tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post7062335957807326047..comments2024-03-28T02:54:46.537-04:00Comments on The TOF Spot: Post ScriptTheOFloinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14756711106266484327noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-59132115120746669212012-08-03T19:29:18.934-04:002012-08-03T19:29:18.934-04:00That is the best rejection of Malthusian logic I&#...That is the best rejection of Malthusian logic I've ever seen.Theodore M. Seeberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13315945417122366201noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-45723145231020941912012-02-17T13:22:06.415-05:002012-02-17T13:22:06.415-05:00Thanks for the great analysis. We live in an innum...Thanks for the great analysis. We live in an innumerate society. <br /><br />Slightly off topic: it seems as if world population projections are going all AGW on us - for decades I've followed world population forecasts with amused interests. Ever since that fraud Ehrlich, we've had it beaten into our heads that we're doomed! DOOMED! by out of control population growth (which is why this is only slightly off-topic: world death-by-babies => we gotta stop babies! => birth control is sacred, and there is no more sacred duty than promoting it, at gunpoint if necessary).<br /><br />So, for decades, people both kept having fewer and fewer babies while stubbornly refusing to die in the inevitable global famines that never happened, while the world's population kept falling short of even the most 'optimistic' projections of the alarmists. Leaving aside the difficulties in what is, essentially, guessing how billions of individuals (many not even born yet) will chose to behave, for decades the trend line in these predictions has been dropping, until, about a decade or so ago, even the UN was admitting that world population would likely top out at about 8-9 billion in 2050 or so. And then start dropping, perhaps precipitously, like Japan. About 10 or 15 years ago, even the UN projections started to look like maybe we weren't doomed to crush each other to death, a la "the Mark of Gideon". <br /><br />Well, I started looking again at the UN reports, and it appears about 3-4 years ago, they changed their tune: now, it seems, we're once again DOOMED! The most likely scenario they predict is that, nope, there's no end in sight, we'll have 10B people by 2100! And then (blissfully unaware of the hubris of predicting how our great-great-grandchildren will behave) even MORE babies going forward! Quick, establish an extremely-well-funded supra-national executive to add contraceptives to the water supply! Or something. <br /><br />A basic concept that seem to get missed: population today is based largely on decisions made by individuals roughly from 80 years to 9 months ago. Another way to put it: Given current life expectancies, changes in total population numbers resulting from the decisions of individuals to have fewer children take about 80 years to show up. If everybody 80 years ago decided to have 2 children instead of 4, say, the population is still likely to more than double over the next 80 years before leveling off. <br /><br />So, as your little chart illustrating the 'success' of President Monroe's aggressive contraceptive policies (ha!) shows, population trends today are the result of decisions made long, long ago - when the trend leveled off in the US in the '60s, that was the result of decisions going way back to the 1920s, at least, and not of any policies or social norms just then taking hold in the 60's. <br /><br />Which means, ultimately, that we don't need to promote contraceptives, let alone supply them for 'free' with a gun to our head, even if we agree that the US population must stop growing - it's already stopped growing (net of immigration and the children of immigrants). For it to have stopped growing now, the social changes that lead to that stoppage would have to have started in about 1930, well before any mandate or even the wide availability of chemical contraceptives. As your chart shows, the trend goes way back before even then. <br /><br />This really requires an illustration, but, heck, this is com box...Joseph Mhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17489606909822078682noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-54931665275510893512012-02-17T11:30:44.926-05:002012-02-17T11:30:44.926-05:00Of course it makes sense that the original survey ...Of course it makes sense that the original survey results were online; somehow I didn't even think to look. I suppose that's one of the dangers of statistics for the non-statistician -- already having some kind of numbers makes it hard to remember to go one step further.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.com