There was 1.5B when my great-grandparents were born (1898), 3.7B for me (1971). Now there are 8.1B souls, better off economically and consuming to match.
Don’t tell me we have enough food, “if it wasn’t for evil peoples!”. Don’t care, we don’t have enough water. We’re draining aquifers that took 1,000s of years to fill, major cities are basically out of water all over the globe. And that was before AI!
Immigrant hate? Overpopulation. As a kid, most folks looked like you. By middle age, the world is clearly shittier, but the economy was on an upward trajectory for great-grandad, grandad and dad, but not for you. You look around today. Suddenly there are shitloads of poor people who don’t look like you! See how that works? (I don’t think the haters understand this.)
Global warming? Did I mention people are far better off and wanting their share? Global poverty rates dropped through the floor. The newly “rich” want to enjoy the life the rest of us had. Can’t blame 'em. Look at China, still building coal plants to get “caught up”. Remember the crazy smog in their major cities? LA was like that when I was a kid.
Hell, even the billionaires wouldn’t be so rich and have so much influence if there were half the people to get rich off and influence. Orgs like FB and AWS could not exist as they do now with half the customers, scale wouldn’t be there. If I could get one penny off every human, once a year, I’d be making $81,000.
Best part? Depopulation and deflation are economic disasters. Don’t know of a time in history where we successfully navigated depopulation in the short to midterm.
EDIT: Forgot to add! We’ve lost 74% of the animals on Earth since I was born. That’s on human activity, and lately, global warming. Our ecosystems are crashing, and unrecoverable in some cases. As one example: There are too many humans who don’t want bugs around. If you’re 40-50+, you knew a very different world. Hell, if you’re 30, I can show you ways the local ecosystem has crashed out, ways you’ll remember. “Oh shit! I forgot it was like that!”
Guess I’m wrong. We just need to allocate food, water and wealth fairly (which has rarely if ever happened). Stop pollution in the form of CO2, plastics, herbicides, pesticides etc. All while elevating the way of life for 8B, soon to be 9B, humans. Oh, and every tribe, counter to our entire history and evolution, should suddenly love one another. And somehow, we magically stomp out the wealthy. Super simple stuff! Easier than saying, “Maybe there’s too many of us?”
Ecofascist nonsense. Grow up.
And here you are, without a single rebuttal to my many points. Not a single word to say to counter me, just name calling.
How would you rate your knowledge of ecology on a scale of 1-10, 10 being highest?
How many papers do you read in a year?
How many related journals do you have access to?
Just curious.
Where did you live in the 70s where everybody looked like you?
Tulsa, OK. Everybody white. Hispanics were non-existent, black folks were rare enough and segregated to the north side. I literally never met an Hispanic kid and only had a vague notion of what the word meant. Lived in a one square-mile, middle-class neighborhood, smack in the middle of town, not a single black family. Hard to believe looking back, but there were only a couple of black kids in the surrounding hoods. I know that sounds like a bougie part of town, it was very middle of the road.
When I moved to Florida 20-years ago, about zero Hispanics until they came to save our ass after Hurricane Ivan. Having moved from Chicago, about 1/3rd black/white/Hispanic, I was like, “Where the brown people at?!” Very strange and I commented on it at the time, a lot. Locals didn’t know what I was talking about.
That may sound weird given today’s demographics, but that’s the reality I lived. Now my street on the edge of a redneck burb is a perfect demographic snapshot of the local town. 35% black, 65% white, 1% Asian (my wife). Still no Hispanics!
So, imagine a middle-aged guy who never moved from those first two areas. He’s watching everything go to shit, knows his near-ancestors had it better and better, what’s different?! And no one talks about it! But the haters knew exactly what button to push.
CAVEAT: If you’re young or from a major metro area, this will sound like utter bullshit. I’m just relating my experiences.
To be fair, before you were born Tulsa had a lot more black people in prominent neighborhoods. The white people literally massacred them and ran them out of town so you could live in your “Hispanics nonexistent/ blacks rare” white community.
“Why are there so many more non-white people nowadays?!” lol op
The unsustainable simply and brutally, won’t be sustained. Degrowth is a deliberate managed descent back to sustainability. The alternative is degradation and collapse.
I have my eye on Japan. They seem determined to see depopulation through without immigration. They’re going to be the test case on navigating this mess.
Yes, the obvious near-term solution is taking in immigrants. But those stubborn bastards refuse, so let’s see how they play this.
… is the one problem we humans are solving proactively and voluntarily
World got wealthier (compared to subsistence farming) and urban and populations now on the way to halving
Wish I shared your optimism. Got data on the populations halving? Maybe by 2275 or so…
(Serious question!)
OK TBF yes actual absolute size of population down 50% is probably 2200’s. Ecology is long-term planning.
But fertility rate has already dropped below replacement rate in Europe, N & S Americas, and Asia. The long term trend is already taking pressure off pretty much everywhere but Africa.
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