you have the time, would you mind expanding a little on that? Thanks. 😊

[@soysanto9939]

All economic growth is the result of fossil fuel exploitation, which are becoming scarcer and more expensive to access. As Nate Haggens says, we are energy blind. Renewable energy doesn't actually replace fossil fuels and expands environmental degradation due to mining. A sustainable population is probably under a billion, perhaps substantially less.

[@readingintrees]

@@soysanto9939 That seems a little bit linear to me, a little bit too definitive. But I hadn't heard of Nate Haggens and will give him a listen and maybe get back to you.

[@mistercohaagen]

@@readingintrees I kindly second @soysanto9939's opinion. "The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens"... I bet you'd find it interesting. Also lots of what Daniel Schmachtenberger talks with Nate about on Nate's podcast. Could you please review "The New Human Rights Movement" by Peter Joseph? You're very thorough and thoughtful; I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

[@readingintrees]

Thanks for the compliment and the recommendations! I have subscribed to Nate Haggens' podcast and will listen to an episode featuring Schmactenberger. I didn't realise Peter Joseph was still active! He was at least partially responsible for my radicalisation in my college days! So, thank you for alerting me to his book!

[@bearnaff9387]

An interesting exploration of this concept comes up in 2008's _Saturn's Children_ by Charlie Stross. In this sci-fi novel, humanity has been extinct for over a century, and the Earth itself has been unable to support non-extremophile life for a time. All of the characters are various stripe of human-derived AI. The main character, Freya, was actually designed as an intimate companion model - but wasn't activated for the first time until 60 years after the death of the last human. Developing sentient and immortal devoted slaves did not encourage humans to reproduce themselves, but the real cause in the novel was the same one in _Empty Planet_. Urbanized populations do not reproduce at a replacement rate. In pre-industrial times, regular famines did a pretty good job of regularly winnowing the population and economic opportunity drew their replacements from the countryside. Post-industrial society provides too many benefits to raising fewer children. In this novel, the mass movement of humanity away from small rural communities to luxurious urban environments caused a fairly fast end of reproduction among humanity. Also, your essay-writing is gifted. Subscribed.

[@readingintrees]

Thank you for the generosity of that comment @bearnaff9387, for subscribing, and for introducing Charlie Stross to me. The book sounds fascinating. Perhaps I can do some reviews of high-concept sci-fi on this channel in the future.

[@Hiereus2]

Thanks for mentioning this novel. I like it when authors take ideas, ideologies and concepts and try to envision their ultimate effects. Like what 1984 does for totalitarism.

[@noway8259]

Would you say that the authors of this book are overly stuck in the Capitalist Realist mindset? What with ,what sounds to me like, their emphasis on infinite growth which seems impossible to me long term without brining in resources from outside this earth. That is asteroid mining and lunar hydrogen and whatnot.

[@readingintrees]

So nice to see "capitalist realism" in the comments under my video! I must be doing something right. :) Yes, 100%! But nothing exceptional about that, unfortunately.

[@scipioafricanus5871]

In order for asteroid mining or lunar hydrogen to be profitable it must really suck down here on Earth, resource-wise.

[@readingintrees]

@scipioafricanus5871 That's funny. I think it's just that we are a planetary disease that is evolving into a contagious variant of itself.

[@timothygoss2731]

Exponential growth / capitalist realism is the dream of the few who care little for the likes of us (the masses) My only.hope is that Musk realises his dream and ferries them all to mars. Bon Voyage 👍

[@readingintrees]

LOL

[@johndafoe600]

Thank you, I agree. Population decline and how we operate our lives, the Future of Humanity: We can discuss and analyze as much as we want, but our current level of being is unsustainable. In an intelligent analysis, the increase of human population is fundamentally alarming, especially with respect to consumption of resources including energy, food and water..

[@wonderplanet343]

We need far fewer people polluting the main source of our oxygen - the ocean. We are badly overpopulated ❤😢 Save the ocean.

[@rcz9929]

keep up the good work🙌🏼

[@SladkaPritomnost]

Japan already peaked, China is peaking now, Europe would have peaked in 90s without immigration.

[@azmodanpc]

Japan peaked in the 00s it’s 20 years they are going down. China is a black box because there’s no reliable data

[@michaeldavid6832]

Population numbers don't equal quality of life. In fact, China was worse off when they had a higher population. Europe only had a Renaissance after the plague wiped out half the population -- which immediately doubled the buying power of those who were left and freed up property for everyone. Immigration isn't a virtue any more than a high population is. If it's not high quality population or immigration, then it's a drag on everyone else... and we know, objectively, it's not scientists, doctors, and engineers flooding the borders. I care not for peaks of population, I care about peak civilization, peace, and freedom. By all standards that matter, the US is below all other 3rd world nations. Infant mortality, health care for the average citizen, crime is running rampant in the cities, prices are skyrocketing for food and housing, the list is endless. A sudden influx of people from god-knows-where has always destroyed any nation that tried it. A nation without borders soon dissolves. This is a lesson of history which only fools defy. Why must people learn only though making dumb mistakes and paying dearly for them? It's the eternal flaw of mankind. They think they know better than all of history combined -- and history repeats the lesson.

[@worndown8280]

If you use the new numbers that Chinese universities used. they estimate that China peaked in 2004. They apparently overcounted at least by 100 million, all young.

[@readingintrees]

@michaeldavid6832 This is why the answer is humane, rational, and multilateral management of migration. Not closed borders and barbed wire. The latter is futile.

[@azmodanpc]

@@worndown8280 And they have almost zero net immigration. Even if you marry a Chinese National, you get a glorified tourist visa and need to periodically renew it by going back to your country of origin and applying there (a work visa is much better). Unlike Japan, I see few reasons to emigrate there and be treated worse than a tourist.

[@unnameuserble]

Your thank you at the end was so sweet. I think you’re too hash saying that the video is too long and poorly edited because to just listen to the audio is very satisfying and natural and not overcooked. It is an unhurried exploration and very thought-provoking both as an accurate description of the book and some valid criticism, especially what you’re saying about climate change not taken into account.

[@julianskinner3697]

Replacement rate is 2.1 if there is access to modern medical care. It is higher in countries without that medical care. It can be as high as 3.5 or 4 where child mortality is high.. The median for the world is 2.3 births per women.

[@shahankhan7685]

The only way to improve brith rate is have a verry good wealth redistribution system.

[@guard13007]

I know there are negatives, but a lot of things presented as negatives are actually better for everyone, and I'm hopeful that we handle it gracefully. Talking about careers and finance and savings as negatives don't seem like a negative to me. The whole concept we've based economics on just doesn't actually work long-term, and we're just running full-force into that wall. :D

[@readingintrees]

I think there's been either a misinterpretation on your part or a misrepresentation on MY part of the book or my own views. I never intended to imply that careers, finance, and savings are inherently negative, so I may have to apologise if that's how it has come across. These things can be divorced from the particular system that's running civilisation into the ground and impoverishing our biosphere.

[@mikew1507]

Very well thought out review of the book. You should try to set up an interview with Darrell Bricker. A conversation between you two would be interesting!

[@readingintrees]

!!! The thought of that intimidates me! But, if I'm lucky, maybe that's the direction this channel will go in! :)

[@scipioafricanus5871]

@@readingintrees You can do it!!! Interviewing In Trees...

[@tfeelingit]

A thorough and dispassionate review Understanding a demographic winter requires many disciplines As a physician in the USA I would like to add my perspective Many countries and organizations have a vested interest in overestimating their populations See China, Mexico, Brazil Fertility declines continue to surprise to the downside The threats grow daily Pandemics, environmental toxins, AI, war, terrorism, collapse of ecosystems Dependency ratio, debt The social structures that encourage having children are weaker Rights for women, birth control and access to education No doubt this has an impact You didn’t mention the other side of the coin- men no longer have the same level of interest in marriage or children No society exits a demographic winter without pain However society has never been more connected so we may adapt I must comment on the often quoted solution of immigration for low fertility Unfortunately for poorer countries This robs them of population & talent U.S.A. outpaces Europe precisely because we do a better job of attracting immigrants

[@readingintrees]

Thank you for the insightful comments. I'd really appreciate if you could elaborate on what you said about men no longer having as much interest in marriage or children. I agree that brain drain can be a problem, but I hope to have a video up within the month reviewing a book that somewhat allays those concerns, for many regions of the developing world anyway.

