An interesting take on the new technology of Electric Cars as seen by a Canadian.

[M80]

I guess my theory on the planet being over populated comes from what is happening in our natural world.

I'm not talking of climate change. My cynicism there is due to the Gov'ts using any excuse to take more of our money. If that could stop and the bias removed the information would then seem more credible.

I look at the reduction of animal numbers in the wild, largely due to our need to change their environment for habitats, human demanded crop production, and using the decades and centuries grown timbers.
Our numbers visit attractive locations, walk it, snorkel it, scuba it and destroy its attractiveness.
The pollution created by and for us is affecting air quality, sea quality and even fresh water quality.
Some of our pollution will be affecting these places for many thousands of years, longer than we have actually had the 'intelligence' to produce the stuff.
We create dangerous things with no design on how we can ever make them safe again, because we need the power from them.

There is a positive note though. The planet, if not destroyed by an asteroid, will recycle itself. Maybe not to be the same but it will support new life in new forms, when we have finally destroyed our environments and us along with it.
After all we are just visitors, however this place came to be it wasn't ever just for us.





Ooh, nearly forgot.
Amen

 

[Craiglxviii]

For sure, things will change, the question is will the change be rapid (cataclysmic) or gradual? if it's gradual, will humanity be riding the crest of it- post-materialistic for instance, or maybe we will have scattered ourselves amongst the stars, or even just the outer planets of this solar system? Or will it be gradual decline with some other form of life becoming dominant- bees, or dolphins..?

Out of interest, the Western countries have pretty much stopped their population expansion and are on a general slow contraction; it's the developing countries that see their populations increasing. So that begs the question, will the change be global or localized? I for one could see a localized cataclysmic population change in India- let's say Mumbai, set to become the world's biggest city in 2050 (40+m people). All it would take would be the fresh water or sewage failing at the same time (and those who've been there might say they're the same thing) coinciding with a failure of local healthcare, or a strike by the fire brigade resulting in a mass-casualty event, for hundreds of thousands to die...

 

[M80]

Hmmm,
your stats have always been comprehensive. Your points aren't always read by me, not in full anyway, as I should be doing other things but,

I see that when those parts of the world have their issues, understandably, there are many numbers will gravitate to the where the grass looks greener. The PC and more considerate souls will support such relocations in the belief that we are in a healthy position, enough to absorb the influx. By comparison of course we are.

You say the Western countries are seeing population contraction, but surely that is only home produced little 'uns? Other figures, media produced so I would accept questionable, say that we see more each year. wether visiting, long, short term or whatever, surely we are seeing greater numbers within our borders.
Sorry this thread has wandered greatly now, and there is danger of it becoming political, not my intent.

My point is that globally there will be population increase, until as you say, extreme events change that. History though is showing that extreme events aren't preventing population increase.
The greater numbers anywhere won't help the degradation of the planet and the reducing quality of life for the majority.
Population control in the lesser advanced regions isn't realistic, although China gave it a good go for a while (I have questioned their motive for relaxation on that, maybe because of the imbalance of little Emperors to little Empresses).
Greater population over where ever will result in greater population over here, people move.

Migrating to the stars would be a bit hot. Any of our numbers being catapulted across those distances would have to regenerate their numbers en route, I know that technology may change that. But by the time they get there we'll be long gone and maybe as a species.
For sure I don't see the possibility of catapulting enough numbers to offer a solution to Earths over population.
Logan's Run up, up and away fizz, maybe?

 

[Craiglxviii]

Then the question becomes, what is overpopulation? We’re getting to hard sci-fi of the Heinlein variety here but most seem to settle on the planet being able to support around 30bn people. We are at 8.7 now and the numbers suggest we will increase to around 12 by 2050. Those numbers I quoted come from the UN by the way and are the source of most population growth figures bandied around in the media.

In terms of migrancy, that’s pretty much accounted for. Europe sees a growth of 700m mainly through migrants; Western societies continue to age (as does the world in general).

In terms of human diaspora, once we get population overpressure combined with resource pinch, combined with stardrive technology capable of maintaining 1g constant, that’s it- we’re out there. No ifs buts or maybes. That’s a nexus point in and of itself.

