The Man Who Wants Us Dead

[@Vsauce2]

Subscribe to the Foundation for Economic Education: bit.ly/feeyt

[@guy-]

Feet?

[@adamferguson5468]

Next stop, Prager U gravy train?

[@planecrashcorner7283]

@adamferguson5468 I wouldn't be surprised if Ben Shapiro funds the next video

[@dothedrew93]

I’ll pass.

[@travelsizedlions]

Already did! Their stuff is great

[@THEScottCampbell]

I read "The Population Bomb" as a child. I've learned a lot since then, and not from that book. You learn more about the psychology of Paul Ehrlich from that book than about anything else. China took Ehrlich's advice and their country is collapsing on itself. People aren't butterflies.

[@rd264]

the book is correct re overpopulation, its the root cause of the dysfunctional and sad state of the World today.

[@joshmiller9783]

They definitely didnt take his advice they had their own population boom they couldnt support.....

[@metalmike570]

You don't think the USA is collapsing. I got news for you.

[@drihab-h6g]

and communism, alot of communism, god thats alot of communism.

[@bubbajones6907]

Ehrlich is basically a feminist sustainability guru.

[@maxs007]

Thank you. This type of journalism is needed. You combined the factual and emotional aspects of this discussion in a beautiful and vibrant way. Thank you for using your finite time to inspire the next generation.

[@mbappe-j3d]

you're a different one brudda

[@Aspect.04]

@@mbappe-j3d brudda dog, da dog wit da brudda on 'im

[@daMillenialTrucker]

i am inspired to eat more mac n cheese while watching vsauce2

[@dracotoy]

"Im not wrong, its just that every single every person and data point is wrong. Because im peer reviewed" he is DELUSIONAL

[@TheBigChoomah]

1 In 10 are starving today.

[@dracotoy]

@@TheBigChoomah starvation has never been a supply issue, its a logistics and transportation issue. Learn what the actual problems are first

[@TheBigChoomah]

@dracotoy It's cruel to adopt a dog when you have a 0% chance of being able to feed and water it properly is it not.

[@mastpg]

​@@dracotoy...never YET. There is zero evidence to suggest that "yet" shouldn't be included. The problem with dismissing the carrying capacity idea is that all your data is backward looking. Furthermore, there's the legitimate concern that every addition human is a burden the global system. Can we ally technology and efficiency such that we won't also need to engage austerity and mortal sacrifice...? Well, there isn't an answer other than "maybe" or "we can expect a self-correction" or "we don't need to be worried about it yet"....seriously, no definitive statement of nth level optimism can exist. Furthermore, if at any point we decide that another stage of human action is needed, are we sure we won't have already passed the point where the carrying capacity maximization we've already embarked upon won't make that new stage impossible?

[@revmsj]

@@dracotoyit’s also a tyranny problem.

[@LifeAsANoun]

I think there's less and less space for intellectually honest in-depth content about serious subjects. This was really something. Very well done.

[@SuperLifestream]

I was hoping 99942 Apophis was going to hit earth. but it wont :(

[@РомановВладимир-ю9д]

There are less and less intellectual people, we are doomed! 😂

[@Jako1987]

​@@SuperLifestreamIt would be quite a show. But good that it doesn't hit.

[@tieegg]

You watched the Ken Ham vs Bill Nye debate too?

[@Nooticus]

agreed ^ Thank you so much Kevin

[@SidMajors]

I feel like the saying “If the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail” can be said about many people looking at the globe as a whole.

[@Lone432345]

What Ehrlich wanted sounds a lot like eugenics.

[@DrDeuteron]

that's what got Miliken canceled, but if it's for The Planet, you get a pass.

[@cwabster]

Yup. Ecofascism is Nazism masquerading as concern for the environment.

[@IndrasChildDeepAsleep]

This should be the standard for educational videos (and it goes WAY beyond many on this platform). Thank you for doing this for everyone! I've been watching Vsauce and Vsauce2 since I was a kid. Much appreciation.

[@beamshooter]

same here. showed my younger cousin (highschooler now) and he got hooked watching the classics

[@v2ike6udik]

DeepAsleep :D MördörLuciferian fake Mocking other MördörLuciferian. Can you please be honest and tell the lamb they are completely dead.

[@intellectually_lazy]

in'net didn't be when i was a kid

[@intellectually_lazy]

you had to irl walk, up hill both ways, mind you, down to a brick and mortar retailer, what we use to call a "store", and buy our vsauce in a jar ,and try not to drop it on the way home (jars were glass then)

[@IndrasChildDeepAsleep]

@@intellectually_lazy Was the Vsauce in a heavy sugar syrup? Or was it in creamy chonk condition?

[@samthestache8]

Optimism in regards to the state of the world? This is a breath of fresh air. Its been far too long since I've seen or heard anyone talking like this and having good things to say.

[@insederec]

I need it like I need oxygen to breathe. Feels like I'm suffocating on second-hand twitter takes.

[@allanshpeley4284]

@@insederecWhy not just pull the plug? Who needs that garbage?

[@insederec]

@@allanshpeley4284 I don't have social media.

[@alejandropulidorodriguez9723]

​@@insederecgot suspended on twitter, best thing that ever happened to me

[@Dave_of_Mordor]

​@@allanshpeley4284 well you still need to keep up with the state of the world, right?

[@samr.england613]

30:36 How much of that increase in arable land is due to deforestation? To unsustainable and massive irrigation? IMO, Malthus and Ehrlich were wrong only in their timelines. And even if we could support 15 Billion, or even 20 Billion people, what would be the collateral environmental damage and destruction to the biosphere? To all the other animals and plants that we share this, our only living planet, with? And we've heard this argument for decades: "That a Billion more people means more creators and innovators." It also means more Hitlers and Stalins, thieves and murderers, neer-do-wells and bums.

[@jack.h99]

Overpopulation alarmist fans vs human prosperity enjoyers

[@GOD-m5e]

How you comment so fast if the video is an hour long?

[@jack.h99]

@@GOD-m5e Because I had a general idea of where the video was going and what the main point was going to be.

[@GameTimeWhy]

​@@GOD-m5emuch like our protagonist, he saw the writing on the wall.

[@ShatteredKnight]

@@jack.h99 It felt like 5 minutes

[@captainobscurity491]

​@@ShatteredKnightamongus

[@Templarzealot89]

Thank you for making this. Not enough people are making content like this. The world is in desperate need of some hopeium

[@FirstNameLastName-okayyoutube]

I didn't like how the video started because I thought it was going to be nihilist porn.

[@sandyago4735]

​@FirstNameLastName-okayyoutube oh... then make your own. I look fwd to watching

[@emanym]

Not enough for me. I still do not trust nations with high birth rates.

[@Milen983]

It is not hopeiun, simple truth.

[@sanriosonderweg]

@@Milen983 Leaves out dysgenics.

[@trime1015]

Doomsayer: YOU WILL ALL DIE, UNLESS YOU GIVE ME POWER Doomslayer: Not true, here is why.. Doomsayer and crowd: You are EVIL, you want us all to DIE.

[@ulischmidt03]

*BFG Division plays*

[@corticallarvae]

It’s about better education…. Not indoctrination . Great dialectic though.

[@metalmike570]

@@corticallarvae Yeah, let's not elect Biden again.

[@Gernot66]

@@metalmike570 Hä?

[@metalmike570]

@@Gernot66 You're right, he's not really a war monger I guess.

[@Leron...]

I really needed this video. Thank you, non-Balloon Kevin, for all of your hard work in putting this information together and reminding me about our ability to overcome the odds.

[@Cancellator5000]

Yeah, very inspirational. I need to avoid the doom and gloom and focus on what I can do to make the world better more.