[@tfeelingit]

I look forward to that review

[@tfeelingit]

Pew Research has several studies Also You Tube genZ dating I could suggest some videos that are fairly neutral Dating Apps, paradox of choose, 63% of men not dating or interested in dating Of the 37% remaining many are stringing women along in situationships We were not evolved to an infinite # of mates 24/7 in our pocket I had a lot of girlfriends-still I settled down to a long marriage, 4 kids, a two grandchildren, two of my kids are married and the other 2 are in serious long term relationships If Tinder was around-I might still be playing Chad and missed all the wonderful experiences Political parties & corporations have an interest in polarizing the relationship between the sexes you mentioned your cohort of single friends-that makes me sad It’s harder than ever-it seems to trust another-to swim against the current in our divisive society Those who learn to overcome their fears to reach out and establish a bond of trust with the opposite sex will reap the rewards of True Love I hope this happens for you and as many of your friends as possible

[@michaeldavid6832]

So you're saying all immigrants are the same -- all good and always a net benefit? That seems a bit dehumanizing -- like they're all just some Borg collective -- undifferentiated and immune to any bad incentives. They possess only altruistic motives -- why else would they illegally cross a border if not the give more than they take? Nobody is buying this anymore. It's only the corrupt political class who keeps allowing it but Americans are nearing the end of their tolerance for the absolute chaos this is causing. A flood of immigrants destroys the opportunities for anyone who is getting started in their life -- including the tens of millions of black and brown people who already live here. Legal immigrants are hurt the most by illegal immigration. Legal immigrants had to wait in line and spend lots of money and time to become a full citizen. This flood coming over the border don't just contain the "tired huddled masses yearning to be free". Oh no. The world isn't unicorns and rainbows. The Chinese are coming in by the tens of thousands now -- and they aren't coming in to immigrate. They're caught on film in the camps at the Darian Gap. They settle near US military bases for some reason. Some big surprises ahead for the pro-immigration crowd. They're going to regret their rose-tinted Libertarian fiction. There's a universal law of nature which can never be defied without brutal consequences: where there is no boundary, there is no stability and no life. Your skin is a boundary. Each cell is a boundary. Your genetic code is a boundary. Your police and military are a boundary. Your border is a boundary. When those boundaries are gone, what they were protecting you from will begin to exploit. Boundaries are a filter so that you let in the good while excluding the bad. Some are real, and some are abstract -- they serve the same purpose. Unlimited immigration is no more a virtue than pulling off your skin. The effect on the nation is the same as that on the body. Nobody thinks that immigration as a concept is a bad thing. But no good ever comes from a limitless influx of anything. Reality is going to teach some very hard lessons to those who think otherwise. As for "attracting them" you left out the "how" and "why". How have they attracted them? With millions of dollars in free money which could've otherwise been given to those enduring hardship's today. This is known by all. Why? Nobody ever has a good answer to that. By all appearances, they're trying to destroy the US and Europe by flooding it with low IQ immigrants who won't have any jobs. We aren't attracting doctors, scientists and engineers -- those people always come in legally. Nope. We're attracting people who are no net benefit to the country and who will consume all the resources which you expected to be spent on those who paid into the system. Some lessons have to be learned the hard way -- and this one is going to be very hard. I suspect most won't understand why their lives suddenly slid into the pit. That inflation isn't coming from nowhere. It represents money which was given away to someone without them producing any value for their fellow man. That's what inflation is. Myself? I have skill that has value in every nation. When things get bad enough, I'll find a home elsewhere. But for most of the pro-immigrant crowd, they won't be able to run anywhere. They will have to live in the world they voted for -- and will be a brutal dystopia. The good times are nearing their end and it was the greedy and dys-educated who created it. Their house of cards is starting to lean.

[@worndown8280]

@@readingintrees Men typically got married for two reasons, sex and to have a family/children. Socially speaking, in the US and much of the West both of those issues have been resolved. Women will routinely have sex outside of marriage even without the promise of a relationship and 40% of children born in the US were born by single mothers. Both of the two main issues that forced or encouraged men, socially, to get married for what they wanted are gone now. Women, because of feminism, now have the ability to earn all the money they want. They don't need men as economic machines to provide for them. So they too, are disincentivized from getting married. Ironically women seem to value a man who makes more than they do, yet feminism, the ideology that freed them seems created to make the earning power between the sexes disappear. That's the truth behind "where have all the good men gone". As always the unintended consequences of social engineering rears its ugly head. If you want to resolve the population crisis you have to find a way to make men more attractive to women. And Feminism, by its very nature, prevents that.

[@calamityjean1525]

For Americans: 50 C is 122 F. Hotter than just about anyone wants to live in, especially if humidity is high.

[@indrinita]

As a Canadian, I have to say that Canada doesn’t necessarily have a strong national identity per se, however quite strong regional identities, which most immigrants tend to adopt sooner than later.

[@Kyptka89]

"We're going to have more space and that'll help solve the housing crisis... but we can't have that. Let's flood the nation with migrants instead."

[@allthenewsordeath5772]

Maybe you guys should keep going, I’m sure if you import 1 million Indians for the next 60 years your country won’t just become India.

[@handle535]

I'll give you some advice, which I encourage you to ignore if you are not interested in feedback. While I understand that this is an issue that you no doubt have strong feelings about, it is not a good idea to start a review with a long presentation of YOUR ideas. Much better would be to first discuss the ideas presented in the thing you are reviewing and THEN at the end present your own opinion and perhaps highlight where you think the authors got it wrong. I want to stress that I am sympathetic to your position and mean this to be constructive criticism. A lot of people watching will probably agree and be nodding in agreement with every point you make (and perhaps a few might be sufficiently upset by this comment to let me know how wrong I am), but these are not the people you really want to reach.

[@readingintrees]

Thanks for your input.

[@konshtok]

good news , this vid showed up in my recommendations when usually YT only recommends vids with K and M views so the algo loves you (for now)

[@readingintrees]

And I ♡ the algo (right now)! :p I appreciate your mentioning that. Unfortunately, I'm too busy to truly ride this wave at the moment.

[@allthenewsordeath5772]

If we are destined for a temporary plateau and decline in the global population as seems likely, the question is all about the speed of the decline, a nation may have modest declines generation to generation and things still be relatively sustainable, but the consequences of a total population collapse as is happening in many east Asian countries are socially and economically apocalyptic.

[@WilliamSantos-cv8rr]

That is exactly my view. I would be okay with my country population declining 5% in 20 years, there are more than enough time for us to adapt and plan a better structure for the society. But Japan even with positive immigration is shrinking 0.5% a year. By mid 2030s they will be shrinking 0.7% a year and having 35% of retirees, they will collapse.

[@paulcooper8818]

Enjoyed your review

[@erinaltstadt4234]

Thank you

[@RoccosVideos]

Canada is trying to grow its population because it is a large country with few people. This isn't the case in Europe. Each country will have to decide which is best for its future when considering all factors including space and resources.

[@readingintrees]

I agree that this would be better when you look at it purely from the perspective of the individual countries... if nations could exist in a vacuum. But we are inextricably interconnected. Honestly, I think people are in denial in thinking that we can stop human migration with any means less than genocide. Anyway, I don't think countries deciding "That's enough for us, thank you. We're closed now" would be favourable from the perspective of the whole species. As more and more land becomes uninhabitable, more and more people will migrate towards the poles. I can't see a way around this unless we were to overhaul our civilisation within a couple of years, if we even have that time left. The best we can hope for is good, equitable, and humane management of migration, planning for the future rather than delaying and allowing social problems to accumulate until we have unrest and are being ruled by fascist regimes.

[@aiscahill]

Great to see you back, Lea ☺️

[@readingintrees]

Thank you, Aisling! I was as pleased as pud to see that you enjoyed Circe. I loved the review, the style, and everything, and I feel like giving the book a reread now. 😊

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

I haven't read the book, and this surely limits how far I can go in expressing opinions. But I have encountered enough buzz on this subject to put forth a few ideas► ►To start, I think it's time to propose a new law, rule of thumb, guiding principle, whatever term you want to use: For every absurd idea that is widely believed, an equally absurd opposite claim will eventually appear, and also be widely believed. Again, I've not read this book, and maybe some surprises are in store; but as I've encountered the population collapse idea so far, it seems to obey this principle. I just hope that the population collapse folly (which I think it mostly is) runs its course much faster than the population explosion folly, which keeps hanging on with incredible tenacity. ►Places like the ROK and the PRC are not necessarily good example for all of humanity, WRT population trends. Most of northern Europe has been going through demographic transitions, in the usual phases, for a century or more, and they still have birth rates that are declining a little, by not in the direction of some rapid collapse. I think they're better predictors, as they include a variety of different societies, and have been going through this for much longer. ►For declining fertility rates to lead to trending toward extinction, or near-extinction, the fertility drop needs to be universal. If one group does not drop below replacement rate, eventually they will continue expending and will dominate the population, and the population will grow at about the rate of that group. On the largest scale, this appears to be the case with Africa, and I have a suspicion that the loudest proponents of the population collapse bogeyman are driven by "fear of a black planet," where a rising Africa keeps growing in numbers. OTOH I see it as a dream, not a nightmare: The Dark Continent becomes the newest, most modern, most dynamic continent, getting more educated, richer, healthier, and generally more modern over time. ►I don't believe climate disruption is going to be a long-term problem. I therefore disagree sharply with almost all of those who express alarm about the current situation, just as much as those who are dismissive of it. There are transitions under way that are going to hugely surprise most people in the next couple of decades. You don't need a weatherman to know which way these winds are blowing. Millions of EVs are being sold each year. Wind and solar, together, are substantially larger than nuclear, and growing rapidly (whereas nuclear continues to stagnate). CO2 emissions appear to have peaked, although it's still too early to see a clear decline. And much is happening in other areas, such as agriculture, although it's still hard to tell how things are going. THEREFORE, to try to predict how miseries due to climate change are going to affect population trends is pretty much impossible at this point.

[@stiofanmacamhalghaidhau765]

on your last point there's no evidence I'm aware of that co2 levels have peaked at all. worse, the impact of co2 is not annual, it is multi-decadal - the stuff doesn't just dissipate. more than that, the effects caused act in a similar way - ice loss, ocean temperature, desertification. for sure it is impossible to predict the impact on populations but unlike these effects, humans tend to be quite rapidly reactive in response to crises and prosperity and are very mobile. its more likely that we'll see birthrate collapse, then mortality peaking, then birthrate growth - a few kinks before things settle. this has been going on forever... the difference now is that the numbers are gigantic (8Bn today, 3.4Bn when I was born, 2.2 Bn when my dad was born) and that surge is happening globally, and the decline will come globally rather than past instances where growth in this quarter of the globe was balanced by decline in these other two, and rough stability in the fourth. I do think the effect of climate change will result in dramatic population migrations of many tens of millions at least over the coming ~50 years as some regions just become near unlivable and patterns of crop disease move to new regions. we can make good guesses. we can't predict everything for sure, but we can at least have reasonable expectations and define ways to mitigate the misery that ensues.

