Comments on: Some Big Facts

By: Gil

Gil — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:02:00 +0000

“In virtually every part of the planet where hunger or famine is an issue, it’s been caused by government.”

Uh oh! Non-sequitor time! No, a lot of ongoing poverty seems to be caused by cultural traditions especially that the measure of a Man and a Woman is how many anklebiters you can churn out.

Borlaug also complained about the Malthusian actions of poor nations and cultures – more food production means more babies will be born negating the improvements in food production.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:48:00 +0000

I agree: Why not? I’m sure not going to tell you that you must procreate. I doubt Borlaug would have, either.

In virtually every part of the planet where hunger or famine is an issue, it’s been caused by government.

Borlaug’s breakthroughs have provided us with the means to feed every human on the planet. Eradication of socialism would make it happen.

By: deweaver

deweaver — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:56:00 +0000

Another 3 billion people being added at a rate that is equal to our declining rate of increase in crop yields could force us all to become vegan wimps.

Note that the rate of increase in crop yields is hitting a point of diminishing returns, where you are pushing basic thermodynamics and biochemistry that you can’t get around. Even the ultimate GMO of changing C3 rice into a C4 (has to do with how many carbon atoms are fixed per photon in photosynthesis) plant like corn will only by about 25% yield increase.

If all wealth was just software, population is no problem, however the planet is finite with a finite amount of fresh water and that, combined with the laws of physics, provides population limits, if we want to continue to eat and drink.

By: Gil

Gil — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:30:00 +0000

Why not voluntary sub-replacement birthrates? What’s to say lower population increases wealth as fewer people invites mechanisation. Suppose you can’t appliances to the middle- to upper-class people in tradition societies because the well-to-do already don’t do their own washing – they hire people to do all these things because labour is dirt-cheap. Didn’t the Plague cause a burst of freedom for the remaining lower classes and start the Renaissance for the West? Labour was suddenly expensive and workers had more options and were less easily controlled thus inviting exploration into the science of mechanics?

By: Gil

Gil — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:20:00 +0000

Was Western Imperialism ‘freedom’ then? Western Imperialism wouldn’t have got as far if it weren’t the high birthrates of the Old World. There a quaint 1800s statistic where huge emigration from the Old World to the New World saw no drop in the population of the Old World because of very high birthrates. The Western country that saw any drop in population then was Ireland.

By: Gil

Gil — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:16:00 +0000

If you want to knee-deep in anklebiters all you would have to do is ban birth control and abortion. However, why people feel obliged to make umpteen babies for the sake of keeping labour artificially cheap?

By: Tom P

Tom P — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:44:00 +0000

Why don’t living people start a cartel to keep potential people from being born and competing against them? If the government restricts the supply of people in this way, it seems like people’s wages would remain artificially high. So that’s one reason to believe population growth would slow per capita income growth.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 03:39:00 +0000

We need more people like Margaret Sanger.

By: Gil

Gil — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 02:12:00 +0000

Actually decent land is limited, more and more babies will simply mean greater population density or to occupy land with low population density will be very expensive. Yes, the U.S.A. could house 2 billion people but who would want to live there?

By: Gil

Gil — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 02:07:00 +0000

What for? He improved food technology to feed another 1 billion but then over 1 billion more are born so we need another Borlaug to figure how to feed another billion on top of the current population? What’s the point?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 01:16:00 +0000

Furthermore there is an ignorance in the world, still alive in socialist dominated areas, that says that if Amal has more, then Ashad must have less.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 01:15:00 +0000

Might as well ask why the USA developed high standards of living from 1783 all the way through to the 1960s, and did so with higher than replacement rates of birth?

It is called freedom. Freedom from oppression be it the national, the state, or the tribal. It is because for whatever else we can say about the USA we have had stability enough over that time we don’t have to worry about our neighbors running amok at night and killing us in our beds by hacking us to death with machetes because they resent us for a plethora of reasons. It is the answer not only for the USA but for most of the first world.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:31:00 +0000

Perhaps you just missed that class of development economics where a link between population growth and other factors was explained.

You could have heard of the example of one of the poorest places on this earth, the Indian state of Kerala.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala#Demographics

Reason? it appears to help a lot if you educate the girls.
so the society is less patriarchal…

By: John

John — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:15:00 +0000

We just need more great people like Norman Borlaug.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug

By: Gil

Gil — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:51:00 +0000

The only real reason Don Boudreaux can mean population control equates to technological growth (though I find it a spurious one) is that having more and more babies in step with food science creates incentive for more food science. It’s what Julius Caesar would describe as “burning your bridges” or as Ray Bradbury would say “jump off a cliif and build your wings on the way down” or some guy who said “throw your hat over the fence”. In other words create a problem where failure is not an option and you’ll discover the solution in no time.

However, why is it the parts of the world with the highest birth rates are usually the most backward? Why is that the parts of the world with high standards of living have below-replacement rates and are now relying on immigration? If birthrates equals success will Europe flourish with Muslims and will the U.S.A. flourish with Hispanics? Then again what of the fact when women around the world get access to birth control and get to have a choice in how many babies they want to have they will choose to have fewer?

By: MWG

MWG — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:59:00 +0000

Nothing odd about it. Rising living standards result in lower population growth. BUT, lower population growth does not result in rising living standards.

By: JohnK

JohnK — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:59:00 +0000

They don’t care about poverty, they care about controlling the ability to reproduce.

Coming up next, the return of Positive Eugenics….

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:58:00 +0000

I take back that comment that I made a few weeks back.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:50:00 +0000

Also David, but more importantly, the fact that more people/larger markets provide bigger incentives for the development of new ideas and the execution of those ideas. Since ideas can be spread at zero marginal cost, more people == more gain from more ideas.

By: Seth

Seth — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:50:00 +0000

That’s odd. I thought poverty eradication (or positive shifts in standard of living) slowed population growth.