
The Population Bust - ohaikbai
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2019-08-12/population-bust?spJobID=1701558439&spMailingID=60132624&spReportId=MTcwMTU1ODQzOQS2&spUserID=NTA0ODQwNzg0NDcS1&sp_mid=60132624&sp_rid=cm9iZXJ0QHRoZWJyb3dzZXIuY29tS0&utm_campaign=so_2019&utm_content=20190813&utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=press_release
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dumbfoundded
I'd recommend "The Accidental Superpower" \- Peter Zeihan.

To summarize, he views the world economy as entirely enabled by the US Navy.
The protection and projection of this naval forced has allowed an unparalleled
level of relatively free global trade.

With the population bust, he predicts the US will turn inwards. The world
economy will fragment. Less rigid economies will collapse. Global investment
will all but dry up. His argumentation style is compelling whether or not you
want to accept or debate his conclusions.

~~~
ryacko
I find it unlikely that piracy and government navies imposing tolls on
shipping lanes will return without a US Navy. The Petrodollar is dependent on
the US Navy, but that is it.

Very few militaries have modernized, until recently, if the Falklands War
occurred again, the British and the Argentines would be largely using the same
weapons and equipment (partly from deliveries of the F-35), the greatest
pressure on tyrants is access to their Swiss bank accounts, or whatever many
apartments they own through shell companies in New York or London.

~~~
dumbfoundded
I think piracy is highly likely without a strong unified (not necessarily
American) naval presence. It wouldn't be Somalian pirates. I'd guess it'd look
more like the piracy of the 17th and 18th century where state-sponsored
individuals create profit and havoc from interference with competing
countries.

Shipping fragmentation also seems likely without a strong global navy. As you
mention, the Petrodollar is dependent on the US Navy. The collapse or
hampering of energy trade alone would launch the world into a great
depression.

I'm not sure how you're trying to relate the modernization of militaries. From
my understanding, the USA exports old versions of our military technology to
many allies.

~~~
ryacko
It requires very little equipment to fight a future war against pirates? Or
even disorganized militia groups acting as pirates?

The US did more to hamper oil prices by invading Iraq than anything else.

~~~
dumbfoundded
It would require enormous resources to combat pirates. I'd look at the comment
above about whales & efficiency as a better explanation than I can provide.
Piracy would be more like terrorism than a traditional war. Extremely
asymmetric costs & predictability.

As for oil prices, the Iraqi war did disrupt Iraqi oil production for about a
year. In 2004, oil production reached pre-war levels and has been growing
steadily since.

[https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/iraq/crude-oil-
product...](https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/iraq/crude-oil-production)

------
dredmorbius
_The green revolution has won a temporary success in man’s war against hunger
and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space. If fully implemented, the
revolution can provide sufficient food for sustenance during the next three
decades. But the frightening power of human reproduction must also be curbed;
otherwise the success of the green revolution will be ephemeral only._

\-- Norman Borlaug, "Father of the Green Revolution", Nobel Peace Prize
acceptance lecture. December 11, 1970

[https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1970/borlaug/lecture...](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1970/borlaug/lecture/)

------
Aperocky
Soon it won't matter what the population is, automation will sweep through all
industries, what you see today in automation is what people 30 years ago see
in computers - slow, cumbersome, expensive. That's going to change.

~~~
yters
What's the point of automating everything if there are no more people? I think
ultimately people are the source of happiness for people. Material things are
just an intermediary in the happiness exchange. So, if we get rid of people to
replace them with material things we will become less happy.

Plus, it isn't obvious that all the important stuff can be automated.

~~~
Zanni
I find my joy in people is inversely related to their quantity. If I'm hiking
a sparsely populated trail, then anyone I meet is worth a conversation. If I'm
on a crowded subway, I do my best to shut everyone out. At a minimum, I think
joy is conserved. But I suspect it would actually increase if there were fewer
people (up to a point).

~~~
yters
As counter anecdata, my perception is people who come from large families and
populous regions that are neighborly are much happier and friendlier than
those who keep to themselves or ignore those around them.

------
pascalxus
Relying on a larger and larger population to keep supporting endless growth is
not sustainable. I know this is unpopular, but: We need to find a way to
sustainably live on this planet with a reasonably sized population.

People keep talking about how the next generation needs to support all the
debt and extravagances of the past generations but this unethical. the next
generation was born without first being asked whether they want to take care
of so many existing people. finding a sustainable solution would be both more
practical and ethical

~~~
pdonis
_> Relying on a larger and larger population to keep supporting endless
growth_

The article talks about "growth" as though it has to be absolute growth, but
it doesn't; it only needs to be per capita growth. If the population is
shrinking, absolute growth can be negative but per capita growth can still be
positive (all that's necessary is that the rate of absolute decline of the
economy is less than the rate of decline of population). In other words, per
capita productivity just needs to increase. Which it has been at least since
the industrial revolution.

~~~
adverbly
Per capital growth is also not sufficient. Such a metric could easily be
achieved by slowly reducing the population to 1. I might propose some analog
of total output minus population growth as a better metric.

