World Population

[Tesh]

I'm taking AP World History this year, and two days ago I read an article in the text book that I found way interesting. So I threw together a little chart in Google Sheets! 

I'm not going to say anything more right now, but if anyone wants to discuss it, I'd love to. And if you want to complain about agriculture, I'll gladly join in that discussion as well!

Here's the chart! (Please note the years. The intervals between them are rather irregular. And the numbers aren't going to be super accurate, I think).

Edited September 14, 2020 by Tesh

[Orlion Blight]

Seems to me that a line chart could make a better visual if you are looking for trends, changing or otherwise. 

[Tesh]

6 hours ago, Orlion the Platypus said:

Seems to me that a line chart could make a better visual if you are looking for trends, changing or otherwise. 

I'll have to look into that. Like I said, I just threw it together. I actually didn't know how to even make a chart on Sheets until we did so in chemistry. (I also hate computers, so I haven't really tried very hard to learn all the weird things you can do on different things... Sheets is really complicated and makes next to zero sense to me).

Nice profile picture, by the way.

Edit: I figured it out and it was really easy.

Stupid computers, always making things seem so complicated...

Edited September 16, 2020 by Tesh

[+ILuvHats]

Yeah, the line chart is less misleading, particularly since the time intervals are consistently spaced. So what was so interesting about this mysterious article that inspired you to make the graph?

Edited September 18, 2020 by ILuvHats

[Tesh]

So... Population growth terrifies me. Beyond all reason. I mean... At this point there isn't a way to stop it that wouldn't be infringing on what we see as basic human rights. That in and of itself is a whole other conversation.

The article was well written, and was about something that scares/interests me, so of course I read it, think about it a lot, try to find a way to confront my fears, but end up freaking out more.

It's a vicious cycle.

It was also just really cool to look at how quickly things changed in the world in regards to population and why that was.

[Orlion Blight]

If it makes you feel better, there's no reason to reasonably want to stop population growth. 

Really, the only reasons are 1) subscribing to outdated theories which have been aptly demonstrated to be wrong by now [we should have had societal collapse by now if they were true] 2) Genocidal intent/white supremacy. 

Since you are just learning, it has more to do with your sources, not you personally. Accordingly, it's always good to learn how to question sources and arguments 

[Tesh]

4 hours ago, Orlion the Platypus said:

If it makes you feel better, there's no reason to reasonably want to stop population growth. 

Really, the only reasons are 1) subscribing to outdated theories which have been aptly demonstrated to be wrong by now [we should have had societal collapse by now if they were true] 2) Genocidal intent/white supremacy. 

Since you are just learning, it has more to do with your sources, not you personally. Accordingly, it's always good to learn how to question sources and arguments 

My biggest issue is that we can't even take care of the people who are on the world now. (By the way, I'm also a pretty pessimistic person, so that definitely effects my thought process).

Edited September 19, 2020 by Tesh

[Orlion Blight]

1 hour ago, Tesh said:

My biggest issue is that we can't even take care of the people who are on the world now. (By the way, I'm also a pretty pessimistic person, so that definitely effects my thought process).

Yes, people who are on the world now tend not to be taken care of. 

I feel that's less of a "there are not enough resources to go around" and a "there are ideologies that are dominant that encourage treating many as subhuman".

I said ideologies, mods, and did not specify! Calm down! 

[danex]

I’m pretty sure I heard that a lot of experts agree that the population will somewhat balance out at 9 billion. Then we’ll have some sort of equilibrium. Don’t quote me on that though. 

[DramaQueen]

7 hours ago, Danex said:

I’m pretty sure I heard that a lot of experts agree that the population will somewhat balance out at 9 billion. Then we’ll have some sort of equilibrium. Don’t quote me on that though. 

I quoted you on that.

[Tesh]

15 hours ago, Danex said:

I’m pretty sure I heard that a lot of experts agree that the population will somewhat balance out at 9 billion. Then we’ll have some sort of equilibrium. Don’t quote me on that though. 

We'll likely get there in about 30 years, so we'll have to see. That's still a lot of people.

[Orlion Blight]

1 hour ago, Tesh said:

We'll likely get there in about 30 years, so we'll have to see. That's still a lot of people.

It's not nearly enough to colonize the galaxy! 

[AonEne]

How many is enough to colonize the galaxy? 

(*hugs Tesh*) 

[Condensation]

Enough is enough!

[Tesh]

I know it's been two weeks, but I have more thoughts.

If the population continues growing at this rate, even if we can support all these people and manage our resources well, more people means more cars, airplanes, and everything else. Which in turn means global warming. Which is already a problem, but this would make it worse. With increased global warming, there would be less area suitable for human habitation, let alone agriculture. So we wouldn't be able to support all these people, even in a best case scenario. (Which would mean we are super smart about distributing food and taking care of people). Without enough food, population would begin to decline.

Also, if we started managing our resources well, more food means more people, which was the cause of the original transition to agriculture in the first place.

Agriculture is stupid.

For so many reasons.

Those are my additional thoughts.