In terms of quality of life, it really depends on how the labour of the increasing population is harnessed. I can see ever- increasing recycling coming into play. Resource extraction from hard to reach places - seafloors for example- giving rise to whole new industries. If the population is just allowed to “get on with it” then quality of life goes down, so it’s as much about there being direction and agreements on everything from anti pollution to environmental controls to industrial policy amongst nations, to keep everything controlled.

 

[Frontstep]

People by and large are born with a homing instinct if they can scratch a living where they are they stay.

Look at the sh*tholes in the world as his Trumpship christened them, what possesses people to stay even n some of the grumpier parts of the UK defeats me but they do.

Migration can be tremendously destructive to home countries its generally your young and educated who go.

What we do with our excess Labour is a problem for the world.

There is very little chance of a fair division of the spoils of mechanisation and AI as populations increase so will the problems.

 

[M80]

Look at the sh*tholes in the world as his Trumpship christened them, what possesses people to stay even n some of the grumpier parts of the UK defeats me but they do.

If people have very limited resources to relocate may well mean they become trapped in a yet unknown situation as they then can't afford to return to what they do know. the risks look too great.

Until they know where they are is absolute cr*p with little or no chance of improvement, or even yet to deteriorate further. They understand that to relocate will be a better situation than they have. Now they just have to get there.

 

[Craiglxviii]

People by and large are born with a homing instinct if they can scratch a living where they are they stay.

Look at the sh*tholes in the world as his Trumpship christened them, what possesses people to stay even n some of the grumpier parts of the UK defeats me but they do.

Migration can be tremendously destructive to home countries its generally your young and educated who go.

What we do with our excess Labour is a problem for the world.

There is very little chance of a fair division of the spoils of mechanisation and AI as populations increase so will the problems.

This presupposes that the available nett resources for a given country/ area/ defined population is fixed, and the ability or more accurately the economically-acceptable maximum rate at which those resources can be extracted- or, more accurately, the rate at which finished consumable product can be derived from the available pool of accessible resources is fixed.

None of it is fixed. Here's a (very rough) history lesson of global macropower.

300 years ago, access to high quality iron, hemp, sailcloth and hardwoods and the ability to make effective machinery from them dictated the affairs of nations- ships, arms and equipment. I should add in also potassium sulphate as that allowed for black powder. Seriously, look at why the British Empire ruled over 3/5th of the planet for two centuries- we built better ships, great guns, higher quality black powder, less finicky muskets and worked out better systems of using them (drills, tactics and strategy) than everyone else, consistently, over the whole period- up until advancing technology and expanding economies (and political factors) overtook the advantages that we had built up. But the point is there.

Then America happened. This wasn't realized properly until the 1820s (there) and the 1830s (here) and by the 1840s, Whitehall had already projected that the USA (engaged in its internal expansion) would overtake the Empire in economic size by the mid 1890s. They were pretty much spot on, by 1908 the USA was somewhere between 3 and 5 times the size of the Empire. Why? It (the USA) had worked out that they could harness the resources of an entire continent, along with a population inured to hard work and resourcefulness, and put them all to work to a degree that the world had never before seen (and hasn't again yet).

Then the various series of unpleasantness from 1914-1945 happened. What was the effect on the world's two biggest economies? One collapsed, became the Commonwealth and spent 30 years licking its wounds, and the other expanded severalfold and became the world's leader against the tyranny and oppression of Communism. The Americans had realized that the zero-sum game (presupposed in economic policy pre-1900 pretty much) as it applied to internal economics was incorrect. One could develop an economy purely internally to increase and improve the lot of the internal population purely through increased internal consumption. So, they did. Motor cars, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, televisions, wireless, flushing toilets, bath/ showers, carpets rugs and wallpaper. All of it developed within America FOR AMERICANS, not for export. All of the huge plethora and panoply of product was there to increase the size of the US economy because the game was not zero sum. Create product, create demand for that product, employ people paying more wages to earn money to buy product. it might seem obvious put that way but it really isn't.

