Article re worldwide population decline

[smac97]

17 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I wasn't predicting that exponential population growth would happen. I was saying that exponential population growth can NOT happen.

We seem to be saying the same thing.  Exponential population growth will not / cannot happen.

17 minutes ago, Analytics said:

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We've seen that as affluence arises, fecundity decreases.

Yes, and I consider that a good thing.

I suppose that depends on the scope and severity of the drop in fecundity.  Look at how many societies and cultures are extinguishing themselves.  Look at how many babies have been aborted as a means of population control.

17 minutes ago, Analytics said:

In contrast, the Mormon values as depicted in Saturday's Warrior depict this as a bad thing: the heavens are filled with spirit babies waiting to come to earth, and we are all under commandment to multiply and replenish the earth, which is interpreted as having as many kids as you can. In the words of Dallin H. Oaks, "“How many children should a couple have? All they can care for!" (See here)

Of course, he also said that "we should not judge one another {regarding family size}," and he also quoted Pres. Kimball as saying that "'I am willing to leave the question of numbers {of children} to the man and the woman and the Lord.'"  More context from this 1993 quote of Elder Oaks is, well, worth quoting:

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Knowledge of the great plan of happiness also gives Latter-day Saints a distinctive attitude toward the bearing and nurturing of children.

In some times and places, children have been regarded as no more than laborers in a family economic enterprise or as insurers of support for their parents. Though repelled by these repressions, some persons in our day have no compunctions against similar attitudes that subordinate the welfare of a spirit child of God to the comfort or convenience of parents.

The Savior taught that we should not lay up treasures on earth but should lay up treasures in heaven (see Matt. 6:19–21). In light of the ultimate purpose of the great plan of happiness, I believe that the ultimate treasures on earth and in heaven are our children and our posterity.

President Kimball said, “It is an act of extreme selfishness for a married couple to refuse to have children when they are able to do so” (Ensign, May 1979, p. 6). When married couples postpone childbearing until after they have satisfied their material goals, the mere passage of time assures that they seriously reduce their potential to participate in furthering our Heavenly Father’s plan for all of his spirit children. Faithful Latter-day Saints cannot afford to look upon children as an interference with what the world calls “self-fulfillment.” Our covenants with God and the ultimate purpose of life are tied up in those little ones who reach for our time, our love, and our sacrifices.

How many children should a couple have? All they can care for! Of course, to care for children means more than simply giving them life. Children must be loved, nurtured, taught, fed, clothed, housed, and well started in their capacities to be good parents themselves. Exercising faith in God’s promises to bless them when they are keeping his commandments, many LDS parents have large families. Others seek but are not blessed with children or with the number of children they desire. In a matter as intimate as this, we should not judge one another.

President Gordon B. Hinckley gave this inspired counsel to an audience of young Latter-day Saints:

“I like to think of the positive side of the equation, of the meaning and sanctity of life, of the purpose of this estate in our eternal journey, of the need for the experiences of mortal life under the great plan of God our Father, of the joy that is to be found only where there are children in the home, of the blessings that come of good posterity. When I think of these values and see them taught and observed, then I am willing to leave the question of numbers to the man and the woman and the Lord” (“If I Were You, What Would I Do?” Brigham Young University 1983–84 Fireside and Devotional Speeches, Provo, Utah: University Publications, 1984, p. 11).

This counsel was not given to the world, but to the Latter-day Saints, which in 1993 numbered some 8.7 million.  Nevertheless, his counsel would be quite sound if applied worldwide.

17 minutes ago, Analytics said:

If everyone followed that advice, it would eventually result in calamity. 

I question that.  In any event, it's a moot point, since we know everyone will not follow that advice.

17 minutes ago, Analytics said:

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Third, Malthusian theorists like William Vogt and Paul Ehrlich have been wrong over and over.

Were they fundamentally wrong, or was disaster avoided because people are heeding their warnings?

I think they were fundamentally wrong.

Do you have evidence that the world heeded their "warnings?"

17 minutes ago, Analytics said:

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Meanwhile, folks like Norman Borlaug have shown that "carrying capcity" seems to be a pretty elastic concept, and that technological innovations can have a profound effect on crop yields.  See, e.g., this article: The Earth’s carrying capacity for human life is not fixed

That doesn't mean the earth's carrying capacity is infinite. 

Agreed.  But my point is about the alarmism and misanthrophy inherent in malthusian theory, which has had real world consequences:

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There were plenty who thought Malthus’s recommendations cruel in his lifetime and afterwards. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon called it “the theory of political murder; of murder from motives of philanthropy and for love of God.”

Britain’s new Poor Law of 1834, which attempted to ensure that the very poor were not helped except in workhouses, and that conditions in workhouses were not better than the worst in the outside world, was based explicitly on Malthusian ideas – that too much charity only encouraged breeding, especially illegitimacy or “bastardy”.

The Irish potato famine of the 1840s was made infinitely worse by Malthusian prejudice shared by the British politicians in positions of power. The prime minister, Lord John Russell, was motivated by “a Malthusian fear about the long-term effect of relief”, according to a biographer.

The Assistant Secretary to the Treasury Charles Trevelyan had been a pupil of Malthus here at Haileybury: famine, he thought was an "effective mechanism for reducing surplus population” and a “direct stroke of an all-wise and all-merciful Providence” sent to teach the "selfish, perverse and turbulent" Irish a lesson. Trevelyan added: “Supreme Wisdom has educed permanent good out of transient evil.”

As recounted by Robert Zubrin in his book Merchants of Despair, in 1877, a dreamy and Bohemian poet with an opium habit named Robert Lytton, was serving as viceroy of India, sent there by his friend the prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli.