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

​@@stiofanmacamhalghaidhau765 DAMMMM, I think you left out the infamous kitchen sink. I can't even tell what you're claiming on some of this stuff, since you have it all lumped together. Population explosion, population collapse, alternation of both, migration, climate disruption. There is evidence that CO2 emissions have peaked, or nearly have. Check out the Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy, which has lots of stats on energy production and consumption, and some related matters. They show global emissions for 2022 about 0.6% higher than 2021. That may reflect recovery from Covid, and it will be interesting to see what the 2023 numbers are. I know there are possible quibbles, but I think the trend is clear. Those figures are for CO2 due to energy use, so they don't include other CO2 sources such as steelmaking, and they don't include other GHG. But if there are major differences in those components, then if you want to put on your Cassandra hat, I call on anyone doing that to show data that those components are different in a major way. Yes, I know you said you don't think CO2 LEVELS have peaked. I don't know if you mean that literally. Obviously, there is a long way to go before atmospheric ppm go down. To reduce that any time soon, some way will have to be implemented to pull CO2 out of the air. Yes, I think there are ways to do that quite effectively. Details on request. But if you want to discuss any of this further, please try to be somewhat coherent on what you think the biggest issues are. I don't have time to take on all of them, as that would require a long-read piece, and I'm just not willing to take that on.

[@readingintrees]

Total GHG emissions grew by 1.4% from 2021 to 2022. (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR)) World in Data also has great visuals for comparing emissions of different years, different sources, and different GHGs, etc. From what I can see, there doesn't seem to be evidence to say definitively that we've peaked yet, although it's forecasted. And if the clean energy sector continues to grow, perhaps it will happen next year. But peaking in itself is little cause for celebration. The critical question is: how steeply can we transition to net zero, and then, beyond?

[@allthenewsordeath5772]

Africa it’s a question of how quickly those birth rates decline, as for other green energy versus nuclear, nuclear is superior in every conceivable way, and people don’t subsidize it more because they’re stupid, which is to say humans stupidity can definitely get in the way of objective progress.

[@robertgulfshores4463]

Thank you for this review! (I just found your channel.) It's good to see that the world is waking up to this reality. But I have a few questions that I'd like your opinion on: 1) Who are women, really? (See how easy my questions are?) I mean, I was raised to believe that little girls wanted to play with dolls, and that young women wanted to hold babies, and that the maternal instinct was overwhelming powerful, that women loved being mothers, more than anything else. And this seemed to be true. But as soon as women are given a CHOICE, they choose not to have children. I do not for one second buy the economic arguments, that's all a smoke screen. Women had plenty of babies during the depression. And Nations have tried incentives, and they never work, at all. Also, those that can afford to have as many as they want are also not having any. No, if given a choice, women today choose the other options ... career, travel, hobbies, school, shopping, etc. 2) Why do the demographers avoid the issue of LGBTQ+? We all know how babies are made, right? The rapid rise of those who have declared themselves one of the above letters has risen dramatically recently. It's hard for certain coupled combinations of those letters to make the baby. Right? (Another super easy question here, I'll probably get banned from YT for asking this question) 3) How does immigration change anything? You yourself admitted that after 1 generation the immigrants' fertility is about the same as the hosts. So that doesn't change the inevitable decline. 4) Isn't Capitalism just a Ponzi scheme? It requires growth. What capitalist banker is going to give my business a loan if I tell them that my projected earnings are going to decline each year due to fewer customers, until everything collapses? 5) Isn't it likely that massive endeavors, like Nuclear Power Plants, Space travel, super colliders, etc. will cease to be built or even attempted, as the population dwindles? I'm ok with that. 6) Isn't it strange that we are leaving right as our replacements are arriving? (AI) Maybe this always happens. Thanks!

[@readingintrees]

I'm glad you found me! Thank you for your only-superficially-simple-and-really-quite-intriguing questions! 1) "Who are women?" The short answer to that is that we are people and that people are all individuals. And while you can certainly generalise, and it is often useful to do so, there are always going to be so many cases that shirk the norm, even among nonhumans! Circumstances also make people. I think that there were always women who didn't make good mothers, didn't want to be party to it, or were happier as the auntie. But for so long, most women have had little say in the matter. It's what we were always *for*. And it's taken a while to shake loose all the expectations and institutions built up around that limitation. It's taken a while for women themselves to realise that there are options for the type of life you can live. I know lots of women who don't want children. Some of them admit to a maternal instinct, but many appear to have none. Maybe it was always that way, and now the choice is more accessible (education > wealth > freedom?). This is all conjecture! 2) I cannot answer why demographers are not particularly attributing low birth rates to LGBTQ+ people. But I will say that there are a not-inconsiderable number of gay couples who avail of surrogate mothers and sperm donors. 3) This is something I've been considering myself. The immigration answer does seem to have an expiration date. I'm going to suggest that part of the answer to this elephant in the room lies in the short-term thinking that plagues nearly every aspect of modern society. But also, pragmatically, it may be that we only need to buy time. We may only need to ease the decline to achieve a manageable transition to smaller populations (and a very different world). Demographic texts I've read express concern for low fertility rates and zero population growth, but I see no reference to concerns about fertility rates of zero. The DTM model I discuss in the video assumes that declines in fertility rates are irreversible, but that's wholly based on historical data. There seems to be a big unknown around whether they can go up again. And, honestly, I don't see why they wouldn't under various hypothetical circumstances. Do you? 4) 100%!!! And that growth imperative is one of many reasons I think the capitalist model is not fit for purpose anymore! We keep trying to fit a round planet into a square (capitalism-shaped?) hole! 5) Hmm. Yeah, all those things people like to fixate on because they happen to be the shiny things on the table right now: I think it equates to a lack of imagination, a lot of the time. Humans are not about to stop endeavouring. I don't believe population decline is about to put us into a dark age (although, something else might). If we don't pursue a nuclear world or Martian colonies next, we'll do something else, and, hopefully, it will be even more worthwhile. Maybe it will be awesome. I really do believe in human potential sans the profit motive. 6) LOL! How convenient. Maybe the world will be a nicer place when they take over. How about you? Anything to add to that? Thanks for stimulating some interesting thoughts!

[@robertgulfshores4463]

@@readingintrees Thanks for the thoughtful Reply! The reason I asked about women was bc I hate to think that many of the women I've known, grandmothers, aunts, great-aunts, might have lived lives they didn't want to live ... pretenders, forced to play a role that didn't suit them. That's so sad. :-( But it seems that the numbers are clear, if given a choice, women will have fewer children, and in many cases, none. (Note - I have a daughter and of course I want her to have the freedom to choose whether she wants a family, a career, both, neither, whatever she chooses is fine with me.) So now, I'm wondering if there is a bottom to this population collapse. ?? Doesn't look like it. I'm fine with it. We had a very good run, but if we go all that I ask is that we leave the place in order, you know, tidy up. For example, let's shut down all of the nuclear power stations properly, and safely reprocess the fuel, then store it away somewhere. Last one out, please turn off the lights. And also, what about loneliness? It seems that this is an epidemic now, and there are many books out about this topic. Maybe you could review one?

[@WilliamSantos-cv8rr]

Hi mate. You seems to be really interested on the topic. I wrote a ''little'' comment on the issue here you can check out and tell me your opinion about it. I think it might be useful to have a nice comparison of point of views.

[@readingintrees]

Hey. I know what you mean. It is sad to think our loved ones didn't get the life they wanted for themselves, but then, who among us really does? Don't most of us have regrets? Of course, I'm not sure how others feel, but I suspect that having been responsible for those regrets is better than not having had a choice. And I also think that the road goes some way to shaping the traveller. Even unintended children become the centre of their parents' lives. But I hope your daughter gets to live the life she chooses for herself. I think things are bad, but I don't think we're anywhere near the end times yet. If humans of the future do end up counting down the days to extinction, and if they have the presence of mind and selflessness to "turn off the lights", I think they'll have to have matured far beyond where we currently are as a species. I recently read a book about loneliness (The Lonely City by Olivia Laing) but didn't think it was quite KZbin-worthy. Do you have any recommendations?

[@bojman]

A comment on your thought on what is a woman. Take a look at mirror while you are changing clothes. The body, the biology speaks for the natural role of a woman. Now I think that we need to include cultural aspect into consideration. Culturally, today's woman is not the same as the one from the previous generations. I am millennial. In my environment many women are very busy with lifestyle things, like actively participating in online social platforms (instagram), shopping, consumerism, esthetics, entertainment etc. Many woman spend 2-4 hours a day on smartphone and instagram and for them that is more important (as value) than children and real relationships. This is a large amount of time that you take from your (unborn) family. I think that it comes down to the nature of woman, who are sensitive and dependant on novelty, and modern communications really lower any barriers towards any kind of non-children-bearing engagement. For me the person that spends 2 hours a day on inastagram is working for instagram, for free (progiding content, attention, work in form of clicks and comments etc). The problem is that many do not understand that this type of entertainment is actually a form of free work, and some od other forms od entertainment representing forma of consumerism, or voluntary indoctrination. Another thing is often mentioned career. For me a carrier is a concept in which you develop, make significant achievement that also has visible purpose and manifestation. Being a clerk in bank, or working in any kind of administrative job, working on entry or mid level, low value positions are not careers, these are just the jobs. Career is something that maybe 10% of employees achieve, the other 90% are mere jobs. The people are sacrificing children bearing experience and long term relationships (with own children) for the benefit of those imaginary 'careers'. This is the question of a value system, cultural and personal priorities, perceptions of our place and role in the world.

[@ameliamccombs4313]

Perhaps you should review "Apocalypse Never".