So. Look to the future somewhat. Mechanisation of production is increasing BUT again this point needs expanding. Mechanisation is great where parts need to be built identically and in high volume. It is not suitable where small runs of parts are required, or where parts change in design or design concept fairly quickly. Then, manual assembly is still the most economically-effective solution. The same with parts manufacture; some parts are cheaper to make with a room full of a thousand Draper No.5 fly presses than a room with automatic equipment. So, there's a sliding scale of economics of the manufacture and assembly of <consumer product> with manual at one end and fully automatic at the other. That isn't likely to go away any time soon, or indeed ever.

Then we have, how that is applied to different discrete economies. Again we find that the lowest value-add processes fall to the lowest level that can produce them to the desired quality, and this is true everywhere from coffee beans to steel pressings. Coffee bean farmers (or Chinese battery plant operatives) are on #rootFA per day, compared to say an electronics assembly line operative on $200 per day (numbers made up)- that shows the distinction with value add processes.

So we look at what those processes are and how they evolve and we see that what was medium value add in one decade becomes low value add in the following one. So, creativity becomes more and more high value add as we progress. So, the logical hypothesis therefore is that as societies progress (and as technology progresses) those societies with the greater creativity (or which can hold onto, or generate the capability and capacity to undertake)more of the higher value add processes will be and become richer.

What none of that means is that the people underneath become poorer. It is not a zero-sum game.

The UN set a target (I forget when) that, by 2015, it would have lifted half of the world's population that was below the poverty line above it. That goal was achieved 2 years early. The rate at which the world's overall economy has increased is so high that you literally cannot imagine a means of finding a way to increase it. That's true for everyone from the richest 0.000001% to the poorest 30%.

So, to your original point. The problems as they are will not continue. They will be solved. Different problems will arise. What these are, is very difficult to project, and much depends on how technology turns in the future.

 

[Craiglxviii]

Look at the sh*tholes in the world as his Trumpship christened them, what possesses people to stay even n some of the grumpier parts of the UK defeats me but they do.

Whoops, one thing on this point alone. I'll quote Nigel Hawthorne as Sir Humphrey Appleby here because he makes the point far better than I ever can.

Ah, Prime Minister... It is characteristic of all committee discussions and decisions that every member has a vivid recollection of them and that every member's recollection of them differs violently from every other member's recollection. Consequently we accept the convention that the official decisions are those and only those which have officially recorded in the minutes by the officials, from which it emerges with an elegant inevitability that any decision which has been officially reached will have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials and any decision which is not recorded in the minutes has not been officially reached even if one or more members believe they can recollect it, so in this particular case if the decision had been officially reached it would have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials. And it isn't so it wasn't.

The meeting in which Trump supposedly called various TPLACs "sh*tholes" wasn't minuted so there is no official record of it (or not). The reporting of it is literally one person's opinion versus another's. It's notable that the recollection of whether it was or wasn't said is split pretty much 50:50.

 

[M80]

Ignoring plausible deniability The Trump could just plain forget such a comment when having to consider fitting in the need for a tan makeover and a hair spray to whatever tone.
Had you pointed out that The Trump is from another planet, it being believable would have given credibility to your interstellar travel theories.

 

[Craiglxviii]

Ignoring plausible deniability The Trump could just plain forget such a comment when having to consider fitting in the need for a tan makeover and a hair spray to whatever tone.
Had you pointed out that The Trump is from another planet, it being believable would have given credibility to your interstellar travel theories.

The point is, it's not just him, it's everyone else who was there. That's perfectly normal for any such meeting, by the way, but because it's leveled at Trump THEN HE MUST HAVE SAID IT RARRRHH! because that fits the narrative shaped against him. Whether or not he actually said it.

 

[davemercedes]

Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on the final (age) number I draw, over-population isn't going to bother SWMBO or me. But we do feel depressed for our grandchildren - look at these simple numbers (and this is only on our side of the family): we married 50 years ago and two had two kids who in turn have had five so our tiny family share has already increased by 50 percent.

- My sister had four kids who produced another five and the other side of our son's family had five kids as well.

- If a 50 percent increase is the family norm over a 50 year period, it won't take too long to run out of space, food etc.

