What’s Real in the Politics of Population With Andrew  ## Metadata - Author: [[It Could Happen Here]] - Full Title: What’s Real in the Politics of Population With Andrew - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/b9b2126b-5c9b-4ae6-b5b3-f473b489a5c4 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Industrial Health Sparked The Population Boom** - Human population grew very slowly until industrial-era health and sanitation improvements triggered exponential growth. - We rose from 1 billion in 1804 to 8 billion by 2022 because infant mortality fell and food and medicine improved. Transcript: Andrew Sage I mean, every single one of us humans is a product of billions of years of reproduction. But for most of that reproduction, population growth was pretty slow. You know, the world's population is estimated at around 5 million in the year 8000 BC. So 5 million is like the population of New Zealand right now, or Costa Rica, or Ireland, or Norway, but spread across the entire planet. Can you guess how many people were alive in the year one CE though? 30 million? That's actually an underestimate. It's 188 million. Jeez. Right. So that's between the current population of Bangladesh and the current population of Brazil, which are at 169 million and 230 million respectively. But that spread across the entire planet. So, I mean, imagine that, you know, a whole world of people so spread out. I mean, they were concentrated in Sydney areas, of course, but you had all this vast forest land and plains and entire continents that barely had people compared to today. And the reason the grew so slowly was really because, I mean, humans have always been doing the do, you know, but death was kind of a very present phenomenon. You know, you had famines, you had plagues, you had the occasional war, and you especially had a lot of infant mortality. Mia Wong Yeah. Andrew Sage And that's what really kept populations in check. You know, I remember hearing, I don't even remember who it was, but this one person had like 19 children and only eight of them survived their adulthood. Mia Wong Yeah. They honestly did pretty good. Like by those metrics, like, yeah, the infant mortality rate was unbelievably high. Andrew Sage Yeah, yeah. So families had a lot of children, but only a few of them made it to adulthood. Thanks to early industrialization, things were able to change a bit. You know, we improved our agriculture. We invented refrigeration, we got better fertilizer. And most importantly, we developed advancements in sanitation. You know, doctors were actually washing their hands. You know, we developed vaccines so children weren't dying of measles and mumps. Imagine that. Mia Wong Oh, good Lord. Andrew Sage And we also had an overall improvement in medicine. You know, one of the greatest inventions of humanity, I think, is the vaccine. And it's such a wonderful thing that there's not this massive movement of people who challenge its very legitimacy in this day and age and threaten all of our lives as a result. You know, imagine being in that world. Mia Wong Oh God. Andrew Sage So we eventually hit 1 billion in the year 1804, which is just below the current population of China. And things really began to accelerate from there. We ended up creating something called J-curve of exponential population growth, thanks to, like I said, the decline in infant mortality and improvements in fertility and food production. And then the other billionaire milestones started rolling. By 1804, Haiti had just gained its independence, Napoleon I was crowned emperor of France, Lewis and Clark had begun their expedition across America. In 1927, that's 123 years later, we hit 2 billion people. You know, by then we had Trotsky being expelled from the USSR, which had just been founded. We had Charles Lindenburg completing the first solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. And then also in 1927, we had the release of the first feature-length film to feature synchronized sound for dialogue. Quite the time to be alive. You fast forward to 33 years later, 1960, and we hit 3 billion people. By then, Nigeria had just gained its independence, JFK was in the White House, Ham the chimpanzee went to space, and the FDA approved the first ever birth control pill. But the birth control pill didn't really kick in in terms of, you know, hampering our growth for some time. By 1974, 14 years later, we had 4 billion people. By then, Nixon had resigned. Turkey had invaded Cyprus. Portugal overthrew its dictatorship. The Godfather Part II came out and Abba was still at the top of the charts. 1987, 13 years later, is when we got 5 billion people. That's when we had most of the major colonies around the world gaining their independence or haven't already yet gained their independence. You know, Thatcher was beginning her third term and the Simpsons first appeared on TV. 12 years later in 1999, we had the Y2K panic, the Clinton impeachment, the SpongeBob premiere, the introduction of the Euro, and 6 billion people made their debut on planet Earth. In 2011, 12 years later, we hit 7 billion people, and that was in the midst of the Arab Spring, a tsunami hit in Japan, the Occupy movement, the premiere of Game of Thrones, and really the Beginning of smartphones and social media taking over the world. Finally, by 2022, which is 11 years after 2011, we hit 8 billion people amidst Russia invading Ukraine, the growing popularity of TikTok, and Elon's purchase of Twitter. So