I can't help but think of someone seeing crash course hundreds of years from now, seeing the Arnold Schwarzenegger bit, and frantically tearing through their history books to find out about the alien invasion their parents never told them about.
I think movies will still exist. Books and theater are still with us thousands of years later, after all. Most new forms of entertainment are in addition to, rather than instead of, existing forms of entertainment.
Ajax Reed they would be long gone when digital distribution out-takes physical copies in the next 5 years. physical copies to digital will ratio 1:1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000. therefore near worthless as they have software and backwards compatibility.
Note: when John says "theory", it means the opposite of when Hank says "theory". See, Hank used the word "theory" as in "science proved this is what happens" (see theory of gravity and theory of evolution). John uses "theory" to mean "untested guess that often proves false".
Who are you, the Homonym Explanation Force? I'd have to go back through the video but I'm sure you missed a few ;) No seriously, you don't have to proactively explain the obvious just in case some people want to debate climate change or evolution. They're going to do it anyway.
Penny Lane "Who are you, the Homonym Explanation Force? " Who are you, the "Benjamin's Google+ Comments" Clarification SWAT Team? "you don't have to proactively explain the obvious" Have you seen my conversations with atheists about evolution? I have to explain a lot to them at times.
Benjamin Abruzzo I meant for the reason you chose to debate them in the first place: to convince them that they are wrong about their beliefs. My point really being: it's pointless debating them, preemptively or not.
I don't know if anyone has recognized this, but John Green told his "younger self" that he wouldn't tell him who is eventual wife was. However, he told "younger john" about his wife in the other world history series. I don't remember exactly which episode, but I do remember him saying that.
I have to say, this channel has been a godsend for me this university semester! so much more informative and interesting than reading through textbooks, and actually taught with humour and energy.
As a math student I've been shown the Malthus Model many times since it's an easy ODE to solve. While it is inaccurate ("all models are wrong, some are useful"), it is not an unreasonable model for population growth of some species, like E coli in a Petri dish. It's interesting to learn the (depressing) repercussion of his work.
we have done many horrific things but also gave the world the train,the factory, the modern computer (Turing) and the possibility to have this discussion (Berners-Lee) P.S what is your nationality?
sicklendhammerstudio, Doesn't make make up for what the british did to many people, including my own ( Québécois ) and many others. You can try to justify or make it seem less worse all you want, but what is done is done. Also I can't help but notice that the UK seems to make a lot of politically dumb/unacceptable decisions like Brexxit or fear-mongering and pandering to the scottish people to avoid them deciding to run themselves. You may have given the world many things you have taken much more from it.
Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in overpopulation. From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire. But for a second iteration I think I know enough of hate To say that overpopulation Is also great for extermination.
never again with water... lets suppose never again means only until we lose these prophecies... possibly alexandria all over the world... possibly some magnetic pole shifting slingshot effect... but what do we know
Really interesting video. I think as an addition it's worth noting that distribution of food is really a far greater problem *currently* than production of food (though much research is needed to continue to develop our ability to produce food). Also, the Irish potato famine has to be one of the most shameful moments of British history.
It is worth expanding on what John only hinted at: that overpopulation is a myth. The world currently produces more food than it needs to feed everybody, and it is merely the attachment of profit motives to production and distribution that leads to shortages anywhere as well as the extensive wastage in some places. We are also nowhere close to the level of production we could achieve if we used our current technology everywhere, much less our foreseeable future technology. Living space is even less of a problem, there are huge amounts of unused space in addition to a considerable lack of density. That isn't to say that there aren't considerable problems in efficiency and misalignment of costs and benefits. It is absurd to suggest that all people can live in the manner that the global rich do. But that doesn't mean that we can't achieve the same level of quality of lifestyle for all with increased efficiency and use of technology. For example, if the fusion power plant that Lockheed Martin just announced they expect to be operational in the next ten years comes to fruition we will have a revolution in energy that makes the industrial revolution look like a joke. That alone will allow the entire world to live at the highest standards of comfort in many ways without any of the accompanying environmental costs. The end result of all of this is to say that any calls for people to have fewer children than they desire to have is misguided and unnecessary. We don't need any more population control than people naturally have.
Even the most absurdist myth has some kernel of truth at it's heart. While H. sapiens as a species is, on paper, quite capable of achieving the production and logistical challenges you state, it is well beyond the currently entrenched socio-cultural systems and their constantly reinforced individual psychological paradigms.
The human species doesn't need population control, but nations like China have obvious reasons to try to curb population growth. While Earth may have enough space, they don't have enough livable space to support their population's wants and needs. Historically, the solution to the 'not enough space' issue is usually 'take it from someone else using violence', but apparently we live in an age where that's not morally viable, finally. Lockheed Martin does look quite promising, but nuclear power has a lot of opposition. If it succeeds to the fullest potential, (which due to regulation by international law and competition with the fossil fuel industry, it probably won't), it could be a great boon to all of humanity. However, the combination of renewable energy plants cropping up all over the world, big fusion projects such as ITER and Lockheed Martin, and energy efficiency appearing in everything from cars to house paint to electronics, a major energy revolution is coming, if it isn't already here. We face a lot of problems today, starvation being one of them, but at least the world is trying to fix it, even if certain nations (I'm looking at you, US) aren't pulling their weight. We could face disaster in the next half century due to the negligence of the past, but for the first time in about 10 years, it looks like humanity may survive due to technological innovation.
Alexander Abrams-Flohr while many of your points are spot on, the idea we don't have enough space is false. there is plenty of space to increase the population. it just isn't in the hands of the people who need to live there and thus far in our history, has never been.
While feeding people is not really an issue for the very foreseeable future, lowering fertility rates is one of the key factors in order to promote economic development in that country. Countries that lower their fertility rates almost always experience economic development (I can't really think of an example where decreased fertility rate caused to hamper economic development)
***** Actually Japan is having quite a problem with it's severely low birthrate. It means more people quit working and rely on pensions than people entering the workforce, who pay for those pensions. There has to be a balance.
Oh John, agriculture here in the US is already looking down the barrel of a gun. The drought in the south west worsens, the Ozark's depletion accelerates, and erratic weather is destroying record amounts of crops. There is no relief in sight either.
Now, please correct me if I am wrong, but do we still not pay some farmers not to plant crops on all their land, just to keep the wages up? Not only that, but do we not also grow a butt-load of corn to use not as food, but to turn into scientific/industrial products?
Compare to other nations, US has more advantage in agriculture. One is land, US has more land farm than others. Also technology also involved in this process.
Diana Peña Nuclear power is not sustainable. It's really not very complicated... it's impossible to safely dispose of nuclear waste! Seriously, how does one miss that!? If you're interested in how the world will be fed sustainably, look into permaculture, I'm confident in saying that it's the only option for the future.
PajamaMan You're not wrong, but you're not entirely correct either. We only pay farmers to not plant crops when there is an extreme surplus of food, which there isn't in most places. The world takes food and consumes it at an incredible rate, but we still have surplus enough to make it viable for first world countries to have high obesity rates. Prices fluctuate, but in the US, at least, they are rising due to drought, so subsidizing fallow farms is pretty pointless. Depending on how you define a butt-load, the corn thing could be right or wrong. The majority of corn we grow, which is the majority of food crops we grow, doesn't go towards industrial products, rather, it goes to meat. For every person who could be eating that ear of corn, there's a chicken eating ten and providing the same amount of energy in its breast that the person will later eat. It's incredibly inefficient and to a certain extent, wasteful. Most food we grow goes into food, one way or another. It could just be going into food more efficiently. Not that I think the world should go totally vegetarian. It's just not really possible. I enjoy meat as much as the next guy, and I really couldn't keep vegetarian, not when I could have delicious chicken meat daily for cheap (I'm a conformist consumer that way, but at least I admit it.) There are millions of people just like me without the self control to keep vegetarian, and in a capitalist world, you can't force them to. People vote with their purchases, and those purchases are buying meat, not corn, because it's delicious. There are plenty of other tricks that we could use to allow people to keep eating meat, but increase agricultural efficiency, though. Among these tricks are controversial ones like GMO crops or livestock, and less controversial ones like using insects and algae in food.
Agriculture in the US is still surprisingly good though. (Certainly nobodies about to starve). The point is globally things seem to be improving. And the growth in population is happily slowing down, not because were dying but because were choosing to get pregnant less. Something Malthus could never have imagined.
Considering Thomas Malthus died in 1834 a good 11 years before the Great Famine in Ireland it seems a bit odd to conflate his opinions with this disaster. Surely he would presumably have been talking about the earlier potato famines of the 1700's which were in part almost an entirely climate related event due to the little ice age? Not to dismiss criticism of Malthus (he deserves it) or British colonial rule in Ireland (boy we deserve it), but surely he wasn't just coming up with his ideas in a vacuum, they were a reaction to the inability of European agriculture to provide given the decreasing carrying capacity of the climate and land?
Malthus' theory was just that, a theory. The video isn't stating that he used earlier predictions to come to this theory; instead Malthus used the natural world, specifically rabbits, to come to the understanding that once a population reached a so called "maximum threshold on its production capabilities" then it would not be able to sustain the population. What the video is saying is that the English used this "theory" to justify the Irish Potato Famine, in so, "well they've reached the maximum population that their land can sustain thus they must die."
well I would say that while it does not exactly line up with his life's time line it does accurately reflect the types of issues that would influence his theories, the idea that there is only so much food to be grown per area of land and not much can be done to change it so people will die anytime a saturation number is reached. but, man its hard not to love technology, be it mechanical muscles, better irrigation practices, or genetically engineered crops, its hard not to see the benefits as food per acre grew and starvation plummeted. so while the potatoes famine was not exactly in the era of Malthus' life, it did exemplify what he saw well enough to warrant comparison.