[@normalhuman512]

I'd like to thank balloon Kevin, too, for the emotional support he provides

[@voice2skull.]

Don't go popping his 🎈

[@Allanfallan]

I feel like the ideology that leads people to thinking that everything will only get worse is very similar to the ideology that humans couldn't have built something like the pyramids. If enough people come together to work on a problem, there's very little that humans can't overcome.

[@getphuked2]

Disagree, look @ the power man has now. What's the only thing they can think to do with that power? GREED.☹

[@redgreen2453]

I guess the thing holding me back from getting any sense of optimism from that is that it really feels like most of the world’s problems are also _caused_ by people and that we only solve them when our backs are against the wall and we absolutely have to

[@custos3249]

Yeah, but most people are coming together behind capitalism rather than acting in their own biological, fundamental interests.

[@mixstardust429]

Yeah, it's why fascists and neocons are pretty much always conspiracy theorists, Malthusian philosophy is on its face built entirely on lateral thinking, making connections between every possible cause and saying that they're all the same. Problem is, of course, that Malthus is wrong. We aren't hungry, lazy masses seeking to only breed and eat, in fact most of us are very willing to put in work and thought into not only improving the world but sustaining it.

[@mixstardust429]

@@redgreen2453 Yeah, but the people who mainly cause those problems are typically the type of people who are Malthusian and/or Machiavellian, so what we should do is limit that type of thinking because it's exactly what results in it happening. If we look at the 1927 Einstein-Bohr debate (fifth solvay conference), we can see the brightest minds of the early 20th century all gathered together, around half of them are Jewish. If the Malthusian, Machiavellian Hitler would've got the world as he wanted it, most of those scientists would've been killed. It isn't ever a realistic proposition, because it only works for those who have or are seeking power and control, and not for anyone else

[@ninjaslayer0527]

Ngl, idk why I didn’t know what he was hinting at💀 but when I finally heard that “You” at the end, it kind of made me rethink everything and as someone who likes to think of myself as a person who can probably do a little more if I actually put my heart into it, it made me tear up thinking about the callings I never got to answer and how different life would’ve been if maybe I did do what I wanted instead of trying so hard to appease the people around me which is mostly my family. I think I’m done turning my back on the world and would want to start now by doing better for not only me but to potentially my future generations’ home and being🙏 take care everyone and be safe out there

[@kallista5194]

Idealist, which is an organization, so it ends with the abbreviation of the word "organization"

[@Edward-r5h3i]

I didn’t tear up but I did notice I’ve become a bit pessimistic over the last three decades. One thing I learned from this video, I’ve been concentrating on all the negative things happening and not enough on how to change it for the better. My mother tried to convey positive theory’s to me early on and I laughed at her. I’m not laughing now but I sure feel more optimistic for the future. 😉

[@XXXoXXoXXXX]

That's funny. I cried there too.

[@epicfilmer2474]

Hey, loved the video, just one small issue near the end. Chinas current extreme poverty rate is absolutely not below 1%. Maybe in CCP reported figures that’s true, but outside of any major city center the vast majority of people are in that extreme poverty window. The China Show does a great job in showing off the reality of China as former residents of the country, and I highly recommend giving them a watch. :)

[@Donaithnen]

Two things which need to be emphasized but are often glossed over when talking about Simon's philosophy. 1: In order for more people to fix more problems those problems need to be identified. Ehrlich was correct in identifying potential problems, it was only his prognosis that was incorrect. While he was shouting that everyone was doomed other people were actually solving the problems he identified. There's nothing wrong with identifying problems and publicizing them even if (or especially if!) those problems are then solved and the potentially dire consequences never come about. We couldn't have fixed (for example) the Y2K bug or the Ozone hole if people hadn't identified and talked about those problems first. 2: More people can solve more problems _if_ they're educated and not trapped in poverty. One of our first goals as a species should be to eliminate poverty and guarantee education for everyone. Even if world birth rates continue to go down (as currently projected) a future population of 4 billion people who are all well educated and self-sufficient will be able to accomplish far more than our current population of 8 billion people living under a system of rampant and widespread inequality.

[@andrasbiro3007]

The problem with that is Malthusians want less people and more poverty to preserve resources. That's on of the fundamental flaw of their thinking. The other big one is the assumption that resources are finite. In reality we are just very inefficient with some, which can be fixed with better technologies. For example if Africans would have access to the same technologies and machines that American farmers use, nobody would starve, they would be struggling with obesity too. And that's still super primitive compared to what's already possible at lab scale.

[@ComotoseOnAnime]

@@TheLevifrancisco You could even say it's a "Problem that's been identified and in need of correction." lmao. Because overinflated importance is just as deadly as enforced ignorance. Overabundant emissions could have been solved ages ago if we went full bore into nuclear power instead of "renewables" that are hardly renewable considering all the resources that go into making wind turbines and solar panels that don't even have a long term plan on how to recycle those resources. Meanwhile we have places like France that run almost entirely on nuclear power and doing great meanwhile Germany going full bore into renewables and suffering for it. Yes pointing out problems for people to solve is important but make sure they're actually problems in the first place. Take for instance the "Homelessness problem." in the US isn't a homelessness problem, it's a drug and mental illness problem, homelessness is just a side effect and you can't fix the drug and mental illness problem by giving people houses or even the opportunity to buy houses. Not to mention California and New York Alone contribute to over 40% of the united states homeless population (600k for a population of 340 million btw), so one could argue that the US doesn't have a homeless problem when two states with 1/6th the country's population is contributing to nearly half it's homeless population.

[@odinata]

Our first goal should be to grow at a sustainable level. 4 people can live in your house in relative comfort. 4000 in your house and tell me how "rich" everybody is.

[@odinata]

The real problem is that the RICH want more people and more poverty, because only poor people work. Rich people aren't going to mow your lawn, clean your house, make yoiur food, pack your meat, or farm yoiur fields. Thats why the rich LOVE poverty , immigration, and the hig fertility and squalid living conditions that the masses are forced to endure. Its the new slavery.@@andrasbiro3007

[@odinata]

How about 8?@@TheLevifrancisco

[@2drx4]

I'm glad you made this one. Alarmism always sells, and often leads to policy that is far worse than what would have happened without centrally planned intervention.

[@Arterexius]

I used to follow the Venus Project, back when Jacque Fresco was still alive and I still use one of his quotes whenever I hear the doomsday folks ring their bells. "If you think we cannot change the world, it just means you're not one of those who will"

[@FernandoFonseca1]

Oh man, thank you so much for this. In the world of 5 minute attention span, you got me hooked to the entire video and enlighten me to think beyond the evident bad news presented to us. Thank you for this from the frontal top of my brain.

[@williamwakefield1017]

Unbelievably fantastic video. Some of my absolute favorite and most resonating messages and stories are the ones that have come from here on Vsauce2.

[@seoulbrotherno1]

This is a great companion video to "The Man Killed for Saving the World." The story of Ignaz Semmelweis can make you feel like there is no hope for humanity -especially when it is paired with Planck's observation that "science moves forward one funeral at a time." Thanks for pulling me back from the brink!

[@ChillinWithTheCapuchins]

Today was the first time I noticed the click sound at each transition in the video. And it's not even always the same audio clip. What awesome details in the editing!

[@CPU9incarnate]

The issue with betting on innovation to improve production indefinitely is that biology and chemistry have limits, and you can't engineer past the laws of physics. That's not to say that we should start mass sterilizations, but it's short sighted to suggest that we can handle any amount of growth into the future. I also take umbrage with the suggestion that innovation within a population must be proportional to the size of that population. Being frank, most of the greatest innovations both in the past and in contemporary times were not made by the largest populations, and throwing more bodies into the pile with no consideration for the effects that this might have on the willingness or ability of people to invest their time and resources into innovation is at best misguided, and more likely, a transparent attempt to justify importing millions of scab laborers to keep wages down.