Lytton (who was my great great grandfather) may sound like a harmless if high-born hippy, but unfortunately he or his advisers were Malthusians. A drought afflicted some parts of the country. There was still plenty of food in India as a whole – food exports doubled and doubled again in two years—but taxes and the devaluation of the rupee left the hungry unable to afford relief. Lytton quoted almost directly from Malthus in his response: “the Indian population has a tendency to increase more rapidly than the food it raises from the soil”. His policy was to herd the hungry into camps where they were fed on – literally -- starvation rations so that 94% died each month. Lytton specifically halted several private attempts to bring relief to the starving. Up to ten million people died.

We need to care for each other.

17 minutes ago, Analytics said:

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Fifth, D&C 104:17 states...

The D&C states lots of things.

Not particularly responsive, that.

17 minutes ago, Analytics said:

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Sure.  But misanthropy and malthusianism sure seem to go hand in hand.  See, e.g., here: [...

Unfortunately, the lesson most people have taken from Malthus is that you have to be cruel to be kind. This runs right through the eugenic and population movements, and is alive and well today. When I write or speak about falling child mortality in Africa today, I can be sure I will get a response along exactly these Malthusian lines: but surely it’s a bad thing if you stop poor people dying? What’s the good of bringing economic growth to Africa: they will only have more babies.

Let’s call it Malthusian misanthropy. And it is 180-degrees wrong. The way to get population growth to slow, it turns out, is to keep babies alive, to bring health, prosperity and education to all.

That is precisely why the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is spending billions trying to eradicate Africa's extreme poverty.

Some religious people, including many in Africa, disagree that getting population growth to slow down is a good thing. My point is simple: slowing growth down is a good thing. As yesterday's New York Times article points out, slowing population growth has its own pain. I'm not denying that. I'm just emphasizing that not slowing down growth would be infinitely worse.

Interesting points.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Jamie]

50 minutes ago, smac97 said:

We seem to be saying the same thing.  Exponential population growth will not / cannot happen.

Why are you both saying that?  2 can become 4 band 4 can become 8 and 8 can become 16, etc.  Where are you thinking that math can not be sustained?

[Stargazer]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Except that to convert it to useable energy likely will be contributing to polluting for a long time.  Not saying that we won’t eventually solve that issue, but that it could be quite some time until we do.

Sure, if we insist of building photovoltaic farms, and solar heat collecting facilities out in the desert. Ultimately, the best solar power generation system would be one that is off earth. One that doesn't get interfered with when the clouds come over, or at nightfall.

And it won't happen for at least a decade at the earliest: Space-based solar power. These will best be built from materials mined from the moon -- and not needing to be uploaded from the earth's deep gravity well.

I'm talking really "blue sky" here. Abandon our pre-conceptions.

 

[Stargazer]

2 hours ago, AtlanticMike said:

Limitless solar energy from the moon!!!!! Yeah, maybe,  butt where do you get an extension cord that long? 😁

No, too far away for that. I'm talking powering the mining and processing facilities on the moon using the abundant solar power.

Powering earth involves space-based powersats. That use microwave transmission to receiving sites on the earth.

[Jamie]

4 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Sure, if we insist of building photovoltaic farms, and solar heat collecting facilities out in the desert. Ultimately, the best solar power generation system would be one that is off earth. One that doesn't get interfered with when the clouds come over, or at nightfall.

And it won't happen for at least a decade at the earliest: Space-based solar power. These will best be built from materials mined from the moon -- and not needing to be uploaded from the earth's deep gravity well.

I'm talking really "blue sky" here. Abandon our pre-conceptions.

 

Starlink is working well now and will work even better as they launch more leo transceivers. Think of all we can do with mobile phones now.  But yes I agree we will be able to do even more in the future.

[Calm]

25 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

solar heat collecting facilities out in the desert. Ultimately, the best solar power generation system would be one that is off earth. One that doesn't get interfered with when the clouds come over, or at nightfall.

There also is concern that collecting in the desert will actually throw off the climate, so not probably an option in the long run.

Lots of space junk out there and only increasing, that is going to cause issues in the future.

Edited May 25, 2021 by Calm

[Stargazer]

2 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

I think Malthus was wrong on many levels. Just one example is that human beings have biological mechanisms that prevent overpopulation. For example, being underweight lowers fertility. So if there is widespread food scarcity, people will have less babies.

Yes, fertility is lowered in starvation, but how many people even now are starving? In the "developing world" rates of starvation are still rather low. Most folks in these situations have "just enough" -- and poor conditions like those actually cause more babies to be born, rather than fewer. It's a survival factor, which is why poorer regions have higher birthrates. But the fat and lazy types of modern civilization avoid having more children. 

2 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

As far as I understand it, in chemistry lingo, we could say that a major limiting reagent to human population is fresh water. Increased surfaces don't change that. 

There are a number of limiting factors -- but birthrates among desert people do not seem to suffer greatly from lesser availability of water. With careful management, humans can deal with water scarcity.

Of course, increasing surface area must be accompanied by concomitant increases in other essential resources. But that's a known issue, and nobody is going to build space structures without also providing for lovely fresh water. If we're to the point of building space habitats, then we're to the point of harvesting comets as they pass through the inner solar system. These have been described as "dirty iceballs", which is the case in the majority of cases, such as 81P/Wild, which has an orbital period of just 6 years (therefore easily reached), and a volume of about 6.5 cubic miles, of which possibly one-third of which is water-ice. There are likewise hundreds of comets and asteroids in the Trojan points of the planet Jupiter, and these could be great sources of water. And then we have Saturn's moon Enceladus, which is mostly covered by fresh, clean ice, that is about 30 km thick. It's about 500 km in diameter, which means that Enceladus has more water bound up in ice than earth has in all its oceans. Plenty of water out there.

