
The UN thinks we could hit peak births in 2014 - prostoalex
http://www.vox.com/2014/7/16/5909709/the-un-thinks-well-hit-peak-births-in-2014
======
tokenadult
The post kindly submitted here links to the UN report with the projection,[1]
and that page links also to a detailed report with projections of total world
population, given various assumptions, titled "World Population Prospects: The
2012 Revision."[2]

[1] [http://esa.un.org/wpp/Excel-
Data/fertility.htm](http://esa.un.org/wpp/Excel-Data/fertility.htm)

[2] [http://esa.un.org/wpp/Documentation/pdf/WPP2012_Volume-
I_Com...](http://esa.un.org/wpp/Documentation/pdf/WPP2012_Volume-
I_Comprehensive-Tables.pdf)

Projections of world population come to much smaller total population figures
now than they did when I was a child. Fertility rates have dropped much more
than many people could imagine over the last few decades, and are below
replacement rates in many developed countries.

~~~
ChuckMcM
No doubt you got the "OMG 10 billion people by 2010, we'll never be able to
feed them!" stuff I was exposed to as well.

The interesting thing about this to me is that it implies we will also reach
'peak energy' which is to say that once everyone in the planet is at the
agreed upon 'median' lifestyle/perks we will have a fixed number for the
amount of energy we need from that point forward. Kind of weird thinking about
a planet with humans in equilibrium.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _The interesting thing about this to me is that it implies we will also
> reach 'peak energy' which is to say that once everyone in the planet is at
> the agreed upon 'median' lifestyle/perks we will have a fixed number for the
> amount of energy we need from that point forward._

I doubt that. Reminds me of a concept of Malthusianisms [0].

Some quotes:

 _Why are even some affluent parts of the world running out of fresh water?
Because if they weren’t, they’d keep watering their lawns until they were._

 _Why does it cost so much to buy something to wear to a wedding? Because if
it didn’t, the fashion industry would invent more extravagant ‘requirements’
until it reached the limit of what people could afford._

 _Again and again, I’ve undergone the humbling experience of first lamenting
how badly something sucks, then only much later having the crucial insight
that its not sucking wouldn’t have been a Nash equilibrium._

[0] -
[http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=418](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=418)

~~~
ChuckMcM
Except that Malthusianisms have been shown to be completely bogus.

Let's use an example from that page to deconstruct that:

    
    
       > Why can’t everyone just agree to a family-friendly,
       > 40-hour workweek?  Because then anyone who chose to
       > work a 90-hour week would clean our clocks.
    

Except that more and more people _do_ work a family-friendly 40 hour week even
with the opportunity to do more. They have "enough" so they want to spend more
time with family than at work. The implication is that the pursuit of "money"
presumably would allow the person working 90 hours a week to make more than
twice or three times as much. But what do they get out of that? Where is their
motivation? So that they are rich enough not to work at all?

What has been demonstrated repeatedly through history is that that once the
'need' it met the behavior stops. And the example at hand here is population
growth. Why do "industrialized" populations have a lower population rate than
"pre-industrial" populations? They both have functioning genitalia, they both
have time. But when you can't count on being able to work until you are 70 and
being able to live off your savings until you die, you really really want
family that is younger than you so that you can move in with them. But when
you don't perceive a 'need' for children to support you in your golden years,
many people forego the obvious cost and bother of having them in the first
place. There is no sudden new use for children that substitutes in.

Affluent parts of the world aren't running out of fresh water, they can
recycle it or desalinate it. When the costs for doing that are connected with
the water they choose to use it differently (like not watering a lawn in Las
Vegas for example). We're low on water in California at the moment due to
weather, not due to outrageous consumption by individuals.

Similarly with energy, we use less and less. Our stuff gets more efficient,
our use gets more refined. From a 350 watt tube TV in the living room to a 50
Watt LCD to a 5 watt tablet/phone. We still consume news and entertainment but
we don't consume it using the same methodologies at the same energy costs.

People make extrapolations and hold technologies and attitudes constant, it
has been shown time and time again that you always get the wrong answer if you
do that.

------
thangalin
Hans Rosling's "Don't Panic" documentary presents some interesting findings
about population and third-world countries.