[@eosfuto]

Amazing story and lesson. It is unbelievable how can you produce better and better videos every single time.

[@Trahloc]

It was so good to see Hans Rosling get recognized in this. The world lost a great man when he left us.

[@andy-the-gardener]

one down, 8 billion to go. oops no, its nearly 9 billion now lol

[@kimitohanahala8674]

​@@andy-the-gardenerhere hoping to see the 69 billion

[@TheDunestyler]

@@kimitohanahala8674 let's go to space... also: ya better do your part! breed af.

[@Tore_Lund]

@@andy-the-gardener Except Rosling was wrong. He was only concerned about what current wheat production was capable of feeding. He was not concerned about what the planet can sustain.

[@andy-the-gardener]

@@Tore_Lund roslin certainly was wrong. big time.

[@shaunh1725]

“Adding more people causes problems. But people are also the means to solve these problems.” It seems that Ehrlich understood the first part, but Simon understood both the first and second part of that quote.

[@danpaz9485]

Not if you have the adequate resources to educate, than they may end up not contributing for a society, instead bringing more people without the means for them to solve the problems. Its more of a capitalist problem and to some extent compliance amongst those who dont see the problem with the system and its exploitation under the guise of the market

[@amazinggrapes3045]

The earth does not have infinite carrying capacity

[@TheOriginalDocPsycho]

Thank you for this video. I was doom-scrolling the internet and falling deeper and deeper in to depression and misery. Your video lifted me up and out.

[@EmeraldView]

😂 Time is short. Wage slave and make some KZbinrs "rich" in the final days.

[@kimitohanahala8674]

Wish you the best, man.

[@TheDunestyler]

There was never a reason to be doom-scrolling.

[@stereo-soulsoundsystem5070]

lolol adhd+depression are two buddy

[@bkind2every1now93]

This would mainly be avoided if more of the world understood the demographic transition model. Over time, countries develop economically, socially, and demographically, and their birth rates eventually tank with the development of a more industrialized society. Already in countries like Germany and South Korea, we can see fertility rates fall BELOW replacement rate, so their populations are actually declining. That is eventually where our most updated and unbiased models predict the rest of the world is heading. Hans Rosling, referenced in the video, has an incredible talk somewhere on the internet entitled ‘Don’t Panic’, Jennifer Sciubba has an awesome TED talk called ‘The Truth About Human Population Decline’. Thank you for expressing these ideas in such a clear and compelling way, Kevin!

[@itsOZone]

yeah most scientists think the world population will hit about 10b then cap off, birth rates in some places are already lower than rate of death. across the world the birth rate is already 30% lower than it was 20 years ago. all it takes is for the birth rate to fall below 2 children per woman on average and you have a population decline.

[@PappyGuy]

Its a model predicated on the association between 'development' which is a construct derived from multiple different variates and birthrates. No guarantee that industrialization is the causation given the total lack of control in this observation (good luck funding an experiment to actually test any of this though). Seeing mental and physical health issues are also skyrocketing with these developments I tend towards the hypothesis its a change in food and environment that has led to the declining birth rates and rise in poor health outcomes. Still only a hypothesis though. Basically we have set natural selection to hyperdrive because of the rapid change in environment and food over the last century. Declining birth rates are those being selected against. Its also something I think we could address if we actually took the metabolic epidemic seriously.

[@monad_tcp]

@@PappyGuy "No guarantee that industrialization is the causation " It is the causation as you don't see it on any previous human era. We have the entirety of the human history as control. Its only now that's different.

[@0zyris]

@@PappyGuy A large proportion of children in developed societies are not planned. They are "happy accidents". Our carnal desires used to result in families of six to eight kids. Then we invented birth control and in two or three generations that dropped to around two. Emancipation of women and the desire for modern possessions also pressured towards smaller families, as it was no longer automatic that the ladies would stay at home and cook and reproduce. The blurring of gender lines and the collapse of the "traditional" family also causes fewer families with fewer children. Developed countries adjust this situation by attracting migration from underdeveloped countries, either intentionally or not. Those from underdeveloped countries tend to have larger families for the opposite of the above reasons. In the UK, for example, the indigenous population (of which I am one) is decreasing while the overall population is increasing.

[@toseltreps1101]

​@@PappyGuylul, you talk about a lack of a control experiment while making perhaps the stupidest of all guesses 😂😂😂 way to expose yourself as cognitively impaired

[@kathrynck]

Only one? I thought there was a whole club, which meets every year in Switzerland.

[@jonathanalexander9881]

You know what's crazy about that? The amount of people who know about the fact that world leaders meet yearly to discuss the direction of our lives and yet we can do nothing about it.

[@kathrynck]

@@jonathanalexander9881 I keep thinking that surely not every world power is thrilled with the WEF... and that Davos might be an unusually dangerous city to live in as a result.

[@metalmike570]

The WEF

[@metalmike570]

@@kathrynck No more dangerous than any other major US city.

[@KMF3]

Exactly

[@Biosquid239]

Its great to see a video like this. Its difficult to articulate to people just how powerful humans are when it comes to finding solutions to problems and progressing. Its just hard to see, and as you said your brain just doesn't want to think about it that way either which makes it even more difficult. More people should be aware of this stuff, its just a nice mindset to be in imo

[@GOD-m5e]

The homeless man you see in the street eats as well as a man from a thousand years ago

[@carsonhunt4642]

Lmao. Sort of hard to achieve, create, or innovate any creative solutions when our society essentially just wants wage slaves to manage the status quo. The amount of talent that goes to waste in America, for many reasons (politics, “need the next check, little opportunity for smart people.) is absolutely sickening. The boomer system of misery loves company is a massive shame, arguably the biggest failure ever of humans. End of the day we prove we are emotional after all, not logical as we wish.

[@GOD-m5e]

@carsonhunt4642 no opportunity for smart people in America? You get any proof for that or just making up something

[@thomascromwell6840]

​@@GOD-m5ethe average man ate every day, had shelter and worked. If he was away from civilisation , he could hunt and fish in lands and waters that are now privately owned or prohibited from use because we have hunted so many land species to extinction.

[@GOD-m5e]

@thomascromwell6840 no seasoning no spices no good fruits or vegetables no charity from others

[@pheresy1367]

Wow! All this was going on in the background while I was growing up. It was never spelled out like this, but I remember school teachers relaying Ehrlich's rap... I remember kids from religious families totally discounting it. I was in 9th grade when our entire class watched a documentary about "the population bomb". I watched The Tonight Show regularly too. This video filled in many of the gaps in my understanding of that time. I graduated HS 1973.

[@jakemelinko]

I remember hearing about it and not believing it

[@Pandaemoni]

I read the Population Bomb in my late teens and I definitely got the impression that the "People people people" Erlich was concerned about were the brown people of the world. I lived in NYC at the time, and we had the same population density as Bangladesh, but he wasn't at all concerned about sterilizing New Yorkers.

[@patientzerobeat]

It wasn't about population _density_ in any particular local area, but about population _growth_. The USA and other "western industrialized"" countries had (and have) very low population growth compared to, say, many African or Asian countries The skin colour was tangental to the demographic. The mere fact of having a crowded apartment, neighbourhood, subway car or even entire city wasn't the entire story. Furthermore, have you ever even been to, say, Manila or Kathmandu or Dhaka? They're WAY more dense than NYC, which is only 25% as dense as the most dense city. NYC isn't even in the top 100 densest cities.