2 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

In any case, even if artificial space worlds are possible, we're not there yet. And if we want to get there, we need to sustain life, civilisation, and productivity on a relatively continual basis.

No, we are not there yet, but we'll get there eventually. Even if we are still having trouble on dear old Earth, in about a hundred years I believe that we'll be heavy into resource extraction from several extra-planetary sources, now that we know how to get there. We should survive fine until that point. It's just an engineering challenge now. Our current technological capabilities have actually reached the point where serious extraplanetary exploration is just becoming possible. We may see the first human visitors on Mars before this decade is done. 

2 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

We cannot push the current capacities recklessly without risking more local and widespread instabilities.

I disagree. Humankind has never bothered worrying about instability. And chaotic as progress has been at times (maybe most of the time), progress inevitably moves forward. With some people shouting hoarsely "No, stop! We can't do it this way!" And we nevertheless ending up doing it that way. And it works its way out, not always smoothly, but always. With some fits and starts of course.

2 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

I have no gripe with mindful growth, none at all. But quality does matter, I think it needs to keep pace with quantity if we want sustainability.

 

When the Norsemen visited North America, colonized Iceland and Greenland, nobody was the least mindful about it all. When the Polynesians reached Hawaii, they didn't care a hootenholler about sustainability. They just went there. There might have been unforeseen consequences in all that, and it didn't always work out well (e.g. Easter Island). But we own the planet now, and there isn't a place on its surface we haven't gone to. 

Next: UPWARDS! Ad astra, et per ardua, sed semper ad astra.

[Stargazer]

22 minutes ago, Calm said:

There also is concern that collecting in the desert will actually throw off the climate, so not probably an option in the long run.

Yeah, I've seen articles talking about that, and it's definitely a no-go ultimately.

22 minutes ago, Calm said:

Lots of space junk out there and only increasing, that is going to cause issues in the future.

It's causing issues already. But it's just an engineering challenge, and not at all insurmountable. Space Junk Cleanup at Space.com

[Stargazer]

37 minutes ago, Jamie said:

Starlink is working well now and will work even better as they launch more leo transceivers. Think of all we can do with mobile phones now.  But yes I agree we will be able to do even more in the future.

The neat thing about Starlink is that it will survive whatever crazy thing happens here on Earth, being "up there" and out of the way! I believe that we'll be rather grateful one day that Elon Musk was inspired to create that system. For one thing, I'm reasonably certain that Starlink will survive whatever tribulation occurs before the Second Coming, and that it will be one of the ways we are able to keep global communications open during the Millenium. 

[Meadowchik]

5 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Yes, fertility is lowered in starvation, but how many people even now are starving? In the "developing world" rates of starvation are still rather low. Most folks in these situations have "just enough" -- and poor conditions like those actually cause more babies to be born, rather than fewer. It's a survival factor, which is why poorer regions have higher birthrates. But the fat and lazy types of modern civilization avoid having more children. 

There are a number of limiting factors -- but birthrates among desert people do not seem to suffer greatly from lesser availability of water. With careful management, humans can deal with water scarcity.

Of course, increasing surface area must be accompanied by concomitant increases in other essential resources. But that's a known issue, and nobody is going to build space structures without also providing for lovely fresh water. If we're to the point of building space habitats, then we're to the point of harvesting comets as they pass through the inner solar system. These have been described as "dirty iceballs", which is the case in the majority of cases, such as 81P/Wild, which has an orbital period of just 6 years (therefore easily reached), and a volume of about 6.5 cubic miles, of which possibly one-third of which is water-ice. There are likewise hundreds of comets and asteroids in the Trojan points of the planet Jupiter, and these could be great sources of water. And then we have Saturn's moon Enceladus, which is mostly covered by fresh, clean ice, that is about 30 km thick. It's about 500 km in diameter, which means that Enceladus has more water bound up in ice than earth has in all its oceans. Plenty of water out there.

No, we are not there yet, but we'll get there eventually. Even if we are still having trouble on dear old Earth, in about a hundred years I believe that we'll be heavy into resource extraction from several extra-planetary sources, now that we know how to get there. We should survive fine until that point. It's just an engineering challenge now. Our current technological capabilities have actually reached the point where serious extraplanetary exploration is just becoming possible. We may see the first human visitors on Mars before this decade is done. 

I disagree. Humankind has never bothered worrying about instability. And chaotic as progress has been at times (maybe most of the time), progress inevitably moves forward. With some people shouting hoarsely "No, stop! We can't do it this way!" And we nevertheless ending up doing it that way. And it works its way out, not always smoothly, but always. With some fits and starts of course.

When the Norsemen visited North America, colonized Iceland and Greenland, nobody was the least mindful about it all. When the Polynesians reached Hawaii, they didn't care a hootenholler about sustainability. They just went there. There might have been unforeseen consequences in all that, and it didn't always work out well (e.g. Easter Island). But we own the planet now, and there isn't a place on its surface we haven't gone to. 

Next: UPWARDS! Ad astra, et per ardua, sed semper ad astra.

Lol. Endless progress is not inevitable. 

Again, I think mindfulness will go further, especially as humankind attempts much more complex and demanding feats. 

There is exponentially more thought, accuracy, and preparation required to colonize space than anything humans have done before.

 

[Stargazer]

19 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

Lol. Endless progress is not inevitable. 

Well, "inevitability" is a very vague concept. Even when thinking of human progress. The only really "inevitable" process I can think of offhand is the inevitable march of the Universe towards "heat death" in a couple hundred trillion years. Everything else is up for grabs. 