But what we seem to be forgetting is "natural" and/or self-imposed wastage. We are enjoying a period of incredible life expectancy with the number of people in UK passing 100 now forecasted to grow like topsy ... (quote from Auntie Beeb: 29 Sep 2016) - A record number of people in the UK, some 14,570, are surviving to the age of 100, the latest official data shows.
- The number of people aged 100, or over, had already quadrupled...

But we're forgetting the odd major disaster and man's subconscious ability to curtail growth by starting wars as though it's a natural phenomenon of Mother Nature. Arguably, we're overdue a serious conflict in Europe although Messrs Kim, Trump and Putin are rattling enough cages to lead us into the third Armageddon by next week or sooner.

Wars are unfortunately quite efficient at population reduction - Wikipedia says World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history in absolute terms of total casualties. Over 60 million people were killed, which was about 3% of the 1940 world population (est. 2.3 billion). I wonder how many more were hidden away out of those statistics?

It's very sad that we can virtually flip a coin to determine whether our descendants will enjoy a peaceful life or disappear into a cloud of self-destruction but we can only advise our younger generation, most of whom think we're going if not already reached the state of "gaga"!

 

[LostKiwi]

If any meeting with Trump is like most meetings I attend 50% of people will remember any given comment and 50% won't because half the attendees are bored and not listening!

 

[keefysher]

You attend a meeting with 11 other people, despite an agenda, minutes and notes; there are always 13 versions of what was said

Meetings, a better alternative to work

 

[LostKiwi]

I always thought meetings were what people who had nothing to do filled their day with.

 

[Frontstep]

The other unassailable point is some of these places are sh*tholes.

So do we/they want a President who describes them otherwise or lies to save embarrassment for the legions of self serving despots who run them.
Trump probably muttered something under his breath that everyone else was thinking.
He is still on a steep learning curve.

 

[Craiglxviii]

You attend a meeting with 11 other people, despite an agenda, minutes and notes; there are always 13 versions of what was said

Meetings, a better alternative to work

I used to have a poster on my wallboard.

"BORED? FEELINGS OF INADEQUACY? LISTLESS AND NOTHING TO DO?

THEN CALL A MEETING!

THE CURE-ALL FOR ALL WORK'S ILLS!"

 

[Craiglxviii]

Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on the final (age) number I draw, over-population isn't going to bother SWMBO or me. But we do feel depressed for our grandchildren - look at these simple numbers (and this is only on our side of the family): we married 50 years ago and two had two kids who in turn have had five so our tiny family share has already increased by 50 percent.

- My sister had four kids who produced another five and the other side of our son's family had five kids as well.

- If a 50 percent increase is the family norm over a 50 year period, it won't take too long to run out of space, food etc.

But what we seem to be forgetting is "natural" and/or self-imposed wastage. We are enjoying a period of incredible life expectancy with the number of people in UK passing 100 now forecasted to grow like topsy ... (quote from Auntie Beeb: 29 Sep 2016) - A record number of people in the UK, some 14,570, are surviving to the age of 100, the latest official data shows.
- The number of people aged 100, or over, had already quadrupled...

But we're forgetting the odd major disaster and man's subconscious ability to curtail growth by starting wars as though it's a natural phenomenon of Mother Nature. Arguably, we're overdue a serious conflict in Europe although Messrs Kim, Trump and Putin are rattling enough cages to lead us into the third Armageddon by next week or sooner.

Wars are unfortunately quite efficient at population reduction - Wikipedia says World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history in absolute terms of total casualties. Over 60 million people were killed, which was about 3% of the 1940 world population (est. 2.3 billion). I wonder how many more were hidden away out of those statistics?

It's very sad that we can virtually flip a coin to determine whether our descendants will enjoy a peaceful life or disappear into a cloud of self-destruction but we can only advise our younger generation, most of whom think we're going if not already reached the state of "gaga"!

Dave,

what we see though is a slowing-down of the rate of increase. There's a rough rule that in the developed "first" world, 2.4 children per family are needed to maintain a population at a given size (with no net inward migration). What we see instead is that the going rate for established families (3 or more generations) in Western & Northern Europe is between 1.5-1.9. That is usually due to economic factors; people are putting off having children until later in life to concentrate on their careers first (me, for example) or they feel that they can't afford to have children, or are enjoying their lifestyles too much to want to have children. Either way the effect is marked.