I thought John said that the English governors of Ireland used Malthus' theories in formulating their response to the famine and also saw the famine as validating his theories, not that the famine influenced Malthus' writings.
Isn't Malthus partly right though? Isn't there biological concept were an environment can only contain a certain population size until it the population levels out?
You're both right. That is the lesson here; we don't know when we will hit that cut off point where people will start to die of starvation worldwide. It hasn't come yet, but it has locally, and it will come a lot sooner now that we know global warming is a thing. If only our tech didn't cause global warming =( that would have been great.
Not realty right, just not completely wrong. He was sort of right about there *being* a carrying capacity, but in what kills us off, and in how population would only grow slowly, and basically everything else he was wrong. We know now that there is a final, maximum carrying capacity but it is HUGE and as technology improves, so does the current limit. All in all he was ~75% wrong, and in science 5% wrong is 100% not right.
Yes and no. I believe that with innovation and careful planning we can minimize our surface footprint by building up and down instead of out. There is great progress towards attaining full off grid self sustainability. As well as incorporated grid systems that maximize the resources invested into it. Subterranean and rooftop agriculture. Permaculture instead of monoculture. Non fossil based energy sources and water recycling. We can grow generally infinitely and as our robotics automation and space technology improve we will be able to do much much more, off planet. Ive said this many times but humanity is like a bacteria and we have the choice of being a beneficial bacteria or a parasitic one. As a whole we have (modern humans) behaved very parasitically and I think that many of the negative notions to growth are around that negative behavior. If we grow wisely we can increase and still have more than ever before and if we do it in a way that the earth benefits even better.
its also not known if the "stabilization methods" will have the same result, there might be a massive dying off of people, or it could be that people simply stop having kids, its not uncommon for parents to delay having a child due to resource issues aka money issues or even to just forgo having a child because of that same issue (especially if they already have one), rats do this commonly why not us? its kind of already happening in developed words, women are having fewer kids because modern mortality rates are much lower and one or two kids are much easier then 5 or 6. there is a chance things could level out, but then there's also the whole "we want to colonize mars" thing a whole other planet would change that equation considerably.
Malthus was not wrong. His observations were precise. In ecology it's called "carrying capacity" and every environment has a specific number of individuals it can support. It is true for rabbits, foxes, elephants and everything else. Humans are very clever, and so far we have managed to expand on the food available through technology. Past success is not guarantee of future success - it's printed on my investment account. Earth has a carrying capacity for humans and we are fast approaching it. But even if we have enough food, we are running out of other stuff, like arable land, copper, lithium, helium. Things that make our lives comfortable. Well, some argue, we might mine asteroids... And we might. Then there is the experiment of rats in a perfect box with as much food as they wanted.... They still went crazy....
1. Wait...... that image at 1:10-1:18...... it can't *POSSIBLY* be the town centre of Ljubljana (i.e. my home town, also the capital of Slovenia)?! What would an image of Ljubljana town centre be doing on Crash Course?? UPDATE: I used the marvels that are the PrintScreen button and Google Image search. It is, indeed, Ljubljana town centre: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ljubljana_City_square_1800-1840.jpg I still don't understand how it came to be in the video, though. Quite a random thing to happen! 2. I never really stopped to appreciate before, how ingenius the concept of "me from the past" is in this. Whoever thought of that, I take my hat off to you :)
Even today, you can still argue for Malthus's theory by pointing to some countries struggle to control population growth - namely India and Nigeria. Also, using the increased demand for industry, which (to some) causes drastic climate change, is a case for it, as John Green has addressed. But if someone already argued against those points, then I can't help. BTW, why did you _have_ to argue in favor of Malthus?
@@earthlyng_official4599 yea, eventually you will run out of land to fit on. so there is a limit.
10 лет назад+2
I' not sure if this was a conscious decision but at 1:17 the picture shows the old town center of Ljubljana, Slovenia (the Robba founatin is visible, the cathedral in the back)which makes me very happy. I might be wrong about the location but nonetheless, this got me suuper excited from the very beginning.
Thank you for making this video. I'm so tired of hearing the population bomb myth over and over again. Looking at our technological capacity in terms of food production, we could probably at least double world population. Of course, there are other big challenges such as our dependency on carbon emission energy sources which we currently are using in order to fuel our modern economics, but that consumption is only indirectly connected to world population.
John, you've done it again. I have a 2,000-word book review to write on Malthus' Essay on Population as part of my Masters in History at the University of Nottingham, and you've just given me a wealth of material. I concur with you absolutely about his ignorance about the role played by technology - Malthus does address that, claiming that he can't rely on what technology might bring to the table, and to some extent I agree with his decision but it's only through hindsight, as you say, that we know him to have been wrong to dismiss it. From the scholarly opinions I've read Malthusian theory does seem to be getting more and more associated with environmentalism, and there's some pretty cool stuff from economists that suggest hundred-storey tall buildings to house populations so that more space can be made for agricultural spaces, but of course that's in the confines of science fiction right now.
The key points that Green is missing here is the innovations that occurred during the 20th century. The innovations he talks about aided a little with population growth and disease was losing steam, but when the modern era came, the picture changed quite a lot. The spread of vaccines, antibiotics, and the food breakthroughs of Norman Borlaug are what directly led to the population EXPLOSION the world has experienced in the past century. I don't think of this as leading to ever more people to consume because I think this focuses too much on an anthropocentric view of the world. Because of all these advances, the environment is at risk and when people talk about the Earth being sucked dry, they probably are referring more to the things (plants & animals) that live on this Earth with us. To say that overpopulation is bad because it leads to strains on food is wrong - overpopulation is bad because it leads to massive amounts of "surplus" people and leaves the environment in shambles until everything is so polluted and used-up that humans are the only things left - and who wants to live in a world like that?
I am not sure that I agree. Malthus said that populations will grow if there are resources available. He also predicted that resources would run out or at least that if they did then the population would cease to grow or shrink. How is this wrong?
I usually agree with John Green but here I have to voice my objections. Malthus was right in the general idea that the human population cannot grow exponentially forever. Sure there are technologies that improve production but ultimately the process is the conversion of energy from the sun to everything else (food, warmth, shelter, etc.) This conversion is at most 100% efficient. That means resource production rate has an upper bound, which means the sustainable human population has an upper bound as well. The real question is, what is that bound?
We can probably reach a few trillion humans assuming we completely negate all other forms of life, including any domesticated animals since meat is going to be way too resource intensive. Jack Campbell hinted on this possibility with his book the lost fleet when they encounter an extremely xenophobic species who completely annihilates every animal that's not a Kick (nickname humans give them). The Kick's Home planet was just one Huge Vertical farm (meaning layered agricultural development). Humans could go this route also, but unfortunately I doubt we'd get along very well in those kind of tight spaces. Furthermore, we always seem to fight over who is the King of the Hill making any kind of social unity impossible (even under Communism you still have an Inner Circle).
It cannot grow exponentially forever. John knows that. BUT the question is - would it result in disaster described by malthus? mass famine. That is largely a myth.
You guys seem to be understimating the power of birth control, Only until recently did we have the power to reliable decide how many children to have. There are countries like Japan and the Nordic states where the population is shrinking instead of growing.
Actually it can be boundless if we can learn to capture and transform energy into mass and mass into any atom and learn to contain all of it so that none of it escapes. You see, vacuum constantly spawns energy into existence, which then dissappears right after. If we can learn to harvest that energy before it dissappears, we will have an infinite source of energy and thus the upper limit is gone. But until then, it is all finite.
This video needs more Henry George. _Progress and Poverty_ was the definitive and devastating rebuttal to Malthus. John covers some of the same critiques that George levied, but George went further and he did it in the 1870s. The Georgist policy proposal of shifting all taxation off of productive labor and onto the privilege of holding natural resources out of the commons is the best way to encourage a fairer and wealthier growing society. Enclosure can greatly increase the wealth of society, but those preventing others from equal access are aggressing and do owe compensation to their fellow man. (The one time John mentioned Henry George before he was quite wrong to say that he thought taxes were the solution to social ills. George considered most types of taxation to be no better than highway robbery, but argued that land value taxes only a tax in form and not in substance. He also argued that the economic rent of land ownership is high enough that a government which collects it should be more than adequately funded to provide all the services it has any business providing, so there is no need for other less moral and less efficient taxes to pay for law courts or social safety nets.)
Perhaps Malthus was correct in the abstract: that populations stabilize to match their available resources. When resources is abstracted to being more than just food but general resources necessary for a certain quality of life, it's easy to observe this in our current times. I've personally observed that in contemporary America fewer people are choosing to have children and a significant factor is that they only see children as an economic drain wherein they do not have enough economic resources to give themselves the quality of life they want _and_ provide the same quality of life for someone else. Those who do want children also tend to have fewer than previous generations. With a shift away from an agrarian society, children now have a net negative economic value. I think this could be argued as the American population beginning to stabilize to match it's economic environment.