But consider the broad expanse of human history over the past 10,000 years. Cave paintings and flint arrowheads to the International Space Station. You responded to my post ten or fifteen minutes after I made it, on a device of a kind that didn't exist thirty years ago. We're perhaps hundreds of miles apart, yet our communication was virtually instantaneous.  When my great grandmother was born, the most advanced form of transportation was the coal-fired steam locomotive, and it took weeks and months to travel from New York to California -- and until telegraph lines were strung along that way, the fastest mail came by pony-express. You're either in the Netherlands or the UK at the moment, but when you hit "Send" your signal leaped across continents in seconds, arriving at a server somewhere probably in the US, and I checked a minute later from the UK, and saw your response.

Maybe we have an asteroid impact this year that sets civilization back a few decades. But probably we don't. It's not inevitable, but progress is happening. The parents of the first child to be born on Mars may just now be entering high school.

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Again, I think mindfulness will go further, especially as humankind attempts much more complex and demanding feats. 

Maybe it might go further. I would tend to bet unmindfulness will actually occur, however. Hope springs eternal, but...

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There is exponentially more thought, accuracy, and preparation required to colonize space than anything humans have done before.

 

A truer thought was never posted in an online forum.

But I am very confident and optimistic that it will happen -- unless the Millenium occurs in the middle of it and stops it. There's one source of lack of inevitability for you! 

Nevertheless, even with the Millenium, why would God want to stop our exploration of the solar system?

Edited May 25, 2021 by Stargazer

[Calm]

28 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

The only really "inevitable" process I can think of offhand is the inevitable march of the Universe towards "heat death" in a couple hundred trillion years. Everything else is up for grabs

Assuming the Second Law of Thermodynamics holds in every closed system no matter how large or small or diverse and that the Universe is a closed system. (Going from memory so may not have phrased that well).

[Analytics]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

We seem to be saying the same thing.  Exponential population growth will not / cannot happen.

Thanks for the clarification.

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

I suppose that depends on the scope and severity of the drop in fecundity.  Look at how many societies and cultures are extinguishing themselves.

A society or culture going through a period of low fertility rates is not the same thing as it "extinguishing" itself. Have you been to Tokyo or Seoul lately? 

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

Do you have evidence that the world heeded their "warnings?"

The cover story in the New York Times yesterday is evidence that people are choosing to have much smaller families.

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

Agreed.  But my point is about the alarmism and misanthrophy inherent in malthusian theory, which has had real world consequences:

Claiming Malthusian theory is inherently misanthropic is like saying that the reason people neuter and spay their cats is because they hate cats. Broadly, Malthusian theory simply states what you and I apparently agree on--that we have to live in harmony with the ecosystem and that depleting resources to support growth that is out of harmony will eventually lead to a day of reckoning. 

But by disagreeing with this you are in good company. According to Wikipedia:

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Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels argued that Malthus failed to recognize a crucial difference between humans and other species. In capitalist societies, as Engels put it, scientific and technological "progress is as unlimited and at least as rapid as that of population". Marx argued, even more broadly, that the growth of both a human population in toto and the "relative surplus population" within it, occurred in direct proportion to accumulation.

 

[Calm]

17 minutes ago, Analytics said:

people are choosing to have much smaller families.

But why are they choosing?  Because they don’t want to add to population numbers out of concern for the earth in a hundred years (are heeding the warnings) or more or because they don’t see their current lives as better or more worthwhile with more children (using that term to include all quality of life of the family decisions)?

From the NYT:

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Surveys in many countries show that young people would like to be having more children, but face too many obstacles.

 

Edited May 25, 2021 by Calm

[Stargazer]

1 minute ago, Calm said:

Assuming the Second Law of Thermodynamics holds in every closed system no matter how large or small or diverse and that the Universe is a closed system. (Going from memory so may not have phrased that well).

I think it's assumed from the get-go that it's an open system. Which means that entropy must always increase. Clausius said "The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum." Meaning that disorder inevitably increases; there may be local occurrences where entropy decreases, but globally it's the other way entirely.

My favorite restatement of the three laws of thermodynamics is:

1. You can't win
2. You can't break even, and
3. You can't even get out of the game.

Very depressing it is.

[Stargazer]

17 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Claiming Malthusian theory is inherently misanthropic is like saying that the reason people neuter and spay their cats is because they hate cats.

Had to laugh out loud at that one!

But Malthus is one of the reasons economics is sometimes called the "dismal science."

I love economics! I read economics texts for fun. My favorite: "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell.

Edited May 25, 2021 by Stargazer

[3DOP]

15 hours ago, AtlanticMike said:

Uhhhh. I don't understand this. Shouldn't we be glad we have worries? If we have worries, we have choices which means we have freedom of thought. Satan wanted to alter God's plan so there would be universal salvation, meaning there would be no worries, everyone could receive it, supposedly. I'm kinda glad we have worries/hardships, it means we're learning and progressing. Am I looking at this wrong?

Mike...hi.

Yes, I think you are looking at it wrong to see worry as a blessing, or a virtue to be cultivated. But I am not LDS, and maybe I am misunderstanding you while you misunderstand me.

For a Catholic, faith and hope exclude worry. It means that we have trust that our Father will never let us be wanting for any needs. Worry, results from fear that a perceived good now possessed will be taken away, or if not yet gained, as a future good, will be unattainable. 

I cannot believe that we have the same understandings of the meaning of worry. In my Catholic universe, worry and anxiety are causes not of freedom, but of a stifling paralysis that restricts our ability to perceive God's Providence, and His unceasing care for His children. 