~~~
pdonis
_> Per capital growth is also not sufficient. Such a metric could easily be
achieved by slowly reducing the population to 1_

Only if the 1 person can continue to increase their productivity with nobody
else to trade with, which is absurd. Increasing productivity comes from
specialization and trade.

------
tabtab
In a decade or so politicians may start fighting to tear _down_ the wall.

~~~
mynameishere
The one they refused to build?

------
thaumaturgy
I keep being surprised that this is surprising to anyone. This is a commonly-
observed pattern in biology; a simple graph called the Gompertz function
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gompertz_function](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gompertz_function))
is often used to model it.

I guess most folks have always assumed that humans were somehow exempt from
the natural laws, maybe because of the much greater degree to which we are
able to reshape our environment to suit our needs (sometimes to our long-term
detriment).

But so many growth-related things seem to follow a Gompertz function that I
think it's likely we just don't yet understand all of the factors when
figuring out our own carrying capacity.

I'm really curious whether our asymptotic population limit only applies to our
population on one world, or if, were we to eventually become multiplanetary,
we'd discover that a whole other planet wouldn't really increase our overall
population that much.

I wish I could be around to see the answer to that question.

~~~
reidacdc
Unless I'm missing something, the Gompertz function you refer to has an
implicit model that the organism's population stabilizes because of Malthusian
constraints, a lack of some kind of resource.

But birth rates have been declining in first-world countries for a long time
in the absence of this kind of constraint, and the Foreign Affairs article
specifically notes that both Malthus and Paul Ehrlich's "Population Bomb"
doomsday resource-shortage scenarios didn't come to pass.

The Earth certainly does have some kind of carrying capacity for humans, but
that's not the limit that's being it, it's something else.

~~~
_0ffh
I think western population development has gone sustainable largely due to
social advancements re women. Not all parts of the world have yet had that
kind of progress, and are still happily multiplying in an unsustainable way.
Unless we manage to export this kind of progress, I fear we will not be able
to avoid all overpopulation issues. One problem is that costly (in loss of
lives) regional wars over resources and the enslavement of women as a means of
replenishment for your armies are a circular feedback mechanism. Unless the
circle of war and patriarchy is broken, some cultures will probably expand to
their malthusian limits.

~~~
WalterBright
> the enslavement of women as a means of replenishment for your armies

What society has ever done that?

~~~
crooked-v
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Sabine_Women](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Sabine_Women)

~~~
topmonk
We're they raping in order to replenish their armies? The claim is rather far
fetched.

~~~
_0ffh
The word "rape" in this context is taken to mean abduction. This is then
followed by the integration of the abductees into the abductor's society.

From the article: "At the festival, Romulus gave a signal, at which the Romans
grabbed the Sabine women and fought off the Sabine men. The indignant
abductees were soon implored by Romulus to accept Roman husbands".

That the second phase may have employed carrots as well as sticks does not
detract from the fact that the Romans have thereby managed to expand their
reproductive capacities while simultaneously contracting that of the rival
Sabines.

------
paulsutter
This isn’t a problem, it’s just preparation for the next stage of evolution
(AGI). Our task is nearly complete.

~~~
dumbfoundded
I often wonder what post AGI society will look like:

\- Will we become pets?

\- Will we become extinct?

\- Will we absorb into the AGI?

Maybe the AGI will just disappear and leave human affairs to humans and with
some residual presence to ensure we never create a second.

I think much more likely than real AGI, we create an "intelligent" computer
virus that locks up all networked computing power.

~~~
swagasaurus-rex
Perhaps humans, with the aid of super powerful computers, can unlock our
genome and in turn make us more competitive.

There will be some left behind, but humanity will continue on as an partially
artificial GMO much like our own creations

~~~
dumbfoundded
In the near term, I agree that genetically modified humans make a ton of
sense. In fact, this is already happening.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6331330/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6331330/)

Post-AGI, I'm not sure if life as we know it makes sense from a practical
perspective. My post AGI assumptions:

\- You can fully emulate a brain digitally

\- The AGI will do this emulation with less power than our bodies naturally
consume

\- Any physical interaction with the world will be carried out better with
100% robotics or networked bodies genetically modified to the point we can no
longer consider them independent or human.

I really don't think the AGI will have any inherent practical use of keeping
humans around in any form. The real question is what will the AGI want to do?
It will literally be a god with no limits we are capable of understanding.
What will this god want to do?

------
simonebrunozzi
Why does it have to be "the end of capitalism" ? The world population will not
disappear overnight. It will take several decades (at least) for that number
to go down at some point in this century, and it has almost nothing to do with
global spending, at least not in the short term.

~~~
kwhitefoot
And it will take decades more to bring everyone up to western levels of
consumption so there will be plenty of unsatisfied demand for a long time.
Long enough to think up responses to this challenge.

------
jdkee
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell." -Edward
Abbey

~~~
leetcrew
this has always seemed to be kind of a silly quote to me. it's not untrue but
it seems to imply that this is something unusual about a cancer cell. growth
for the sake of growth is the ideology of _life itself_. I don't know of _any_
organisms that are capable of regulating their own species's
growth/consumption for long term survival (although now that I've said this,
I'm sure someone will respond with the odd exception).