[@Pandaemoni]

@patientzerobeat My impression reading it was that he was clearly disgusted by the "people, people, people, people" he saw in India, not by the mere growth rates of the population around him. He didn't emphasize growth rates in that passage. But he never evinced any such disgust in describing densely populated cities in the western world, which I suppose _could_ have been coincidence.

[@jeronimo196]

Maybe the conditions related to children starving to death - while their parents continue to have more children - had something to do with his disgust. Or he's a disgusting, evil racist. When in doubt, always assume racism, that's what I say.

[@patientzerobeat]

@@Pandaemoni, I think you need to experience a truly high density area of the world, which will make NYC seem like nothing to get all hot and bothered about. There is simply no comparison.

[@Pandaemoni]

@@patientzerobeat It's been a while since I was a teenager, and since then I have been to Bangladesh, Manila, Delhi, and a few other places thought to be very crowded, though I am not sure what places you are thinking of. We have not seen the problems Erlich predicted on the scale he asserted they would manifest. While every place has its challenges to be solved, I have come to think of people as the solution to most problems, not merely as problem-causers whose very existence is to be regretted. I also still believe, obviously, that Erlich's palpable disgust was, in part and perhaps subconsciously, a result of a certain racist sensibility that saw population growth as a real issue, but high non-white population density as a reason for true disgust. Maybe that is not true of the man, but, if so, he really should have edited The Popularion Bomb a little better to remove that implication. At the time I read it, I found it convincing, but a little racist. That then led to me reading other, more recent, studies on the same topic where I learned the book was largely wrong in its dire predictions (at least in the time frames it was predicting those problems). Still, nothing I read changed my opinion that the book would have even more persuasive if the pointedly misanthropic passages were less targeted at non-white populations than they seemed to be. Still, llike the quatrains of Nostradamus, we can read the book to be a prophesy of future disaster even though it was not proven right in its own age, but I think that requires a generous reading of some of the predictions. For example, global warming is a problem, but thus far the greatest cause of that problem has been the western world, not the places that had the highest poplation density. It is possible that will change at some point, but historically the issue has been caused more by the affluence of countries than it has been by their high population growth.

[@TheRenxl]

This was wonderful. It articulates so much that I haven't been sure how to express to others and I thank you for teaching me about history and science, but also for entertaining all of us along the way!

[@AG-jj3lx]

Doomsayers generally never innovate, produce or invent. They only compound the issues.

[@spencerbookman2523]

I agree that optimism is probably the healthier and most morally correct way to think about the world, with a couple of caveats: First, it wasn't happy motivated libertarians {HMLs) that regulated DDT and other harmful chemicals, it was government legislation and treaties; which is at least one step removed. Accordingly, it seems that it's usually the people that are benefiting from the current economic environment the most who want to change it the least, and vice versa. Thus, I would conclude that there is no direct link between HMLs and positive societal or environmental change.

[@MelancoliaI]

Agreed

[@rpgcraftsman520]

That ending for Julian Simon reminds me of the tragic irony of Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh was a man whose art was universally panned in his day, to the point he committed suicide. Nowadays, everyone loves his art, and everyone who knows Don MacLean for more than American Pie knows his story. The only difference I can see is their respective chosen fields.

[@claudealpha2090]

Only one comma separates "Do something, stupid." from "Do something stupid." Loved that

[@istenaldja]

In the last days I watched about ten videos on the overpopulation topic. Every one of them says the same. How Ehrlich was wrong, how unscientific are the doomers, how the Earth can sustain much more people than this, how new technologies will help to increase this number, and if there is any problem, it's just overconsumption and not overpopulation. Another reason for me, a born optimist and believer in development, to see the situation as increasingly hopeless. Man's blindly selfish, all-consuming expansion is unstoppable. One species on Earth dies every hour, living species are decimated, biodiversity is continuously destroyed, the composition of the air and waters is changing more and more fatally, continents of plastic islands are floating in the oceans, more and more zombies are overwhelming and messing up every square inch of the earth. Humanity has now clearly become an ugly cancerous tumor of the Earth.

[@alisonmercer5946]

But hey elon is gonna save humanity by colonising other planets according to too many people here😅

[@istenaldja]

@@alisonmercer5946 Elon actually says that the Earth is underpopulated... And I'm afraid he's more serious about that than landing on Mars 🤨

[@maximedersoir7055]

Interesting video, I agree Erlich's views are dangerous, but we should also be aware that optimism itself can be dangerous. Technology and innovation will not always be able to repair what has been destroyed to create them in the first place. The measure of economic growth has the issue of not considering negative externalities. It's good that nickel for instance gets cheaper and cheaper, it means we have more and more of it, but how do we get it? By mining of course, but mining also destroys, as mines destroy land to turn into open quarries, as well as polluting water and air, which in turn threatens all life around it (plants, animals as well as us). This is wealth destruction, but one that isn't taken into account economically, and the problem is, it is not always possible to repair that kind of damage, if a species disappears because we've destroyed/poisonned its environment, no technology will bring it back, even with an hypothetical cloning tech from the future. Forests takes centuries to grow and create a stable biosphere, thinking that it's just a matter of destroying and rebuilding is to forget that human may be able to adapt quickly... but that is not the case for most of the biosphere (hence the fact there is some urgency in the protection of the biosphere). So it is nice not to swim in doomism and think positively, but let's also be aware of what we want "progress" to be. We do live in a finite world with finite resources, the more resources we extract the more we definilty destroy the world we live in. The more the people...the more the ressources consumed, but contrary to Erlich I do not blame poor countries, since the people with the most unsustainable livestyles... are us, people from wealthy countries, we are the ones consuming the most ressources and energy. I'm not gonna write a whole essay on that matter but if I do agree we need to fight against doomsayers we need to also question the techno-optimism "ideology". I'm no specialist, and my opinion is lack-luster at best, but I feel like I know enough to be a bit more critical about that vision of humanity's hopes for the future. I just wanted to share my thoughts on the matter, as a feedback on what the video said.

[@feluto7172]

and your solution for that is population control and genocide? no thanks, hitler. everyone sane would rather take their chances

[@bobSeigar]

Generalizations all around. This is why doomerism has failed for 2000 years.

[@DingDingTheYoutubeBuddy]

What you're forgetting is that we can have an impact on how damaging that nickle mine is(just to follow up on the example you provided). its unavoidable that while the nickle mine is operating it will have some kind of negative environmental impact, however, as a society we can figure out ways to mitigate that impact and not just that, we can repair the environment afterwards. In my home country of Canada mining corporations are required by law to do environmental hazard assessments and create and follow strategies to mitigate them (or face revocation of their mining license) and not just that but mining corporations are required to repair the surrounding area after mining operations cease. As a result of this the areas around mining operations are usually better off than they were before the mine was built. These measures have lead to Canadian mining operations in the NWT or YK being some of if not the cleanest in the world and it only gets better from here -assuming we decide thats what we want. Not to mention, as technology has increased things have generally gotten greener, a mine in 1800 was way more damaging to the environment when expanded to be on a comparable scale to modern day mining operations, but it seemed less damaging because operations were smaller. Similarly, I suspect (however I have no real idea nor does anyone else for that matter) that in another 200 years we will look back on modern day mining operations and assume they were horribly dirty(hopefully we'll think that cause they happened on earth instead of in space, but thats just what I hope happens). Technology usually makes things greener, we become better stewards of our planet, we get better at using what we have and we need less of it to do more, and I see no reason that this trend should diminish.