[Ghanderflaffle]

7 hours ago, Tesh said:

I know it's been two weeks, but I have more thoughts.

If the population continues growing at this rate, even if we can support all these people and manage our resources well, more people means more cars, airplanes, and everything else. Which in turn means global warming. Which is already a problem, but this would make it worse. With increased global warming, there would be less area suitable for human habitation, let alone agriculture. So we wouldn't be able to support all these people, even in a best case scenario. (Which would mean we are super smart about distributing food and taking care of people). Without enough food, population would begin to decline.

Also, if we started managing our resources well, more food means more people, which was the cause of the original transition to agriculture in the first place.

Agriculture is stupid.

For so many reasons.

Those are my additional thoughts.

As a person who grew up with agriculture, I am going to defend it with my life, but as politely as possible.

Ag has pretty much always existed and always will. If we didn’t have a large ag industry, everyone would have to grow their own food, which means we would have even more agricultural, but less variety in stores. You wouldn’t be able to get fresh fruits and vegetables year round, everyone would have to learn how to preserve foods, meat would become a special treat, and the people who can’t grow food would starve. 

Agriculture provides jobs to thousands of people. Less than 2% of the US population are farmers or ranchers, but that's still a ton of people. The Ag industry as a whole provides the most jobs out of any industry, from farming to vet science to grocery stores. Millions of people would lose their jobs without agriculture. It is arguably the most important industry period. 

It is not agriculture's fault that the population is getting out of hand. The fault lies with people who act irresponsibly with what their body can do. People need to decide if the for sure want a kid before doing what it takes to have one. The population wouldn’t be nearly as out of control if people were more responsible about this.

Overall, we wouldn’t be anywhere near where we are now without Ag. Instead of people being doctors, lawyers, or students they would all have to spend time finding and growing food. We wouldn’t have all that we have come to enjoy today.

[Tesh]

4 hours ago, Ghanderflaffle said:

As a person who grew up with agriculture, I am going to defend it with my life, but as politely as possible.

I'm so sorry if that came across as rude!

Basically what I was saying was that agriculture is pretty much how social inequality began, and other things like that.

But.

Without it, we wouldn't be where we are now. We wouldn't have been able to explore the world, we would still exist hunter gatherer societies. 

I have absolutely nothing against modern agriculture.

We all depend on it to survive, and without it, people wouldn't be able to devote their lives to other things, such as science or writing it trying to land on the moon! 

I recognize it's significance. It's been significant and important for as long as it's been in existence. There's just an ongoing debate about whether the switch to agriculture a really long time ago was the right thing to do. But at this point, there's literally no way we can go back on that. Which is fine. We have done so many amazing things because of it. I think the biggest issue is just humans in general....

 

Once again, I'm sorry if I came across as rude or snobbish. 

[Condensation]

12 hours ago, Tesh said:

I know it's been two weeks, but I have more thoughts.

If the population continues growing at this rate, even if we can support all these people and manage our resources well, more people means more cars, airplanes, and everything else. Which in turn means global warming. Which is already a problem, but this would make it worse. With increased global warming, there would be less area suitable for human habitation, let alone agriculture. So we wouldn't be able to support all these people, even in a best case scenario. (Which would mean we are super smart about distributing food and taking care of people). Without enough food, population would begin to decline.

Also, if we started managing our resources well, more food means more people, which was the cause of the original transition to agriculture in the first place.

Agriculture is stupid.

For so many reasons.

Those are my additional thoughts.

I think people prefer to call it climate change, because we don't have enough evidence to prove that that the globe is actually getting warmer(mostly permanently) and it's not a random natural spike.

[Chasmgoat]

2 minutes ago, Condensation said:

I think people prefer to call it climate change, because we don't have enough evidence to prove that that the globe is actually getting warmer(mostly permanently) and it's not a random natural spike.

You did not need that comma after change.

[Condensation]

5 minutes ago, Chasmgoat said:

You did not need that comma after change.

I didn't need it, but that doesn't mean that it's incorrect.

[Chasmgoat]

I meant that it was incorrect.

[Condensation]

I don't believe so.

[Truthless of Shinovar]

Ooh! What do you guys think of GMOs as a means to increase food production to support our rapidly growing population? Personally, I’m all for them, but I’m curious to see what you guys think!

[Experience]

2 minutes ago, Truthless of Shinovar said:

Ooh! What do you guys think of GMOs as a means to increase food production to support our rapidly growing population? Personally, I’m all for them, but I’m curious to see what you guys think!

I think GMO's are fine, but I do understand why people don't prefer them. 

We just need to all move to mars and use the whole earth as a farm.  

[Tesh]

1 minute ago, Experience said:

I think GMO's are fine, but I do understand why people don't prefer them. 

We just need to all move to mars and use the whole earth as a farm.  

Ooh, interesting idea!

The biggest issue with that is that there is something in the soil of mars that wouldn't allow plants to grow, so establishing an atmosphere would be really difficult.

I love how this went from population growth to agriculture to climate change then to mars.