[@jonathancardy9941]

A slow gentle decline in overpopulated countries sounds like a good result - obviously to steep a decline would cause problems. One thing to consider is national debt, just as a growing population and growing economy can afford to borrow and invest longterm, so a declining economy requires greater fiscal prudence by the state. Another thing to remember is emigration, and we shouldn't underestimate the desire of some people in wealthy countries to retire to warmer/cheaper places. Especially if the states involved can agree on things like reciprocal healthcare. Conversely governments that freeze pensions of emigrants are discouraging people from emigration decisions that benefit everyone, including the areas where retirees bring jobs and investment. A third thing is that one should always be wary of extrapolation, it won't take many generations of one pregnancy families for twins to become more common. Or for subcultures such as the Amish to change the paradigm. Countries with low birth rates might consider mothballing some surplus schools rather than redeveloping them all.

[@readingintrees]

You make a lot of well-founded points, but i would like to say that, perhaps not in the very short term, but in the not-too-distant future, I'd imagine the propensity of wealthier people in the higher latitudes to move to the tropics or historically Mediterranean-like climates will slacken off. :/ I think there will be so much movement towards the poles that migration in the direction of the equator will become anomalous.

[@jonathancardy9941]

@@readingintrees yes but remember altitude tends to cool, and by about 6 C per thousand metres. My assumption is that moving uphill will be as big as moving to the poles, at least for the rest of this century.

[@readingintrees]

Not to be adversarial, but...! :D I feel compelled to add for anyone who reads this (and is considering where to migrate to!) that mountainous regions are, by and large, warming faster than lower altitudes. However, I agree that there will be a lot of advantages to living in many places at high altitude.

[@dou40006]

I am quite convinced that the global population will start to decline around 2050, today people want a future for their kid and with climate change people will get in panic mode for the future as we pass 2C by mid of this century so birth rate will drop like a stone, entire eco-systems will collapse , because eco-systems do collapse when they are submitted to too much stress. Population will follow a Bell curve, it took 150 years to go from 2 billions to 9.5billions and it will take another 150 years to get back to 2 billions so around 2150, and then ? we saw dramatic population decline in the past like during the collapse of the Bronze age a=or the black death in 1350, the world didn't end. Even with lower consumption 10 billions people to feed take to much land too much water, too much pesticide and herbicide to produce enough food, people can fly less , can consume less but they cannot eat less, and agriculture is responsible for 90% of the loss of biodiversity. Bird, Reptile, mammals, insects are collapsing , we already lost 60% of them in 40 Years, so no 10billions homo sapiens will never be sustainable no matter how you look at it. But nothing is for ever on our planet. We are leaving an inter-glacial age that is coming to an end and we should return to ice age, the CO2 we are spewing in the atmosphere can delay it for 1000 years, but when temperature plunge 5C agriculture becomes only possible in very limited areas, 20 000 years ago during the last ice age earth wouldn't have fed a billions people, because the climate of south of france was like Siberia today, and the Sahara was even drier. Only the tropical band would have been suited for growing food.

[@readingintrees]

Thank you for your cogent comment. I think most people don't fully accept the magnitude of the plight we're facing.

[@andresmendez-vazquez1338]

A small correction Mexico is below replacement level between 1.9 and 2.0 children per woman.... Given the accelerated move to the cities... I feel that in 10 years we will have 1.7 and ten years later Americans will say where are the Mexicans? BTW verify the fact that we were expecting 137 million Mexicans in the census of 2020, and we only had 126 millions. For some foolish reason, people still believe that we have an excess population... Nope we are going down and fast... and given life expectancy of only 68 (Drug Wars and Covid)... Mexico will go down in population in the next 15 years.... BTW Most of the Mexican territory is Empty.... Me still laughing... pass the popcorn the spectacle is going to be impressive

[@WilliamSantos-cv8rr]

Interesting information. But I have to say Mexico is alright regarding demographics if you guys keep 1.9, but most likely it is already in 1.7 since 1.9 was recorded in 2020. More interesting the Brazilian census of 2022 came up 12 million less than what was projected by UN, and 18 million under what was projectef by World Bank. They make these Crasso mistakes too often for me to believe it is not intentional. I can share some more intakes from things I have learned. Just let me know if you want me to stretch a bit.

[@readingintrees]

Thanks for the correction and some insight into Mexico's case.

[@steveLOVESbooksandwritingand..]

Glad you are back!

[@readingintrees]

Hi Steve! I can't record nearly as often as I'd like, but I'm working on carving out more time for it. :)

[@sdstarr01]

What is the author’s master plan …. The population rises forever to 150 trillion?

[@allthenewsordeath5772]

I think you underestimate humanity, saying there are too many children in the world is like saying there are too many flowers, and more humans means more humans to solve problems, the last 200 years have thoroughly debunked the Malthusian view of population but if you want to continue down that road you’re welcome to it.

[@WilliamSantos-cv8rr]

I think you did not get what is the core issue here. The world institutions are not ready for dealing with the issues caused by rapid decline population and unsustainable society structures. So find an actual solution for the individual and the society otherwise we will witness an apocalyptical disaster in the next decades. I have been to towns that have been stripped of their youth, and man I don't want to stick to the idea that we should consider that normal.

[@TheSportsnoticeboard]

I think taking a step back and looking at the Population Decline is incredible. It is mind blogging that 200 years ago where I am was bush land. Today t is a city. 200 years from now it could be a deserted city. Humanity came and went. This could be for most of the planet.

[@KombaynNikoladze2002]

I don't think cities will be deserted, cities will grow and everywhere else will become depopulated.

[@allthenewsordeath5772]

@@KombaynNikoladze2002 Perhaps, but perhaps not, governments if they actually want to stabilize or increase their fertility rate would be heavily incentivized to encourage rural communities as people in those areas universally have higher fertility rates than people in urban areas.

[@KombaynNikoladze2002]

@@allthenewsordeath5772 Are there any examples of a modern government doing this? The trend of the past 200 years has been urbanization. Reversing that trend and having people move back to rural areas doesn't seem very economically or environmentally efficient.

[@allthenewsordeath5772]

@@KombaynNikoladze2002 Technology can compensate for a lot of the inherent economic disadvantages of living in a rural area as opposed to cities, and what is more men are not meant to stack on top of each other like sardines in cement.

[@allthenewsordeath5772]

@@KombaynNikoladze2002 Also in the United States at least due to the massive increase in real estate prices specifically around large urban areas we have since the pandemic seen people moving away from large cities. Mind you that is without government subsidies or incentives.

[@drmadjdsadjadi]

One of the key problems is that so many people see economic growth on an absolute, rather than a per capita, basis. With population declines, on average everyone can be better off (per capita economic growth) even as economies have declines in absolute (overall) economic growth. What we need is to make everyone (on average) better off but to do so with a lower strain on the resources of the Earth . After all, if we had a quarter of the population, we could all consume twice as much with half as many resources used even if we do not improve our use of the world's resources. Literally the only way to do this is to have population decline over time. We also need to do something about the increasing economic inequality and work to reduce it so that we can distribute resources from the top to the bottom without much affecting the middle. Finally, we need to work more to deal with carbon change by limiting inputs to production processes. That's probably the most important thing that we need to do because far too many environmentalists keep worrying about the outputs rather than focusing solely on the inputs. If we limit inputs and someone can figure out how to create the same output with less, we should not berate them for doing so.

[@eirikbelisarius1100]

Japan is already in stage 5. I don't understand why this is so difficult to acknowledge. Immigration has its downside. There is a big upside of a homogeneous population and society with one dominant social standard. This is the hallmark of a high trust society. Take a look at what's happened in Sweden in the two last decades. The problem with immigration is that a high tech society doesn't get the immigrants they need. They need skilled educated laborers but they get people from tribal societies without any schooling. Canada has attracted highly skilled people from for example India. This is not possible to copy because there are few of these people around. Non-English speaking countries will not be able to attract these kind of workers. They will go to English speaking countries. It is also a raw deal for developing country who loses their educated young that they have invested in.

[@readingintrees]

I think you're right. According to the DTM, Japan is in Stage 5. There are risks involved in the transition from a homogeneous society to a more diverse one, BUT, ultimately, it seems as though the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, provided that the process is managed well and integration and equitable treatment are priorities. When bureaucracies treat groups differently, it creates resentment and internal conflicts arise within the society. That's putting it in elementary terms because this is a complex issue, for sure. Frankly, I think immigration is an inevitability. It is a perennial feature of our species (whereas the control of human movement generally is a very recent feature in our history). We have a choice to manage it well, preferably internationally (e.g. through bilateral agreements between host and origin countries), or we can try to prevent it and certainly fail. With the latter, we also have to deal with all the social, political, economic, and humanitarian fallout of hard borders in a world in which immigration is, in my opinion, on the increase.

[@eirikbelisarius1100]

@@readingintrees If history has thought us anything it is that people tend to cluster together with a group identity and group mentality. The first generations of immigrants will in general be on the low end of the socio-economic ladder, and many will not be able to enter the work market. This will foster resentment and create perfect conditions for extremists to recruit sympathisers. You don't need many extremists to create a LOT of problems. Many comes from areas with a weak state and a clan based culture. Their values clashes with the open trust based system of a welfare state. All this creates a perfect clusterfuck of problems that will hit some countries in Western Europe when/if we hit a real secession where the state is unable to uphold the generous payments/services they have now.

[@readingintrees]

@@eirikbelisarius1100Those are all legitimate concerns. And they are likely to happen under certain presently prevalent conditions, but I don't believe they're inevitable with better management of assimilation. If you can get through one generation of cultural conflict, emphasising social inclusion, gen 2, or even gen 1.5 who arrive in the host country as children, are more likely to identify with the host culture than their parents' culture. There are many countries currently, and increasingly, suffering from a lack of low-skilled as well as high-skilled workers. Research shows that the vast majority of native low-skilled workers shift upwards in a worker hierarchy when there's an influx of low-skilled migrant workers because of language and cultural advantages over migrants. A very small minority of mostly unmotivated natives lose out. And it's demonstrably true that migrants contribute more to economies in the form of taxes, PRSI, and the business they bring (because people must avail of services in their neighbourhoods and because they launch businesses at higher rates than native populations, at least in the countries I checked for) than they extract in the form of social welfare or remittances. More people = larger economies. Ultimately, the outcome rests on how well we manage to assimilate new people so that extremism never becomes a more attractive prospect than productive, lawful citizenship.