[@maximedersoir7055]

​@@DingDingTheKZbinBuddy The mining thing was just an example but I am not this optimistic. If you don't force companies to be greener they have no incentive to be greener. In France we have an aluminium plant in the south that have been releasing arsenic into the Mediterranean see since the 60's with authorization from the French government, since this factory employs thousands of people. This company also produced fake scientific report claiming the this would have no impact on biodiversity. They only stopped in 2021, now they take it by ship to the coast of western Africa and dump it there. There's not much possible for repairing this kind of damage to the environment sadly. In the end the economic interest is all that counts, since no government wants to be the one not favouring jobs in a sluggish economy, and companies lobbying is making sure they think of their interests first. Technologies may become greener in the future, but if the scale of production and demand expands the negative impacts will still grow, and we will not be able to depollute all of that, since most of the time, it's either impossible or not economically viable. I believe it's better to limit our impact now rather than bet that we will be able to fix it all in the future, because we don't know what the future will hold, and if technologies will actually become greener.

[@purplewine7362]

@@maximedersoir7055i feel that's quite a moronic way of thinking

[@sophiagertz1083]

Our native Indians in America never ever procreated to where they overpopulated their communities beyond their ability to provide food to their families. They were innately in tune with Mother Nature. Why did other nationalities not have this wisdom? Religion? I believe that is where the problem lies.

[@laurastabell2489]

The Native American mothers nursed for at least two years, usually sleeping in a separate place from her husband. It was socially unacceptable to have children who werent spaced apart by two to three years. The belief was that children needed that extra parental focus when young to be strong, healthy, intelligent well adjusted adults. Kids instinctually want to keep nursing and to sleep between their parents as a way to get what they actually need. Its not natural at all to put children away from the parent to sleep. Natures birth control. Touch is a physiological driver for proper neurological development. The mother is a safe anchor to explore the world from and retreat back to for safety. The result is less anxiety leading to higher social status. They were also toxin aware within pregnancy. Decreased neurotoxin exposures can also reduce anxiety, increase IQ and lead to higher social status. In this era, persistent toxins built up within the womans body before child bearing are released into her blood stream causing brain damage in utero. Normal male OR female development can also be altered by toxins like mercury at the end of the first trimester. Toxins and radiation exposure can damage sperm generating cells in the male. Right now the sperm counts are falling drastically, even where they were previously high.

[@spoddie]

34:37 Just to split hairs, but you can't make copper from other metals.

[@KMF3]

Yeah I wondered about that. And it's not splitting hairs. It's very important to be accurate.

[@burkean]

I was wondering that, too. I guess you could make copper from another metal if that metal were bronze.

[@Kaizentry]

I have a few moments where I forget how well us humans can work around any crisis and could use some more optimism, usually because of all the negativity being thrown around. This only reaffirms that all of us needs this kind of optimism.

[@leftyknox72]

This is reaching levels of optimism that you would normally see in a Vsauce 1 video. Keep up the great work!

[@sinenomine4540]

since when is unhinged hopium and ignorance "good work"?

[@djmotion86]

i love how the effects of our "innovation" on the environment and bio-sphere of the earth are conveniently omitted. The truth is biodiversity is plummeting, environmental degradation has never been worse, the availability of food is greater, but the quality far worse, etc. Dangerous chemicals are diffusing into everything. Our methods of farming are distroying the soils, the modern way of meat production is causing insane amounts of misery to billions of farm animals. We're cutting down forests, depleting fresh water resources, displacing large amounts of species to lay concrete. etc etc...

[@katiekane5247]

Uncomfortable truths don't get clicks and views, according to the algorithm. I'd rather be part of a smaller, more intellectually stimulating group, we're pushed to the edge on this platform.

[@TuriGamer]

I dont understand how people look at prognostics like this and go "HA! He was wrong" no dummy people worked hard to make sure it didnt happen

[@Jack__________]

The point is that the fact that people were able to work hard and make sure it didn’t happen is exactly why he was WRONG!

[@mileserwin]

There is still only so much space on this planet, only so many resources, only so much time. We are not the only life on this planet. We forget this fact too often. We are destructive and consuming. There is no urgency, but that doesn't mean we don't need boundaries or limits. We're more capable than we know, capable to destroy it all.

[@louistournas120]

I think it is a great video but just like every other video, even made by professionals, there are certain details that should be mentioned. Like you said, we are not the only lifeform on this planet. About 1 species goes extinct per day. The problem is not noticeable to most humans since most of us aren’t spending all our time in the forests and verifying how things are going. There are scientists who observe it but even they don’t know what will happen in future. All they can tell us that when you remove a species, part of the food web collapses. An example given in the video is the milkweed or whatever plan that is getting reduced and this effects the monarch butterfly. As for resources, the only reason human population went up is because a lot of fertilizer is being produce. This is something that he did not discuss in the video. You need to make NH3 and use that as fertilizer. Some of the NH3 is converted to NO2 which is converted to HNO3 to make NH4NO3, Ca(NO3)2. These are used as fertilizers. You also need to mine Ca3(PO4)2 since phosphate is also an important anion for planets. The number of farmers went down but due to automation and fertilizers, the production went up. In order to produce all that fertilizer, such as NH3, you need an energy source since there isn’t any mine for NH3. The energy source is petrol and coal. There is plenty of petrol and coal mines. What happens when those resources get exhausted? I don’t know. Maybe some countries will rely on hydro plants for their energy source to make fertilizer. As for other mines. There are no gallium mines. Gallium is an impurity in Al2O3 mines. I think gallium is still used for LEDs. The price has gone up quite a lot. Indium: this is used as In2O3 as a transparent conductive coating for your monitors. There aren’t too many mines in the world. There is research to replace this with a SnO In2O3 or replace it completely with Al2O3 but it isn’t working out well. I think this problem will be solved eventually. If you need platinum, palladium, rhodium as a catalyst for your car, these are very limited resources. Also, humans are reactionary. For example, cars: a lot of people started dying due to horrific car accidents. It took time to come up with the idea of seatbelts, where to place stop signs, where to place traffic lights. Airbags: it took time to invent this and make it mandatory. Tetraethyl lead: again, it took time to use an alternative. These are all very recent inventions and already, they have caused a lot of problems. I’m not saying these inventions should disappear. I don’t want to live in the 18xx and previous to that. Who want to get rid of cars and ride around with horses? I like the modern life and living in a city. Almost nobody wants to go back to those old days.

[@bchin4005]

Yeah, all these "optimists" and folks feeling better about the future don't seem to realize we're currently in a great extinction event, similar to the ones where 80-90% of the biodiversity on the planet disappeared. It's complete hubris to think our species will survive when we're not taking steps, as a species, to create a sustainable environment. But hey, I feel better after some demagoguery, so it's all good, right?

[@Spartacus547]

Overpopulation seems to not bother the house pets, there's no great theory population bomb of the house cat, yet they're being bred at the same rate as humans

[@CinnamonToastKing]

Ill be the first to admit it.....I was very doom and gloom over population growth. Id still argue I am being ignorant and thinking to myself, "well what about X,Y, or Z?". But I can also say this video has really helped change my views for the better!

[@andrasbiro3007]

It's crazy that people are still afraid of overpopulation, when we are facing population collapse, which is far far worse. Most economic and political issues that we are struggling with today are consequences of the aging population, which precedes the collapse. If you don't believe it, just look up the birth rates and age distribution.

[@naniyotaka]

@@andrasbiro3007 We still have overpopulation… 8 billion is too much, it’s time to shrink. Governments should start figuring out a new pension system which is more sustainable.

[@AndrewManook]

We have a distribution issue not overpopulation. @@naniyotaka

[@M4421-O]

@@naniyotaka We could probably afford to sustain and maintain a population up to 10 billion with the right combination of factors/economic movements/policies all things considered As quality of life rises, people reproduce less because there's less imperative to do so. If we can raise general quality of life worldwide then we don't have much to worry about and it'll plateau at about our maximum.