However, that's purely internal and would only affect us or any other country if we sealed the borders. What we see instead is that people want to come here for the perceived benefits of living here as they view them. Better healthcare, education, standards of living, access to consumer product, whatever it may be. They come here and- from memory- around a third want to stay, and around a third of those actually do (those numbers might be off btw). Those immigrants have a different dynamic to the established population, they want to have bigger families due to their own societal and religious norms and so rather than say 1.7 children. family they're at 4 or 5. Now it is interesting that as these immigrant families stay beyond the second generation they too begin to slow down in reproductive rate to something similar to the 1.9 figure. So, the net increase comes from the recently-arrived immigrants starting families. Then add to that the increasing average age of the population as we get better at staying alive longer. So, that's all fairly predictable and we as a nation can control the rate pretty roughly through control of immigration.

In terms of wars, disasters and the like, some numbers for you:

WW1: 18m
WW2: 50-80m.

Stalin's purges: 23m (purely Soviet population).
Cambodian genocide: 2.3m
Rwandan genocide: 1.07m (out of 11m population!)
2004 tsunami: 0.3m

So one dictator following on the heels of the Great War killed more of his own people than that war (which indirectly put him into power...) did in total, from all causes. However what we should focus on is that deaths in war fall disproportionately on fit, healthy young men ("le generation perdu" as the French called them) as opposed to disasters and genocides which affect the entire population pretty equally.

In terms of European conflict, I'd say we're gearing up for Cold War 2.0, which means that we're locking out the probability of a major European conflict. Let's not forget this is a game which (you know yourself) the rules are well-known: 3 days advance until theatre special weapons get used pretty much. So what that shows is the world getting back into the guise of the longest period of stability Europe has ever known, rather than the opposite!

 

[davemercedes]

Dave,

what we see though is a slowing-down of the rate of increase. There's a rough rule that in the developed "first" world, 2.4 children per family are needed to maintain a population at a given size (with no net inward migration). What we see instead is that the going rate for established families (3 or more generations) in Western & Northern Europe is between 1.5-1.9. That is usually due to economic factors; people are putting off having children until later in life to concentrate on their careers first (me, for example) or they feel that they can't afford to have children, or are enjoying their lifestyles too much to want to have children. Either way the effect is marked.

However, that's purely internal and would only affect us or any other country if we sealed the borders. What we see instead is that people want to come here for the perceived benefits of living here as they view them. Better healthcare, education, standards of living, access to consumer product, whatever it may be. They come here and- from memory- around a third want to stay, and around a third of those actually do (those numbers might be off btw). Those immigrants have a different dynamic to the established population, they want to have bigger families due to their own societal and religious norms and so rather than say 1.7 children. family they're at 4 or 5. Now it is interesting that as these immigrant families stay beyond the second generation they too begin to slow down in reproductive rate to something similar to the 1.9 figure. So, the net increase comes from the recently-arrived immigrants starting families. Then add to that the increasing average age of the population as we get better at staying alive longer. So, that's all fairly predictable and we as a nation can control the rate pretty roughly through control of immigration.

In terms of wars, disasters and the like, some numbers for you:

WW1: 18m
WW2: 50-80m.

Stalin's purges: 23m (purely Soviet population).
Cambodian genocide: 2.3m
Rwandan genocide: 1.07m (out of 11m population!)
2004 tsunami: 0.3m

So one dictator following on the heels of the Great War killed more of his own people than that war (which indirectly put him into power...) did in total, from all causes. However what we should focus on is that deaths in war fall disproportionately on fit, healthy young men ("le generation perdu" as the French called them) as opposed to disasters and genocides which affect the entire population pretty equally.

In terms of European conflict, I'd say we're gearing up for Cold War 2.0, which means that we're locking out the probability of a major European conflict. Let's not forget this is a game which (you know yourself) the rules are well-known: 3 days advance until theatre special weapons get used pretty much. So what that shows is the world getting back into the guise of the longest period of stability Europe has ever known, rather than the opposite!

Sorry Craig... quick response having got home at at the end of a very l-o-n-g day...:

- Most of all, I really hope your last paragraph is right, Craig!