I believe it has to do something with IQ as well. Remember that in Third World countries compared to America, they are often lacking in education and the intellectual, and people are far more likely to breed despite their terrible conditions. Social and cultural development & a sense of responsibility plays a vital role in determining how many children people have.
XZDrake Remember that development is not a one way trip though, especially depending on the contemporary cultural status quo of the people/nation. Max Weber wrote some interesting things on the subject, such as the Spirit of Capitalism. For the third world countries to have the same trend as the developed world, it'll also require a social revolution & change of values.
SinerAthin maya'smomhere: So, SinerAthin, You who Has the First World IQ are suggesting the job of reducing world population be delegated out to People who, maybe cannot be convinced by any charlatan's move that: this is Their idea...or...just as soon as They get a move-on to recognize the obvious benefits of adjusting their traditions here&there to suit what they most likely cannot and will not benefit from...to cooperate with a new witch doctor (no offence to the true intended)... and well I just am sure They are not as children for some new foreign flashy camera- bible- toting smiling fellow...You for instance?! !oh! Do go forth, see, teach, learn from them with my blessing ! PS-we users gotta quit it, the using of...the everything...one world for all time . anonymousmom@live.com
XZDrake I believe Asia, in particular China(and its close neighbors) outbred Europe, due to their more advanced agriculture systems enabling them to support a far greater population than Europe. Industrialization in and of itself does not really lead to lower birth rates though. The industrial revolution lead to huge baby booms in the nations where it occurred. It was not until later down the line that births began to lower.
XZDrake I was talking about WAY before 1500. The Chinese practically invented something similar to the modern state before Europe even ascended from the dark ages. Granted, China suffered through long periods of isolation & stagnation which caused the west to fly past them.
Another Malthusian quote: “I have said, that in the course of some centuries [England] might contain two or three times as many inhabitants as at present and yet every person be both better fed and better clothed.”
Next week's episode is about Islam and politics. No way that ends up in a flame war in the comments section. Still, I look forward to Crash Course's analysis.
As is often the case the truth is somewhere between "it's hopeless, we're all gonna die" and "nah it's chill, go have a burger." In developed countries birthrates have fallen without the need for government incentives, in fact most of those governments are trying to up the birthrates and failing. But in the developing world population growth is off the charts and if it doesn't stabilize or worse carries over into the rest of the world via immigration and the others feeling they need to compete in population numbers... it can turn ugly. Ultimately I think the slow down of population growth coupled with innovation can be sustainable and in fact lead to even better living for people. But it's not a sure bet and it's up to all of us to make sure it turns out fine. So don't fall into that paradoxical allure of complaining that the sky is falling and how we're all doing wrong but of course not counting yourself in that group because you are "aware" despite not doing anything different from the rest. So consider all the facts, stay calm and do something if possible and the future will be just fine and Malthus just a silly old man.
+Darth Mortus There are today few countries that still remains in the 2. and 3. demographical phase. Most of Asia; S. America and Africa are entering the 4. phase, in which the population is more or less stabile. Only the countries that experiences political or environmental instability are still experiencing high birthrates (but not that high population growth because of equaly high mortality rates). While most non-western countries still experience a minor population growth, the exponential increase we experienced in the 20th century is over, as most predictions now suggest that the world population will stabilize on about 9 billion people. This prediction is made on the fact that general life quality world wide is rapidly increasing, meeting the needs of which theoretically is needed to enter the demographical phase of a stabilizing population.
I don't really buy that. I don't have time to research and refute you guys but I know India is still seeing much growth and with close to a billion people even if the growth is slowing down it will still put a lot of new people on this little globe of ours. And then there is Africa which is a massive clusterfuck and may even see more pop growth when it becomes more stable and prosperous. Add in a few countries in South America and some in East Asia and it gets a bit grimmer. And muslims still have a large pop growth. Where do you think those migrants come from? The way they operate is simple, some go to rich Western countries and bring more of their family after they settle in, or they send money to them and they use this extra money to have more children than their state can really support, shit happens and suddenly you have throngs of desperate people coming over. This system of supporting huge families who have lots of children (because women are so repressed there) through relatives sending money from the West is well known in the Middle East and Balkan muslim states. Honestly I don't like feminism but what needs to be done to reduce pop growth in muslim countries is weaponize feminism and export it to those places :D Let it do good for a change. :P
+Darth Mortus An important point about undeveloped countries is they usually suffer corrupt and oppressive governments that restrict economic development and basically unable to develop their economies and the wealth needed they kind of hit Malthus' population ceiling. The developed world had similar population booms, but didn't suffer because they had the economic freedom to grow their economies and wealth. Every human being you add brings not only a set of needs, but productive potential and technology can enhance that productive potential. The problem for the undeveloped worlds is their productive potential is inhibited by corrupt governments. A quickly expanding population isn't really a problem if you leave that population free to support itself. The real problem that arises from people from third world countries moving to first world countries is more a cultural collision than anything else. So long as those immigrants enter the country and work and pursue their own opportunities overall it's a net positive for that country. The issue arises when you're dealing with local workers who don't want to compete, immigrants not willing to conform to the local population. The financial impact on social and welfare systems. The impact on political systems and how it can change political outcomes. Culture is particularly important because certain cultures create certain economic and political outcomes. It's no accident Northern and Western Europeans have been historically wealthier than their Southern and Easter counter parts, or that Anglo-America is wealthier than Latin America despite it being more resource rich.
the potato famine was artificial in nature. the problem wasn't that there wasn't enough food, there absolutely was. the problem was that the english were forcing the irish to export large amounts of that food. without british colonialism, the potato blight would merely be a small footnote in history instead of a near genocide.
pyr666 firstly, English is a very general word, the vast majority of the English were in abject poverty (i.e. the working class). So I assume you mean the English ruling class. Secondly, no one was forced to export food, they were offered money for the food and the land owners decided to sell it. The fact that these land owners were all English is inconsequential as rich Irish landowners did the exact same thing what is what the rich do best, look out for themselves. Thirdly, the north of England was also effected by the famine and so British aid was directed to mitigate the crisis in Britain first.
I still say Malthus's theory still holds to some extent in the overall scheme of things because even though we can produce more food to feed an ever growing global population through innovation and technology, we (humans) will need more and more finite ARABLE land to grow this food. For now we are fine thanks to GM crops and livestock, but for how long?
But doesn't this mean that Malthus was ultimately still right? We managed to increase our population limit pretty dramatically, sure, but there is still a limit eventually. Right?
Not really. Scientific advancement should keep pace with population growth. Even if agricultural advances don't keep up, we'll pursue other avenues, like colonizing space. I guess that implies breaking out of the closed Gaia system, but still.
The thing is, will the population on earth continue to increase infinitely? If you look at a lot of "modern countries" today it seems that there is a point where human mortality rate is so low that humans actually start to reproduce at a rate equal to or lesser then the mortality numbers.
I think birth control and family planning programs are the factors you seem to be missing. As countries advance their health care systems, and consequently lower infant mortality, raise life expectancy, etc, they also tend to adopt western style family planning regimes. This results in smaller families, closer to the replenishment rate. You could say China was the first to recognize the problem 50 years ago with their one child policy.
+Irish Identity The idea that birth control is western is contentious. Third century India had a thriving society and lower birth rates. That is the period when the Kama Sutra was written. There used to be a theory that it was written as an instruction manual because most people didn't know good ways of having sex, so it was less enjoyable, so smaller birth rate. Now the idea that they had some form of birth control is more popular and the book was probably written to increase enjoyment, not create it.
Maureen Frost That's great and all but that's just not going to cut it. In some African countries the average person has 3 to 4 children without the economic resources to back it up. Algeria alone is projected to surpass the US in population in the coming decades. Earth can support it, but we as humans cannot distribute it. The best way to solve world hunger and overpopulation is to bring these nations into modernity thereby lowering the average birth rate. This will hardly be the apocalypse that this video speaks of, but I'd hate to see billions of people suffer just because they don't have the money to be if it from new farming technology.
A warmer climate may have the outcome of forcing people away from coastal areas from flooding and extremely aired regions from increased heat but far more land that is currently unarable would become arable than the other way around. Farmers in the united states for example could plant crops further and further north. Even in the hottest places on earth most people can grow some sort of food, not so in the coldest. Global warming would almost certainly increase the total amount of food that could be produced on this planet.
You're forgetting desertification. Although I think there have been actual studies on how the amount of arable land will change, by like actual scientists who spent a good amount of time thinking about it and researching it as a full-time job, that you can look up instead of armchair-theorizing. I think they said yields would go down overall because of desertification, but I could be wrong.
Suchti322 I'm talking about the land thats on the margins. Land that is ALMOST profitable to farm but not quite. It would become profitable. I'm not saying that people in northern canada would be farming.
Rowan Evans Either way, we can safely say that the negative effects of land that is presently farmable becoming unfarmable would be at the very least severely mitigated by the land that is presently unfarmable becoming farmable.
However, it takes a while to cultivate new land, so it would certainly be disruptive to food supplies, with all the farmers moving north. Also, land will be lost to rising sea levels, which you haven't considered. That could be significant for the agriculture of low lying areas. Finally, lets say global warming continues until the south pole is suitable for agriculture. From then on, we're just going to be losing land to desertification.
Yes, Gene-Mod food will be revolutionary, we can get food to grow faster, withstand harsher weather, but there might be a disaster if there were error in the programmed gene
We are doing that right now. First to produce biofuels and in human consumption it's more complicated. No one wants to be the one who produces a crop which can harm millions.