[@odinata]

Its crazy that you haven't been to a major American city, or Mumbai, Shanghai, London...@@andrasbiro3007

[@macsnafu]

Wow, what a great video. You presented it so well, I wasn't even sure which side you would fall into until about half-way through. More people are part of the problem, but also, as you noted, part of the solution. More people means more ideas, more creativity, more division of labor, and so forth. I'm with Julian in the optimistic camp. I had a college professor who suggested that as our food production has historically increased, the amount of food per person was being lowered. That was back in the 80s. But any study of history and agriculture and food production has shown that this is not true. More people than ever are being fed, and it's a pretty good quantity and quality for most of them. And, as already noted by other commenters, wealthier nations tend to have fewer children, regardless of the abundance of resources. And the Tragedy of the commons really deserves its own conversation, because Hardin seemed to not define his situation very well. Or just assumed that most of the world would remain un-privatized. The fencing of grazing lands in the 19th century West proved that privatization of resources is an effective way to prevent the tragedy of the commons. In short the doomsayers make the mistake, among others, of thinking that wealth and resources are a zero sum game, and the more someone has, the less someone else must have. Fortunately for humanity, this is not true. In spite of, or perhaps even because of the increase in population, wealth has been dramatically increased in the world, and resources seem to be stretched and used more effectively, so that resources don't seem to be running out any time soon.

[@dangerousdays2052]

Wrong. The planet's resources are finite. Hoping that more creative people will be born won't change that. Optimism is just a lie that you tell yourself so you don't have to face reality.

[@Ashaera]

I love your delivery in these videos as much as I love the information given.

[@Cats-TM]

Wait..along with WWI and II is this what inspired Star Trek's Eugenics War? My house always had milkweed around it and when I was younger my mother would take the eggs and raise them until they were able to fly. She spread around milkweed a lot because of the butterflies. I now have a sense of milkweed whenever I walk through forest preserves and such because of my mother. She is now attempting to grow native plants for the wildlife. Necessity is the mother of invention.

[@DracaliaRay]

The doomerism mindset is useful and is what has led to humans fixing problems that could lead to our extinction. It’s important to not ignore population patterns in nature because our population will follow the same trajectory if we do. The only reason monarch butterflies have a chance at coming back is because we saw how our actions were hurting them and we took steps to stop those actions. The same with the ozone layer. The only reason the ozone layer was fixed is because we saw the potential harm it could cause and pushed for reform and industrial change. It’s important to listen to scientists when they say global warming has the POTENTIAL to be catastrophic, because it does. Our actions after the warning are what changes our fate from doomed to better. The only reason we aren’t struggling with population now is because humans have innovated new ways to sustain our populations. At the time of the predictions, if we hadn’t innovated, we would have gone the way of the monarch butterfly. Take the warnings as warnings. Not absolute truths. Science never deals in absolutes.

[@oberonpanopticon]

no everything will be okay and we don’t have to do anything about anything because the spirit of mankind is indomitable

[@bagfootbandit8745]

100% this. Any threat of destabilization also brings with it the possibility to change for the better.

[@davisdf3064]

@@oberonpanopticon Ah yes, the Warhammer 40k way

[@oberonpanopticon]

@@davisdf3064 pretty sure that’s more “throw indomitable spirit of mankind ((bodies)) at it until it dies or otherwise goes away”. Same as the SCP foundation.

[@badabing3391]

"doomerism is so useful!!!" right after watching a video where doomers sterilized 6 million people, and thats not even close to the worst things people believing in near inevitable apocalypse have done in the past century.

[@MrZoomZone]

Once accustomed to your presentation style I found this a stunning good presentation with a great summing up and with clear oration that can be listened to while eyes elsewhere if need be. Thank you.

[@dr.OgataSerizawa]

‘accustomed’ being the key word. The ‘style’ wore me down to a nub.

[@michaelmoorrees3585]

38:30 - Notice, no mention of tungsten's use in incandescent light bulbs. 25 years ago those accounted for the grand majority of the light bulbs. Now they only account for a small percentage, in niche uses. LEDs have taken over most of the lighting uses. Even in some niche areas, such as replacing xenon strobe lights, too.

[@ghostmantagshome-er6pb]

When I was a kid in the 70s the "BIG LIE" was we were out of oil. Not the embargo, but we were out of oil. We sucked it dry.

[@klondike444]

Not true. America's conventional oil production peaked around 1970. Economic circumstances allowed fracking to increase US production again for a while from around 2008, but world oil production has now peaked. Since humanity depends on oil, this video is garbage.

[@LunaErosStudios]

Good presentation but I have to ask.... Where the hell did you get a bomb casing from?!!!

[@cannibalbananas]

It's crazy to think that in my lifetime, the population has nearly doubled (1.78x).

[@JimBoom92]

while fertility is going down super fast...

[@paulgoogol2652]

​@@JimBoom92😏

[@EspHack]

this isnt a black/white issue, there IS a limit to how much people we can fit somewhere before war breaks out, but thanks to our ingenuity and tech we keep raising that ceiling, so its a rate of growth vs improving efficiency rate that we should adhere to for best results, if only this nuance could be easily understood by everyone...

[@_SimpleSam]

I would argue that we aren't anywhere near that limit, and neither will our great grand children be. Much of the planet is uncolonized and/or under colonized.

[@pillarmenn1936]

@@_SimpleSam Lets not tear down more forests and jungles shall we?

[@em97c]

I think when people start talking about population control a good moral litmus test about whether or not youd like to take what theyre suggesting on board is to assume when they talk about "people" in an abstract sense that you are included in that. "What if we just forcibly sterilized people?" Ok, assume they mean you. "What if we limited the resources available to this growing population" assume you are a part of the population in question. Makes it pretty black and while out of the question when youre fsced with what it actually means for the individual.

[@Nooticus]

This video is absolutely exceptional. I really wasn't expecting it to be this great, and that's why I think this video has a sadly low amount of views, despite being so incredibly well-researched, and basically the quality of a dissertation. I can see why you haven't uploaded for a while Kevin and its absolutely understadable considering the absolute quality, complexity and length of this video. Thank you!

[@nomorenames5568]

I like that you mentioned that more people = lower wages. This is the entire reason we see such insane pushes for unchecked immigration. Canada just had more people immigrate than were born in the entire country. Why would anyone want such a thing? Simple - more people = lower wages.

[@heremate2435]

the problem is you guys aren't having kids, so the government HAS to bring immigrants because of your aging population, otherwise Canada would collapse like japan is. It's your people's fault or I should say the dogma about not having kids so you can go on adventures that's gripped you all

[@jasondashney]

Our population has been exploding despite us, not having the infrastructure for it. Hospitals, libraries, schools etc. Housing for sure. It's insane. I don't think it's for lower wages as much as it's for increased economic activity. Growth. More people means more economic activity, and so the government can claim the economy is doing well.

[@nomorenames5568]

@@jasondashney the national bank of Canada actually just released a statement saying they're in a population trap which is where your population increases so fast that your countries standard or living can't keep up. It's so simple and basic that one has to question how the leaders of a nation just up and decided to increase the population to such a degree.

[@jasondashney]

It's going to sink them in the next election. I can't wait. Countries all over the western world are waking up.@@nomorenames5568

[@pc_gaijin]

Please keep making longer content like this

[@darkocelot7342]

While I appreciate the optimism, it's also important to not get drunk on false hope and deny real problems that could in fact jeopardize the future of the only people we know exist. The main one i'd probably name as pollution issues. We must be careful to not fall to doomsaying and let that make us complacent, as 'everything will fail regardless of what we do', but we also must be careful to not let our hopes for a better future endanger the future we are slowly building for ourselves and sequential generations. A lot of what was said could be used as blinders, rather than a renewal to the cautious of us who want to work on making things better. I'm glad that most of the comments I see are from the latter group rather than those who would try to blind us to the troubles we are having. I thank Vsauce for giving some the hope they need to keep trying. The one thing I can't excuse is using Elon frickin' musk as an example of someone dissing erlich, like, seriously? Elon musk? I'm sure you could have found a better example lol. Thanks for the entertaining and hopeful vid. I hope to see more and better from Vsauce.

