"Population crash"

[Nords]

The Reproductive Revolution: How Women Are Changing the Planet's Future: Scientific American

I'm looking forward to reading this book:

Family planning experts used to say that women only started having fewer children when they got educated or escaped poverty. Pessimists feared that if rising population prevented the world's poor from advancing, they would get caught in a cycle of poverty and large families. The poverty trap would become a demographic trap.
But the reality is proving very different. Round the world, women today are having half as many children as their mothers did. And often it is the poorest and least educated women who are in the vanguard. [...]
There are holdouts, in parts of the Middle East and rural Africa. But more than 60 countries—containing approaching half of the world's population—already have fertility rates at or below the rate needed to maintain their populations long-term. [...]
How have they gained their freedom? Some say liberation allowed women to make new choices about their lives. Equally, however, it has been the dramatic improvement in the survival rate of infants that for the first time has freed women from the social obligation for a lifetime producing and rearing babies.
Women are having smaller families and grabbing a new life outside the home because, for the first time in history, they can. In the 20th century, the world largely eradicated the diseases that used to mean most children died before growing up. Mothers no longer need to have five or six children to ensure the next generation. So they do not. Two or three is enough.

We're a long way away, and the population won't stop growing for quite a while, but this is encouraging.

 

[TromboneAl]

There's a review of that book here.

Pearce predicts that because the global fertility rate is 2.6 (still half a child above replacement level, but down from 4.9 fifty years ago), population will soon begin to shrink. This reasoning ignores the influence of population momentum (the built-in growth for a couple generations after replacement fertility is reached) and the fact that the fertility reductions that have already occurred were amongst the women who were open to family planning and easiest to reach with services.

The countries that maintain high fertility are those with the most rural populations (hard to reach with family planning education and services) and those that still place a premium on large families. Fertility will only fall in those regions with strong and targeted interventions. And until global fertility falls below replacement, “depopulation” will not occur, despite his belief that those of us alive now will witness the phenomenon in our lifetimes.
​

Here's an article on Population momentum, which I don't really understand. It essentially means that because a large number of women are entering their childbearing years, the higher birth rate will continue for a while.

 

[audreyh1]

Extremely good news. This honestly surprises me!

I wouldn't call it a crash though. Seems more like we have a chance to reach some type of equilibrium.

Audrey

 

[Khan]

I've never given birth. It always amazes me that some people think there is some sort of population deficit at 7B & growing.

 

[RonBoyd]

We're a long way away, and the population won't stop growing for quite a while, but this is encouraging.

And if death is eliminated, we're even futher away:

Merely Human? That’s So Yesterday

At that point, the Singularity holds, human beings and machines will so effortlessly and elegantly merge that poor health, the ravages of old age and even death itself will all be things of the past.

Of course, that may not matter much:

... portray a future where humans break off into two species: the Haves, who have superior intelligence and can live for hundreds of years, and the Have-Nots, who are hampered by their antiquated, corporeal forms and beliefs.

depending on how wealthy you are:

“The Singularity is not the great vision for society that Lenin had or Milton Friedman might have,” says Andrew Orlowski, a British journalist who has written extensively on techno-utopianism. “It is rich people building a lifeboat and getting off the ship.”

 

[HFWR]

I think the growth model, i.e. ever more people using ever more resources, will have to change, either by foresight and planning, or by some external self-limiting mechanism.

The rich are jumping ship? All I have is a leaky jon boat...

 

[haha]

I think the growth model, i.e. ever more people using ever more resources, will have to change, either by foresight and planning, or by some external self-limiting mechanism.

The rich are jumping ship? All I have is a leaky jon boat...

I nominate The Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse- Pestilence, War, Famine and Death.

Ha

 

[Onward]

We could learn from the Japanese and lose interest in sex altogether.

Nothing is happening with depressing regularity between Japanese men and women these days. Marriages, births and hanky-panky are all spiraling downward with troubling implications for the nation's future....

USATODAY.com - No sex please we're Japanese

The article is six yrs old or so, but it's one I could never quite get out of my mind.

