John Lee writes

-----Original Message-----
From: John Lee [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2003 9:21 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: OT: Population


Or, we could all move to Lake Wobegon, where "everybody is above
average".

John Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I much prefer the Gilbert and Sullivan version:
"If everybody's somebody, then no one's anybody."

Mike Berkowitz
Guess? Inc.


At 11:38 AM 11/20/03 -0500, Ken Hirsch wrote:
>From: "Wirt Atmar" <[log in to unmask]>
>> In the next half century, the world's population is expected to top
out
>> somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 million people, two to three
times the
>current
>> world population. From a population of that size, we should
reasonably
>expect
>> significant poverty, substantial resource depletion and most
especially
>the
>> mass extinctions of the last of Earth's large animals.
>
>Huh?  I understand that there will be more extinctions, but I don't
>undertand what you mean by "significant poverty."  Poverty has declined
as
>the population has increased and it is almost certain to continue to
>decline.  Some resources will be scarce in the future (as in the past)
but
>the future trend will continue to be toward cheaper resources, as has
been
>the case throughout recorded history.
>
>Even without major technological breakthroughs, supporting 15 billion
people
>at a high standard of living is entirely feasible.  See, e.g.,
>http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
>
>[...]
>> I asked what he thought India would be like if it could
>> reduce it's population to 5% of its current value. He said, "It would
be a
>> paradise."
>
>This is just naive fixed-resources thinking.  If there were only 5% of
the
>population, but the same resources, sure, the average resources per
person
>would be 20 times as much.  But _by far_ most resources are created by
>people, and those would not around if the people were not.
>
>> There's nothing utopian about that. It would be an environment where
every
>> child would be educated and poverty could well perhaps be made
obsolete.
>
>Double huh?  Are countries with low population density more educated
than
>countries with low population densities?  No.  I'm certain that the
>correlation is exactly the opposite.  There are countries, e.g. the
>Netherlands, that have a higher population density than India, 99%
literacy
>and a much lower poverty rate.  Population density is correlated with
some
>problems, but poverty and lack of education are not among them.
>
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>

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