[@_SimpleSam]

You shouldn't disparage Elon Musk. For all his faults, he is a Titan of mankind. He has nearly single handedly reignited our reaching for the stars. The largest existential risk to humanity is the fact that we are a single planet species. All other 'emergencies' become less daunting when you have your eggs in more than one basket.

[@hotdog5503]

@@_SimpleSam elon musk is an embarrassing fraud

[@Somebodyherefornow]

@@_SimpleSam😂😂😂

[@bigballz4u]

@@_SimpleSam I'm not sure whether to laugh at your comment or instead laugh at you because you're actually serious.

[@gijane2cantwaittoseeyou203]

@@_SimpleSam Woke is a mind virus, dont listen to the haters.

[@romeodahl1283]

Wow, this actually really opened my mind. Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things Are Better Than You Think is now on the TOP of my reading list.

[@box-botkids3267]

The ending of this video was poetic, tragic, and hopeful. It's videos like this that fulfill the original promise of the internet.

[@Lavius]

One of the best video documentary channels in the History of KZbin ✨️

[@RambolifeCheesblocks]

Sometimes there is a darkness hidden in optimism. Like when you say the amount of arable land is increasing, this simultaneously means natural habitat is decreasing. The end stage would be a world were pollination has to be done by robots and oxygen has to be produced artificially to keep a breathable atmosphere, all possible due to great innovation. A human-only world without nature is a true dystopia for me and cannot last very long. I wouldn't want to live in a world with 20 billion people all trampling each other, it can't be very peaceful.

[@shawnquinn1596]

the problem is not that there are too many people, but that there are too many consumers in over-industrialized economies.

[@emilyrln]

The funny thing about the "tragedy of the commons" is that people shared land for thousands of years without destroying it. It's only relatively recently that we started stripping it of every resource and leaving it barren. Personally, I suspect that the reason for this destructive use is personal ownership rather than communal, but I don't know whether there are any studies on the cause.

[@TheMvlproductionsinc]

There has been a lot of writing on debunking the tragedy of the commons esp from the left wing. id say look into it

[@LadyRavenhaire]

There are lots of studies and yes you are correct. You don't need any studies to see that when you have limited ownership of land, you respect the land, because you can't just easily get more land. Under Feudalism, the land you had was the only land you'd ever have. When you can buy land and just disregard it when you're finished and can buy more, of course it's going to be thrashed. That's the problem with capitalism. All that matters under capitalism is profits. If the land collapses, the rich don't care, they'll always eat.

[@richardparker3273]

What a refreshing take on the state of things. It's nice to see some optimism, based on reasonable observation and analysis.

[@sanityshorror]

46:54 you are very very very wrong about the poverty in China. And there is a 3 limit child policy right now. The CCP lowered the poverty line to what's about the equivalent of $300 USD per YEAR. Imagine making $300 a year and being told you aren't in extreme poverty or even just poverty!! Loved this video but please please please, do serious research into the CCP (Chinese government), the genocide of the Uyghurs which is a terrifying mirror to the Holocaust (something i do not say lightly, it is horrifying what's going on). Do not use state media from China, it's all government controlled. Please help free the Chinese people from this horrific regime! Edit to say: I did really love the rest of this video and would love to see you make one about the reality of the CCP. It's horrific what they're doing but no one in the West cares... :(

[@simonpuech432]

Thanks for your videos! I've followed you for quite a few years now and I am especially moved by the ones you've put out in the past 1-2 year! Looking forward to seeing more incredible videos :)

[@Т1000-м1и]

Alright I'll watch this, youtube really wanted me to watch this today specifically but forgot I ever watched this channel for the last year

[@niyanlan8928]

Breathtakingly good video. Fantastically written and excellent production - thank you for being a voice of reason in today’s world.

[@onhandart]

This is the video I know I needed to see right now. With everything going on now and in the last few years it's become harder to see the positive.

[@NClark-lp3bq]

Thank you for making such, probably one of your most touching and impactful videos yet :)

[@ericstephenbrenner]

This video was very important for me, thank you. My step-father was a fan of the club of rome and I got fed with the negative "we are all gonna die"-attitude while growing up. The last 30 years however, I observe the world with my own eyes and tell my wife since years that I can see that everything is slowly geting better. My wife is still pessimistic, giving the political right-shift that seem to occur in the world and so on. But I can see that the young people from today think vastly different than we did. There is teen-idiocy still and it will be here forever, but the general state of even the youngest ones in our world is getting better, their ideas and thoughts are way more constructive than ours back then. My own daughter is way more educated then we could ever be, because we simply had not the possibility to hop on to he internet and educate ourselves more thouroughly. But regardless of that, I needed this video to realize that even when seeing that the world is indeed getting better with baby-steps all the time, I still had the doomsday mentality burnt into my brain I was educated on as I was a child myself. Progress is slow, but it happens. Thanks to this video, I can finally get rid of some of the stuff that cloged my brain. Thank you.

[@IdealisticDog]

Excellent video - the utility of information is paramount to general internalization of it -- good news has little utility, little action, whereas bad news has significant utility in risk avoidance.

[@FalcoGer]

Is my first world lifestyle worth the cost it imposes on other, poorer nations? No. Am I willing to give it up? No. I'm just blunt and honest about it, unlike the majority of others who either argue that there is no cost, or that they would happily give it up, but can't for some BS reason or another. But at least I don't put children into the world and I don't plan on doing that.

[@jensphiliphohmann1876]

This is a really inspiring video. I have to add that, paradoxically in a more prosperous societies, people tend to have less children, probably because they are confident that their children will grow up and have children themselves.

[@casteretpollux]

Also worked too hard to have proper time for family

[@JuMiKu]

​@@casteretpolluxDo you think poor people work less hard? This isn't connected at all. Or at least there is no causality.

[@martinestevez]

20:40 Too bad you didn't mention the Latin American World Model. There were other voices in academia that, even at the time, pointed out those "predictions" where miopic, western centric and misguided. We weren't listened, as usual, because the third world never is.

[@fooraapkotjakker8131]

How dystopian is it when your usefulness is needed to justify your existence

[@neilhannay4976]

Especialy when your usefulness is calculated in dollars

[@zenlandzipline]

⁠​⁠@@neilhannay4976🔥☄️💥

[@cheapbastard990]

Not really. There is never any need to justify your existence. However, if you serve no purpose then there is no reason for anyone to trade with you. That doesn't mean you die, it only means that you have nothing to offer anyone else, and that means you either have to have your own means of survival or rely on the charity of others who are willing to feed you. Think about that, and how it works. If you are in a place with free people generating lots of wealth then there are many people doing well and so many willing and able to be charitable. But if you are in a slave state, a socialist cesspool with limited ability to gain wealth, then you have a lot fewer people willing or able to be charitable and even government less able to rob the people to redistribute the more limited wealth to you.

[@IamCoalfoot]

You know, all of this sounds awfully familiar. Kind of like, farmers being told to stop farming familiar.

[@sharker100]

I want to add to the many thanks you are receiving for this video, Kevin. I feel everyone needs to be reminded of this at some point. Consider every like this comment may get yet another thank you.