Anyway, Mike. I am sure I misunderstand. There is no way anyone could view worry, as I understand it, in a positive light. In your world, is peace of mind bad? How does confidence that things will be okay because my Father is going to watch after me, restrict any kind of "freedom" that I should desire?

Thanks for your consideration.

3DOP

 

 

 

[Analytics]

9 hours ago, Calm said:

But why are they choosing?  Because they don’t want to add to population numbers out of concern for the earth in a hundred years (are heeding the warnings) or more or because they don’t see their current lives as better or more worthwhile with more children (using that term to include all quality of life of the family decisions)?

Fair point. Most people who are choosing fewer kids aren't doing so out of a concern of humanity, although some are.

From one perspective, the current fertility bust can be seen as a "Malthusian crisis." The fact that it is driven by people freely choosing to have fewer children rather than by starvation, pestilence or war is a best-case scenario. 

[smac97]

11 hours ago, Analytics said:

A society or culture going through a period of low fertility rates is not the same thing as it "extinguishing" itself. Have you been to Tokyo or Seoul lately? 

An October 2019 news item about Tokyo:

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The time may not be far off when more adults need diapers than babies as the population grows older, potentially a huge opportunity for manufacturers of incontinence products — if they can lift the stigma that has long constrained sales.

The market for adult diapers, disposable underwear and absorbent pads is growing fast, up 9 percent last year to $9 billion, having doubled in the last decade, according to Euromonitor.

But manufacturers like market leaders Essity and Kimberly-Clark Corp. reckon only half of the more than 400 million adults likely to be affected by weak bladders are buying the right products, because they are too embarrassed.

Companies are trying various methods to change attitudes, including making products more discreet, avoiding terms like diapers or nappies, and placing items in the personal care aisle, next to deodorants and menstrual pads, rather than in the baby products section.

They are also trying to normalize discussions around the subject through advertising.

In Japan, where adult incontinence products have outsold baby diaper sales since around 2013 due to a rapidly aging population and low birthrate, market leader Unicharm Corp has adopted the phrase choi more in its advertising, which translates as “lil’ dribble,” to make light of the problem.

The current fertility rate in Japan is 1.368 births per woman, far below the replacement rate, and UN projections estimate the rate by 2100 will be . . . 1.671, still far below the replacement rate.

By 2100 the population of Japan will fall from the current 125 million to about 59 million.

From the OP article about Seoul:

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Expectant mothers in many areas can no longer find obstetricians or postnatal care centers. Universities below the elite level, especially outside Seoul, find it increasingly hard to fill their ranks — the number of 18-year-olds in South Korea has fallen from about 900,000 in 1992 to 500,000 today. To attract students, some schools have offered scholarships and even iPhones.

To goose the birthrate, the government has handed out baby bonuses. It increased child allowances and medical subsidies for fertility treatments and pregnancy. Health officials have showered newborns with gifts of beef, baby clothes and toys. The government is also building kindergartens and day care centers by the hundreds. In Seoul, every bus and subway car has pink seats reserved for pregnant women.

But this month, Deputy Prime Minister Hong Nam-ki admitted that the government — which has spent more than $178 billion over the past 15 years encouraging women to have more babies — was not making enough progress. In many families, the shift feels cultural and permanent.

See also here:

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South Korea probably leads the downward spiral. In 2018, its fertility rate dropped to 0.98, and 8.7 percent fewer babies were born in 2018 compared to 2017.

And from this article:

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A new study published in a leading British medical journal predicts that the total fertility rate worldwide will drop well below replacement level by 2100, and that the population of many countries will drop by half in the coming century.

The article, published in The Lancet on Tuesday, is titled “Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study.” The research was conducted by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, and was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Researchers found that total fertility rate (TFR), the average number of children born to a woman throughout her lifetime, will drop to 1.66 worldwide by 2100. The global population is expected to peak at 9.73 billion in 2064, before dropping due to falling birthrates.
...
The research found that 23 countries, including Japan, Thailand, and Spain, would lose more than 50% of their populations between 2017 and 2100 due to low birthrates if trends do not improve. The approximate current populations of Japan, Thailand, and Spain are 125 million, 69 million, and 47 million, respectively.

If these countries lost 50% of their populations within an average human lifespan (80+ years, by 2100), I wonder what will happen after 2100.  See, e.g., here (from January 2020) :

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In a new paper, provocatively titled “The End of Economic Growth?”, Stanford University economics professor Charles Jones models what might happen in a world of declining population. Rather than per capita growth chugging along, even as overall output declines, Mr Jones argues that living standards would stagnate as the population gradually vanishes.

He assumes that economic growth ultimately comes from new ideas, and the discovery of new ideas depends on the number of people researching them. If population began to decline at the global level, it would mean ever fewer people devoted to research and thus ever slower progress, at a time when new technologies already seem to have become harder to find.

Mr Jones’s work suggests falling population could cause slower growth in living standards. But there is an even more alarming possibility: a vicious cycle in which low fertility in one generation causes low fertility in the next, leading to a downward spiral in population. That is the scenario that demographer Wolfgang Lutz and colleagues call the “Low-Fertility Trap Hypothesis”.

They propose a set of mechanisms whereby low fertility can pass itself from generation to generation. In particular, they suggest that willingness to marry and have children depends partly on whether a couple can meet their material aspirations. But low fertility goes hand-in-hand with ageing populations and a rising tax burden to pay for pensions and healthcare. In places with low housing supply, falling interest rates also lead to high house prices, putting even more pressure on the finances of the young.

There is reason to suspect these mechanisms are already at work in suppressing fertility. In Japan, for example, almost all recent income growth for people of working age has been soaked up by tax rises and social insurance premiums.