I never knew about the American ships being turned away from Ireland or Malthus's connection to the famine. In school we just focused on how the famine was all Britain's fault, because they took the good food while the rotting food was left for us Irish.. Thanks for the interesting videos :)
Limits to Growth is another good book which handles similar concepts. we are in a closed system and cannot sustain indefinite 'growth' either of population or consumption. Malthus did get it wrong in understanding the capacity for adaptation and technology however even if we move the 'crunch point' further away we are still approaching it, and already causing irreversible harm.
Hey I remember watching your videos 2 years ago. I have always been a history buff and I am not sure why I stopped watching these great vids of yours :)
Hof H Developed nations have birthrates below 2.1, which means without immigration their populations will fall. Developing nations don't need more population. They need to educate the ones they have, and build infrastructure. But that's where population growth is happening.
flinx i see the issue here. you dont understand what industrializing does to a country and why industrialized countries stop growing. Industrialization occurs which builds infrastructure and better overall standard of living. because of this fewer people die from diseases. As a result you no longer need to reproduce as much, and b/c wealthy people from poor nations want to move to a country with better infrastructure, education, healthcare, a more stable economy etc. they move to industrialized countries which means immigration is always happening to industrialized nations keeping the population stable if not growing. Underdeveloped and developing countries who have yet to go through there industrial revolution have a greater population increase usually because of the mortality causing people to make more in case one dies. AND because there is a lot of unused resources in their country because they have yet to go through their industrial revolution. before a nation becomes industrialized they need more hands to harvest those resources, they dont have machines like we do. And even then its a good thing the population is dropping, we already have too many people to live on this earth sustain-ably. we are killing ourselves through screwing too often!
XZDrake Population density is meaningless if you don't consider the land. The Sahara desert is enormous and doesn't have water to support high density. The jungles do have water, but cutting them down is like cutting down the Amazon rain forest. That's bad too. It isn't desirable to keep growing populations until they use up available resources. Africa has 1.1 billion people and that's plenty already. Those people need better education, housing, clean water, sanitation, nutrition. Increasing the population does nothing to help those issues, in fact it slows down progress on those things.
4:32 Louise :), also economics of production mean that meat, farmers' markets and non-genetically modified foods mean less foods: meat take over 4x the grain and water of other foods, foods produced at scale and shipped longer distances are often better for the environment and protein-specific genetic modifications (not the slice and splice genetics in current immunology) make much better seeds. The biggest threat to food stability is a lack of variety (the thousands of varieties of potatoes) - currently in seed banks and restricted by monopolistic companies like Monsanto.
Agreed, but it would also be necessary to use huge tracts of land producing solar power. If you've ever been to west Texas in the summer, you know that this is easily possible,and can be done using land that nature doesn't want, unlike current farming methods using huge tracts of land where nature really wants to be.
Diana Peña I agree. Renewable energy may work on a local level to curb fossil fuel dependency, but it's just not reliable enough to meet humanity's voracious energy needs. The world where seven blocks of a city go into blackout because it's cloudy or because the wind isn't blowing is a world where you have mass riots. The world where every influential government and every private corporation who cares works to produce massive and expensive fusion energy plants is one with a high gap between rich and poor, but everyone gets a certain improvement on the quality of life. It's not the ideal solution, which would be something like a portable fusion reactor so cheap you can put one in everyone's backyard, but it's one of the best.
Unused skyscrapers generally aren't a thing and growing underground means providing all of the light. The best structures for centralized hydroponic agriculture would be purpose built on cheap land.
Arrrggg - Malthus has probably been used by more terrible people as a justification for not supporting their fellow humans than any other person who ever lived. One thing John didn't bring up was that as well as agricultural technology (e.g. Normal Borlaug) another invention that has made an enormous difference is reliable contraception. Malthus was a vicar of the Church of England and strongly disapproved of the concept of birth control. If you want the latest enlightened thoughts on where the world is going in terms of population you absolutely can't do any better than Dr Hans Rosling : www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth
As did Queen Victoria. It wasn't nearly enough, but to say we gave "no aid, nor allowed anyone else to give it either" ( 4.10) is at best a gross oversimplification, and worst an outright lie.
mankytoes yeah, well, it was kind of a small amount. The hugely in-debt Ottomans basically gave more than the richest empire in the world (so much so that British diplomats actually asked the Ottoman Sultan to decrease his donation so as to not cause embarrassment for Victoria).
Yeah what he said wasn't true I guess (can't be bothered to rewatch the vid and check honestly), but this show tends to be PC and mention non-Western things and occasionally undermine Western ones.
Oh yeah the benevolent Ottoman empire..just ask the 1.5 massacred Armenians how benevolent they were. Oh, and a present day Turkey were it's illegal to even mention the massacre let alone teach it!!
There's a good critique of Maltusian thinking written by Henry C. Carey - 'The Principles of Social Science', 1858-59. It's available online from archive.org.
I enjoyed reading Malthus' words in one of my books. He said that there are preventive checks for population growth such as postponed marriage, contraception, abstinence, homosexuality, abortion and there are positive checks such as famine and war. Very interesting!
I can't help but think of someone seeing crash course hundreds of years from now, seeing the Arnold Schwarzenegger bit, and frantically tearing through their history books to find out about the alien invasion their parents never told them about.
And I can't help but wonder if movies will even exist anymore by that time.
h0m3st4r
they may see our movies as the equivalent of mythical legends and ancient histories.
I think movies will still exist. Books and theater are still with us thousands of years later, after all. Most new forms of entertainment are in addition to, rather than instead of, existing forms of entertainment.
i think they'll look at our games and think i wish i had the original copy
Ajax Reed they would be long gone when digital distribution out-takes physical copies in the next 5 years. physical copies to digital will ratio 1:1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000. therefore near worthless as they have software and backwards compatibility.
Note: when John says "theory", it means the opposite of when Hank says "theory".
See, Hank used the word "theory" as in "science proved this is what happens" (see theory of gravity and theory of evolution). John uses "theory" to mean "untested guess that often proves false".
Who are you, the Homonym Explanation Force? I'd have to go back through the video but I'm sure you missed a few ;)
No seriously, you don't have to proactively explain the obvious just in case some people want to debate climate change or evolution. They're going to do it anyway.
Penny Lane "Who are you, the Homonym Explanation Force? "
Who are you, the "Benjamin's Google+ Comments" Clarification SWAT Team?
"you don't have to proactively explain the obvious"
Have you seen my conversations with atheists about evolution? I have to explain a lot to them at times.
Benjamin Abruzzo "I have to explain a lot to them at times." So, how many times did you change anyone's mind?
Penny Lane The definitions are used interchangeably by them, so not much.
Benjamin Abruzzo
I meant for the reason you chose to debate them in the first place: to convince them that they are wrong about their beliefs.
My point really being: it's pointless debating them, preemptively or not.
"If I can't grow it, I won't eat it!" - John Green. The only natural deduction is that John Green has a Dorito tree thus explaining his obsession
I don't know if anyone has recognized this, but John Green told his "younger self" that he wouldn't tell him who is eventual wife was. However, he told "younger john" about his wife in the other world history series. I don't remember exactly which episode, but I do remember him saying that.
I have to say, this channel has been a godsend for me this university semester! so much more informative and interesting than reading through textbooks, and actually taught with humour and energy.
Thanos definitely watched this.
If Thanos weren't a fictional character, I'd say he definitely didn't. His whole shtick was Malthusianism.
The only thing that is infinite is human stupidity
Stephen Richards Got em
Careful, you don't want to take someone's eye out with that edge.
nah. not even a little bit
Until we get a proper education system implemented. AND free!
So true...
Remember, history is not what has happened, but what has been written down.
Yup the human race is only 100 years old, and all that history stuff was written 30 years ago by some dude who now owns the word
*world
Its both
To refine your point, it could be argued that history is the interpretation of what has been written down.
Alfonzo333MC 'the past' is everything that has ever happened. 'history' is everything ever written down and researched about the past.
AP human geography sent me here
same
Katie that's me Oh I miss that class
Final tomorrow gotta cram 😭
Same
Katie M yes in 2019 it’s my turn to cram
As a math student I've been shown the Malthus Model many times since it's an easy ODE to solve. While it is inaccurate ("all models are wrong, some are useful"), it is not an unreasonable model for population growth of some species, like E coli in a Petri dish. It's interesting to learn the (depressing) repercussion of his work.
So no wonder the Irish hate the English
who doesn't !
so it's ok if u r not alone ....
we have done many horrific things but also gave the world the train,the factory, the modern computer (Turing) and the possibility to have this discussion (Berners-Lee) P.S what is your nationality?
you had me at "Turing".
sicklendhammerstudio, Doesn't make make up for what the british did to many people, including my own ( Québécois ) and many others. You can try to justify or make it seem less worse all you want, but what is done is done. Also I can't help but notice that the UK seems to make a lot of politically dumb/unacceptable decisions like Brexxit or fear-mongering and pandering to the scottish people to avoid them deciding to run themselves. You may have given the world many things you have taken much more from it.
"Grades aren't a super accurate predictor of success in life."................THERE'S HOPE.
*Thanos has entered the chat*
@Brennan Lu Thanos has got nothing on Grand Moff Tarkin
@@Real_George_Orwell except an army of outriders
Who’s watching this in quarantine?
