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DON'T PANIC — Hans Rosling showing the facts about population

DON'T PANIC — Hans Rosling showing the facts about population on HackerTube: recommended by 8 Hacker News commenters across 11 separate months, 2017–2021.

Gapminder Foundation

lecture · evergreen

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Hans Rosling uses data and animated statistics to show how world population is changing, why birth rates fall as child survival and wealth rise, and why population is expected to peak around 11 billion. It also tackles common misconceptions about Africa and family planning.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN repeatedly recommends it to counter overpopulation alarm with data on falling birth rates.

people recommended it
8
separate months
11
strong recommendations
4
discussed on HN
2017–2021
“I can highly recommend this lecture by the late Hans Rosling”
— jdietrich, Nov 2017, in “India's Indira canteen: The best meal you can buy for 13 cents”

What HN commenters said

16 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.

IsinlorNov 2019Strongly recommends

The issue here is mostly with the countries in extreme poverty. Countries with average fertility rate of 3 and higher. Women in countries with the highest fertility index often do not control when they get pregnant. Having 6 and more children is rarely effect of conscious family planning. It's effect of lack of education, lack of access to contraception, forced sex in marriage etc. Sometimes having many children is an insurance policy in case some children will die before they reach productive age. We really should be addressing this type of issues underlying uncontrolled population growth. People should be able to choose when they want to have children, how many children they want, they should be educated on how to provide for their children, and certainly people should not be afraid that some part of their offspring will die. It has nothing to do with penalizing having children like they did in China. I really recommend, "DON'T PANIC — Hans Rosling showing the facts about population". He shows how family planning looks like in practice in countries like Bangladesh, so that westerners can imagine what are we talking about: ▶ this video Dealing with global warming is going bad and we should panic about that, but humanity is making great progress on controlling population growth. There is really no issue with you having 3 children. Western population will be declining anyway as fertility rate in western countries is mostly below 2. Just please, support political, systematical chang

in “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency” · View on HN

IsinlorSep 2019Strongly recommends

Because there is no world overpopulation. People talk about overpopulation since ancient times. [link] Currently standard of living are growing almost all over the world and human population is predicted to pick and stabilize at around 11 billion. I really recommend "DON'T PANIC — Hans Rosling showing the facts about population" ▶ this video What's also interesting in his video is the fact that people tend to be very misinformed about state of the world affairs. E.g. when asked questions about certain statistics, they do worse than random. And the better educated you are the more misinformed you may be.

in “Greta Thunberg: 'How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood'” · View on HN

jdietrichNov 2017Strongly recommends

Until the modern era, the global birth rate was fairly constant at about six per woman. The population growth we've experienced over the last century is mostly to do with child survival. Before 1900, the child mortality rate in India was over 50%. If you need children to care for you in old age and expect most of your children to die, you're likely to have a lot of them. When child survival improved, attitudes changed. Parents no longer want three or four children to work on the family farm, they want one or two children to become doctors or engineers. Economic development and the availability of reliable contraception have made that aspiration practical. If you're interested in the topic, I can highly recommend this lecture by the late Hans Rosling: ▶ this video

in “India's Indira canteen: The best meal you can buy for 13 cents” · View on HN

lentil_soupJun 2017Strongly recommends

This video seems relevant: ▶ this video According to Hans Rosling we've reached "peak child", meaning we're almost at 2 children per woman globally. This means population will continue to grow for a few years as globally there are more children than adults but will stabilize after that around the ~11 billion mark. And as long as we stay at that "peak child" number we won't go any further. I really recommend his videos if you haven't seen them.

in “The Old Are Eating the Young” · View on HN

throw0101aAug 2021Recommends

Hans Rosling's presentation "Don't Panic" (produced by the BBC) is pretty good: * ▶ this video It's an hour long; really interesting.