 

[haha]

We could learn from the Japanese and lose interest in sex altogether.



USATODAY.com - No sex please we're Japanese

The article is six yrs old or so, but it's one I could never quite get out of my mind.

Very interesting article. I do think that without economic drivers to propel people into relationships and marriage there will definitely be fewer of each. Sex is nice but at the rate that they are indulging, puchasing it as needed is definitely cheaper. And for women if we are to believe the feminists, more orgasms are had with a vibrator than with a man.

This board I believe has people who are very accomplished at love, so it's a different story here.

BTW, those young Japanes girls are trop hot- so they would certainly suit me. I love that giggling behind the hand stuff. And I'd be down with a little housework too, if for no other reason than to help them want me.

A far as being intimidated, once a man has dealt with American women he should be able to deal with anyone. Even my foreign women friends say that American women are totally spoiled and outrageously demanding. "Lady or the tiger?" Uh, I think I'll try the tiger.

Ha

 

[HFWR]

I nominate The Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse- Pestilence, War, Famine and Death.

Ha

I prefer the Three Horsemen: Sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll...

 

[haha]

Here's an article on Population momentum, which I don't really understand. It essentially means that because a large number of women are entering their childbearing years, the higher birth rate will continue for a while.

We have seen that here in the US. Although boomer women have much lower fertility than subsequent generations, there are so many of them that their number of births has continued quite high, often to more or less match the high birth numbers of the 50s. It will take both smaller cohorts, and lower rates/woman to lower the rate of US population growth, net of immigration. Which given how much immigration we have is largely useless information anyway. Barring big changes, our population will continue to increase rapidly, just with a different composition.

Ha

 

[Onward]

I love that giggling behind the hand stuff.

Down boy!

There's something very surreal to me about a society losing interest in sex.

 

[Westernskies]

I've never given birth. It always amazes me that some people think there is some sort of population deficit at 7B & growing.

I remember reading an article about population density a while back, which proclaimed that you could fit everyone on the planet in the State of Texas, with the population density of Manhattan. I'll leave it to the math hobbyists to verify this [-]bit of useless trivia[/-] factoid. Anyway the point is that there is still lots of space left; however, finite resources are another issue altogether.

 

[Eager Beaver]

I remember reading an article about population density a while back, which proclaimed that you could fit everyone on the planet in the State of Texas, with the population density of Manhattan. I'll leave it to the math hobbyists to verify this [-]bit of useless trivia[/-] factoid...

A few quick google searches:

Population of world: 6,697,254,041 (those statisticians sure are accurate!)
Area of Texas: 268,820 sq. mi
Population Density of Manhattan (peak): 101,548 people/ sq.mi
Population Density if all the world were stuffed into Texas: 24,913 people/ sq. mi

Actually, the population of the world at that density would fit into only 65,951 sq. mi, or about a quarter (24.5%) of Texas.

Edit: At current Manhattan density (71,201 people/ sq. mi) they would fit into 35% of Texas.

The more you know!

 

[Tesaje]

A few quick google searches:

Population of world: 6,697,254,041 (those statisticians sure are accurate!)
Area of Texas: 268,820 sq. mi
Population Density of Manhattan (peak): 101,548 people/ sq.mi
Population Density if all the world were stuffed into Texas: 24,913 people/ sq. mi

Actually, the population of the world at that density would fit into only 65,951 sq. mi, or about a quarter (24.5%) of Texas.

Edit: At current Manhattan density (71,201 people/ sq. mi) they would fit into 35% of Texas.

The more you know!

But what is sum total of resources consumed by Manhatten? That is the real density.

 

[Eager Beaver]

Yes, it's pretty useless trivia.

But the thought of cramming billions of people into 1/3rd of Texas is amusing at least ...

 

[REWahoo]

But the thought of cramming billions of people into 1/3rd of Texas is amusing at least ...

Or not.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Some people would jump in front of a train if forced to live in either New York or Texas--and help reduce the population!