[http://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-the-facts-
about-p...](http://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-the-facts-about-
population/)

~~~
noselasd
His TED talks are well worth watching too:

* [http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...](http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen)

* [http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_o...](http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty)

* [http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_at_state](http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_at_state)

* [http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_g...](http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth)

* [http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_good_news_of_the_d...](http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_good_news_of_the_decade)

* [http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies](http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies)

* [http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_truth_about_hiv](http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_truth_about_hiv)

* [http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_...](http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_machine)

~~~
TeMPOraL
I strongly recommend those talks.

The 'magic washing machine' talk is beautiful. One of my favourite quotes of
all time comes from it.

 _And what we said, my mother and me, "Thank you industrialization. Thank you
steel mill. Thank you power station. And thank you chemical processing
industry that gave us time to read books."_

~~~
agumonkey
IIRC that talk had a powerful ending (beside that quote).

~~~
zo1
Are you referring to the one where he performs sword eating? (I kid you not)

------
padobson
In a world that continues to develop, this makes sense to me, as a Fertility
Rate Map:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_de...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_fertility_rate#mediaviewer/File:Countriesbyfertilityrate.svg)

Has a lot of similarities to a per capita GDP map:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita#mediaviewer/File:Gdpercapita.PNG)

The stronger your country's economy, the fewer babies you have.

~~~
Zigurd
> _The stronger your country 's economy, the fewer babies you have._

You have to be careful about causation and correlation there. It should be
possible to curb population growth even before you get high levels of economic
development by educating girls, rather than waiting for economic development
to bring empowerment for women to decline to have lots of children.

~~~
XorNot
Conversely the first thing that happens when you educate women is they tend to
enter the workforce on their own, at which point they gain better access to
the means to control their own fertility.

It's a nuanced issue to be sure.

------
k-mcgrady
Bill Gates' annual foundation letter talked a good deal about birth rates. I
found it very interesting.

[http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org](http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org)

~~~
penguindev
It starts out with "By almost any measure, the world is better than it has
ever been." sorry, that's just bullshit.

"Melinda and I are struck by how many people think the world is getting
worse." Gee. Must be nice to be a billionaire.

~~~
Mvandenbergh
I've upvoted your comment despite disagreeing with it, because I'm sure many
people feel the same way and I understand why.

Over the last 20 years, the real disposable income of Americans and people in
the wealthiest Western European countries has decreased or stayed the same,
and claims that the world is much better than it was are difficult to swallow
if that's your context.

However, the percentage of the world's population that is desperately poor has
significantly decreased, famine is much rarer, infant mortality and child
morbidity is way down.

You say it must be nice to be a billionaire, I say it must be nice to be a
citizen of one of the world's wealthiest countries. To someone starving to
death, or someone who has lost 3 out of 7 children in infancy, the lifestyle
of a middle class Englishman or American must be scarcely distinguishable from
that of Bill Gates.