HockeyBoss123456789 10 11 12 yeah for homework😂
Damn Geography class brought me here...
None, except u!
Bro we all are
Bill Gates on Twitter brought me here
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in overpopulation.
From what I've tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor fire.
But for a second iteration
I think I know enough of hate
To say that overpopulation
Is also great
for extermination.
impressive
never again with water... lets suppose never again means only until we lose these prophecies... possibly alexandria all over the world... possibly some magnetic pole shifting slingshot effect... but what do we know
Where's the videos man? We've been waiting Zogg from Betelgeuse
***** Yes
Veritas Est Lux That's literally the point
Really interesting video. I think as an addition it's worth noting that distribution of food is really a far greater problem *currently* than production of food (though much research is needed to continue to develop our ability to produce food).
Also, the Irish potato famine has to be one of the most shameful moments of British history.
John green 2014: "if I can't grow it, I won't eat it."
John green 2012: "mm, this is a good cheese burger!"
He could grow everything you need to make a cheeseburger... that doesn't mean he will.
This comment section seems pretty down for genocide.......
Funny how your comment came immediately before one by a guy saying that the real alien predators are the Jews. This thread is a total clusterfuck.
Just the nihilistic weekends
It is worth expanding on what John only hinted at: that overpopulation is a myth. The world currently produces more food than it needs to feed everybody, and it is merely the attachment of profit motives to production and distribution that leads to shortages anywhere as well as the extensive wastage in some places. We are also nowhere close to the level of production we could achieve if we used our current technology everywhere, much less our foreseeable future technology. Living space is even less of a problem, there are huge amounts of unused space in addition to a considerable lack of density.
That isn't to say that there aren't considerable problems in efficiency and misalignment of costs and benefits. It is absurd to suggest that all people can live in the manner that the global rich do. But that doesn't mean that we can't achieve the same level of quality of lifestyle for all with increased efficiency and use of technology.
For example, if the fusion power plant that Lockheed Martin just announced they expect to be operational in the next ten years comes to fruition we will have a revolution in energy that makes the industrial revolution look like a joke. That alone will allow the entire world to live at the highest standards of comfort in many ways without any of the accompanying environmental costs.
The end result of all of this is to say that any calls for people to have fewer children than they desire to have is misguided and unnecessary. We don't need any more population control than people naturally have.
Even the most absurdist myth has some kernel of truth at it's heart. While H. sapiens as a species is, on paper, quite capable of achieving the production and logistical challenges you state, it is well beyond the currently entrenched socio-cultural systems and their constantly reinforced individual psychological paradigms.
The human species doesn't need population control, but nations like China have obvious reasons to try to curb population growth. While Earth may have enough space, they don't have enough livable space to support their population's wants and needs. Historically, the solution to the 'not enough space' issue is usually 'take it from someone else using violence', but apparently we live in an age where that's not morally viable, finally.
Lockheed Martin does look quite promising, but nuclear power has a lot of opposition. If it succeeds to the fullest potential, (which due to regulation by international law and competition with the fossil fuel industry, it probably won't), it could be a great boon to all of humanity. However, the combination of renewable energy plants cropping up all over the world, big fusion projects such as ITER and Lockheed Martin, and energy efficiency appearing in everything from cars to house paint to electronics, a major energy revolution is coming, if it isn't already here.
We face a lot of problems today, starvation being one of them, but at least the world is trying to fix it, even if certain nations (I'm looking at you, US) aren't pulling their weight. We could face disaster in the next half century due to the negligence of the past, but for the first time in about 10 years, it looks like humanity may survive due to technological innovation.
Alexander Abrams-Flohr while many of your points are spot on, the idea we don't have enough space is false. there is plenty of space to increase the population. it just isn't in the hands of the people who need to live there and thus far in our history, has never been.
While feeding people is not really an issue for the very foreseeable future, lowering fertility rates is one of the key factors in order to promote economic development in that country.
Countries that lower their fertility rates almost always experience economic development (I can't really think of an example where decreased fertility rate caused to hamper economic development)
***** Actually Japan is having quite a problem with it's severely low birthrate. It means more people quit working and rely on pensions than people entering the workforce, who pay for those pensions. There has to be a balance.
So happy to see some Irish history discussed on crash course! It's rather fascinating stuff I encourage you all to explore it!!!
turned to beggary, theft and to London xD i'm dead
did louise from bobs burgers pop up at 4 min 33 secs in this video? way to go crash course!!!!
+J Killa who is that
haha I saw that too.
I saw that in the thumb nail lol that's why I clicked it actually.
No that was because the guy he was talking about compared people to bunnies.
Copyright lawyer says no, wasn't her at all :P
This was so helpful in my preparation for my Sociology and History exams. Keep up the good work! :)
Well, I guess that Thanos read some Malthus before snapping the whole universe...
As someone from Loughborough, seeing Robert Bakewell and the Charnwood Forest and Rothley Plan mentioned in one episode is breathtakingly exciting.
Cubed Gamers Robin I saw that too. L'boro also my home town. I wonder how large charnwood forest was back then?
The evil mentioned in Trevelyan's quote at 5:15 describes Trevelyan himself pretty well. Poor Catholics!
Oh John, agriculture here in the US is already looking down the barrel of a gun. The drought in the south west worsens, the Ozark's depletion accelerates, and erratic weather is destroying record amounts of crops. There is no relief in sight either.
Now, please correct me if I am wrong, but do we still not pay some farmers not to plant crops on all their land, just to keep the wages up? Not only that, but do we not also grow a butt-load of corn to use not as food, but to turn into scientific/industrial products?
Compare to other nations, US has more advantage in agriculture. One is land, US has more land farm than others.
Also technology also involved in this process.
Diana Peña Nuclear power is not sustainable. It's really not very complicated... it's impossible to safely dispose of nuclear waste! Seriously, how does one miss that!? If you're interested in how the world will be fed sustainably, look into permaculture, I'm confident in saying that it's the only option for the future.
PajamaMan You're not wrong, but you're not entirely correct either. We only pay farmers to not plant crops when there is an extreme surplus of food, which there isn't in most places. The world takes food and consumes it at an incredible rate, but we still have surplus enough to make it viable for first world countries to have high obesity rates. Prices fluctuate, but in the US, at least, they are rising due to drought, so subsidizing fallow farms is pretty pointless.
Depending on how you define a butt-load, the corn thing could be right or wrong. The majority of corn we grow, which is the majority of food crops we grow, doesn't go towards industrial products, rather, it goes to meat. For every person who could be eating that ear of corn, there's a chicken eating ten and providing the same amount of energy in its breast that the person will later eat. It's incredibly inefficient and to a certain extent, wasteful. Most food we grow goes into food, one way or another. It could just be going into food more efficiently.
Not that I think the world should go totally vegetarian. It's just not really possible. I enjoy meat as much as the next guy, and I really couldn't keep vegetarian, not when I could have delicious chicken meat daily for cheap (I'm a conformist consumer that way, but at least I admit it.) There are millions of people just like me without the self control to keep vegetarian, and in a capitalist world, you can't force them to. People vote with their purchases, and those purchases are buying meat, not corn, because it's delicious. There are plenty of other tricks that we could use to allow people to keep eating meat, but increase agricultural efficiency, though. Among these tricks are controversial ones like GMO crops or livestock, and less controversial ones like using insects and algae in food.
Agriculture in the US is still surprisingly good though. (Certainly nobodies about to starve). The point is globally things seem to be improving. And the growth in population is happily slowing down, not because were dying but because were choosing to get pregnant less. Something Malthus could never have imagined.
I love the references packed into theses episodes. I am profoundly surprised by Louise Belcher appearing at 4:32
Nobody: Hey what if we did this in the 21st Century?
Margaret Thatcher: I got u fam.
Considering Thomas Malthus died in 1834 a good 11 years before the Great Famine in Ireland it seems a bit odd to conflate his opinions with this disaster. Surely he would presumably have been talking about the earlier potato famines of the 1700's which were in part almost an entirely climate related event due to the little ice age? Not to dismiss criticism of Malthus (he deserves it) or British colonial rule in Ireland (boy we deserve it), but surely he wasn't just coming up with his ideas in a vacuum, they were a reaction to the inability of European agriculture to provide given the decreasing carrying capacity of the climate and land?
very good point.
Malthus' theory was just that, a theory. The video isn't stating that he used earlier predictions to come to this theory; instead Malthus used the natural world, specifically rabbits, to come to the understanding that once a population reached a so called "maximum threshold on its production capabilities" then it would not be able to sustain the population. What the video is saying is that the English used this "theory" to justify the Irish Potato Famine, in so, "well they've reached the maximum population that their land can sustain thus they must die."
well I would say that while it does not exactly line up with his life's time line it does accurately reflect the types of issues that would influence his theories, the idea that there is only so much food to be grown per area of land and not much can be done to change it so people will die anytime a saturation number is reached. but, man its hard not to love technology, be it mechanical muscles, better irrigation practices, or genetically engineered crops, its hard not to see the benefits as food per acre grew and starvation plummeted. so while the potatoes famine was not exactly in the era of Malthus' life, it did exemplify what he saw well enough to warrant comparison.
I thought John said that the English governors of Ireland used Malthus' theories in formulating their response to the famine and also saw the famine as validating his theories, not that the famine influenced Malthus' writings.
Famine was recorded in 1834 but sign of that was before that.
I thought it was hilarious when they sneaked in Louis Belcher from Bob's Burgers.
