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I'm not sure why you seem surprised; this is a very long standing trend. It's also pretty obvious. You aren't the only one to value quality of life over quantity; in fact everyone else does too. The only problem is that if you're very poor you don't have a choice. Wherever and whenever the human race manages to claw its way out of poverty, we immediately stop having so many kids. It's not magic. That being said... 1) What upcoming food shortage? Food production is largely a solved problem. We know how to sustainably produce large amounts of food from a given amount of arable land, and we have plenty of arable land to feed not just the current global population, but the projected maximum global population. It's true! We already have the ability to feed the largest population we'll ever have. True, Africa currently has food shortages, but as soon as Africa stops relying on peasant farming, that problem goes away. We can argue about when (or if) Africa is going to finally have their own Green Revolution[0], but...upcoming shortages? Do you know something the rest of us don't? :) 2) I might ask what upcoming resource shortage, but that's a more complicated question, and probably not worth arguing about. Still, you might want to consider the outcome of the Simon-Erlich wager[1], look at commodity price trends over the last couple decade, and then look at futures prices. Would you take Erlich's side in a repeat of the original wager? I wouldn't, and it's worth noting that Erlich and his ideological allies have repeatedly refused to do so. Again, what do you know that they don't? 3) Also, this is wonderful news for "investors" too (why beat around the bush? Call them "capitalists"; you know you want to...). Trust me, the slavering capitalist dogs are VASTLY more interested in having a rich China full of consumers than in having a poor China full of workers. It might be nice to have cheap Chinese labour making iPods to sell to 300m rich Americans, but it will be FANTASTIC to have cheap robot labour making iPods to sell to 1.3b rich Chinese. (And that's precisely the scenario you're envisioning.) Lower costs and higher sales is how capitalists make their money in the real world. 4) Finally, it remains to be seen how good it will be environmentally. In the short run (say, the next 50 years), it probably won't be. Much as with population growth, we see an inverted curve. Very poor countries can't afford to pollute, and very rich ones can afford not to - but right in the middle you end up polluting a bunch. We went through that period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; now it's China's turn. They're producing less pollution for every dollar of GDP each year, but their GDP is climbing much faster. The environment is likely to get worse before it gets better. (Of course, look on the bright side: We are conquering global inequality, and the environment will recover eventually. Those are both GREAT. But let's not get carried away.) [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager |
Note that I don't believe this will be food induced Armageddon. Rather, I expect a retooling just as big as the green revolution towards energy efficiency and energy output (as opposed to the great input that happens currently).