After all, our children don't routinely die, we always have enough to eat, we
have shelter, we're not in a war zone. Yeah, unlike BG, we're not flying
anywhere in a private jet but that must seem like a paltry distinction to
someone trying to live through a famine.

~~~
penguindev
Thanks. I agree that maybe, if you balance out the total good vs total bad,
you could make an argument that world-wide things are, on net, better,
depending how sanguine you are about population growth/totals. But the way he
makes that blanket statement just pisses me off - he's obviously not looking
too hard for other indicators. I don't trust anyone who can't take a more
nuanced view: some things good, some things bad.

I agree that developed countries - still a large part of the world - are
deteriorating.

\- Debt, of all citizens and particularly of young adults \- Waste - I think
there's some giant plastic floating garbage dump in the pacific \- Pollution -
Most water bodies in the US are polluted (mercury). Haven't been to china, but
I hear it's not a fun place to breathe. \- Food quality (cheap carbohydrates
== diabetes for a big portion of the population). Also, how much toxicity do
you want in your fish? Do we want to all be beta testers for Monsanto, just to
stay alive? \- Food sustainability (pesticides - which eventually get
resistant weeds, synthetic fertilizers, over fishing, corn-fed cows) \- Food
cruelty (factory farming) \- Energy Sustainability - Pretty sure pumping
unknown chemicals into your water supply (phracking) is NOT good. \-
Population - There's still the fact that perhaps 2 may chinas may come into
the world due to population growth, which doesn't seem like an optimistic
outlook. \- Traffic - how much time do we sit commuting in mega-sprawls vs
previous generations \- Mobility - how many of us have the option to stay
close to our family when finding work (helps when raising kids), vs having to
relocate for a megacorp \- Child care - how many of us raise our own children,
vs have both parents work

So if we're doing a lot of things that are unsustainable, I don't see that as
'good'. I see that as 'bad'/negative. Maybe we will improve technology in the
future, but past performance does not guarantee future results, and it most
certainly doesn't mean we can all pat ourselves on the back for being so great
("improving the world").

So yes, I'm US-centric admittedly, but un-qualified rosy (or negative)
generalizations piss me off, because you're probably not looking very hard[1]

I will probably read all of his letter some time, but it shouldn't have to be
so off putting. Hopefully he doesn't try to sell his "fake meat" crap. You
know what? If the world was so better, we wouldn't really have to eat that
shit, would we? The same with veganism. Carbs are awful for your teeth. I also
don't think most humans are designed to eat carbs, and I've lost enough weight
myself to never want to eat them again. So if we all have to eat mass cheap
carbs, to stay alive, things are not 'better than they have ever been'.

1\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_science](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_science)

~~~
k-mcgrady
Please read the entire letter. You've got pissed off about a statement without
bothering to read the reasons and the data he gives for making that statement.

Let me take just a few of the point you make:

>> "cheap carbohydrates == diabetes for a big portion of the population"

Ok. How about looking at it another way? Cheaper food means less people
starving and dying young.

>> "how much toxicity do you want in your fish? Do we want to all be beta
testers for Monsanto, just to stay alive?"

If it's a choice between eating toxic fish and living off it for many years or
dying or course I want to be beta tester for Monsanto. I despise the company
and am all for healthy sustainable food but for a lot of people it's a choice
between eating and not eating.

>> "how much time do we sit commuting in mega-sprawls vs previous generations"

You have to sit in traffic in a 'mega-sprawl' and previous generations had to
work their ass off on a farm from 6am to 10pm. You drive your nice, air
conditioned car to work, or take cheap public transport while people in poorer
countries dream of having a job. You have it easy.

You entire position is based on that of a comfortable person living in the US
ignorant of the fact that when someone talks about the world they are not only
referring to you. His statement was about the world. Here are a few of his
points from the letter to save you reading it:

1\. the percentage of very poor people has dropped by more than half since
1990

2\. Since 1960, the life span for women in sub-Saharan Africa has gone up from
41 to 57 years, despite the HIV epidemic. Without HIV it would be 61 years.

3\. The percentage of children in school has gone from the low 40s to over 75
percent since 1970.

4\. Today there are only three countries left that have never been polio-free:
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria.

5\. A baby born in 1960 had an 18 percent chance of dying before her fifth
birthday. For a child born today, the odds are less than 5 percent. In 2035,
they will be 1.6 percent.

The main reason I posted the link was the following point:

Drops in child mortality have been shown to lead to drops in the number of
births. In countries where your child is likely to die at a young age you have
many children to 'compensate' for the likely loss. If you can be quite certain
your child won't die or measles, polio, malaria etc. then you won't have as
many children.

~~~
penguindev
The point is not that you can't outweigh all the 'bad indicators' by 'good
indicators' that you, personally, weight more highly. If you want to make that
argument, great. He said 'by nearly all indicators', which to me, frankly, is
dishonest propaganda.

~~~
k-mcgrady
I'm guessing 'by nearly all indicators' was referring to standard indicators
used to measure these things (infant mortality rates, GDP, quality of life,
life expectancy). Of course he's not going to take into account some of your
'indicators' (e.g. level of congestion on morning commute). That's a bullshit
indicator. It's relevant to a relatively very small number of people. The
indicators I've stated above are relevant to everyone.