John: If I cant grow it, I wo t eat it!
Also John: I cant help it, I like Doritos.
This was one of my favorite Crash Course World History videos. Good job!
3:42. This is the best thought bubble I’ve ever witnessed in a crash coarse video. Greatest of all time
1:07 In 10000 BCE, Fewer than a MILLION people lived on earth.
The thought bubble animations are fantastic and greatly add to the content presented, excellent job thought bubble team!
A picture of Ljubljana at 1:15? Thank you, sir, and greetings from Slovenia!
Isn't Malthus partly right though? Isn't there biological concept were an environment can only contain a certain population size until it the population levels out?
Ya I get that, so he is correct in some way. Right?
You're both right. That is the lesson here; we don't know when we will hit that cut off point where people will start to die of starvation worldwide. It hasn't come yet, but it has locally, and it will come a lot sooner now that we know global warming is a thing. If only our tech didn't cause global warming =( that would have been great.
Not realty right, just not completely wrong. He was sort of right about there *being* a carrying capacity, but in what kills us off, and in how population would only grow slowly, and basically everything else he was wrong. We know now that there is a final, maximum carrying capacity but it is HUGE and as technology improves, so does the current limit. All in all he was ~75% wrong, and in science 5% wrong is 100% not right.
Yes and no.
I believe that with innovation and careful planning we can minimize our surface footprint by building up and down instead of out. There is great progress towards attaining full off grid self sustainability. As well as incorporated grid systems that maximize the resources invested into it. Subterranean and rooftop agriculture. Permaculture instead of monoculture. Non fossil based energy sources and water recycling.
We can grow generally infinitely and as our robotics automation and space technology improve we will be able to do much much more, off planet. Ive said this many times but humanity is like a bacteria and we have the choice of being a beneficial bacteria or a parasitic one. As a whole we have (modern humans) behaved very parasitically and I think that many of the negative notions to growth are around that negative behavior. If we grow wisely we can increase and still have more than ever before and if we do it in a way that the earth benefits even better.
its also not known if the "stabilization methods" will have the same result, there might be a massive dying off of people, or it could be that people simply stop having kids, its not uncommon for parents to delay having a child due to resource issues aka money issues or even to just forgo having a child because of that same issue (especially if they already have one), rats do this commonly why not us? its kind of already happening in developed words, women are having fewer kids because modern mortality rates are much lower and one or two kids are much easier then 5 or 6. there is a chance things could level out, but then there's also the whole "we want to colonize mars" thing a whole other planet would change that equation considerably.
Malthus was not wrong. His observations were precise. In ecology it's called "carrying capacity" and every environment has a specific number of individuals it can support. It is true for rabbits, foxes, elephants and everything else.
Humans are very clever, and so far we have managed to expand on the food available through technology. Past success is not guarantee of future success - it's printed on my investment account. Earth has a carrying capacity for humans and we are fast approaching it.
But even if we have enough food, we are running out of other stuff, like arable land, copper, lithium, helium. Things that make our lives comfortable.
Well, some argue, we might mine asteroids... And we might.
Then there is the experiment of rats in a perfect box with as much food as they wanted.... They still went crazy....
NutsinBrazil Population will peak this century and then next century it will fall, before we exhaust the planet humans will dwindle.
1. Wait...... that image at 1:10-1:18...... it can't *POSSIBLY* be the town centre of Ljubljana (i.e. my home town, also the capital of Slovenia)?! What would an image of Ljubljana town centre be doing on Crash Course??
UPDATE: I used the marvels that are the PrintScreen button and Google Image search. It is, indeed, Ljubljana town centre: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ljubljana_City_square_1800-1840.jpg I still don't understand how it came to be in the video, though. Quite a random thing to happen!
2. I never really stopped to appreciate before, how ingenius the concept of "me from the past" is in this. Whoever thought of that, I take my hat off to you :)
I have to do a debate for malthus' theory in favor of it... IT IS THE HARDEST THING EVER
you can do that, after all we can't be more than 12 billion.
Even today, you can still argue for Malthus's theory by pointing to some countries struggle to control population growth - namely India and Nigeria. Also, using the increased demand for industry, which (to some) causes drastic climate change, is a case for it, as John Green has addressed. But if someone already argued against those points, then I can't help.
BTW, why did you _have_ to argue in favor of Malthus?
ist not that hard at all.. there are too many people.. end of argument..
@@earthlyng_official4599 yea, eventually you will run out of land to fit on. so there is a limit.
I' not sure if this was a conscious decision but at 1:17 the picture shows the old town center of Ljubljana, Slovenia (the Robba founatin is visible, the cathedral in the back)which makes me very happy. I might be wrong about the location but nonetheless, this got me suuper excited from the very beginning.
Thank you for making this video. I'm so tired of hearing the population bomb myth over and over again. Looking at our technological capacity in terms of food production, we could probably at least double world population. Of course, there are other big challenges such as our dependency on carbon emission energy sources which we currently are using in order to fuel our modern economics, but that consumption is only indirectly connected to world population.
Thank you Crash Course for reminding everyone that Malthus, like Aristotle, was super influential while being wrong about pretty much everything.
Eventually the biomass of planet earth will consist entirely of humans, cats, and their food.
Two thumbs up for the fact that you used both The Predator and Arnold in this episode. awesome :D
did anyone see that girl from bob's burgers at 4:32?
Louise
John, you've done it again. I have a 2,000-word book review to write on Malthus' Essay on Population as part of my Masters in History at the University of Nottingham, and you've just given me a wealth of material. I concur with you absolutely about his ignorance about the role played by technology - Malthus does address that, claiming that he can't rely on what technology might bring to the table, and to some extent I agree with his decision but it's only through hindsight, as you say, that we know him to have been wrong to dismiss it. From the scholarly opinions I've read Malthusian theory does seem to be getting more and more associated with environmentalism, and there's some pretty cool stuff from economists that suggest hundred-storey tall buildings to house populations so that more space can be made for agricultural spaces, but of course that's in the confines of science fiction right now.
8:12 Private land ownership is theft!
Teralek hey i like communism as much as the next guy but calm down
@@Gamerroemer yeah man, that one exclamation mark is way overboard, my god :P
thank you john green- every ap human geography/world history student
The key points that Green is missing here is the innovations that occurred during the 20th century. The innovations he talks about aided a little with population growth and disease was losing steam, but when the modern era came, the picture changed quite a lot. The spread of vaccines, antibiotics, and the food breakthroughs of Norman Borlaug are what directly led to the population EXPLOSION the world has experienced in the past century. I don't think of this as leading to ever more people to consume because I think this focuses too much on an anthropocentric view of the world. Because of all these advances, the environment is at risk and when people talk about the Earth being sucked dry, they probably are referring more to the things (plants & animals) that live on this Earth with us. To say that overpopulation is bad because it leads to strains on food is wrong - overpopulation is bad because it leads to massive amounts of "surplus" people and leaves the environment in shambles until everything is so polluted and used-up that humans are the only things left - and who wants to live in a world like that?
I love the humor of this show. Keep up the good work guys!
I am not sure that I agree. Malthus said that populations will grow if there are resources available. He also predicted that resources would run out or at least that if they did then the population would cease to grow or shrink. How is this wrong?
You are amazing giving us all this knowledge and insight. Plus, your fast talking always annoys my roommates. Thanks for both 👍.
I usually agree with John Green but here I have to voice my objections. Malthus was right in the general idea that the human population cannot grow exponentially forever. Sure there are technologies that improve production but ultimately the process is the conversion of energy from the sun to everything else (food, warmth, shelter, etc.) This conversion is at most 100% efficient. That means resource production rate has an upper bound, which means the sustainable human population has an upper bound as well. The real question is, what is that bound?
We can probably reach a few trillion humans assuming we completely negate all other forms of life, including any domesticated animals since meat is going to be way too resource intensive. Jack Campbell hinted on this possibility with his book the lost fleet when they encounter an extremely xenophobic species who completely annihilates every animal that's not a Kick (nickname humans give them). The Kick's Home planet was just one Huge Vertical farm (meaning layered agricultural development). Humans could go this route also, but unfortunately I doubt we'd get along very well in those kind of tight spaces. Furthermore, we always seem to fight over who is the King of the Hill making any kind of social unity impossible (even under Communism you still have an Inner Circle).
It cannot grow exponentially forever. John knows that. BUT the question is - would it result in disaster described by malthus? mass famine. That is largely a myth.
You guys seem to be understimating the power of birth control, Only until recently did we have the power to reliable decide how many children to have. There are countries like Japan and the Nordic states where the population is shrinking instead of growing.
Actually it can be boundless if we can learn to capture and transform energy into mass and mass into any atom and learn to contain all of it so that none of it escapes. You see, vacuum constantly spawns energy into existence, which then dissappears right after. If we can learn to harvest that energy before it dissappears, we will have an infinite source of energy and thus the upper limit is gone. But until then, it is all finite.
Optimum is near 300 millions. This quantity of humans don,t make a lot of damage and too much footprints that can't be reversed.
This video needs more Henry George. _Progress and Poverty_ was the definitive and devastating rebuttal to Malthus. John covers some of the same critiques that George levied, but George went further and he did it in the 1870s.
The Georgist policy proposal of shifting all taxation off of productive labor and onto the privilege of holding natural resources out of the commons is the best way to encourage a fairer and wealthier growing society. Enclosure can greatly increase the wealth of society, but those preventing others from equal access are aggressing and do owe compensation to their fellow man.