in “This Can’t Go On” · View on HN

throw0101aSep 2020Recommends

There's a good (though hour-long) presentation by the late Hans Rosling call "DON'T PANIC — Hans Rosling showing the facts about population": * ▶ this video "Don’t Panic – The Facts About Population": * [link]

in “The Lancet: World population projections by 2100” · View on HN

Show 10 more comments
brigandishApr 2020Recommends

Since economic growth tends to go hand in hand with better access to health services and greater social freedom, it does. I always enjoy Hans Rosling going through the stats, if you’ve time it’s well worth it ▶ this video

in “Ask HN: Who Is Firing?” · View on HN

CarleeMay 2019Recommends

You should check out Hans Rosling's lectures [1]. Statistics points towards the fact that as people become more wealthy, they have less children. It should stagnate around 11 million people by most models. [1] ▶ this video

in “CO2 in the atmosphere just exceeded 415ppm for the first time in human history” · View on HN

throw0101aApr 2019Recommends

There's a good presentation by Hans Rosling about why population will peak at 11B (stick with until 26m): * ▶ this video Further on he explains why we may not have to worry about resource use given growing prosperity: * ▶ this video

in “The global population pyramid” · View on HN

luggFeb 2018Recommends

He has a lot of good videos out there but this is the one specifically covering Africa / population predictions and the misconceptions / dated knowledge. ▶ this video

in “When will the world reach 'peak child'?” · View on HN

tomjen3Feb 2017Recommends

In that case don't worry: ▶ this video Also consider that the carrying capacity of the world isn't fixed, but depends on how good our technology is (with a potential theoretical upper limit). Well tech is improved by people working on and inventing better technology, right? So you get better technology with more people - and with that you can have more people working on better technology. The biggest mistake, and the one all Malthusians made, is to forget that humans are, on average, net produces not net consumers.

in “Who are you calling Malthusian?” · View on HN

rocknorJun 2021Cites it

> if the 1 billion "rich people" drop their emissions down to below average then the majority of the problem will still be here. True. But the "majority" is not as big as you think. > there will be 1 billion less wealthy people Just wrong. There are lots of ways to reduce emissions without any effect in wealth. Eating less meat is one example. > for no particular net gain. Very wrong, there are huge gains: [link] > I advocate the radical approach of encouraging people to have less children. I knew you would say this, I was just waiting for it. Global birth rates have been in freefall for decades now, it's tragic that people don't know about it. You'd assume that supposedly "better" education in western countries would make people more aware, but western governments are only concerned with maintaining global western hegemony which requires falsely accusing the rest of the world and keeping their citizens ignorant. Also, you can't force people to have less children, that's inhumane. I suggest you go through the following links. [link] ▶ this video [link] [link] [link]

in “Australia opposes Great Barrier Reef ′in danger′ listing” · View on HN

guerrillaJan 2021Cites it

> and the plateau is calculated at 20 billion. According to who? Hans Rosling famously[1] didn't think so. 1. ▶ this video

in “Ghost cities and abandoned areas with a declining population” · View on HN

drichelOct 2020Cites it

Result of a roundtable discussion wuth concerned citizens? Not convinced, I'm with Hans Rosling on this topic ▶ this video

in “Overpopulation one of the ten greatest threats to humanity” · View on HN

lkramerNov 2019Cites it

This is not really true. Except for some parts of Africa, the birthrate across the world is declining. The worldwide average is 2.4. Likely the world's population will start decline in actual terms some time in the 2nd half of the 21st century: [link] ▶ this video

in “US births decline for fourth year in a row, CDC says” · View on HN

jdietrichDec 2017Cites it

The UN forecast that the global population will reach an absolute maximum of about 11 billion by 2100. Some forecasts are even more conservative, suggesting a peak of 9 billion by 2050. The global birth rate has peaked and is now in overall decline, with most of the developed world being well below the replacement rate. Most of the population growth we'll see over the next century is simply due to more people living longer lives. The fertility rate in China is massively below replacement at 1.57 births per woman. India is barely above replacement at 2.4. The fertility rate in India today is lower than the fertility rate was in the US in 1970. The global fertility rate has halved in 50 years. Even in the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the fertility rate is declining. The fertility rate in Rwanda has more than halved from 8.4 in 1980 to 3.8 today. As far as I can ascertain, Niger is the country on earth with a persistently high fertility rate. Population growth is a solved problem. ▶ this video

in “Recycling Chaos in U.S. As China Bans 'Foreign Waste'” · View on HN

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