Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by ceejayoz 1788 days ago
> We are not making this decision completely willingly, it is more just happening and it is out of the governments control. To me this means it is risky, and can we pull out of it? How do we pull out of this shrinkage?

Isn't all this equally true of population growth as well as shrinkage?
1 comments
ptsneves 1788 days ago
No. Major population growth has been happening since the times of the new world migration.

The only major time i can think of where there were major depopulation events are in the times of the Fertile Crescent civilizations and perhaps in Asia in Angkor Wat. In both of the scenarios this massive depopulation led to the extinction of those civilizations.

link
ceejayoz 1788 days ago
> No. Major population growth has been happening since the times of the new world migration.

Nah, at least not of this magnitude. The world's population only hit a billion at about 1800, two billion around WWII. We're now at nearly eight. The idea that we understand all the consequences of that is silly; we're only just recently starting to understand the climate change aspect of it.

link
mazlix 1788 days ago
I’m not sure with the numbers but but bc were dealing with populations/exponential growth it’s possible the rate of pop growth (doubling time) hasn’t changed much for a longer time period.

However the childhood mortality rates have gone down so raw # of children per household could be lower and still have a higher growth rate.

link