The Return of Nature

As a scientist that has practiced Buddhism for 50 years I rarely indulge in futurism mainly because the future is not predictable. Futurism is not a science. Even though nowadays we have a lot of wealthy techies and the usual political hacks making all kinds of predictions about the future, I always take their ideas with skepticism because there are just too many random events that can change future outcomes. It is good for people to understand that making predictions is nearly always based on trends.

Predictions that are based on false data, outdated trends, cognitive biases, or simply made up for political power are not good for humanity for numerous reasons. They prevent us from recognizing the progress we’ve made and blind us to opportunities for innovation that can solve actual problems. Maybe far worse is when people in power blatantly lie (nowadays on a global scale) purposely for power or profit

The over population narrative has been pushed for over 50 years and nowadays it has been included in “climate change” almost exclusively for political reasons. Incredibly this narrative is compounding an already existing trend which actually can be viewed as a wonderful trend and opportunity for all of humanity.

In the late 1960s, Paul Ehrlich released a book, The Population Bomb, that incited a worldwide fear of overpopulation. He used a lot of data and made a lot of predictions.

He said that too many people, packed into too-tight spaces, would take too much from the Earth. Unless humanity cut down its numbers, all of us would face “mass starvation.”

Ehrlich’s research and subsequent bestselling book was built on top of a theory proposed by Thomas Malthus, an 18th-century English economist and demographer who believed that if left unchecked, population growth would outpace food production, leading to widespread famine, disease, and other disasters. The theory was based on the statistics available at that time.

Ehrlich viewed overpopulation as a global catastrophe that threatened the entire planet. As he put it, “A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people … We can no longer afford merely to treat the symptoms of the cancer of population growth; the cancer itself must be cut out."

He predicted that uncontrolled population growth would lead to famine and starvation and that by the 1970s, “hundreds of millions of people will starve to death.”

For Ehrlich, the negative consequences of overpopulation wasn’t the end of humanity’s problems. Exponentially growing populations would deplete the Earth’s resources (including food), lead to social unrest and war. He predicted communities and nations would fought over shrinking resources, environmental degradation, and then economic collapse brought on by increased costs of living, poverty, and inequality.

To this day, Ehrlich’s doom and gloom predictions haunts society, even though none of them have come true. Read that again: NONE OF HIS PREDICTIONS CAME TRUE. As a matter of fact farming has become so efficient that we actually have many farms, all over the world, that let fields go fallow or completely return to nature. In more tropical areas, like the Amazon basin for example, it takes only around 10 years for a field that is fallow to completly return to its natural habitat. And today with satellite data aiding governments illegal harvesting of forests has dropped significantly.

Today, along with the doom and gloom climate activists we now have the anti-science folks warning us again about over population. As longevity research and breakthroughs in new supplements and medicines extend human life the constant narrative from naysayers is how does humanity handle over population.

Let’s examine the actual evidence on human population growth to see where we are today in April, 2024.

First, let’s define something called the total fertility rate (TFR.) This metric that demographers use to measure the number of offspring per parent. The population replacement rate, which is the average number of children per family for each generation to exactly replace itself, is roughly 2 to 1. That simple means 2 children per female. Obviously any person with common sense can see that the actual TFR needs to be a fraction above 2 to 1 because of accidental deaths.

70 years ago the global average fertility rate was 5.05. Several countries, such as Rwanda, Kenya, and the Philippines, had a fertility rate higher than 7 children per woman. China had a fertility rate just over 6, while India was just below 6. Only one country in the world had a fertility rate below 2: Luxembourg. The United States was 3.03 in 1950, which increased to a maximum of 3.6 in 1957. So we can see from the statistics that the TFR has and does change. It is a dynamic variable.

Today, 70 years later the statistics are drastically different! : as of 2021, the global average fertility rate has more than halved to 2.32, with a multitude of nations below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per family, causing them to actually shrink in size! Yes, the latest statistics we have are 3 years old, so the reality today, if the trend has continued is that the TFR is now less than 2.32.

So what does this mean? It means humanity has an underpopulation problem not an overpopulation problem! Actually, underpopulation is probably not the best term to use because it implies there is a perfect amount of population at some point in time and that is just not the case. Nearly all future predictions suggest that global population will peak and then rapidly fall. This may very well result in too few humans to maintain our socioeconomic engine. The key word is “rapidly” fall. Basically “rapidly” in this case means over one or two generations.

What is the reason for this unprecedented and now accelerating decline?

There are three major reasons. The empowerment of women, declining child mortality, and the rising cost of raising children. Today, approximately 80% of the world’s population lives in countries with a fertility rate below 3. Only 10% live in countries where women, on average, have more than 5 children. For example, while China and India previously had total fertility rates above 5, those countries’ total fertility rates have declined significantly to around 2 children per woman today. Africa, on average, remains high but has more recently begun to rapidly decline. Several countries now have a fertility rate that is significantly below the replacement levels. These include much of Europe, significant portions of Asia, and the United States, which now has a TFR of 1.66.

Back in April 2021 Elon Musk said, “Earth is going to face a massive population collapse over the next 20 to 30 years... this would be civilization’s way of dying with a whimper.” And in July 2022, Musk tweeted that “A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far,” adding in another tweet a month later that, “Population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming.” Musk has a big voice!

I am an eternal optimist so I see the decrease in overall human population as progress for mankind and the environment. Sustainability, balance, harmony with nature and further becoming the caretaker of our earths biome and species is my vision.

Declining Global Population Represents a Massive Opportunity

With declining populations around the world, how do we maintain society without the required labor?

For example, shrinking populations—and in particular shrinking, aging populations—mean fewer workers. And fewer workers mean less productivity and economic output.

The solution, as with so many of the global challenges we face, is technology. Specifically, AI and robotics. As we’ll see in upcoming blogs, humanoid robots—powered by AI and enabled by the convergence of robotics, sensors, and other exponential technologies—will look and operate like human beings with legs, arms, fingers, and an opposable thumb.

According to a study by the global banking and investment firm Goldman Sachs, the humanoid robot market could generate over $150 billion in annual revenue within the next 15 years and “fill from 48% to 126% of the labor gap, and as much as 53% of the elderly caregiver gap.”

Then consider the increases in productivity that we’ll see from increasing human-machine collaboration and upskilling.

Rather than people taking jobs because “It’s the only job available and I need to feed my family,” what if individuals could take the jobs that most excite them? Jobs they do not for the money, but instead for personal fulfillment.

Obviously, future predictions are solely based on trends, but with the accelerating advances in AI & robotics this appears to be coming true.

Imagine a future where each of us can partner with AI and robotics to augment our knowledge, our skills, our senses, and abilities. This is already beginning to happen!

A global population decline represents a clear challenge but it also offers us a historic opportunity to build technologies that help us lead healthier, more fulfilling, and more productive lives. We are on the edge of truly creating an abundant life for humanity.

This is a future of not only abundance, future of exponential technologies, and access to good education for every child but also a good chance that more nations take on democratic policies of governance. A future in which we can make our dreams come true.

I am optimistic!

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