| Hans Rosling rebuts this, especially in Factfulness.* If you look at population trends in countries worldwide, populations routinely level out only after improving underlying economic and health conditions. When infant mortality is high and children are an economic necessity, parents compensate by having many kids. When a country gets better healthcare and better economic opportunities, there's an initial generation of population explosion as more kids suddenly survive childhood, but then the population immediately plateaus and begins to recede. The epidemiological studies and population data is overwhelming that the simple model Malthus used fails to explain human behavior. * Also in some videos online: 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnexjTCBksw 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LyzBoHo5EI But to put in a closing plug for Factfulness, it's one of the best simple and accessible primers how to avoid major cognitive biases, and also teaches a lot about the current state of the world. |