[Pops]

I was born in '57 when CA had 15M, now 40M so almost triple. The nearest bigger town was Modesto, a little burg in the San Joaquin with big canneries (Tri-Valley was eventually one of the largest in the world) and the Gallo winery which I think is still the largest.

Back then it was Mayberry, probably <20k. It's little LA now, probably a quarter million honking assholes who know for a fact that where they are going is waaay more important than where you're headed.

Where I'm at now in MO peaked out at 5K in 2010, the same year walmart came to town, Half the businesses closed since then and the population fell 10%.

I'll take the dying town tho, walmart or not...
make that the town collapsing early... degrowth baby!

[Newfie]

Not sure if you are being serious or sarcastic.

We spend a lkt of time in degrowth areas. Seems we tend to prefer them.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Where I'm at now in MO peaked out at 5K in 2010, the same year walmart came to town, Half the businesses closed since then and the population fell 10%.

I'll take the dying town tho, walmart or not...
make that the town collapsing early... degrowth baby!

As long as you can get basic services like plumbers, etc. to come out reliably, it doesn't matter all that much whether you have a local Walmart et al anymore or not.

Even if those sorts of services are relatively expensive, you probably save so much on housing, taxes, etc. in a nice small town that you're MUCH MUCH better off than those who hang out in NYC, SF, LA, etc, and scream about crowds, crime, transport times, and the cost of living -- especially housing. Plus, you have a cleaner environment, a far more relaxed environment, etc. And you can pick whatever sort of weather suits you.

Given the trade-offs, unless showing up at work is required and one has a very high paying job to make it worth living there, living in the largest most expensive cities is basically insane, given the many alternatives.

Hell, thanks to technology, I do almost all my shopping, safely online, except picking up groceries where I want to pick out my fresh produce and other fresh foods (which I like to pick out myself).

The biggest downside to the rural areas in my experience, is the predominant political attitudes, re folks who think Fox News represents the real world.

But hey, trade-offs. Until the era of Covid-19, the education level of people didn't impact me that much, re city vs. country living. The gun toting types in small towns were hunting, not robbing people, generally. The people tended to be church going and nice types, despite believing that Fox News generally represents the way the world works. (And as a moderate, I can't stand listening to too much MSNBC either, especially when they get onto the idea that ENDLESS wealth redistribution should be the focus of the world).

[evilgenius]

I think the point is that people are not so bad after all. Without them, you go crazy. But it is not so good to fall in with and transform yourself into the group you are with without giving it some thought.

They may not actually be enough like you that you can be yourself. It depends, for me, whether I can put up with how other people think we ought to treat people in general. When does it become ok to use certain tactics? What is the position on violence? Does loyalty cut across all lines?

It speaks to whether we can really ever fit in, for sure. If you don't you may be the first to be let go. But, maybe I am just being insecure. Maybe it will come down to debating how someone else can be let go, and how I am supposed to agree with that.

[Newfie]

That is a realistic concern for some of us. The Wife and I are inherent outsiders, urban hermits. It is very difficult for us to comfortably fit into any crowd, or even our own families. There are some exceptions and we are at peace with that. But we have also lost/reneged membership to a previously close group.

In observation I guess some quarter to third of the population need to be very tied to a group and then spend a lot of time virtue signaling their membership. They are quite visible and frequently obnoxious.

Then there are many who are more secure in their herd affiliation but for whom it is strong if quiet. The “loners” are probably under 10%.

These are unscientific guesses.

[Subjectivist]

Well it is statistically demonstrated Humanity has reached the EIGHT BILLION in the last day. If not exactly today in reality it is assuredly this week which makes a distinction without a difference.

Since I joined this website back when the ultimate doom patrol was trying to convince everyone humanity is in overshoot the world population has grown quite a lot. We were under 7 Billion when I joined and passed that mark in 2011 which many were convinced was overshoot.

Here is the thing though, in ecosystem population dynamics overshoot is a singular event. The population grows so quickly that food supplies are over-exploited. Famine sets in and in a real overshoot the population then crashes often as low as 10% of the peak overshoot number because the famine pressure depleted every available food item and leaves very little for the next generation to live on.

If or when Humans go into overshoot you won't possibly be able to argue otherwise because there will be mass famine world wide and the resulting wars will make World War II look like some teenagers throwing firecrackers around in comparison.

