Notes On World Population

Posted: 9/18/2014

Overpopulation

The specter of overpopulation and its consequences has been debated on and off at least since Thomas R. Malthus’s famous essay “An Essay on the Principle of Population” of 1798.

We have reached 7 billion inhabitants in 2013. In 2026 (or 12 years from now), we expect to reach 8 billion and so forth (source).

I do not doubt that human ingenuity would make it possible to sustain possibly 20 or 30 or more billion humans on this planet. However, what is the benefit? Just more humans for humans sake?

Fact is that humans do not have predators like other animals or are as sensitive to the environment as plants. There is apparently no natural check on the size of the human population unless e.g. the earth is struck by another large asteroid. Thus, each human, I would believe, is largely responsible for the overall world population size.

Brief Population Policy History

I would believe that over most of modern history, population policy had or still has a high precedence. The impetus of national population policy was simply to enlarge the population as much and as fast as is possible. The larger the head count, the larger the political power of a nation.

In particular, Western countries still subsidize families by the number of children.

Obviously, this pro growth policy can not go on any longer.

Environmentalism

I would argue that the environmentalism in most of its manifestations observed today and in recent decades boils down in essence to a tenet that too many humans roam the world. Thus, to slow down the growth of or even shrinking the world population would be beneficial to environment we share with landscapes, plants and animals.

Authoritarian Approach

A classical liberal approach is clearly distinct from leftist, authoritarian, or progressive approaches in which usually the government is coercing or incentivizing its citizens in some form to influence population size.

Many of the approaches taken in the past were authoritarian or totalitarian control measures undertaken by government like in China or India. The many negative and inhumane consequences are well known, e.g. forced abortion, severe penalties for having too many children, more ageing parents without children, a surplus of permanent male bachelors.

In conclusion, authoritarian approaches should be objected!

Classical Liberal Approach

First of all, parents should be free to choose how many children they want to raise. However, parents who choose to have children are fully responsible financially and otherwise.

Unleash free market economies and individual freedom and responsibility and population growth will be kept in check naturally through economic prosperity without requiring any significant government intervention.

It is high time to privatize the education of our children. Government in most countries has usurped way too much control over how our children are educated. Government directed education is a brainwash.

Any government subsidies of any kind that encourage citizens to have more children should be abolished and strictly avoided.

Government mandated Ponzi schemes like pay as you go retirement benefits systems are to be phased out and privatized as fast as possible.

Health care is first of all an individual responsibility. Any government run health care is to be completely phased out and privatized as fast as possible.

Exponential Technological Revolution

I have blogged here about this subject before.

For the past 10-20 years, we have been living in a time of extraordinary rapid technological progress across the board with ubiquitous effects on every living being. This progress is unprecedented in human history and in all likelihood this revolution will go on for decades to come.

Some of the foreseeable, near to medium term consequences are:

1. Life expectancy and individual health as well as well being is to increase significantly. Future babies will be born with customized capabilities and features we can only dream of today
2. Robots will take on more and more chores of everyday life and in businesses
3. Genetic engineering will greatly improve cognitive capabilities of human brains. Where in the past the probability of giving birth to or raise someone with the IQ of e.g. Albert Einstein was very small, in the future many children could be born with a similar IQ or even an higher IQ. Possibly, human intelligence will completely redefined.
4. Computers will be integrated with or linked to the human brain. The potential of this development are incredible

Overall, this revolution suggests, we do not need more than perhaps 8-10 billion people or less on this planet. This is not to be construed as a hard limit, but as something to think about.