[@eirikbelisarius1100]

@@readingintrees This sounds like a very optimistic view on reality. The research you site must be American. They get a lot of immigration from Latin America. These people want to assimilate and have a culture that are compatible with the new culture they enter. Most of the immigrants entering Europe do not want to assimilate. In fact, if you tell them that this should be the end result they will get very crossed. Also, in America the immigrants has to hit the ground running because they don't have a welfare state. They will start to work immediately (because they have to) and contribute to society while getting almost no welfare. In most European countries the go straight on welfare. This is what they acclimatize to, and many of them stay there for the rest of their lives. Often their kids will follow in their footsteps because this is the norm in their social circle. Now, some immigrants do integrate/assimilate, and those are the ones coming from compatible cultures (Europe, South East Asia, Latin America). Immigration from these areas may be profitable. Just take a look on the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in London lately. These people has not entered Britain to be assimilated. They have no ambitions for their grand children to eat fish and chips, drink beer and wear tweed. They expect Britain to change for them. What will happen in a future Britain where the minority looks different, eat different food, have different views of what a good society looks like, live separate (for the most part), have a different religion, lack the general feeling to contribute to the greater society etc? This doesn't bode well in a future crisis where the country needs to pull in the same direction.

[@jonathancummings3807]

​@eirikbelisarius1100 Well. Here's the dilemma that your European countries have. Not to be sexist, but YOUR WOMEN DON'T WANT TO HAVE ENOUGH CHILDREN TO MAINTAIN YOUR COUNTRY'S POPULATION!!! So, without immigration of young, strong people, in a matter of a few generations, 60 to 80 years or so, you will have a county with more people older than age 50 than younger than age 50.

[@WhizzingFish12]

Human beings are not interchangeable widgets, and all cultures are not equal. I am not in any way xenophobic, but ask Europe how the great migration is going for national unity. And the UN's demographic predictions have been repeatedly wrong, and significantly so. And the climate change occurring has actually led to massive greening of the world. It's deserts are shrinking rapidly. Will it be disruptive? Yes. catastrophic? No. The world has been much hotter than it is today for the vast majority of its history.

[@readingintrees]

Hi. Thanks for the comment. I have to ask what the fact that the world has been hotter in the past implies exactly. The rate at which the world is heating up is what is most threatening about the current warming. It is approximately 10 times as fast as the rapid warming that follows an ice age. It is far too fast for adaptation, and human's haven't experienced Earth's hottest periods. The Holocene into which our species evolved has always been a relatively cool period in Earth's history. And the fact that Earth is greening is due to many factors including the expansion of monocultures. Carbon dioxide can increase plant growth (whilst lowering plants' nutritional density), but there are areas that are predicted to green because heat can stimulate growth, but when temperatures are regularly reaching 45 degrees Celsius, plant cells break down. The greening we're seeing is basically telling us that humans are changing the biosphere. Green doesn't necessarily justify celebration. Also, I'm not really one for national unity; I much prefer global unity. I think that's what we are headed for. It will be a rocky ride, especially if we handle it poorly, but, if we're clever about it, we'll be all the better for it in the end.

[@whizzingfish]

@@readingintrees You are welcome for the comment. I am not in favor of excessive global warming of course, but as a species mankind has adapted to every environment on earth (except Antarctica). There's no reason to believe that it won't be able to adapt to a more tropical one - many people already live in such environs. The challenge would be the rapidity of the change of course. The Cretaceous period is an archetypal example of a greenhouse climate. Atmospheric CO2 levels reached as high as about 2,000 ppm (we are currently at about 415 ppm - up @50% from preindustrial levels of 280 ppm), average temperatures were roughly 5°C-10°C higher than today, and sea levels were 50-100 meters higher. These conditions resemble the most extreme scenario that the IPCC has predicted could occur by the end of this century, with CO2 levels greater than 1,200 ppm and global temperatures roughly 4°C higher. As population (and thus emissions) declines, it's more and more unlikely that this extreme model will occur. During the Cretaceous, plant and animal life were both wildly abundant. The point I was making is that the argument that we're about to create a runaway greenhouse effect has no basis in science and is made as a scaremongering technique. The greening of the world is not just because of monocultures or even primarily so. The Sahel area (the fringes of the Sahara) is in the process of once again becoming a grassland and native grasses, shrubs, and trees are growing again. Not many people know this, but much of the Sahara was during the time of the Romans (only 2000 years ago) a giant grassland that basically resembled the Serengeti. It's repeatedly moved back and forth, likely due to the Earth's regular "wobble" on its axis resulting in huge changes in solar intensity and weather patterns. While I am also a fan of the ideal of "global unity," the question is under what system that global unity occurs. China's totalitarian version? No thanks. A global Islamic caliphate? No thanks. I'd much rather maintain a fractured humanity with pockets of goodness than either one of those models dominating. There will absolutely be benefits from the coming population crash. It will be much better for the environment, resource conservation, etc. I'd personally love the idea of pockets of humanity living in thoughtfully designed urban/suburban areas with farmland around them and then large expanses of wilderness. But the economic (and thus societal cohesion and governance) challenges that rapid population decline with surely bring are bogglingly massive in scale and need to be very intentionally addressed NOW. Will they be? I doubt it. We are terrible as a species at long-term planning. But we are very good at adapting.

[@readingintrees]

@@whizzingfishHi! So, I agree that we're the most adaptable large animal (when you consider brute resilience, I don't think we win the contest). Arguably, we might become the most adaptive species, if we manage to nail the colonisation of extraterrestrial worlds! I actually don't think we're due an extinction any time soon. But I'm not concerned about human extinction; I'm worried about societal collapse and the death of millions or even billions of people as a consequence of anthropogenic climate change. Climate isn't just going to shift around habitat types on the map. It's going to wipe out some habitats and cause some areas where people currently live to become unviable for year-round habitation. I hope your hunch that the IPCC's worst-case scenario will not come to pass is right because, despite there having been abundant life in the Cretaceous Period, that life had millions of years to adapt. ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S1342937X13003043-gr4.jpg Plus, there is geological evidence that warming periods that were caused by "CO2 shocks" over relatively brief periods of tens to hundreds of millennia caused mass extinctions. We're squeezing down the period for adaptation to under 200 years. Anyway, it's not just humans. It's all the other species. Even if you don't care about them, there are selfish reasons for us to preserve biodiversity on Earth. I haven't found reasons to be concerned about a runaway greenhouse effect on Earth, but I also do not know how the greening of the Sahel has much relevance in that discussion. There is probably a fair amount of conflating between the runaway greenhouse effect and positive feedback loops, the latter of which are a very real concern. "I'd much rather maintain a fractured humanity with pockets of goodness than either one of those models dominating." So would I. I would also prefer such conditions over a totalitarian global power. But I think that's a false dichotomy, and there are other directions we can go in. Ultimately, in my eyes, your arguments are sophisticated and our disagreements are minor in the context of the larger issue. I also doubt, not so much huamnity's technical capabilities, but our political and social capacity to take species-wide action. Our ability to act rationally en masse for a temporally distant good seems crap, to say the least. And while our species will survive this, I'm scared that there will be casualties on a scale we've never experienced before.

[@scipioafricanus5871]

Yes, the world has been hotter than it is today, but has it so, with 8 billion people to be fed? The planet will be ok, what about humanity though?

[@WhizzingFish12]

@@scipioafricanus5871 It has been so while absolutely teeming with life. Increased carbon dioxide is absolutely beneficial to plant life for a host of reasons (provides more raw material for growth, allows for better/more efficient use of water, meaning that cereal plants can thrive in the semi-arid areas of the world today, etc). And there won't BE 8,000,000,000 humans to be fed in a hundred years if the projections play out as they are very likely to - the world's population will max at about 10,000,000,000 and then begin an accelerating decline. In a hundred years at current rates, China alone will shrink from 1,300,000,000 to about 300,000,000. For their current birthrate of .8, for every 100 South Koreans today there will be only 6 in 3 generations. BRs are falling below replacement throughout the developed world, and dropping rapidly everywhere. Best guesstimates are we're back well below 5,000,000,000 by 2150 and continuing to fall. It's really stunning. That all assumes no artificial wombs or major extensions of lifespan of course - there are wild variables at play - but it's probably safe to say that if mankind reaches that level of technology we will be able to bioengineer in ways we can't ever imagine today.

[@Mistoffillies2]

What do you all reckon the worlds population will be by 2100?

[@readingintrees]

Thanks for your comment. What do you think? I do think 11.2 billion is far too optimistic, but I can't commit to a projection. At the end of the day, we can only use current data and guesses about the future. No one can predict what disasters will happen, what wars, or what tech or social structures we will invent in the next 76 years.

[@Mistoffillies2]

@@readingintrees I believe it will drop to around 6 billion since deaths will heavily outnumber births and the birth rates have dropped massively on every continent including africa.

[@ivinolove3960]

Thank you for the video , was so lovely! You know what will be the sad thing> 20 years from now USA and EU will start taking all those young people from Africa to migrate in Europe ... After we stole their goods, diamonds, oil etc... in 20 years these continents will start stealing their youth((

[@readingintrees]

Thank you! I agree completely. The North is built on imperialism. And to make matters worse, economically and also now with climate change, the sins of the North are ever visited upon the South. :(

[@biosecurePM]

Yes, nearly 1 billion humans left the Earth since 2020.

[@scipioafricanus5871]

Cite your sources for this extraordinary claim.

