Kenneth Boulding's Theorems
 

I was at a presentation on world resources today, and was shown these theorems which I found highly amusing and true:

First Theorem: "The Dismal Theorem"
If the only ultimate check on the growth of population is misery, then the population will grow until it is miserable enough to stop its growth.

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Second Theorem: The Utterly Dismal Theorem
Any technical improvement can only relieve misery for a while, for so long as misery is the only check on population, the technical improvement will enable population to grow, and will enable more people to live in misery than before. The final result of technical improvements, therefore, is to increase the equilibrium population which is to increase the total sum of human misery.

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Third Theorem: The moderately cheerful form of the Dismal Theorem
If something else, other than misery and starvation, can be found which will keep a prosperous population in check, the population does not have to grow until it is miserable and starves, and it may be stably prosperous.


Just thought I'd share. Discussion is, of course, both condoned and appreciated. :)

If this leads directly to the perfection of VR robot sex partners, then I'm with you.

That sounds about right. The second one has unproven assertions however.

There are already things other than misery that seem to be able to reduce population growth, or even halt/shrink it in some cases. Look at the birth rates of modern "western" societies. Many of them have fallen below replacement levels.

That might not sustain itself.

I heard a crazy theory once, you know, like one that a lump of camel shit could have thought up:

Matter is more likely to spontaneously materialize the longer that there is an absence of it.

No shit.

Anyways, those theorems don't seem to hold much weight in practice. If the masses are miserable, they probably won't commit suicide, which seems to be what these theorems are implying.

One word: Contraception.

On similar lines:

"It is a simple logical truth that, short of mass emigration into space, with rockets taking off at the rate of several million per second, uncontrolled birth-rates are bound to lead to horribly increased death-rates. It is hard to believe that this simple truth is not understood by those leaders who forbid their followers to use effective contraceptive methods. They express a preference for 'natural' methods of population limitation, and a natural method is exactly what they are going to get. It is called starvation."
-Richard Dawkins

This Kenneth Boulding fellow seems like such an upbeat fellow.

These theories are easily disproved by the following...

"Everything will be just fine if you do whatever the voices tell you to do."

Of course I jest, but this misery thing...Is it truly a function of Population?
OR could it be a function of Politics.

Will people suffer as a result of lack of resources or inefficiencies in the distribution of those resources?..

How does misery stop population growth, if you're not miserable til after you're born and it was so fun getting you here?

Oh man, This guy is right up my alley. Human misery is the drivingforce of all progress but humans are hardwired to never be happy for any longer period of time thus misery returns when the happy things become old.

Yakk, I need to research, but I don't think that is correct - The population growth in the U.S. has backed off the high levels of the middle of the 1900's, but we are still growing at a significant rate. Modern sociologist are adament that world population is THE challenge of our generation, coming up with ways to feed and care for the rocketing numbers of people in developing nations, and developing an infrastructure that will handle the growth within our own country. Population grows exponentially with each generation, and we are treating it as if it grows at a fixed rate. The misery described in the theorems is already becoming pretty evident in many parts of the world such as India, Africa, China where disease and hunger have become the norm for the majority of people.

Here are some backing statistics and info:

http://www.prb.org/Content/Navigatio...ion_Growth.htm

Chickentribs:

The US isn't the only western society. Far from it as a matter of fact. Large portions of europes societies is what is classified as "western" aswell (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Great Britain, Germany, France etc.). Several european countries do have a higher deathrate than birthrate so Yakks idea is correct if you look at "the whole picture".

I could see where countries like Switzerland and Belgium and the like would have a reverse population trend, makes sense. I only referenced US and World populations because the total world population is really where I saw the problems associated wth the theorems mentioned. Thanks for the clarification ~

Those theories would imply that the most technically advanced nations should grow the fastest, which is clearly not true. The birth rates in undeveloped countries far surpass those of developed countries. Just compare India and Western Europe. Of course, these theories are obviously simple and ironic observations, with no real backing.

While I'm not a socialist, I think the problem with overpopulation isn't so much that there isn't enough food in the world, but that the food supply is concentrated in too few hands. Not just in terms of "first world countries" vs "third world countries", but also "a despotic government and its supportive aristocracy" vs the country's people.

And please don't cry to me, "Then why don't you give up your steak, you commie!" I'm not advocating some sort of food reform. I'm just saying it's hard to believe that there simply isn't enough food when many people eat a lot more than is healthy.