The population of Earth is over seven billion now. It's not possible to calculate the exact number of humans that the Earth can safely support, but I feel strongly that we are reaching the upper limit if we haven't already overtaken it. We are producing too much waste, over-fishing the oceans, destroying too much plant life, and many other negative things that make it hard to keep the current population healthy in the future.
I had heard that the countries with the greatest population growth were also the countries with the highest populations (India being a prime example). I decided to do a brief analysis to see what the relationship is between population and population growth. I took the population growth rate according to the UN, 2005-2010 and compared it with the population of most countries. I organized it in a spreadsheet to attempt to draw conclusions.
Pictured below is the population on the x axis and the population growth rate on the y axis:
The problem with this graph is that it weighs the population growth rate of small countries as much as larger countries for drawing the trendline. Here is a graph which shows the same data when we weight each country's Y value according to it's X value:
Now, there is definitely a bias that the countries with the largest populations also have the highest population growth rates.edit - this method doesn't work as I originally intended so you can disregard this conclusion. I also tried scaling the x axis by taking the logarithm of the population of each country, but the resulting trendline is misleading. So what do we do about this unfortunate trend towards overpopulation? In 1978 China implemented a One Child Policy in an effort to control the growing population. I've heard of many negative side effects of this policy such as newborn children being killed if they don't meet the criteria of the parents. Many people even feel that the government has no right to tell you how many children you can have. Personally, I hate the idea of the government telling me I can't have more than X children, or that I can't have children with Y person because of Z reason. It seems like an Orwellion control that spells doom for society if allowed to perpetuate. Next, they'll be telling us who our wives/husbands will be, how many children we can have, and that we need to abort one and go again because the child has a 50% chance of needing glasses or having asthma.
On the other hand, we have some serious problems that must be dealt with... and on an international scale. If we, as a global community, don't start to discuss taboo subjects such as preventing the spread of genetic diseases and preventing overpopulation, nature will take care of the problem for us (it always does). At the moment we live in a society where Darwinism plays only a small role in human development. Social Darwinism has taken over as a driving force of sorts. It won't stay this way forever, or at least not with our current course.
Most people agree that incest is not acceptable (a light form of eugenics). I think more people should start to think about less extreme cases like whether or not two profoundly deaf people should be allowed to naturally have a child, even if their child is highly likely to be deaf as well. They should also think about the rising rates of other genetic disorders that we make no attempt to prevent. Sure, we don't fully understand the emergence of autism, or many other problems. But if we wait until we 100% understand every ailment in humans it will be too late to prevent any of the problems that await us. The eugenics taboo needs to be re-evaluated carefully.
The same thing must be said for population growth. As much as I want to give families the freedom to have as many children as they want, this isn't currently working. The problem is less well-to-do families that enjoy having and supporting a large number of children, and more the result of bad family planning by poor individuals. Tackling overpopulation requires much less of a global paradigm shift than discussing eugenics does. Which of the two problems is more substantial, I can not say.
hi, if you show graphs you should explain the axis, in particular how your growth rate is defined. I'm sure it is explained in the UN refrence, but writing it yourself would ease reading.
On May 07 2012 00:39 aqui wrote: hi, if you show graphs you should explain the axis, in particular how your growth rate is defined. I'm sure it is explained in the UN refrence, but writing it yourself would ease reading.
The first graph is a straight population growth rate (and yes I provided the links for those who want to read more about it).
The second graph, as I said, weights the data points according to their x value so I honestly don't even know how to label the y axis. It's the population growth rate times the population, divided by the total population of all the countries.
Given the state of the world right now, I think it is simply responsible behavior for couples to have no more than 2 children. Ideally, people would make that choice by themselves rather than having it forced upon them by legal or economic restrictions, but that may ultimately be the only option.
Naturally, people are leery of heading down the eugenics road. But, as you note, it is already practiced to an extent. Where you draw the line in the great big gray area is almost arbitrary.
by the way, I just did a test: what happens if you remove China/India? The answer is there is still a significant upward trend... the larger the population the larger the population growth.
Doesn't the first graph argue the opposite, or that population size has a negative relationship with population growth? Ignoring any problems with the model, the negative coefficient of the x indicates that as x (population size) increases, the population growth rate decreases.
On May 07 2012 01:15 goldrush wrote: Doesn't the first graph argue the opposite, or that population size has a negative relationship with population growth? Ignoring any problems with the model, the negative coefficient of the x indicates that as x (population size) increases, the population growth rate decreases.
Yes, if you allow a country with a population of less than 1 million to weigh into the calculation as much as a country with a population of over 1 billion.
I don't consider this to be that influential, though.
On May 07 2012 01:15 goldrush wrote: Doesn't the first graph argue the opposite, or that population size has a negative relationship with population growth? Ignoring any problems with the model, the negative coefficient of the x indicates that as x (population size) increases, the population growth rate decreases.