from 1804 to 2022, we went from 1 billion people to 8 billion people. And the UN expects it to grow by about 1.9 billion between now and 2100. ([Time 0:03:41](https://share.snipd.com/snip/898b829a-fd7d-40e0-b910-d3a955f0e28d)) - **Why Families Once Had Many Children** - Andrew recalls families historically having many children because most didn't survive to adulthood. - He notes vaccines and sanitation later dramatically reduced child mortality and changed family planning. Transcript: Andrew Sage That's what really kept populations in check. You know, I remember hearing, I don't even remember who it was, but this one person had like 19 children and only eight of them survived their adulthood. Mia Wong Yeah. They honestly did pretty good. Like by those metrics, like, yeah, the infant mortality rate was unbelievably high. Andrew Sage Yeah, yeah. So families had a lot of children, but only a few of them made it to adulthood. Thanks to early industrialization, things were able to change a bit. You know, we improved our agriculture. We invented refrigeration, we got better fertilizer. And most importantly, we developed advancements in sanitation. You know, doctors were actually washing their hands. You know, we developed vaccines so children weren't dying of measles and mumps. ([Time 0:05:19](https://share.snipd.com/snip/35aedc5f-bfbd-4483-8624-13cea39929e8)) - **Famine Is Often A Political Failure** - Famines usually reflect distribution failures and political choices, not absolute food scarcity. - Amartya Sen's work shows many famines occur despite food surpluses and export practices that worsen local hunger. Transcript: Andrew Sage But famines are usually not actually the result of not having enough food. You know, Amartya Sen found that famines usually happen despite food surpluses. The issue is usually distribution and not scarcity. You know, a famous example being, you know, during the Irish famine, Ireland was still exporting tons of food to feed its colonial overlord. ([Time 0:11:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/97056f70-2c12-4a25-b520-5dc0b6a2e621)) - **Population Panic Drove Coercive Policies** - Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb galvanized policy and public panic about overpopulation in the late 20th century. - That panic produced both benign family-planning efforts and brutal coercive measures like forced sterilizations. Transcript: Andrew Sage He describes visiting Delhi and feeling the crush of overpopulation, convinced that mass starvation was imminent in the 1970s. Now, I think that book that he published was one of the main influences in the widespread panic around overpopulation. You know, governments started to scramble about it. A lot of policies were born likely from people reading that very book. You know, some of these policies were fairly benign, you know, you promote family planning, you improve access to contraceptives, you improve education for women especially. But other approaches were very harsh and brutal. You know, you had sterilization campaigns, forced sterilization campaigns taking place in India and Puerto Rico and in the United States. ([Time 0:12:12](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e7c2eed6-a3e0-4ad6-b657-490c9234e760)) - **Conspiracies Blend Kernels Of Truth With Nonsense** - Population conspiracy theories mix real concerns with outlandish claims to create persuasive myths. - Valid worries about chemicals or processed food get twisted into narratives about deliberate sterilization. Transcript: Andrew Sage You know, I'm sure you might have heard a few of them in your time. Mia Wong Oh yep this is one of the big alex jones things for example so he's convinced that there's like a giant plot by the globalists to kill off an enormous part of the human population to like Andrew Sage Stop overpopulation or something it's yeah yeah honestly any combination of conspiracies can somehow be smushed together to fit that kind of narrative. And they could talk about all the vaccines are sterilizing people, the chemtrails, the 5G towers, the Bill Gates microchips, even the food supply. All these things are allegedly being used to sterilize people. Not to say that there isn't validity to any claims of the things that we consume contributing to lower fertility. The fact that we clothe ourselves in like polyester, you know, we still don't have a full idea of the impact of microplastics on our bodies. You know, there's valid concerns about some of the consequences of the ultra-processed foods that, you know, fill our grocery shelves. But that's the sad thing about conspiracy theories. ([Time 0:19:16](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8129391f-2f3e-448a-aea4-88f48f87cca3)) - **Blame Lies With Consumption Not Headcount** - Far-right 'great replacement' and eco-fascist narratives misplace blame on poor families rather than wealthy overconsumers. - Environmental harm stems more from high consumption patterns than headcount in poorer regions. Transcript: Andrew Sage The idea that shadowy elites are orchestrating falling birth rates among white populations while encouraging immigration from the population booming global south. I mean, of course, not all the global south is booming population-wise. A lot of places are also experiencing decline. It's a global problem, but we're going to get to that. And connected, of course, to those great replacement types, you have the eco-fash with their worries about the environmental impact of