------
lacero
I have not studied economics but I have casually heard that larger populations
are important for developing countries to build larger economies/GDP and the
political power necessary for growth before these countries become efficient
enough to rely on other methods for growth and wealth. What does this mean for
poorer countries who might be under pressure to reduce their
population/births? There seems to be a correlation between population and GDP
and also population and GDP/capita.

~~~
pm90
A country does not develop simply because it has a lot of people. It develops
when those people acquire skills and contribute to the economy. India and
China have almost similar populations now, but look at China's GDP and India's
GDP [0]. Why the massive difference? Of course there are many many reasons for
it, but China has succeeded in eliminating illiteracy, hunger etc of its
people and trained a large number of engineers and is using them.

[0]:
[https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...](https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=gdp_production_current_us&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:CHN:IND&ifdim=region&ind=false&icfg&iconSize=0.5)

~~~
dredmorbius
The US was booming as one of the most sparsely populated countries in the
world in the 19th century. Why?

It had tremendous untapped natural resources, a wealth of coal and oil (it was
the worlds leading _exporter_ of oil until the late 1940s), and the social
structures to allow mobilization of those resources.

Population isn't enough, and can be a curse. Europe saw a tremendous economic
_boom_ following the Black Death, largely because financial and real capital
was concentrated in fewer hands, and populations were reduced below carrying
capacity.

Education isn't enough. Drop a highly educated individual into the heart of
Africa or slums of India, and they may do well compared to the locals, but
it'll be a small fraction of what they'd be able to accomplish in the US or
Europe, or by being _wealthy_ and in India.

The role of resources, particularly agriculture and energy, in economic
growth, are highly discounted by contemporary economists.

Hell, you can even get an expert on poverty and a Nobel prize winner on stage
saying with an absolutely straight face that economists cannot explain growth:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1wf57z/econ_pau...](http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1wf57z/econ_paul_krugman_and_tony_atkinson_we_dont/)

~~~
joeyo

      > Population isn't enough, and can be a curse. Europe saw
      > a tremendous economic boom following the Black Death,
      > largely because financial and real capital was concentrated
      > in fewer hands, and populations were reduced below
      > carrying capacity.
    

I won't dispute that there was both a population decline and an economic boom
following the Black Death, but do you have anything to back up the assertion
of causality? Could the boom not be more parsimoniously explained by the
inflow of wealth from the New World? Indeed, perhaps the Black Death dampened
this boom and ultimately delayed the industrial revolution.

~~~
dredmorbius
The Wikipedia article on the topic gives a good overview:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequences_of_the_Black_Deat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequences_of_the_Black_Death)

As I recall, James Burke's _Connections_ discusses this tangentially at least
once (several times as I recall -- it somewhat traipses back and forth across
history a bit).

------
monkeypizza
Is fertility heritable? Some aspects of it certainly are. i.e. lust, passion,
lack of self control, working sperm, and mental traits such as the
susceptibility to anti-abortion arguments, the desire to have a child in
women, and the tendency towards religion are all either already proven to be
heritable, or very likely are. I don't think the UN is taking this into
account, since it's very un-PC and is mostly fairly recent research.

So as modernity attacks the desire to reproduce (with abortion/birth control,
modernity, education, distraction, late marriage, etc.) we end up eliminating
people who are vulnerable to not reproducing. The only people left will be
ones who are resistant.

So my overall point is, even though the population growth rate may be slowing
down, it doesn't mean it'll slow down forever. There are already resistant
strains at low frequency in the population now - they will increase in
prevalence and become the majority; they'll continuously suffer defections,
some of whom will be high achievers due to not spending the time to reproduce,
and the mindset that allows them to break away from conventionality - but as
long as they don't reproduce, they'll be gone eventually.

~~~
notahacker
I don't see any evidence that the heritability of desire to have large
families (or the heritability of factors linked to _not_ accidentally having
large families) is _anywhere near as strong_ as the effect of socioeconomic
trends which have decimated the cultural and rational reasons for having large
families in developed countries. Looking at a different aspect of
heritability, modernity did far more damage to the intake of celibate
religious orders and celebration of virginity than aeons of selective removal
from the gene pool of those especially vulnerable to the idea that chastity
was a virtue.

Populations of people that think birth control is a good idea and are quite
happy to defer their children until later in life still reproduce in
sufficient numbers to remain the majority in developed countries, especially
assuming that many offspring of reproductive fanatics will end up "defecting"
and behaving according to the prevailing social norm rather than their
parent's preferences or inherited instincts.

Given the continued reproduction of people who think birth control is a
sensible idea, women should have careers and more than three kids is a
headache, I think heritability of desire to have large families would have to
be almost deterministic for us to start to worry about hyper-fertile people
taking over.