[@martinwallace5734]

According to "Our World in Data", about 61 million people died in 2023, so if we take the years 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 we would have about 244 million deaths - presuming that this is what you mean by "left the Earth". (Is there any other way ???😅

[@biosecurePM]

@@martinwallace5734 See, even the official data is pretty close, but the official data is manipulated by the mind-hijacked humans under the control of the synthetic nano-parasites (SNP/NanoSinp) that were dropped onto the Earth by Oumuamua.

[@biosecurePM]

@@martinwallace5734 Yes, the official data is already pretty close, but the official data is manipulated by the mind-hijacked humans who are controlled by the synthetic nano-parasites (SNP/NanoSinp) that came from Oumuamua.

[@johnkelly7757]

The problem is that a third of the Earth's population isgowi

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

I look at what KZbin is shoving at me on the sidebar, after bringing up this video, and I'm having a god-help-us-all moment.

[@EconGun]

What is it shoving at you? I'm asking because it's different for each user.

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

​@@EconGun I think you could guess, but just so you don't have to work your imagination too hard, it included a whole bunch of sensationalistic foppery about population collapse, why people aren't having kids, various other bits of crap along those lines.

[@American_Moon_at_Odysee_com]

I live by the sea. Ocean waves rise and fall, rise and fall. For billions of years. KZbin is only here a few years. Life is good.

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

@@American_Moon_at_Odysee_com Enjoy each good moment while you have it. That's one side of the cookie. The other side is to have purpose, other than just sitting around waiting to die, watching the waves come and go. You need multiple perspectives, not just one. So enjoy those waves while they last. Maybe another billion years, at best, by Nature's rhythms. Every year, the Sun gets a little brighter, eating away at the conditions we now enjoy. Chomp, chomp.

[@lokitus]

This is pretty good content. Curious to hear more of your analysis.

[@readingintrees]

*Encouraged*

[@TerrifyingWorld]

The upsides absolutely outweigh the downsides. This is good news.

[@WilliamSantos-cv8rr]

how come?

[@ongwehias7580]

japan is more atheist and more urban than any part of europe. just looked it up. vietnam ranks higher too. im posting this in reply to the statement that europe is the most urban and most secular area of the world. its not.

[@readingintrees]

Thanks! It looks like you're correct that Europe is not the most urbanised continent; it's only the 3rd most. But I'm seeing contradictory data for the most secular country. Gallup is telling me Sweden is the most secular. More recent data from Pew research is saying Thailand and Vietnam for the highest % of nonreligious people, but Hong Kong for the highest % of atheists. I think it's important to remember that secular doesn't necessarily relate to personal beliefs, and although they are related, a state can be constitutionally and politically very secular, even though its pop. might be highly multidenominational (in fact, it would prob be in the government's best interests to be secular in such a case).

[@txdmsk]

Non-religious commie countries are religious alright, just not theistic. They believe in the divine power and lies of communism. I would hate to call them secular.

[@T61APL89]

Good review, I've nothing to add but have you read "Slouching Towards Utopia" by Bradford DeLong?

[@readingintrees]

I have not, and that's a failing on my part as I have heard good things about it. Am I to take your comment as a recommendation, or were you going to say more?

[@readingintrees]

And thank you for complimenting the review, btw! :)

[@ameliamccombs4313]

It kinda sounds like you were taking the Paul Ehrlich stance early on in this. Paul Ehrlich was wrong, really wrong. He didn't account for innovation. Our future could be incredible if AI was put to wise uses that benefited all the working class, if we make advances and invest in nuclear power and have near limitless clean energy without killing birds, bats, cutting off fish migration or taking up huge ammounts of land. Our enemy is greed and corruption. And I think a declining population should be scary, if it leads to a halt in innovation then we will slide backwards. Millennials should be especially worried since they will be the largest population of elderly, with a significantly diminished population of workers. Since the review got into feminism, some forms of feminism would argue for the freedom to raise children. Regardless of religiosity, to many people having children is the most fulfilling thing in their life. In biology we define success as passing on ones genetics. It could be construed as our most important function. Today many fill that gap in their lives with a dog they treat as a human child, or a mess of cats. I agree that we should be equal, and women should have the right to work, but why do they all want to? When did success become having a career and making some company a lot of money, having a nice car, or taking some vacations. In reality we don't even get the material benefits that were promised for giving up the ability to have a primary care taker in the home. Past generations had more house, cheaper cars, cheaper travel, vacation cabins. We just sacrificed family for work, apartments, and cats.

[@readingintrees]

Hi. Thanks for the interesting comment. I think there are a number of misunderstandings about my take in it though. I haven't read any of Paul Ehrlich's stuff, nor much about him and his ideas, but from the little I know, I don't think I took a stance like his. After all, I was arguing against an approach that attributes too much to population size while ignoring other important factors involved in environmental destruction. It's also important for me to emphasise that I'm in no way for taking away reproductive freedoms. But I also demur to use justifications based on biology and concepts of evolutionary success. We're subject to biological drives, but we're not encumbered by them such that they need to play any part in the decisions we make for our own lives. We're a much more cerebral animal than that. We can see where evolutionary fact departs from life imperative. And, we can enjoy the natural phenomenon of parenthood without endowing it with extra importance based on abstract ideas about genetic success or our biological functions. I can totally get on board with your last point. A big reason behind the falling fertility rate is the difficulty in having a family for many people these days. Our societies are not constructed with family in mind. The child is not at the centre of our concept of society, but at the periphery. I mention the turn towards individualism in the video, but I didn't go deeply into the economic reasons involved. Since you recommended Apocalypse Never, I'm guessing you'll not like the reason I think we're finding ourselves in this mess (of cats 🤭), but, in my opinion, it largely comes down to neoliberal capitalism, which is not compatible with a healthy family life.

[@readingintrees]

Oh! I forgot to respond to the point you made about innovation and AI. Yes, I think a declining population is a threat to innovation, but a more heterogeneous society is also conducive to innovation. So, if what the authors advocate, more diverse societies through immigration, can be achieved effectively, perhaps that symptom of a diminishing population can be somewhat offset. AI is a bit of a wildcard, isn't it? Its potential is huge, but neither necessarily positive or negative. Just like the splitting of the atom. AI could be critical in developing a stable, sustainable, and positive future for our still-growing population; making it possible for more of us to live on this planet without utterly devastating it. But it's equally true that it could be the lifesaving ingredient in managing swiftly declining and ageing populations by filling the vacuum left by a whole generation of young workers that are never born. So that we can transition in a managed way to a smaller global population. There is definitely a role for robots in a world where the majority of humans choose not to have babies anymore.

[@ameliamccombs4313]

I'm sorry if I misconstrued your introduction to have the environmental doom and gloom of the population bomb. In some ways the modern more populated country is more environmentally sound than low population early America, and certainly third world countries. It is people with time and freedom that do endangered species act and NEPA consultations that keep growth from harming threatened and endangered species. Early 1900's created dams and stopped fish passage, we remove dams and restore rivers. Early America created the dust bowl, we practice complex land management. My point about biological success wasn't that we are primal, it was that every living thing on earth strives to that goal. It is innately tied to our happiness. And with that point is that modern philosophy pushes materialism. Success is measured in things you can buy, not in family and friends. I'm arguing that the successful person dies surrounded by children and grandchildren, not dies alone in a New York apartment and has their face eaten by their cats before the neighbor notices the stink. And you might be surprised at my views on Neo Liberal Capitalism. I don't think capitalism can operate unfettered and our modern predicament brought about by quantitative easing and a federal reserve that was beholden to the stock market is proof of that. I believe things like healthcare and shelter should at least have constitutional considerations as they fall under the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I no more believe a private entity should be able to monopolize shelter and create a feudal system than I believe Jeff Bezos should be able to monopolize the fresh water supply and sell us the right to drink or bathe. @@readingintrees

[@ameliamccombs4313]

The only way I see AI as a wildcard is in relation to who benefits from it. Our society could produce the same or more than it does now with significantly less work. That could mean increased freedom for society as a whole, and a means of producing more for a growing population, or yes, caring for an aging population. Or it could be monopolized by, yes, neo capitalism, benefit the few and grow the wealth divide, further driving us into a modern feudal system. I disagree that a heterogeneous population has anything to do with innovation. People are relatively the same worldwide. Innovation comes from how free a culture or society is. In some ways the free aspect relates to general affluence as well, if someone has to work 18 hours a day for the necessities, then they are not spending time following their curiosities. We foster innovation when we allow free thought, we allow ideas to be challenged and we allow the time to ponder. @@readingintrees

[@readingintrees]

@@ameliamccombs4313While it's true that wealthy countries have environmental policy where many developing countries do not, it is to focus on a good that is dwarfed by the bad. The average person in a developed country has a carbon footprint that is 30 times larger than the average person in a developing country. People have a clever way of using money and bureaucracy to put a veneer on our net impact. To distract from the larger picture. That’s the thing about these sorts of tricky, entangled issues. You can orient the issue to point whatever facet you want out toward the public. I can see that your core values basically align with my own on matters such as the way our culture has become so individualistic,not conducive to human flourishing, and on certain inalienable human rights. But we depart from each other politically. I think I am more cynical of capitalism's ability to build a society that optimises for human (and the wider ecology we are part of) wellbeing.

[@maemorri]

One point that seems glossed over is the decline of war in the 19th and 20th centuries. World War 2 was a huge mortality event, but after the world wars, the advanced countries have essentially purged war from their cultures (although still imposing it on others). This is another unprecedented change in human demographics, and coincides with the massive increase in population. Likewise people talk about change in fertility as driving population change, but mortality and war may affect population much more than they are considering. While war may be unpredictable, at least we should consider what it has meant in the past, and what the demographic causes and effects may be.

[@allthenewsordeath5772]

Russia has entered the chat.

[@maemorri]

@@allthenewsordeath5772 That's why the Russian invasion was such a shock. Unprecedented since WW2.