(The one time John mentioned Henry George before he was quite wrong to say that he thought taxes were the solution to social ills. George considered most types of taxation to be no better than highway robbery, but argued that land value taxes only a tax in form and not in substance. He also argued that the economic rent of land ownership is high enough that a government which collects it should be more than adequately funded to provide all the services it has any business providing, so there is no need for other less moral and less efficient taxes to pay for law courts or social safety nets.)
Perhaps Malthus was correct in the abstract: that populations stabilize to match their available resources. When resources is abstracted to being more than just food but general resources necessary for a certain quality of life, it's easy to observe this in our current times. I've personally observed that in contemporary America fewer people are choosing to have children and a significant factor is that they only see children as an economic drain wherein they do not have enough economic resources to give themselves the quality of life they want _and_ provide the same quality of life for someone else. Those who do want children also tend to have fewer than previous generations. With a shift away from an agrarian society, children now have a net negative economic value. I think this could be argued as the American population beginning to stabilize to match it's economic environment.
I believe it has to do something with IQ as well.
Remember that in Third World countries compared to America, they are often lacking in education and the intellectual, and people are far more likely to breed despite their terrible conditions.
Social and cultural development & a sense of responsibility plays a vital role in determining how many children people have.
XZDrake
Remember that development is not a one way trip though, especially depending on the contemporary cultural status quo of the people/nation. Max Weber wrote some interesting things on the subject, such as the Spirit of Capitalism.
For the third world countries to have the same trend as the developed world, it'll also require a social revolution & change of values.
SinerAthin maya'smomhere: So, SinerAthin, You who Has the First World IQ are suggesting the job of reducing world population be delegated out to People who, maybe cannot be convinced by any charlatan's move that: this is Their idea...or...just as soon as They get a move-on to recognize the obvious benefits of adjusting their traditions here&there to suit what they most likely cannot and will not benefit from...to cooperate with a new witch doctor (no offence to the true intended)... and well I just am sure They are not as children for some new foreign flashy camera- bible- toting smiling fellow...You for instance?! !oh! Do go forth, see, teach, learn from them with my blessing ! PS-we users gotta quit it, the using of...the everything...one world for all time . anonymousmom@live.com
XZDrake
I believe Asia, in particular China(and its close neighbors) outbred Europe, due to their more advanced agriculture systems enabling them to support a far greater population than Europe.
Industrialization in and of itself does not really lead to lower birth rates though.
The industrial revolution lead to huge baby booms in the nations where it occurred.
It was not until later down the line that births began to lower.
XZDrake
I was talking about WAY before 1500.
The Chinese practically invented something similar to the modern state before Europe even ascended from the dark ages.
Granted, China suffered through long periods of isolation & stagnation which caused the west to fly past them.
I always love the "me from the past" interections. Mr.Green, Mr Green!!!!!!
I just came for Louise.
This helped me study for my test! I was getting so bored but seeing my fav author help me study got me so motivated, thanks!!
been thinking about this theory since the Covid-19 virus was declared a pandemic
It’s been around for a long time. I am breaking the “law” it shouldn’t even be a pandemic😡😠
Another Malthusian quote: “I have said, that in the course of some centuries [England] might contain two or three times as many inhabitants as at present and yet every person be both better fed and better clothed.”
Next week's episode is about Islam and politics. No way that ends up in a flame war in the comments section. Still, I look forward to Crash Course's analysis.
Gotta love the Louise Belcher cameo at 4:31!
the thought bubble was epic
It was very educational.
This is the most educational/entertaining video i've seen in my life thank you for the video :)
As is often the case the truth is somewhere between "it's hopeless, we're all gonna die" and "nah it's chill, go have a burger." In developed countries birthrates have fallen without the need for government incentives, in fact most of those governments are trying to up the birthrates and failing.
But in the developing world population growth is off the charts and if it doesn't stabilize or worse carries over into the rest of the world via immigration and the others feeling they need to compete in population numbers... it can turn ugly. Ultimately I think the slow down of population growth coupled with innovation can be sustainable and in fact lead to even better living for people. But it's not a sure bet and it's up to all of us to make sure it turns out fine.
So don't fall into that paradoxical allure of complaining that the sky is falling and how we're all doing wrong but of course not counting yourself in that group because you are "aware" despite not doing anything different from the rest. So consider all the facts, stay calm and do something if possible and the future will be just fine and Malthus just a silly old man.
+Darth Mortus There are today few countries that still remains in the 2. and 3. demographical phase. Most of Asia; S. America and Africa are entering the 4. phase, in which the population is more or less stabile. Only the countries that experiences political or environmental instability are still experiencing high birthrates (but not that high population growth because of equaly high mortality rates). While most non-western countries still experience a minor population growth, the exponential increase we experienced in the 20th century is over, as most predictions now suggest that the world population will stabilize on about 9 billion people. This prediction is made on the fact that general life quality world wide is rapidly increasing, meeting the needs of which theoretically is needed to enter the demographical phase of a stabilizing population.
I don't really buy that. I don't have time to research and refute you guys but I know India is still seeing much growth and with close to a billion people even if the growth is slowing down it will still put a lot of new people on this little globe of ours. And then there is Africa which is a massive clusterfuck and may even see more pop growth when it becomes more stable and prosperous. Add in a few countries in South America and some in East Asia and it gets a bit grimmer. And muslims still have a large pop growth. Where do you think those migrants come from? The way they operate is simple, some go to rich Western countries and bring more of their family after they settle in, or they send money to them and they use this extra money to have more children than their state can really support, shit happens and suddenly you have throngs of desperate people coming over. This system of supporting huge families who have lots of children (because women are so repressed there) through relatives sending money from the West is well known in the Middle East and Balkan muslim states.
Honestly I don't like feminism but what needs to be done to reduce pop growth in muslim countries is weaponize feminism and export it to those places :D Let it do good for a change. :P
+Darth Mortus An important point about undeveloped countries is they usually suffer corrupt and oppressive governments that restrict economic development and basically unable to develop their economies and the wealth needed they kind of hit Malthus' population ceiling. The developed world had similar population booms, but didn't suffer because they had the economic freedom to grow their economies and wealth. Every human being you add brings not only a set of needs, but productive potential and technology can enhance that productive potential. The problem for the undeveloped worlds is their productive potential is inhibited by corrupt governments. A quickly expanding population isn't really a problem if you leave that population free to support itself.
The real problem that arises from people from third world countries moving to first world countries is more a cultural collision than anything else. So long as those immigrants enter the country and work and pursue their own opportunities overall it's a net positive for that country. The issue arises when you're dealing with local workers who don't want to compete, immigrants not willing to conform to the local population. The financial impact on social and welfare systems. The impact on political systems and how it can change political outcomes. Culture is particularly important because certain cultures create certain economic and political outcomes. It's no accident Northern and Western Europeans have been historically wealthier than their Southern and Easter counter parts, or that Anglo-America is wealthier than Latin America despite it being more resource rich.
Your channel is a gem
the potato famine was artificial in nature. the problem wasn't that there wasn't enough food, there absolutely was. the problem was that the english were forcing the irish to export large amounts of that food.
without british colonialism, the potato blight would merely be a small footnote in history instead of a near genocide.
pyr666 firstly, English is a very general word, the vast majority of the English were in abject poverty (i.e. the working class). So I assume you mean the English ruling class. Secondly, no one was forced to export food, they were offered money for the food and the land owners decided to sell it. The fact that these land owners were all English is inconsequential as rich Irish landowners did the exact same thing what is what the rich do best, look out for themselves. Thirdly, the north of England was also effected by the famine and so British aid was directed to mitigate the crisis in Britain first.
pyr666 yup they had a hidden agenda
@@Jake-ir3gw ya eejit. For your Thirdly, Ireland was part of the UK at the time. Twas under British rule. 2nd point; they were west brits.
your videos are top notch. Informative and funny.
I agree!
I still say Malthus's theory still holds to some extent in the overall scheme of things because even though we can produce more food to feed an ever growing global population through innovation and technology, we (humans) will need more and more finite ARABLE land to grow this food. For now we are fine thanks to GM crops and livestock, but for how long?
Kagiso Lekoa and now we must the looming climate change/global warming
My favorite Crash Course video. I especially like the clip of malthus laughing in a thunderstorm
But doesn't this mean that Malthus was ultimately still right? We managed to increase our population limit pretty dramatically, sure, but there is still a limit eventually. Right?
Not really. Scientific advancement should keep pace with population growth. Even if agricultural advances don't keep up, we'll pursue other avenues, like colonizing space. I guess that implies breaking out of the closed Gaia system, but still.
The thing is, will the population on earth continue to increase infinitely? If you look at a lot of "modern countries" today it seems that there is a point where human mortality rate is so low that humans actually start to reproduce at a rate equal to or lesser then the mortality numbers.
I think birth control and family planning programs are the factors you seem to be missing. As countries advance their health care systems, and consequently lower infant mortality, raise life expectancy, etc, they also tend to adopt western style family planning regimes. This results in smaller families, closer to the replenishment rate.
You could say China was the first to recognize the problem 50 years ago with their one child policy.