Humans are uniquely capable of using out intelligence to overcome the reproductive instinct. When there is a famine as a general rule the hungry population birth rate drops significantly because no human wants to see their children die of starvation. It doesn't stop entirely, true, but often it falls to replacement rate with babies replacing those who die from all causes and the population is meta-stable for as much as seven years while the famine conditions prevail. During that period humans also tend to move around looking for someplace not undergoing famine like the mass exodus of the Irish poor during the 1840's.

In our modern higher technology world just about every famine of the last half century has been caused by political acts, not actual food shortages. The starving children of Ethiopia in the 1980's were pawns in international politics as were the starving Somali population in the 1990's.

[AdamB]

In our modern higher technology world just about every famine of the last half century has been caused by political acts, not actual food shortages. The starving children of Ethiopia in the 1980's were pawns in international politics as were the starving Somali population in the 1990's.

Well, that sounds positively optimistic for a doomer website. And a reasonable analysis of how yet another "world is ending" mechanism might not be all it is cracked up to be.

[Newfie]

Subjectivist,

The worn metaphor is that a yeast culture grows right up to the point where it collapses. Looking from outside we can see the yeast food supply is diminishing, we are able to look at is objectively and accurately predict the future. But is very difficult for humans to do that when looking at humans.

That we have not yet had massive famines means nothing. That we have not yet run out of fuel means nothing. Repeat that for: soil, fish, water, and oh so many other vital things, sometimes as little a bees.

It means nothing to say humanity has not yet had massive famine. What is meaningful is to look at our current rate of resource usage and other factors and then accurately predict when we will run out.

Once you do that, and have some understanding of the dynamics, you can start to plot a course that avoids the peak.

Limits to Growth has attempted to plot the resource usage and decline. They have been fairly accurate. There is little good reason to not believe their projections are approximately correct.

If LTG does jot do it for you then listen to (one if the two) the founders of the Global Footprint network. Not easy to find, but his private predictions are contained in online interviews. He notes that his model s limited, it uses only static production rates but Earths ability to produce is being severely reduced.

[Tanada]

Eight billion people means ‘all of the above’ energy strategy



World population recently reached the eight billion milestone, according to estimates from the United Nations. That’s up from about 2.5 billion people in 1950, with a gain of a billion since 2010. However, population growth rates are falling, and the total will likely peak at around 10.4 billion in the 2080s.

The United States remains the third most populous nation, with 337 million residents. China currently has the largest population (over 1.4 billion), just slightly above India. However, the Chinese population is shrinking, and India is projected to surpass China next year.

Growth rates are quite uneven across countries. Some two-thirds of the global population lives in countries or areas where lifetime fertility is below 2.1 births per woman, approximately the level required for zero growth on a sustainable basis. Projections show declining populations in 61 countries between 2022 and 2050. For many high-income countries, international migration has been the sole source of population expansion for decades, a trend which is expected to continue.

Conversely, over half of the projected increase in global population through 2050 will occur in just eight countries — the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania. One reason for this phenomenon is the current age distribution, with large proportions of women of childbearing age, a pattern which gradually diminishes over time.
The world’s population is set to hit 8 billion on Tuesday, according to the UN, and growth over the next few decades is predicted to be concentrated in just eight countries, five of them in Africa. Among them is Nigeria, where the city of Lagos is already struggling to cope with the growing population.

There is a decidedly positive trend in most countries of sub-Saharan Africa, as well as parts of Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean in that the share of the population of working age has been increasing. With more workers as a percentage of the total comes an opportunity for accelerating production.

As we consider the future, it becomes apparent that global economic progress is critical, particularly in rapidly growing nations. Otherwise, problems such as hunger and abject poverty will become much more acute. Over three billion people currently survive on $2.90 per day or less, with 700 million — more than twice the population of the United States — having less than $1.90 per day. Education is essential to such development, and in many countries, attainment is extremely low.

Another key is adequate supplies of reliable energy. It is impossible for emerging economies to meaningfully develop without the power needed to support enhanced output. It is an inescapable fact, verified by the U.S. Department of Energy and many other analysts, that an “all of the above” strategy is required, including both responsible fossil fuel utilization and rapid implementation of renewable resources. Climate goals are achievable alongside sufficient energy to permit greater prosperity.

Failing to acknowledge and embrace that option is essentially consigning billions of people to lives of extreme poverty. We can do better.

WACO Trib