[@txdmsk]

@@allthenewsordeath5772 It's not just russia. The US is driving a lot of the conflcts around the world. The middle east is basically one giant zombie horde ready to eat the planet. China has smol pee pee and wants to compensate for it. And so on. There are a lot of powderkegs ready to explode everywhere. And there are also a lot of cold wars. The invasion of Europe has been ongoing for decades. The invasion of the US has been ongoing for over half a century. The current drug crisis in the US is also not an accident. The vast majority of fent/nyl, for example, comes from China. And so on.

[@martinwallace5734]

So Canada welcomes 1% of its population as immigratnts, and this is held up as a shining example of being a welcoming society. Australia has a population of 26 million, and last year welcomed 765,900 entrants from overseas, while 217,100 departed (often students returning home.) So that is a nett gain of 548,800 or 2.11% of population. Move over, Canada! (By the way, despite some much-publicised incidents and tensions, Australia has been overwhelmingly successful in developing a peaceful, tolerant, democratic society.)

[@readingintrees]

Thank you for drawing our attention to that fact.

[@WilliamSantos-cv8rr]

As an immigrant in Australia myself I have to disagree. Even Australia being the only one country with enough suitable land for development they are doing worse year to year.

[@martinwallace5734]

@@WilliamSantos-cv8rr Disagree with what ? I just quoted the stats, the figures. Australia has double the % of immigrants that Canada has, at least in recent years. Or do you disagree that we are a peaceful, tolerant society ? In that case, compare our crime stats with other, more homogenous societies around the world. I am not saying we are perfect, but we don't come up too badly... Not too badly at all.

[@rey_nemaattori]

You have to reckon that in terms of people per sqkm, both Australia and Canada are sparsely populated from European standpoint. Adding 1% a year would amount to over 7 million people, per year. Thats an insane number to house, you can simply not build that fast..even if you had the space.

[@martinwallace5734]

@@rey_nemaattori No, people / sq. km is a nonsensical measure, because different types of land can support vastly different densities of people. Most of Australia is desert.

[@Kira-ji5pr]

Ok . Educated women end up being career oriented. Career oriented woman tend to have less children or no children ✌️ I think as a society we should protect women & Children. But make sure both man & women become family oriented

[@readingintrees]

Certainly, our capitalist societies are encouraging an increasingly bleak view of family life. Starting a family should be a personal choice, and we could design societies that better support (and recognise the value of) families.

[@richardwatkins6725]

what a great review and thought provoking video. Thankyou

[@readingintrees]

Thank you for watching @richardwatkins6725

[@TheRealNCYank]

Your caricature of the US right is incorrect. Most Americans are fine with LEGAL immigration. It’s the illegal kind we are against.

[@readingintrees]

Did I say otherwise about America, specifically? If i did, that was unintended. I recall mentioning that most Americans understand that the US was built by immigrants, and by that, I meant to convey a general acknowledgement of the importance of immigrants in the US. I certainly don't believe most Americans have a problem with immigrants. Most of them either are immigrants themselves or are descended from immigrants!

[@allthenewsordeath5772]

@@readingintrees The other thing to keep in mind is the process of the melting pot in America, we have periods of mass migration, coupled with periods of isolationism, for instance in the 1920s quota laws were put in place to limit the number of immigrants coming into the country, and those mostly stayed intact until the reforms of the 1970s, ever since our immigration policy has been very liberal including mass amnesties under Ronald Reagan and George W Bush, but as recent orange men demonstrate that attitude has soured and we are likely to move back to a more restrictive system for another 40 or 50 years to digest the proverbial meal.

[@readingintrees]

@@allthenewsordeath5772 Golly, I hope that's not where the US is headed!

[@allthenewsordeath5772]

@@readingintrees Well, I don’t think whatever reforms happen will be along racial lines, more just tightening the border and handing out fewer visas. It’s not a good or bad thing in and of itself. It’s just an acknowledgment of the fact that a nation can’t perpetually import ever more numbers of immigrants forever .

[@noway8259]

Wasn't the carbon footprint a concept devised by oil companies in order to avoid taking responsibility for their actions though?

[@readingintrees]

Hey. Thanks for the comment. Oil companies popularised it. They are high-level villainous. Despite that, the carbon footprint happens to be a very useful metric for tracking responsibility for emissions, whether it'sthe individual, or (more likely) the nation, the industry, the company, or the big investor. It's not a matter of either/or. People also use this story about the oil companies inventing "carbon footprint" to absolve themselves of meaningful action. I say, no absolution for any of us who arent doing all we reasonably can! Everything, everywhere, all at once. People's choices and actions are what will carry us through a just transition if anything does. We, collectively, provide the social license to the fossil industry. We are their lifeblood. I don't think ordinary individuals can be blamed for the climate crisis, but accumulatively, through social contagion, our collective power, individual choices do matter. Because of that, our individual carbon footprint has moral significance.

[@noway8259]

@@readingintrees Thank you for the thoughtful response.

[@erinaltstadt4234]

The freeing of up of space can not come soon enough

[@Tubeman777]

why? are you taking up a lot of room?🐖🐷

[@StressRUs]

We now number 3,000 times more than were our ancestral ecologically balanced self-sustaining Hunter-Gatherer clan/band members. Those clans/bands never numbered more than 150 (the Dunbar number) as that would be unsustainable for H-Gs. We are indeed in an overshoot, unsustainable condition presently and consuming non-renewable natural resources toward a population collapse. We are, also, careening down the blind cul d sac of climate collapse from our dependence on fossil fuel burning for our unsustainable lifeways. Most ecologists estimate that the planet cannot long support a human population of more than 500M, or 1/16th of our current numbers. There is a wealth of scientific evidence and well researched books laying all o0f this out in detail, irrespective of the unfounded wishful thinking of most of the commenters here.

[@allthenewsordeath5772]

Wow, it’s amazing to find people with worse predictions than Thomas Malthus in the 21st century, our Hunter gathering ancestors weren’t ecologically friendly either there’s a reason why all of the mega Fana on every continent except for Africa got wiped out. But you actually demonstrate why the human population will recover and start growing again in a century or two, namely, eventually religious people who have more children will simply out breed secularists, or people who are in a environmentalist death cult.

[@readingintrees]

Would you mind recommending a good gateway read for someone interested in the evidence for the claim that the Earth's carrying capacity is limited to 500 million? (I presume this encompasses all possible models of civilisation?) Cheers!

[@StressRUs]

@@readingintrees Sorry, search as I try, I cannot find a definitive reference with the 500M number. But the vast majority of ecologists have concluded that we are already way beyond our "carrying capacity" and well into a state of "overshoot". Best wishes, Gregg.

[@readingintrees]

I can agree with that much @StressRUs. But as I mention in the video, HOW humans live is a highly complex variable - the potential scope for change surpasses our imagination. Innovating new civilisations could revolutionise how we think about carrying capacity and linear relationships between population and environmental degradation.... However, as I say in the video, I don't really have the faith in humanity to make the required rapid and radical changes we need to see to think we have a chance in hell to preserve the biosphere we know at our current numbers.

[@__-tz6xx]

Hydrogel condoms!

[@johnkelly7757]

Is growing very rapidly(5--10 children per woman) another third is either shrinking( over 800,000 decline in a single year). While the remaining third is transitioning from growing to shrinking. And in N. America and Europe unless the authorities move stridently against it will fill up rapidly with immigrants. It's almost as if the species intends to make its final stand on N. America and Europe.

[@sla8tful]

Basic Economics disproves most of the modern environmental agenda presented in this video. Im not saying there should be no supervision on pollution or overconsumption. However, high demand and low supply brings prices up which induces better resource management and alternative sources for supply. More people provide more capital to create both the pressure to economize as well as technology that is required to do so. This is not even going into age brackets and the problem with old people, taxes, labor etc. as well as the increased popularity of sustainable consumption within higher income countries and marginal improvements to quality of life thanks to technology in poorer countries.

[@readingintrees]

Thanks for your comment. I have a few questions for you? Maybe you have the time to answer them. I'm really not an expert in economics, so please bear with me. I've read your comment to imply that better resource management can be accomplished through the market mechanism. First of all, if you have a situation where there is a rapidly diminishing supply of some essential good, do correspondingly soaring prices not simply price out the poor? I can see the wealthier stockpiling resources (like they are doing with land, for example), which makes good sense from a selfish perspective, but hardly leads to better resource management. From where do the very rich feel the pressure to economise in a way that benefits the whole? How would better resource management come about and avoid the aforementioned problem?

[@kitwanaabraham560]

One important aspect of the projected population decline, which is often ignored by commentators, unlike fertility and birth rates, is the drastic decline in testosterone levels in men and consequently sperm count over the last 70 years. The most recent expert estimates are that sperm count among men globally has declined by 50% over the last 50 years and quite alarmingly is currently declining at an accelerated rate of 2.5% per year and increasing. Perhaps you could review the book by Shanna Swann, Countdown: How our Modern World is Threatening Sperm Count, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race.

[@readingintrees]

Interestingly, you're not the first commenter to tip us off to this problem, so I will be looking into it. Thanks.

[@kitwanaabraham560]

@@readingintrees Wonderful. I look forward to your analysis.

[@user-cu7uz5le3h]

The USA has a huge amount of immigrants. No one comes any where near close. Most countries is like 3.5. The US has like over 15%.

[@martinwallace5734]

This is just not true. For example, 30% of the Australian population are immigrants. What is true is that in terms of raw numbers (not % of population) USA has the highest number of immigrants. If you go by %, and exclude very small countries like Singapore (43%) and Kuwait (73%), USA comes after countries like Germany (18%) Canada (21%) Switzerland (28%) Belgium (17%) Sweden (20%) New Zealand (28%). (Figures from World Population Review, rounded to nearest whole %.)