Keynes concluded: “I only wish to warn you that the chaining up of the one devil [of population growth] may, if we are careless, only serve to loose another still fiercer and more intractable.” It is time to take that warning to heart.

Thoughts?

11 hours ago, Analytics said:

Claiming Malthusian theory is inherently misanthropic is like saying that the reason people neuter and spay their cats is because they hate cats.

Comparing human fertility rates to neutering/spaying cats kinda proves the point.

Charles ****ens memorialized the essence of Malthusian thought in the character of Ebenezer Scrooge (emphases added) :

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Malthus and Scrooge: How Charles ****ens Put Holly Branch Through The Heart Of The Worst Economics Ever

Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.'' "Many can't go there; and many would rather die.'' "If they would rather die,'' said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

That phrase--surplus population--is what first tipped me off to ****ens' philosophical agenda. He's taking aim at the father of the zero-growth philosophy, Thomas Malthus. Malthus' ideas were still current in British intellectual life at the time A Christmas Carol was written. Malthus, himself, had joined the surplus generation only nine years before. But his ideas have proved more durable.

What was ****ens really doing when he wrote A Christmas Carol? Answer: He was weighing in on one of the central economic debates of his time, the one that raged between Thomas Malthus and one of the disciples of Adam Smith.

Malthus famously argued that in a world in which economies grew arithmetically and population grew geometrically, mass want would be inevitable. His Essay on Population created a school of thought which continues to this day under the banners of Zero Population Growth and Sustainability. The threat of a "population bomb" under which my generation lived was Paul Ehrlich's modern rehashing of the Malthusian argument about the inability of productivity to keep pace with, let alone exceed, population growth.

Jean Baptiste Say, Smith's most influential disciple, argued on the other hand, as had his mentor, that the gains from global population growth, spread over vast expanses of trading, trigger gains from a division of labor which exceed those ever thought possible before the rise of the market order.

Guess whose ideas Charles ****ens put into the mouth of his antagonist Ebenezer Scrooge.

"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation? … If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Interesting, isn't it? Later in the story, the Ghost of Christmas Present reminds Scrooge of his earlier words and then adds about Tiny Tim:

"What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

"Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! To hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust."

Interesting also, that Ehrlich was not an economist, agronomist or even demographer but rather an etymologist, an expert in insect biology. Malthusianism is, indeed, the philosophy of the bug heap, of man as devouring swarm rather than ennobling angel.
...
The debate between Say and Malthus, between Scrooge and the Ghosts, continues to this day. Is the market economy a source of abundance or shortage? Is each new little boy or a girl mostly mouth, or mostly mind? Is it a Say/(Julian) Simon/Forbes/Wanniski/Gilder world, or is it a Keynes/Ehrlich/Krugman/Gore world?

Malthus taught the world to fear new people. An amateur economist, he created a theoretical model which allegedly proved that mass starvation was an inevitable result of population growth. Populations grow, he said, geometrically, but wealth only grows arithmetically. In other words, new people create more new people, but new food doesn't create new food.

Malthus' influence, unfortunately, grew geometrically and not arithmetically. His ideas provided fodder for Darwin, and Darwin's lesser mutations used the model to argue for the value of mass human extinction.

Hitler's hard eugenics and Sanger's (founder of Planned Parenthood) softer one, both owed a great debt of gratitude to Thomas Malthus. So do the zero-growth, sustainable-growth, right-to-die, duty-to-die, life boat bio-ethicists who dominate so much of our intellectual discussion. Malthus turned out to be, ironically, right in some sense. His prediction of mass death has taken place; not because he was right, but because he was believed.

In other words Malthusianism is a grizzly form of economic self-fulfilling prophecy. ****ens, I think, saw that first. Ebenezer Scrooge was clearly a Malthusian. When he turns away an opportunity for alms giving, he uses the zero growth rationale. When he meets the Ghost of Christmas Present, he reiterates it:

"You have never seen the like of me before!'' exclaimed the Spirit.

"Never,'' Scrooge made answer to it.

"Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?'' pursued the Phantom.

"I don't think I have,'' said Scrooge. "I am afraid I have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?''

"More than eighteen hundred,'' said the Ghost.

"A tremendous family to provide for!'' muttered Scrooge.

At this, the Ghost rose in indignation. Scrooge cowers and submits. Then the ghost raises his torch (in the shape of a cornucopia) and leads Scrooge to the public market, brimming with food from all around the world. ****ens especially emphasizes the fruits of trade: almonds, Spanish onions and oranges (in winter, no less). The message is clear: Use your eyes, man, just look around and see that the dirge-ists of the day are wrong. England, even with its poor classes, is a prosperous society. The world is abundant. Rest is possible. So is generosity.
...
****ens' message is clear enough: The Malthusians of his day did not need evidence (which they ignored every day in the marketplace) or reason. They needed conversion. They needed healing. They needed to be reminded on the day where the world celebrates the birth of a child whom Rome and Herod try to assign to the role of 'surplus population,' that the frightened men who rule the world in the name of scarcity should not be followed, but saved.

Humans as bugs to be exterminated.

Humans as cats to be neutered/spayed.

So yeah, if the inherently misanthropic shoe fits...

Thanks,

-Smac

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

An October 2019 news item about Tokyo:

The current fertility rate in Japan is 1.368 births per woman, far below the replacement rate, and UN projections estimate the rate by 2100 will be . . . 1.671, still far below the replacement rate.

By 2100 the population of Japan will fall from the current 125 million to about 59 million.

That is your definition of a culture that is "extinguishing itself"? If somebody's net worth was projected to decrease from 125 million dollars to 59 million dollars over the course of a lifetime, would you say he is going bankrupt?