------
kwhitefoot
It's about time that people stopped regarding declining population as a threat
and started treating it as an opportunity instead.

As my former boss often says, we don't have problems only challenges.

~~~
sametmax
If we don't want the entire earth to looked like mumbai, i'd say it's even the
only way to go.

Space is not going to save us any time soon, people suck at restraining
themself and given our current situation we can approximate our planet to a
close system with finite resources.

So yeah, I'd go with less babies. Or more deaths, but one is more pleasant.

~~~
credit_guy
> If we don't want the entire earth to looked like mumbai

If the whole world reaches Mumbai's density (75k/sq mile), we would host 15
trillion people. Now, no matter what projections you hear from anyone, you
never hear a peak population of more than 50 billion, so you are off by a
factor of 300.

Here's for example the latest UN prediction up to 2100. You'll notice a 95%
estimate that we'll be below 13 billion.

[1]
[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/9...](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/900)

~~~
sametmax
I didn't express a scientific prediction, but used an image of extreme poverty
and pollution to underline the caveats of overpopulation.

What's more, the vast majority of indian population consumme much less than
the average american.

Democracy, health care, education, respect of the individual, peace... All
that are affected, at various degree of overpopulation. There is not need to
mirror your stats.

------
toasterlovin
Fertility is heritable. This, too, shall pass.

~~~
esarbe
See my answer above; before natural selection kicks in and makes the
population rebound, we'll already have hit the replacement problem.

~~~
toasterlovin
See mine as well. Reduced population is not a problem. Life is easier, not
harder, when there is less competition for resources. Our pension systems will
collapse, though. People will adapt; pensions have not existed for most of
human history.

~~~
mandelbrotwurst
From current levels maybe, but not always.

We cooperate as well as compete. A world with too few people would have its
own struggles.

------
vmh1928
Capitalism is about the allocation of capital in society. The article tries to
make the point that Capitalism depends on ever increasing markets and/or labor
forces. Capitalism is a self-organizing system and will allocate capital for
products and services wherever the individual participants decide is the best
place for them to put their capital to work. If fewer babies are born and more
60+ exist then capital will flow to adult diapers instead of infant ones.
Capital can be destroyed as well so it's not like we'll have toxic waste dumps
of unused capital. A shrinking population is a change and an opportunity, it's
not the end of the world.

------
fallingfrog
I’m not convinced that the decline in birth rates is just because more
children survive; that’s an assumption that as far as I know, nobody has ever
rigorously checked. It smells fishy.

There are other possible explanations: birth control becoming available, women
having to work full time, children are no longer exploitable cheap labor.

The big picture is that capitalism will only invest in something if the
investor is able to also claim the gains. But the profits of having children
go to society in general, not to a specific investor, therefore our children
are under supported. The solution is probably going to either be socialism, or
some sort of investment scheme where capitalists will pay people to have
children but then they’ll be indentured servants or something.

Go ahead and call me crazy then come back and look at this post in 50 years.

Edit: actually it would probably work something like: we, babycorp, will pay
you 250,000 dollars to pop out a baby, she will go to the finest schools, she
will want for nothing, but at the age of 30 she will have to pay back the
debt, with interest. (Which she can do by having kids of her own). This is
basically how capitalism thinks, admit it, it’s not that far fetched.

------
Causality1
This phenomena is why I'm strongly pro-immigration. Speaking as an American, I
want there to be more Americans. We're not making them ourselves so we need to
import. The more we import now, the better since the current population is
both younger and more numerous than it will be in a few decades when we'd
actually _need_ the imported population. Doing it now means the
Americanization of the immigrants will be more complete. We should bring them
in and turn them American while we still have the numbers and dynamism to do
so.

~~~
0xfaded
I'm Australian, have lived in the US, and now live in Denmark. I'm also pro
immigration, both for skilled and unskilled workers. However Non-Western (as
defined by the Danish Ministry of Statistics) has been financially costly for
the welfare state, and the assumption that unskilled immigrant descendents
will (as a whole) outperform their parents has not been realized.

There's blame on both sides. Denmark doesn't do a stellar job of integrating
outsiders despite ample funding. Likewise there are cultural
incompatibilities, such as the handshake-citizenship debacle in a country that
has arguably the closest gender equality in the world.

My personal lesson is that immigration is really complicated. I truly believe
people should be free to move wherever to realise their maximum potential. But
in holding this standpoint you must acknowledge the very real costs incurred.

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

~~~
simplecomplex
By definition welfare is a net loss. Otherwise it wouldn’t be needed.

How can it be bad for immigrants to get more than they put in, but not
citizens?

The “immigrants will get more out of welfare than they put in” is exactly how
welfare is supposed to work!

~~~
kwhitefoot
Welfare recipients spend every penny they receive so it contributes to the
economy by keeping money moving.

It's not a zero sum game.