~~~
monkeypizza
I think we can keep it going for a while, as you say, by continuously
absorbing defectors from more fertile populations. But I think if you admit to
any genetic component to this at all, there will definitely be genetic flow,
with the more fertile populations eventually taking over.

Being "reasonable" and "planning" are just extremely maladaptive in the
current world. For example, reproduction in this population is completely
dwarfing reproduction of highly educated, self-controlled, non-criminal
groups: [http://www.amazon.com/Promises-Can-Keep-Motherhood-
Marriage/...](http://www.amazon.com/Promises-Can-Keep-Motherhood-
Marriage/dp/0520241134)

------
monkeypizza
I'm surprised no one has talked about atypical reproduction strategies. If
someone was the type of person who would like to clone themselves, and they
did it 50 times, their kids may be that type of person too (and there would be
selection for clone-parents who educate kids to continue the tradition). This
would be a locally adaptive behavior, and would end population decline.

~~~
tete
I don't think that would have influence. If you wanted to have many children,
there are easier and especially cheaper ways.

The majority of world population wouldn't be able to afford it, even if it got
_really_ cheap, like 100USD per clone, only a small percentage of the
population could afford it to really have 50 clones, even if it became a trend
that would not have a huge effect.

A person can already decide to have more than 10 children in most cases,
basically for free, potentially even with monetary benefits (Canada, Europe,
...).

Just have the next big pop star talk about how great it is to have many
children and how everybody should do the same.

Or lets have a big debate about the awful effects of overpopulation.

~~~
monkeypizza
The thing you're ignoring is that the easier and cheaper ways involve two
people; and the trend among educated individuals in the US is that those
people aren't tending to agree to have more children.

Cloning or alternative strategies leave it up to just one person - so no
agreement or negotiation is necessary.

------
jhvh1134
Why does the first graph clearly show that the peak is right around 2018?

~~~
bnegreve
Check again, the peak is clearly at 2014 (each tic is 5 years)

~~~
jhvh1134
Thanks. I see what my brain was trying to do now.

------
qnaal
just in time for linux on the desktop

------
Qantourisc
Well there are a few things China does good, this is one of them. (Mind you
they also do a lot of bad.) On the opposite site you have Belgium: the more
kids you have the less you exponentially (limited) have to pay, why ?!?

~~~
bennettfeely
Forced abortions, forced sterilizations, sex-selective abortion leading to a
demographic disaster, promotion of eugenics, overcrowding orphanages, child
abandonment, and infanticide.

Please do not call what China has done, good.

~~~
neolefty
It's complicated. The overall effect on the country -- significantly
contributing to raising it out of poverty -- has all kinds of good effects.
You also have to see it in connection with certain disastrous policies that
came before it, such as the government's previous insistence that everyone
have as many babies as possible, to swell the Red Army's ranks. China is still
very much recovering from a few decades of insane misrule.

Try to talk to Chinese parents (especially mothers) who are affected by the
policy. First, they are all, in my experience, willing to talk about it, even
eager. Second, every one of them has said basically the same thing: It is a
difficult policy but necessary, and beneficial for China overall.

Difficult: Most mothers' experience is related to not having the children they
wanted to have. Abortions too. They often look like they are about to cry when
they talk about it. It's definitely tough, and many are deeply scarred.

Beneficial: In an overcrowded country, the up side is obvious. (The mothers I
have met are mostly middle or upper class, so it is a biased sample.) They
connect the policy with the radical improvements in quality of life. Not just
consumerist measures of quality of life, but also education and all that goes
with it (that's another discussion, but it includes a happier home life due to
improved equality and rights).

~~~
logicchains
In terms of 'overcrowded'ness, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Hong
Kong all have greater population density than China[1], yet they all
experienced income growth to first-world levels without need for any
population control. What evidence is there that the one child policy
'significantly contributed' to raising China out of poverty?

1\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_de...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density)