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If these countries lost 50% of their populations within an average human lifespan (80+ years, by 2100), I wonder what will happen after 2100.  See, e.g., here (from January 2020) :

Whatever happens, these countries will not become "extinguished." 

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Thoughts [about Charles I. Jones's working paper]?

On the surface, it's an interesting model. But in the brave new world of supercomputers, robots, and self-driving cars, it's hard to imagine that a population shrinking towards a sustainable level would lead to a lower per-capita GDP. And even if it did, that doesn't mean that this post-growth world would be worse than a population that continued growing exponentially on a quest to, to what? 

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Comparing human fertility rates to neutering/spaying cats kinda proves the point.

Nope. Wanting a prosperous human society that lives in harmony with the ecosystem is not misanthropic. Neutering and spaying cats is what societies do that love cats. Voluntarily limiting growth is what societies do that love people. Because whether we like it or not growth will be limited, and letting other things limit it will be worse.

To put your belief that humankind is now "extinguishing" itself into perspective, consider the following:

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How many wolves live today in Germany, the land of the Grimm brothers, Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf? Less than a hundred. (And even these are mostly Polish wolves that stole over the border in recent years.) In contrast, Germany is home to 5 million domesticated dogs. Altogether about 200,000 wild wolves still roam the earth, but there are more than 400 million domesticated dogs. The world contains 40,000 lions compared to 600 million house cats; 900,000 African buffalo versus 1.5 billion domesticated cows; 50 million penguins and 20 billion chickens. Since 1970, despite growing ecological awareness, wildlife populations have halved (not that they were prospering in 1970). In 1980 there were 2 billion wild birds in Europe. In 2009 only 1.6 billion were left. In the same year, Europeans raised 1.9 billion chickens for meat and eggs. At present, more than 90 per cent of the large animals of the world (i.e., those weighing more than a few pounds) are either humans or domesticated animals.

Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (pp. 71-72). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. 

Edited May 25, 2021 by Analytics

[Meadowchik]

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

Fair point. Most people who are choosing fewer kids aren't doing so out of a concern of humanity, although some are.

From one perspective, the current fertility bust can be seen as a "Malthusian crisis." The fact that it is driven by people freely choosing to have fewer children rather than by starvation, pestilence or war is a best-case scenario. 

We could also look at it another way. One of the strongest associations to high fertility rates is high infant mortality rates. 

So we could say that humans will keep trying to have babies when survival is very difficult, but when survival is more assured they will focus more on quality of life, resulting in the tendency to have less children.

[smac97]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

That is your definition of a culture that has "extinguishing itself"? If somebody's net worth was projected to decrease from 125 million dollars to 59 million dollars over the course of a lifetime, would you say he is going bankrupt?

Whatever happens, these countries will not become "extinguished." 

Well, we'll see, I suppose.  You seem to think the downward spiral will correct itself at some point.  My point is that the spiral seems to be unending.  No country has pulled out of it yet.  

So we may not see a downward trend that then levels off to some sort of equilibrium.  We may instead see a downward trend that ends in the extinction of countries, ethnicities, cultures.

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On the surface, it's an interesting model. But in the brave new world of supercomputers, robots, and self-driving cars, it's hard to imagine that a population shrinking towards a sustainable level would lead to a lower per-capita GDP. And even if it did, that doesn't mean that this post-growth world would be worse than a population that continued growing exponentially on a quest to, to what? 

You keep bringing up exponential growth as the alternative course.  I don't think it is.

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Comparing human fertility rates to neutering/spaying cats kinda proves the point.

Nope. Wanting a prosperous human society that lives in harmony with the ecosystem is not misanthropic.

But that's not what you said.  

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Neutering and spaying cats is what societies do that love cats. 

Still channeling Malthus, I see.  And Scrooge.

Let's take a look at some of what Malthus said:

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“All children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to a desired level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the deaths of grown persons. . . . Therefore . . . we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague, In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations. But above all, we should reprobate {disapprove of} specific remedies for ravaging diseases; and restrain those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders.”

Are you sure Malthusian theory is not inherently misanthropic?  It sure seems like it.

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Voluntarily limiting growth is what societies do that love people.

Cats are voluntarily neutered and spayed, are they?

Malthus was all about "voluntarily limiting growth," was he?

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Because whether we like it or not growth will be limited, and letting other things limit it will be worse.

From the article quoted above: "Malthus taught the world to fear new people."

I encourage you to re-think your admiration/advocacy of Malthus.

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To put your belief that humankind is now "extinguishing" itself into perspective, consider the following:

Yet another comparison of humans to animals.  Cats.  Wolves.  Malthusian theory diminishes mankind in this way, which is how we end up with delightful folks like Margaret Sanger.  From the above article:

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In his biography of Sanger, Killer Angel, (available as a PDF) George Grant describes Margaret’s year in England and her falling in with the Malthusians and neo-Malthusians:

“Not surprisingly, Margaret immediately got on the Malthusian bandwagon. She was not philosophically inclined, nor was she particularly adept at political, social, or economic theory, but she did recognize in the Malthusians a kindred spirit and a tremendous opportunity. She was also shrewd enough to realize that her notions of radical socialism and sexual liberation would never have the popular support necessary to usher in the revolution without some appeal to altruism and intellectualism. She needed somehow to capture the moral and academic “high ground.”

“Malthusianism, she thought, just might be the key to that ethical and intellectual posture. If she could argue for birth control using the scientifically verified threat of poverty, sickness, racial tension, and overpopulation as its backdrop, then she would have a much better chance of making her case. So she began to absorb as much of the Malthusian dogma as she could.

