[...] If that’s not convincing, browse through Coming Anarchy’s demographics pieces: Although optimists have hopes for new resource technologies and free-market development in the [...]

Evolving Humans, but to what end?...

Humanity, like all species, evolves through changes in the frequency of genetic variants over time. Where there is less diversity—less possible genetic variants to have their frequency varied—there is less evolution. The aboriginies of Austarli…

Dr. Barnett is a brilliant analyst. I have never been convinced, however, by his optimism about the future. He seems to think that these intractable problems are just going to be swept away by globalization, midwifed by “development in a box” programs. It is pleasant to think he may be correct.

Been seeing more and more information come out lately regarding this very information. The opinions of what will happen when we hit such a hugh population imbalance vary wildly but needless to say I can’t look at it with optimism.

Add to this our unfortunate desire to flood these poor countries with donated goods and vast amounts of funds leaves these countries with no incentive to improve their own industries. Corrupt officials pocket the money and sell the donated goods at ultra cheap prices in which no domestic market can keep up with. It’s all very distressing and unfortunately I don’t see Bono stopping his crusade to provide as much money as possible to Africa any time soon.

Ironically, every time I post here something in the body of my post has already been well discussed prior to here at CA. And I only notice AFTER I scroll down to the previous posts. You guys are just way to on top of things.

From now on I’m reading UP from where I last read.

“It (low GDP+high birth rate) almost defies logic.”

Not in the least. The pattern is extremely logical. Poverty = lack of access to reliable birth control = large families. Development = higher cost of raising kids (education, trendy clothes, opportunity cost of spending on kids versus selves)= fewer kids. Even Darwinists understand that wealthy people do not need so many children because their resources ensure their offspring will grow up healthy with a bright future. Even in war-torn places like the Congo, people still have sex, mostly unprotected and sometimes without consent, hence, the high birthrates that outpace high infant mortality.

The population growth imbalance between rich and poor countries is mirrored in US population growth. Poor families, especially immigrants, have more children than middle class or wealthy families. I don’t think this is a direct outcome of the existence of welfare benefits like food stamps and WIC. Most of the Hispanic families in my community are headed by parents with undocumented status. Their American-born children are eligible for public assistance, but even without such aid, they would still probably have large families, for illegal immigrants do not have convenient access to family planning services.

“...Luxembourg and Ghana have the same population growth rate…”

I wonder if Luxembourg’s growth rate, like that of the US, stems mostly from immigration.

I adopted a paleolithic diet several months ago. One point made by paleolithic diet advocates is that the introduction of agriculture about 12,000 years ago enabled explosive population growth yet at the same time provided the human race with a less nutritious diet. Over a billion of the world’s people get enough calories to survive and reproduce but not enough nutrition to thrive.

Kit: Surely it’s obvious that Luxembourg is one glaring exception, and considering its unusual characteristics as a nation, statistically meaningless. Its fertility rate is high for Europe at 1.7 children per female, but still well below the replacement rate.

Richardson: Care to explain?

Kurt9: Leave places like Afghanistan to fester and they will ultimately export their misery to the first world. We should not try and solve the problems of Afghanistan, Somalia, the Sudan, and elsewhere, but we should be proactive in alleviating the problems that we can.

Dr. Barnett says that paradigm changes happens when the old leadership leaves and younger guys, who are more willing to try something new, come to power. He says when he gives one of his presentations before the military, the top brass is usually not very interested, but the younger guys are and ask lots of questions.

This is true in science as well. The old bulls sustain the prevailing orthodoxy and new ideas often don’t have a chance to flourish until the old bulls are gone. Issac Newton was a brilliant scientist who was put into to a position where he could say yea or nay to the projects of other scientists, and became a retrograde influence on new science in the latter part of his life. Einstein never accepted quantum physics. So, nobody knows everything.

I have no quarrel with Dr. Barnett’s optimism. With some exceptions, the prevailing wisdom on how to deal with egregious problems has not worked out too well. It’s absolutely appropriate to try something new. I hope we will have a chance to find out if Dr. Barnett’s ideas work or not. On his blog, he reported that he was contacted by a member of Barack Obama’s team, met with him and had a long discussion about his ideas. Dr. Barnett said that some of his ideas are now appearing in Obama’s speeches.

I should rephrase myself. I understood each sentence in isolation but could make no sense of the whole text.

PS. I hate to hit another PBH’er on someone elses site, but I’ll address Kit’s issue for all you mathematically/statistically inclined folks.

When you’re addressing covariance for different variables, outliers don’t make or break a formula. What does make or break a formula is that the Old Communist Bloc (sans Austria/Hungary/Slovenia) is poor AND facing serious negative growth rates—worst than the Western World.

Alec:

Also, I want to say one thing about the post-colonial legacy: it was really damaging in terms of population growth. Modern medicine placed in a society that cannot sustain high population growth will cause the society to implode. We gave and continue to give antidotes to the third world to solve curable diseases. While this may seem like the righteous action in the short term, in the long term it means you have hyper-popular growth without the correlated development in the other institutions—education, agriculture, and infrastructure. I’m probably not conveying this idea properly, but dumping off antibiotics and immunizations in the rest of the world and giving yourself a big Bono pat on the back won’t cut it.

That sounds right on the money to me—a classic example of good intentions leading to disastrous long-term consequences. However: Jared Diamond makes a powerful counterpoint that the only way for Africa to get itself out of the development hole it is in right now is to get rid of the high medical costs that plague its society.

“...Or as Robert D. Kaplan likes to say, measured pessimistic realism is the best way to prepare for the future. Pure optimism blinds you to the problems to be faced.” That’s a fair criticism. And Don’t Worry, Be Happy- type optimism really isn’t any more useful that apocalyptic fatalism. What I’m looking for is something in the middle—a mixture of pessimism and optimism that allows for seeing the problem AND seeing what can be done about it, even if it’s just something that reduces the suffering a bit and allows for a better world at the other end.

As for whether it’s Curzon’s, or my, or anyone-on-here’s place to suggest solutions. . . we may be amateurs, but what could it hurt? At the very least, our fumbling around for a solution might help us better understand the problem.

Check out this photo essay on a week’s worth of food for families around the globe:

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519_1373664,00.html

Some details to observe:
-the amount of fresh produce
-the amount of junk food like frozen pizzas and bottles of soda pop (note: bottles in some households appear to be mineral water)
-the ratio of food quantity to the number of family members
-the cost

Joe: stay tuned for part 4.