[@thomasetavard2031]

I am in the Julian Simon camp, for sure, even though this is the first-time hearing about him, at least in this level of detail. Thank you for making this and explaining both sides of this subject matter as it gives us a better understanding of the issues at play. We cannot correct something we do not know about even though we can tell there is a problem.

[@johnspence9718]

No dude, a lot right, but some things were just wrong. Gas rationing was not just California. I was a young child (born in '67) and grew up in Baltimore, MD. I remember living under TRUE martial law. No one on the streets from 11 pm - 7 am (I think it was 7, might have been 6 am. My father worked for Delta Air Lines and had to get a letter from corporate HQ in Atlanta, GA stating he had to drive to/from during the curfew). The National Guard was called out due to race riots in the late 60's, early 70's. Even in the day time, they were in their jeeps with an M-50 mounted on the back, every few blocks in the city. That 'quarantine' we went through wasn't close to the martial law I remember. But I digressed, all up & down the east coast there was gas rationing. Since the states are smaller & people would jump the border for abundant or cheaper gasoline other states had to follow suit. In Md, a license plate ending in an odd number could buy gas M-W-F (Same with surrounding states. Even plates got Tu-Thur-Sat. Back then there were 'blue laws' and almost everything was closed on Sunday. It was a combo of everyone getting a day off with family & religious (abrahamic law) practices. In the late 70-80-early 90's we were not worried about someone setting off a nuke in the cold war. We were all dead anyway, so why worry about it. We were concerned with Three Mile Island (our nuke reactor meltdown), Mount St. Helen's eruption truly hurt the Pacific North West, and the Italian mafia and their garbage and teamster's strikes hurting business. Ultimately, I think we can pack a couple more billion on the planet (I have a B.S. in Econ, B.S in Finance & minored in Acct & an MBA.) The true problem is the income disparity & the destruction of the family unit and therefore the middle class. Yes, some people have climbed out of poverty, but they get NO BENEFITS, or are responsible for paying 100% of the cost. To cover the food, clothing, shelter, & education of the 'worthless eaters' would take a massive outlay from that top .01%. The middle class can't pay their own bills, & that is with both adults working full time & a side hustle.

[@bryanandhallie]

I think the presenter's position is a bit myopic. There doesn't exist a dichotomy between Ehrlich and Simon but rather the population issue is much more nuanced

[@remyllebeau77]

No, not really. Overpopulation is a WEF propaganda lie. We have an overcrowding issue and a resource distribution problem.

[@VoidHugger]

The dichotomy is between the instinctual doomsaying of Ehrlich and the nuanced perspective of Simon.

[@bryanandhallie]

I'm not so sure. The presenter seems pretty heavy-handed when it comes to adhering to Simon's perspective. I don't think that is a very nuanced way of looking at things@@VoidHugger

[@chublez]

Ehrlich was wrong. His predictions didn't hold up. Note I didn't say won't, he predicted we're already done and plummeting in population decades back, he was wrong, why should his incorrect assumptions be given any real let alone equal weight. Population may in fact be nuanced. Ehrlich be wrong isn't.

[@concernedcommenter8258]

@@bryanandhallieIt’s required to prove why something is right, as by default ideas are wrong. It is not important to prove every way something can be wrong, just once. It is important to prove how something is right however.

[@faevoryn6578]

That was a really moving and beautiful video. I'm utterly horrified at the forced sterilizations and other atrocities committed by governments in the name of overpopulation. It's awesome how education of women vastly helps societies improve. Great video. Well said.

[@tuseroni6085]

well it greatly reduces fertility, we'll see if that's an improvement or not. just to be clear, i'm not saying "don't educate women" i'm not a utilitarian, whether it is for the greater good or not has no effect on the fact that it is a good thing for EVERYONE to get a good education.

[@andrewharrison8436]

In theory I agree with eugenics. In practice it has always been a moral disaster - perhaps that isn't strong enough, how about: a crime against humanity.

[@tuseroni6085]

@@andrewharrison8436 eugenics itself is a moral disaster, in theory and in practice. it presupposes that some group of people can treat another group of people like livestock at worst pets at best "be sure to spay an neuter your inferior breeds" the theory itself is monstrous and that is why it produces monstrous results.

[@VoidHugger]

@@andrewharrison8436 Newsflash: the practice of the theory is always a moral disaster because the theory is a moral disaster Choosing what kind of person deserves to live is always disgusting

[@Marjax]

​just like breeding dogs. No one can decide the ideal one and all of the differing opinions and uses have created multiple breeds. You can't breed humans because all opinions about the "ideal" is incredibly problematic.

[@ukrainewarroom]

This is probably the best, most thought provoking video ive ever seen on youtube. Well done!

[@Amphitera]

dude. food isn't the only problem, sheer space is. Ever been to a country so overpopulated and urbanised there is hardly any room left to move, let alone have nature? obviously not. If everyone in such countries decides to have 5+ children, where are they going to live? you'll probably advocate to not sterilize pets next, because why not let them multiply without any control, more is always better.

[@elijahedwards6571]

That's a density issue.

[@kitsunekaze93]

@@elijahedwards6571 but its already too dense? how can everyone have a big house and yard thats theirs alone? people are forced to live in apartment complexes and dense cities

[@MelancoliaI]

Shh...more people means more war, which means more refugees, which means more cheap labor flooding the 'first' world. Check out who funds the Foundation for Economic Education.

[@chrishammock4544]

Man. That held some power. As you spoke at the end, I could hear the tremor of Simon trying to punch through the ignorance of our own instincts. Some times we must speak with heavy gravitas to force the truth into our collective minds. Seeing you snip the fuse from the bomb as you channeled Simon into your words was fantastic. I will share this with my students. And try to shout through their phones, ignorance, and boredom. Well done. Very well done.

[@rayna6635]

2:59 Back in 2012 i moved to the regional lower south east pocket of Australia, live in the forest, in 2012 - 2014 it was practically dangerous in the forest for the sheer number of monarch butterflies!!! Multi billions of them, biting and hypnotizing any and evert other life form they could I've hardly seen a single butterfly since 2015. Facts. Right behind bee's butterflies are as important for cross fertility plant life etc. 2:59

[@custos3249]

Neat. Now contextualize your techno-optimism this with fossil fuels, global warming, artificial scarcity, planned obsolescence, and why, if the cost of commodities is consistently decreasing, does the cost of living persistently increase above the human innovation of inflation?

[@Marco_oo77]

Increadible video! I really hope the message of this video will be seen by millions of people to try and reduce the gloomy and pessimistic outlook on the world today, which plagues so many people still.

[@chuckgaydos5387]

This reminds me of the U.S. national debt scare of decades ago. People were saying that we have to bring it under control or our descendants will have to pay it. Well, those descendants are here now and the national debt is beyond control, but no one seems to be paying it. We just let it grow.

[@julius43461]

I am naturally a pessimistic person, and I totally understand why people were afraid of overpopulation, but I really feel good after watching something optimistic. I do worry about population collapse and AI though.

[@owensthilaire8189]

I suspect that AI is going to be used as the intermediary between the vast peasantry and the few overlords.

[@alistersutherland3688]

@@owensthilaire8189 Already is. It's begun.

[@amicableenmity9820]

I think popular culture is pushing it to collapse, at least in the West. The Muslims have no such problem, and they've even outright said they'd takeover through having more children.

[@natashabetts7509]

They are trying to cause the population to collapse by paying farmers not to farm and getting rid of cows . There is more than enough land for all Americans. The problem is almost everyone wants to live in the city . Libs should leave freedom loving Americans alone,

[@tgfje]

What an amazing video! Watched it fully and you bet i'm using these arguments you've presented here to fight for positivity in our lifes.

[@gubunki]

you should compare the price of metals to the mean income, and see how everything is more and more expensive for almost everyone