“Margaret also immersed herself in the teachings of each of the Malthusian offshoots. If a little bit of something is a good thing, then a lot is even better. There was phrenology, Binetism, and Craniometri-cism. There was Oneidianism, Polygenesis, Recapitulationism, Lambrosianism, Hereditarianism, Freudianism, and Neotenism. From each group she picked Up a few popular slogans and concepts that would permanently shape her crusade.

“But Eugenics left the most lasting impression on the malleable mold of her nascent worldview of radicalism. Eugenics was perhaps the most revolutionary of the pseudo-sciences spawned by Malthusianism. Having convinced an entire generation of scientists, intellectuals, and social reformers that the world was facing an imminent economic crisis caused by unchecked human fertility, Malthusian thought quickly turned to practical programs and social policies.

“Some of these managerial Malthusians believed that the solution to the imminent crisis was political: restrict immigration, reform social welfare, and tighten citizenship requirements. Others thought the solution was technological: increase agricultural production, improve medical proficiency, and promote industrial efficiency. But many of the rest felt that the solution was genetic: restrict or eliminate “bad racial stocks” and gradually “help to engineer the evolutionary ascent of man.”

“This last group became the adherents of a malevoent new voodoo-science called Eugenics. They quickly became the most influential and powerful of all the insurgent ideologists striving to rule the affairs of men and nations. In fact, for the rest of the twentieth century they would unleash one plague after another+ whole plethora of designer disasters—upon the unsuspecting human race.

“The Eugenicists unashamedly espoused an elitist white Supremacy. Or to be more precise, they espoused an elitist Northern and Western European white Supremacy. It was not a supremacy based on the crass ethnic racism of the past but upon a new kind of “scientific” elitism deemed necessary to preserve “the best of the human race” in the face of impending doom. It was a very refined sort of supremacy that prided itself on rationalism, intellectualism, and progressivism.”

And China's one-child policy. 

And mass abortions and forced sterilizations.  And not just in China, but also here in the U.S.  See, e.g., here:

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Until the mid-1960s, American population control programs, both at home and abroad, were largely funded and implemented by private organizations such as the Population Council and Planned Parenthood — groups with deep roots in the eugenics movement. While disposing of millions of dollars provided to them by the Rockefeller, Ford, and Milbank Foundations, among others, the resources available to support their work were meager in comparison with their vast ambitions. This situation changed radically in the mid-1960s, when the U.S. Congress, responding to the agitation of overpopulation  ideologues, finally appropriated federal funds to underwrite first domestic and then foreign population control programs. Suddenly, instead of mere millions, there were hundreds of millions and eventually billions of dollars available to fund global campaigns of mass abortion and forced sterilization. The result would be human catastrophe on a worldwide scale.

Among the first to be targeted were America’s own Third World population at home — the native American Indians. Starting in 1966, Secretary of the Interior Stuart Udall began to make use of newly available Medicaid money to set up sterilization programs at federally funded Indian Health Services (IHS) hospitals. As reported by Angela Franks in her 2005 book Margaret Sanger’s Eugenic Legacy:

These sterilizations were frequently performed without adequate informed consent…. Native American physician Constance Redbird Uri estimated that up to one-quarter of Indian women of childbearing age had been sterilized by 1977; in one hospital in Oklahoma, one-fourth of the women admitted (for any reason) left sterilized…. She also gathered evidence that all the pureblood women of the Kaw tribe in Oklahoma were sterilized in the 1970s….

Unfortunately, and amazingly, problems with the Indian Health Service seem to persist … recently [in the early 1990s], in South Dakota, IHS was again accused of not following informed-consent procedures, this time for Norplant, and apparently promoted the long-acting contraceptive to Native American women who should not use it due to contraindicating, preexisting medical conditions. The Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center reports that one woman was recently told by her doctors that they would remove the implant only if she would agree to a tubal ligation. The genocidal dreams of bureaucrats still cast their shadow on American soil.

Programs of a comparable character were also set up in clinics funded by the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity in low-income (predominantly black) neighborhoods in the United States. Meanwhile, on the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, a mass sterilization program was instigated by the Draper Fund/Population Crisis Committee and implemented with federal funds from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare through the island’s major hospitals as well as a host of smaller clinics. According to the report of a medical fact-finding mission conducted in 1975, the effort was successful in sterilizing close to one-third of Puerto Rican women of child-bearing age.

Stewart Udall (referenced above as "Stuart Udall") was a member of the Church (albeit lapsed).

You will understand, then, why your advocacy of Malthusian theory, your analogizing population control of human beings to the spaying/neutering of cats, comes across . . . badly.

We could also talk about the Malthusian aspects of the policies formulated/enacted by Marx, Stalin, Mao, and so on.  

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited May 25, 2021 by smac97

[Jamie]

17 hours ago, Stargazer said:

The neat thing about Starlink is that it will survive whatever crazy thing happens here on Earth, being "up there" and out of the way! I believe that we'll be rather grateful one day that Elon Musk was inspired to create that system. For one thing, I'm reasonably certain that Starlink will survive whatever tribulation occurs before the Second Coming, and that it will be one of the ways we are able to keep global communications open during the Millenium. 

...only if somebody keeps launching more of those LEO satellites.  or they somehow find a way to keep them up there as long as the Lord will allow.  For now they're not designed to stay up there forever.

[champatsch]

It seems that no matter the population trend, we can count on authors to write that the trend is dire.

Isn't one of the main reasons governments incentivize population growth because they have put in place entitlement Ponzi programs that demand growing populations?

[champatsch]

Is it unrighteous to have lower human populations rather than higher populations?

Won't mammals be pressured less with lower population levels and won't species extinction proceed at a lower rate?