+Irish Identity The idea that birth control is western is contentious. Third century India had a thriving society and lower birth rates. That is the period when the Kama Sutra was written. There used to be a theory that it was written as an instruction manual because most people didn't know good ways of having sex, so it was less enjoyable, so smaller birth rate. Now the idea that they had some form of birth control is more popular and the book was probably written to increase enjoyment, not create it.
Maureen Frost That's great and all but that's just not going to cut it. In some African countries the average person has 3 to 4 children without the economic resources to back it up. Algeria alone is projected to surpass the US in population in the coming decades. Earth can support it, but we as humans cannot distribute it. The best way to solve world hunger and overpopulation is to bring these nations into modernity thereby lowering the average birth rate. This will hardly be the apocalypse that this video speaks of, but I'd hate to see billions of people suffer just because they don't have the money to be if it from new farming technology.
One of the best episodes of CCWH. Thank you.
A warmer climate may have the outcome of forcing people away from coastal areas from flooding and extremely aired regions from increased heat but far more land that is currently unarable would become arable than the other way around. Farmers in the united states for example could plant crops further and further north. Even in the hottest places on earth most people can grow some sort of food, not so in the coldest. Global warming would almost certainly increase the total amount of food that could be produced on this planet.
You're forgetting desertification. Although I think there have been actual studies on how the amount of arable land will change, by like actual scientists who spent a good amount of time thinking about it and researching it as a full-time job, that you can look up instead of armchair-theorizing. I think they said yields would go down overall because of desertification, but I could be wrong.
But in the North the Ground would still be frozen and there might not be enough water for them to use. Forrest would have to die aswell.
Suchti322 I'm talking about the land thats on the margins. Land that is ALMOST profitable to farm but not quite. It would become profitable. I'm not saying that people in northern canada would be farming.
Rowan Evans Either way, we can safely say that the negative effects of land that is presently farmable becoming unfarmable would be at the very least severely mitigated by the land that is presently unfarmable becoming farmable.
However, it takes a while to cultivate new land, so it would certainly be disruptive to food supplies, with all the farmers moving north.
Also, land will be lost to rising sea levels, which you haven't considered. That could be significant for the agriculture of low lying areas.
Finally, lets say global warming continues until the south pole is suitable for agriculture. From then on, we're just going to be losing land to desertification.
Thanks Comrade John!
Next revoulution in Agriculture, is Genetic Modification.
We've been doing that for awhile. Carrots used to be purple.
+Drm Drm , aren't there still purple carrots in existence?
Yes, Gene-Mod food will be revolutionary, we can get food to grow faster, withstand harsher weather, but there might be a disaster if there were error in the programmed gene
Oli T No risk, no reward.
We are doing that right now. First to produce biofuels and in human consumption it's more complicated. No one wants to be the one who produces a crop which can harm millions.
I never knew about the American ships being turned away from Ireland or Malthus's connection to the famine. In school we just focused on how the famine was all Britain's fault, because they took the good food while the rotting food was left for us Irish.. Thanks for the interesting videos :)
So Thomas Malthus was like Thanos.
Limits to Growth is another good book which handles similar concepts. we are in a closed system and cannot sustain indefinite 'growth' either of population or consumption. Malthus did get it wrong in understanding the capacity for adaptation and technology however even if we move the 'crunch point' further away we are still approaching it, and already causing irreversible harm.
Kinda sad you didn't mention that Ebenezer Scrooge was partly based of TR Malthus.
"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."
Hey I remember watching your videos 2 years ago. I have always been a history buff and I am not sure why I stopped watching these great vids of yours :)
did any one recognize krang form the old teenage mutant ninja turtles in 0:42
Oh man i am glad that the open letter is gone, great episode dudes
the problem about population is that it is growing in the wrong areas
?
Hof H
Developed nations have birthrates below 2.1, which means without immigration their populations will fall. Developing nations don't need more population. They need to educate the ones they have, and build infrastructure. But that's where population growth is happening.
Sir, unless you were knighted by a current Monarch you are not a Sir.
flinx i see the issue here. you dont understand what industrializing does to a country and why industrialized countries stop growing.
Industrialization occurs which builds infrastructure and better overall standard of living. because of this fewer people die from diseases. As a result you no longer need to reproduce as much, and b/c wealthy people from poor nations want to move to a country with better infrastructure, education, healthcare, a more stable economy etc. they move to industrialized countries which means immigration is always happening to industrialized nations keeping the population stable if not growing.
Underdeveloped and developing countries who have yet to go through there industrial revolution have a greater population increase usually because of the mortality causing people to make more in case one dies. AND because there is a lot of unused resources in their country because they have yet to go through their industrial revolution. before a nation becomes industrialized they need more hands to harvest those resources, they dont have machines like we do.
And even then its a good thing the population is dropping, we already have too many people to live on this earth sustain-ably. we are killing ourselves through screwing too often!
XZDrake
Population density is meaningless if you don't consider the land. The Sahara desert is enormous and doesn't have water to support high density. The jungles do have water, but cutting them down is like cutting down the Amazon rain forest. That's bad too. It isn't desirable to keep growing populations until they use up available resources.
Africa has 1.1 billion people and that's plenty already. Those people need better education, housing, clean water, sanitation, nutrition. Increasing the population does nothing to help those issues, in fact it slows down progress on those things.
4:32 Louise :), also economics of production mean that meat, farmers' markets and non-genetically modified foods mean less foods: meat take over 4x the grain and water of other foods, foods produced at scale and shipped longer distances are often better for the environment and protein-specific genetic modifications (not the slice and splice genetics in current immunology) make much better seeds. The biggest threat to food stability is a lack of variety (the thousands of varieties of potatoes) - currently in seed banks and restricted by monopolistic companies like Monsanto.
Grow crops hydroponically, in underground farms or unused skyscrapers. Hunger solved.
Agreed, but it would also be necessary to use huge tracts of land producing solar power. If you've ever been to west Texas in the summer, you know that this is easily possible,and can be done using land that nature doesn't want, unlike current farming methods using huge tracts of land where nature really wants to be.
Do not believe no one noticed this flaw: plants need light
Permaculture is the solution to the food problem. A good permaculturist can feed 5 people/year/acre without synthetic chemicals.
Diana Peña I agree. Renewable energy may work on a local level to curb fossil fuel dependency, but it's just not reliable enough to meet humanity's voracious energy needs. The world where seven blocks of a city go into blackout because it's cloudy or because the wind isn't blowing is a world where you have mass riots. The world where every influential government and every private corporation who cares works to produce massive and expensive fusion energy plants is one with a high gap between rich and poor, but everyone gets a certain improvement on the quality of life. It's not the ideal solution, which would be something like a portable fusion reactor so cheap you can put one in everyone's backyard, but it's one of the best.
Unused skyscrapers generally aren't a thing and growing underground means providing all of the light.
The best structures for centralized hydroponic agriculture would be purpose built on cheap land.
What's the name of the picture at 1:16 . It kind of looks like the City Municipality building in Ljubljana
More humans = More problems.
Smarter people + less of annoying stupid ignorant people like you = less problem
augie nelson I **would like** very much to agree with you readily;but John not having covered "the population bomb" book gets me
More people more problem solvers.
Such as the inventors of the pill and condom, hence the slowdown in more people.
augie nelson hes right though
***** that does not make sense
*looks at everyone arguing *watches 7:30 - 7:50 over and over
WOOT WOOT For Jethro Tull! (an ancestor of mine)
Arrrggg - Malthus has probably been used by more terrible people as a justification for not supporting their fellow humans than any other person who ever lived.
One thing John didn't bring up was that as well as agricultural technology (e.g. Normal Borlaug) another invention that has made an enormous difference is reliable contraception. Malthus was a vicar of the Church of England and strongly disapproved of the concept of birth control.
If you want the latest enlightened thoughts on where the world is going in terms of population you absolutely can't do any better than Dr Hans Rosling : www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth
Is the picture at approx. 1.13 an old picture of Ljubljana? Where did you get it from?
The Ottomans did send aid to Ireland.
As did Queen Victoria. It wasn't nearly enough, but to say we gave "no aid, nor allowed anyone else to give it either" ( 4.10) is at best a gross oversimplification, and worst an outright lie.
mankytoes yeah, well, it was kind of a small amount. The hugely in-debt Ottomans basically gave more than the richest empire in the world (so much so that British diplomats actually asked the Ottoman Sultan to decrease his donation so as to not cause embarrassment for Victoria).
Yeah what he said wasn't true I guess (can't be bothered to rewatch the vid and check honestly), but this show tends to be PC and mention non-Western things and occasionally undermine Western ones.
Oh yeah the benevolent Ottoman empire..just ask the 1.5 massacred Armenians how benevolent they were. Oh, and a present day Turkey were it's illegal to even mention the massacre let alone teach it!!
There's a good critique of Maltusian thinking written by Henry C. Carey - 'The Principles of Social Science', 1858-59. It's available online from archive.org.
"Lol Malthus" - Most every economist ever
I'm glad you mentioned the incentives created by private property rights! They feed us, and we're grateful
I should show this to my AP human geography teacher we are learning about population
JETHRO TULL!
I enjoyed reading Malthus' words in one of my books. He said that there are preventive checks for population growth such as postponed marriage, contraception, abstinence, homosexuality, abortion and there are positive checks such as famine and war. Very interesting!
4:33
Can anyone identify the painters at 9:17 10:22? (It's not a quiz--I'd like to know.)
Whenever you have this question, screenshot the images then upload them to Google Images. Usually, google is able to identify works of art accurately