population and their twisted belief that environmental Collapse could be solved by reducing the number of people, which usually ends up targeting marginalized groups, which is exactly the kind of thinking that inspired real violence, Like with the Christchurch shooter in 2019. And of course, the actual drivers of ecological collapse are not poor families in India or Africa having too many kids. ([Time 0:24:13](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8987af3f-1c58-4674-bc58-a1088f53a483)) - **Make Parenthood Feasible, Don’t Criminalize Choice** - Address falling fertility by improving living conditions, education, and reproductive choice rather than coercive measures. - Support policies that make parenthood affordable and protect reproductive rights to stabilize demography. Transcript: Andrew Sage You know, in wealthier, more developed countries, fertility tends to be lower. And that's tied to things like better education, more women working, urban living, greater choices, greater access to contraception, etc. But in less developed countries, fertility is usually higher because children are often seen as both helping hands and future caregivers. And education and access to birth control are more limited. But the global fertility rate is now steadily dropping due to that increase in development, greater access to birth control, greater education on women's rights. And there's a fear nowadays that there won't be enough people to support the system as it has been built. Remember, capitalism is predicated on endless growth. ([Time 0:26:05](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b8c31ca5-c3a4-40d4-ab91-9e421c81ca5b)) - **Global Fertility Is Falling Toward Decline** - Global fertility has fallen sharply to about 2.3 children per woman and will likely drop below replacement by 2100. - Several developed countries already sit far below replacement, driven by economic and cultural factors. Transcript: Andrew Sage So in 2023, the global average had dropped to just 2.3 children per woman, which is less than half of what it was 60 years ago. According to the United Nations, fertility will keep falling throughout the century. And by the year 2100, the global average is expected to dip below replacement level of 2.1 to about 1.8 children per woman. Now, some countries are already there. Japan sits at 1.2 children per woman. Italy, Spain and much of Eastern Europe are well below 1.5. South Korea is famously a demographic outlier at 0.7 children per woman, which is the lowest fertility rate in the world. And that means obviously that on average, Korean women are having less than one child each. For very valid reasons, I might add, considering the economic and cultural conditions in that country. ([Time 0:30:53](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2abcfd14-76ef-48d0-99bb-78e18625e377)) - **Personal View From Trinidad On Choosing Not To Parent** - Andrew shares his Trinidad experience where many peers don't want or feel able to afford children. - He connects this to broader economic pressures like housing and childcare costs deterring parenthood. Transcript: Andrew Sage I live in the Caribbean. I live in Trinidad and Tobago. But speaking anecdotally, at least, which obviously is not representative of the full picture, I can count maybe on one hand the number of people I know my age who think that they'll Be able to bring children into the world, whether they want to or not. You know, very few people I know actually want children, or if they do want children, they don't think they'll be able to afford to have children. But maybe that's their selfishness. What do you think? Mia Wong I mean, I don't know. Like, I am not interacting with a representative sample of the population. No yeah i mean it's a lot of people who are like no and it's too expensive it sucks i don't want to deal with this but again like not not a representative sample here um yeah yeah I mean, you Andrew Sage Could just look at the economy. Things have been getting worse for my entire life. You know, there hasn't been any point in my life where anyone in my generation could look around honestly and say, yeah, you know, this is, we'd be cooking, you know, it's time to double, Double it. You know, let's have a child. ([Time 0:31:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0d3c33a4-aac8-4a1e-a759-bf18924916d7)) - **Aging Societies Create Economic Strain** - Aging populations create fiscal strain: fewer workers, more retirees, and rising healthcare and pension costs. - Governments respond with pronatalist incentives, higher retirement ages, or reliance on immigration with political trade-offs. Transcript: Andrew Sage So a declining fertility, a decline in population, it has the government panicking. You know, China went from having decades of a one-child policy to now desperately trying to encourage people to have more babies. They're offering cash bonuses and housing perks and extended parental leave. But it's not really working. You know, as populations are aging, there's a lot more elderly people to care for and fewer working age people to support them. So that is, you know, a recipe for pension crises and labor shortages and spiraling healthcare costs. So some governments are even trying to raise the retirement age, which as France and their protests have shown, is not going to go over well with much of the population. ([Time 0:35:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/267820cc-7e2d-49eb-8803-f703448c705e))