Yes, if you allow a country with a population of less than 1 million to weigh into the calculation as much as a country with a population of over 1 billion.
I don't consider this to be that influential, though.
The US has been funding population control programs for a while. Couple of unpleasant things have resulted:
1) Third world dictatorships, if given tangible rewards for achieving a quota of sterilizations, etc. will generally be dishonest to their populace and/or use force to ensure that people undergo population control measures.
2) Safety is sacrificed -- devices that would not meet FDA approval would be distributed to other countries
3) Governments like using population control as a weapon versus ethnic groups they didn't like (untouchables in India, Albanians in Serbia, etc. etc.)
But I guess I will leave you with the statement of a Kenyan official. You can find the testimony in the 106th Congressional Record:
Our health sector is collapsed. Thousands of the Kenyan people will die of malaria, the treatment of which costs a few cents, in health facilities whose shelves are stocked to the ceiling with millions of dollars’ worth of pills, IUDs, Norplant, Depo-Provera, and so on, most of which are supplied with American money.... Special operating theaters fully serviced and not lacking in instruments are opened in hospitals for the sterilization of women. While in the same hospitals, emergency surgery cannot be done for lack of basic operating instruments and supplies.
But hey, on a utilitarian scale, all worth it, right?
There's a vague theoretical humanitarian benefit from population control...but all I can see is the suffering caused from the programs already implemented, and it seems like such a tragic waste.
Remember Ehrlich's The Population Bomb?
I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks India will be self sufficient in food by 1971, if ever...we must allow [India] to slip down the drain.
I guess the fact that this and many other Malthusian predictions never came true gives me a natural skepticism toward the idea that population control is imperative.
Hippo's routinely kill infants when the herd gets over populated or their habitat shrinks... it isn't an uncommon practice among animals.
The thing that gives me solace though is the universe doesn't need us. Nature will correct itself over time... in the end everything is going to work out. Is the world over populated? Yes. Does it suck? Totally.
The worst part, is the answer to this problem stairs right at us yet we decided to cut back it's funding.
I speak of course of the Space Program... I mean if the earth is running out of resources it only makes sense that we're going to have to one day leave this planet to acquire more... cutting the funding to NASA was America's deathknell... I mean seriously, do you realize how many technologies the modern world owes to the space program?
This is super bad... to use a SC2 analogy.... we have two tech labs that aren't producing... you all know where that leads.
There's going to be a big war hopefully to equal things out.
On May 07 2012 01:15 goldrush wrote: Doesn't the first graph argue the opposite, or that population size has a negative relationship with population growth? Ignoring any problems with the model, the negative coefficient of the x indicates that as x (population size) increases, the population growth rate decreases.
Yes, if you allow a country with a population of less than 1 million to weigh into the calculation as much as a country with a population of over 1 billion.
I don't consider this to be that influential, though.
Why do you need to reweight it?
For the same reason why each state has a different weight into the house of representatives of the USA, and why each state gets a number of electoral votes proportional to the number of people (roughly) living in the state.
Whether or not I include/exclude really small countries should not have a significant impact on the conclusions drawn from the data, but unless I weight the data according to population they do.
On May 07 2012 01:23 419 wrote: The US has been funding population control programs for a while. Couple of unpleasant things have resulted:
1) Third world dictatorships, if given tangible rewards for achieving a quota of sterilizations, etc. will generally be dishonest to their populace and/or use force to ensure that people undergo population control measures.
2) Safety is sacrificed -- devices that would not meet FDA approval would be distributed to other countries
3) Governments like using population control as a weapon versus ethnic groups they didn't like (untouchables in India, Albanians in Serbia, etc. etc.)
But I guess I will leave you with the statement of a Kenyan official. You can find the testimony in the 106th Congressional Record:
Our health sector is collapsed. Thousands of the Kenyan people will die of malaria, the treatment of which costs a few cents, in health facilities whose shelves are stocked to the ceiling with millions of dollars’ worth of pills, IUDs, Norplant, Depo-Provera, and so on, most of which are supplied with American money.... Special operating theaters fully serviced and not lacking in instruments are opened in hospitals for the sterilization of women. While in the same hospitals, emergency surgery cannot be done for lack of basic operating instruments and supplies.
But hey, on a utilitarian scale, all worth it, right?
There's a vague theoretical humanitarian benefit from population control...but all I can see is the suffering caused from the programs already implemented, and it seems like such a tragic waste.
I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks India will be self sufficient in food by 1971, if ever...we must allow [India] to slip down the drain.
I guess the fact that this and many other Malthusian predictions never came true gives me a natural skepticism toward the idea that population control is imperative.
This is unexplored territory, so I wouldn't rely too heavily on historical data to try to predict the future on this issue.