[@allthenewsordeath5772]

@@martinwallace5734 Where those immigrants come from? Is also of great importance, Switzerland for instance mostly lets in other wealthy Europeans with compatible cultures, Germany on the other hand has had a lot of difficulty trying to integrate its Turkish population who have been there for 50 or 60 years, never mind the economic migrants from the third world that have been showing up as of late. Looking at America , it is defined by periods of massive immigration separated by 40 or 50 years of relative isolationism so that they can digest those immigrants into the melting pot. Further more immigration is at best a temporary Band-Aid on the problem, even if it didn’t result in pirating other nations best and brightest, when everywhere has flat or negative population growth and a nation can’t sustain itself, at some point you need to address the underlying issues as to why people don’t want to be parents.

[@WilliamSantos-cv8rr]

Nice review, with a lot of thougths over the issue. I just found it a bit over rated on politics. Anyway there is something I completely disagree at 29:30. The UN did not make any good prediction related to demographics. Absolutely none. Every single census coming up in the last 15 years had huge gaps to what the UN has estimated. In my country, Brazil, they estimated the population to be around 215 million by 2022, but it came out only 203 million, and that was a prediction of 12 years, since 2010, last census, had reached 192 million inhabitants in Brazil.

[@readingintrees]

Thanks for the comment and bringing my attention to Brazil's case, William. In my video, I wasn't precise enough in how I presented the matter of the UN's track record for accuracy. For short- and mid-term projections for the *global population*, it appears to me that the UN has been pretty accurate. Their projections have varied from the reality by 1 or 2% and often less than 1%. However - and this is why I'm glad you point this out in your comment - they haven't been able to boast that sort of accuracy when it comes to regional projections, and the accuracy of their global projections are partly accounted for by the fact that regional overestimates have cancelled out underestimates in other regions. But considering that estimates for our current global population deviate from each other by as much as 1%, projections for 20 years into the future that are off by 1% seem reasonably accurate to me.

[@WilliamSantos-cv8rr]

@@readingintrees I am really not sure about they being off by 2%. Also, I haven't read the book so I can not tell in what basis they criticized the UN projections. But I am a history and geography passionate, even been member of my city History and Geography club for few years, and we followed many of UN projections and exactly none of them were accurate regarding population growth. It is not exactly their fault since they work with data given by states around the world, and there are so many reasons to get these numbers inflated by all levels of government that it gets really more accurate projections through other institutions running projections through other means. And of course some states get sort of accurate number when they run census time to time. So said that I would say that probably the authors had plenty of data backing their critics to the UN projections. Not to mention that the UN itself has some pretty clear reasons to inflate numbers of populations around the poorest countries in order to get more capital. Anyway, this is kind of complicated subject since it is linked to local governments and every mess of the today political world view. If you want to get a bit more insights I may try to give some idea why these models are so flawed and why other institutions are reliable regarding Demographics.

[@readingintrees]

@WilliamSantos-cv8rr if you would like to direct me to information that could enlighten me on this issue, I certainly would appreciate your insight. Anything that gives a clearer picture of the future is interesting to me. :)

[@WilliamSantos-cv8rr]

@@readingintrees That is Fantastic. I will gladly share what I have got know so far. And to give a small disclaimer, I am not trying to lecturer you or anyone else, I think your review of how the content of the book relates to our society is better than most I have seen so far. What I have seen mostly in the internet is political blinding hysteria propaganda and that really is common take on the issue, even in books. Thus I think you just need few insights to have a sharper description. Said that, I will write 3 comments describing a better picture of the actual situation. 1. Fertility rate x birth rate x replacement rate. 2. Problems with projections and estimating populations. 3. Global over view.

[@WilliamSantos-cv8rr]

@@readingintrees Getting from what is mostly wide spread on the media, the 2.1 replacement rate where they measure as being the replacement rate is just a super over simplification that does not meet the needs of vast majority of countries regarding ''organic replacement rates''. My colleagues at our city History and Geography club run multiple models for Brazil and few other countries (the ones with reliable information available) and none of them get replacement rates with 2.1 child per woman. For Brazil, a really violent country with significant poor infrastructure and plagued by seasonal epidemics, we got ~2.34 child per woman. For Canada, a well developed country but with big social issues fueling a high deaths by despair rate among the youth, we got ~2.16. There are two main issues with the 2.1 cpw rate. The first one is that what they say is that rate is enough to make survival rate until the reproductive age of females. That rate possibly does that for some of the developed countries. But that does not assure the enough females will reproduce another equal sized generation. For that we need a to assure enough women survive to the age they bear children. What is now over 30 years old for most of the developed and developing countries. The second issue is that is absurd to take the fertility rate to use as metric for all countries, or even any country due to composition of the demographics changes. There are precipitous differences in female composition around the world. Most of Asia and Muslim world practices sex selective abortions to some extent, and some tend to neglect girls over boys resulting in higher mortality rate among females as well. Making it impossible to achieve replacement by those rates. So a more solid metric would be the birth rate that is measure of births per 1000 people. Following this metric the with the average life spam we can point to a more reliable and stable replacement rate. That number is usually between 17x1000 to 21x1000 for developing and developed countries. For undeveloped countries it is really hard to point a number since there are not enough reliable data to back any precise research. But it is definitely over that number, with some countries needing 35x1000 or more.

[@American_Moon_at_Odysee_com]

Thank you.

[@venlafaxinedomperidone8377]

We need less people rather than more

[@NewsTime254]

Subscribe ✔️

[@RoccosVideos]

Interesting discussion. A smaller population might not be good for economic reasons but it's great for the planet.

[@rev.olution583]

Not down to Humanity It is down to Capitalism

[@gongboom]

The future looks Nigerian and Muslim.

[@noway8259]

Based on which study?

[@readingintrees]

I'm personally less certain about that. If we keep on current emissions trends, that may only be true insofar as Nigerian and Muslims evacuate the Global South and settle closer to the poles. Already, Nigeria's per capita GDP has lagged by 29 per cent as a consequence of global heating. news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2019/04/22/climate-change-wnomic-inequality/ They are a country that will experience some of the worst effects of climate change.

[@Marty4650]

We have been brainwashed for decades to think "the problem is overpopulation." And this makes sense when you consider that resources are limited and an ever growing population means that someday you will hit the wall and then society will collapse.... due to "too many people and too few resources." But there are two problems with this: 1. Most developed nations keep expanding their social safety networks, with government providing more and more benefits. This means you NEED an expanding taxpayer base, with more taxpayers than people needing benefits. So depopulation, due to falling birthrates, creates a REAL problem when old people live longer and young people have fewer children. 2. The overpopulation theory completely ignores technology. As technology advances the planet can support a larger population. One hundred years ago there were only 2 billion people on the planet, and the global extreme poverty rate was around 75%. Today the population is four times higher at 8 billion, and the global extreme poverty rate is around 8%. Advances in agricultural technology have resulted in FEWER people living in extreme poverty despite the quadrupling of global population. You are absolutely right about all the different factors involved in any of these projections, including "human behavior patterns." Women having fewer children is an important factor, but so are things like climate change, GMO food production, and fuel and metal consumption. Personally, I feel like Darwin was right. We will adapt or die to changing conditions. My guess is that we will find a way to adapt.

[@readingintrees]

I agree. I believe our species WILL adapt. I feel fairly certain that Humans will survive this. But I think there will be vast, irretrievable losses. Loss of human life, loss of land and habitat, loss of species, loss of culture, language, and knowledge, as islands disappear, people are forced to migrate away from land too degraded or desertified or otherwise transformed by the new climate to go on living in, and as some governments fail to reproduce the conditions for their pwn existence, or become superfluous. The adaptation will not be evenly spread out. It won't be equitable. Another thing I'm uncertain of is that our technologically advanced global civilisation will survive in a recognisable form. But while I think these things, I still have hope that we can do better.

[@Marty4650]

@@readingintrees Well, if human history means anything, then we WILL adapt. We have survived ice ages, continental drift, plagues much worse than COVID, and climate changes that were much greater than anything happening today. We always found a way to survive, even before we had any modern technology. But as you said, in each case we took huge losses, and had dramatic changes to our habits and cultures,. We survived because a few people survived and repopulated the planet. The ones who were able to adapt, migrate, or learn new skills. And the same thing might happen again.

[@elis7283]

What a stupid take on motherhood😮

[@user-cu7uz5le3h]

Religious people are happy throughout life. Science is no match for magic.

[@readingintrees]

I suppose it's a safety net against the pitfalls of nihilism (not universal among atheists) and the constant knowledge that you will, one day soon, succumb to oblivion, like everything else that ever lived.

[@readingintrees]

Also, religion can provide other social goods that there aren't always substitutes for in nonreligious populations.

[@user-cu7uz5le3h]

@@readingintrees we are not scientists and can live in a time or place. Sure It’s nice to brew coffee and live a bit longer but we are better with magic and what it makes us think.

[@readingintrees]

Hmm, I think I'll have to agree to differ on this one. I'd much rather never go back to believing in a religion. There's enough awe (call it magic if you like) in the universe for me without religion.

[@Gettothegone]

Any idea can become authoritarian.

[@closer02001]

Yeah, any model hitched to capitalism is is a non-starter.

[@garyfrancis6193]

Get to your point.

[@rohj4825]

We need protection of all humans life from moment of conception.

[@noway8259]

Why?

[@carolineleiden]

This haircut is the worst you could do to the shape of your face. Get a good hairdresser. You won't believe your eyes when she is finished.

[@readingintrees]

Thanks for the style advice.

[@richa1147]

i thought she looked quite nice :)

[@readingintrees]

I find bangs tend to be polarising. 🤭

[@shanecle]

@@readingintrees I think your hair looks fine. It kind of suits your studious personality.

[@ameliamccombs4313]

You look fine, there is nothing wrong with your hair.