Yes, there are many problems with what has been done so far to try to deal with the possible problems to be caused by overpopulation... but that doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss it more. The problem doesn't go away because previous attempts to solve it were terrible. That makes me think of someone who would say "No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was a disaster; it didn't help school children in the USA at all. Now we should just give up on education"
The biggest problem I see is that people who don't want to have children or clearly can't support them still have them. They often make abusive or negligent parents which transfers over to their children and just spirals out of control.
A possible solution would be to make everyone sterile by default and then introduce a straightforward and uncomplicated parenthood test where couples state they actually want a kid and that they are able to cover the bare necessities of raising one. After checking for potentially debilitating genetic predispositions, the guy gets injected with a neutralizing agent and is made fertile for X months.
There, I just solved the issues of abortion, teenage pregnancy and domestic abuse all in one ^_^
Although the problem is for a big part caused by the well developed countries, I don't think it's too much to just ask people to not make kids if they can't feed them. People know about contraception too. If they don't idk what the hell have they done with all the foreign aid money for the last 50 years.
After that it comes down to abolishing gods & cultures and that would be stepping my line as an equal being. So, to whoever is going to try changing beliefs or cultures: good luck. Changing those is like trying to change a living language.
Of course there is the higher God we can use to control: money. We would need a system that would provide people with greater benefits than children working essentially for free. For this we would need money and I assume the influx of money would need to grow exponentially from the systems inception. Donations and private sector would never be enough so we would need big government money. People wouldn't want to give away from their own welfare so it would have to come from something useless such as military budgets. But we can't save millions of people from starvation with that because it's important to be ready to kill millions of people at any time.
I think everything comes down to multiple fundamental weaknesses in the human nature. Hope someone proves me wrong or space-age technology saves the current and future generations.
On May 07 2012 01:15 goldrush wrote: Doesn't the first graph argue the opposite, or that population size has a negative relationship with population growth? Ignoring any problems with the model, the negative coefficient of the x indicates that as x (population size) increases, the population growth rate decreases.
Yes, if you allow a country with a population of less than 1 million to weigh into the calculation as much as a country with a population of over 1 billion.
I don't consider this to be that influential, though.
Why do you need to reweight it?
For the same reason why each state has a different weight into the house of representatives of the USA, and why each state gets a number of electoral votes proportional to the number of people (roughly) living in the state.
Whether or not I include/exclude really small countries should not have a significant impact on the conclusions drawn from the data, but unless I weight the data according to population they do.
Your units in this analysis are the countries, not the people in the countries. This is different from the USA electoral system, where the units are the number of people.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but by rescaling the population growth by the population size, the second graph basically says that the more populated the country, the larger the absolute (not relative) increase in the total number of people. Which is obvious, right? 1% population growth of 1 billion people is 10 million, while 1% population growth of 1 million is 10 thousand.
I saw this video many years ago, and it really captivated me and made me think about rates of growth in the every day situation. The guy goes over some of the problems with overpopulation and consumption that relate back to a small amount of growth doubling over time. The classic water bottle example is used. It goes on for 8 parts. I promise it's a worthy watch.
Personally on the issue we need to get more gay people out. Less of them trying to be straight/get married/have kids, less population already.
On May 07 2012 01:15 goldrush wrote: Doesn't the first graph argue the opposite, or that population size has a negative relationship with population growth? Ignoring any problems with the model, the negative coefficient of the x indicates that as x (population size) increases, the population growth rate decreases.
Yes, if you allow a country with a population of less than 1 million to weigh into the calculation as much as a country with a population of over 1 billion.
I don't consider this to be that influential, though.
Why do you need to reweight it?
For the same reason why each state has a different weight into the house of representatives of the USA, and why each state gets a number of electoral votes proportional to the number of people (roughly) living in the state.
Whether or not I include/exclude really small countries should not have a significant impact on the conclusions drawn from the data, but unless I weight the data according to population they do.
Your units in this analysis are the countries, not the people in the countries. This is different from the USA electoral system, where the units are the number of people.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but by rescaling the population growth by the population size, the second graph basically says that the more populated the country, the larger the absolute (not relative) increase in the total number of people. Which is obvious, right? 1% population growth of 1 billion people is 10 million, while 1% population growth of 1 million is 10 thousand.
I don't believe that is what happened when I weighted the data. If anyone else can chime in and verify whether or not that is essentially what happened please let us know.
This is, and will always be, a socioeconomic problem.
The countries with the highest birth rates are always poorer and less educated (especially women). This in turn causes people to have lower life expectancies. Due to the lower life expectancies and higher child mortality, people have more children. In these same countries, agriculture is a lot more important on an individual scale. Agriculture is very labour intensive without powered machinery so people have more children in order to help out.These children then also grow up poor and uneducated and repeat the cycle.
The "give man a fish/teach a man to fish" metaphor is very relevant. A lot of the poorest countries are given tons of foreign aid but its just a bandaid that is continuously applied. Just throwing money at the situation doesn't solve the problem. You need to educate people if you expect them to ever be self sufficient. There's enough data out there showing the relationship between people who are better educated have less children.
EPT
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