Alarmingly, population growth in Africa is not slowing as quickly as demographers had expected. In 2004 the UN predicted that the continent’s population would grow from a little over 900m at the time, to about 2.3 billion in 2100. At the same time it put the world’s total population in 2100 at 9.1 billion, up from 7.3 billion today. But the UN’s latest estimates, published earlier this year, have global population in 2100 at 11.2 billion—and Africa is where almost all the newly added people will be. The UN now thinks that by 2100 the continent will be home to 4.4 billion people, an increase of more than 2 billion compared with its previous estimate.
If the new projections are right, geopolitics will be turned upside-down. By the end of this century, Africa will be home to 39% of the world’s population, almost as much as Asia, and four times the share of North America and Europe put together. At present only one of the world’s ten most populous countries is in Africa: Nigeria. In 2100, the UN believes, five will be: Nigeria, Congo, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Niger.
Although much could change in the next 85 years, none of those countries is a byword for stability or prosperity. A quadrupling of their population is unlikely to improve matters. If nothing else, the number of Africans seeking a better life in Europe and other richer places is likely to increase several times over.
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...even relative to their levels of income, health and education, the countries of sub-Saharan Africa have high fertility rates. That has prompted some scholars to posit cultural explanations.
One theory is that African men want big families to enhance their status; another that communal land-holding makes them economically beneficial, since resources are shared according to family size. Without dismissing these arguments, John Bongaarts of the Population Council, an international non-profit group, suggests a third: relatively low use of modern contraception. In many places, after all, vigorous campaigns to disseminate contraceptives and discourage big families have contributed to sudden and deep falls in fertility. Such a drive in the 1970s in Matlab, a district in Bangladesh, saw the share of women using contraceptives increase six-fold in 18 months.
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...The UN estimates that there are still 216m married women in the world who would like access to modern methods of contraception, but do not have it. The Copenhagen Consensus, a group of academics which rates development policies, reckons it would cost $3.6 billion a year to provide what they need. The benefits, in terms of the diminished need for infrastructure and social spending, reduced pollution and so on, would be $432 billion a year—120 times more. That is the second-most productive investment the project has identified, after liberalising trade, out of a welter of different development goals. Better yet, it helps with all the others.
I’m hoping to help fund a randomized control trial (RCT) in Burkina Faso or another very low income area to test whether providing free family planning service vouchers increases uptake.
It doesn’t address the possibility of differential cultural reproduction.
Specifically, it doesn’t address that some religious cultures may retain relatively higher reproduction rates even as mortality falls, without sufficient cultural attrition rates (1) to offset the difference.
If Islamic fundamentalism reproduces faster than other cultures, and the pro-immigration crowd combined with the PC police succeed in stifling criticism, the resulting world will be a global (2) melting pot ruled by suffering-maximizing Shariah law. That’s a worse existential risk than pandemics or climate change; in fact it would be worse than human extinction.
EA will not do any good without addressing the problem of religious fundamentalism and the differential growth of morally inferior culture.
(1) The punishment for apostasy under Islam is death.
(2) We already have an Islamic rape epidemic in Europe now, see Rotherham and Cologne.
“the resulting world will be a global (2) melting pot ruled by suffering-maximizing Shariah law.”
This seems extremely implausible to me. Historically, assimilation and globalization has been the norm. Also, Shariah isn’t even implemented in many Islamic countries, why would it be implemented in e.g. 2050 Britain?
“That’s a worse existential risk than pandemics or climate change; in fact it would be worse than human extinction.”
Hell no! Standards of living even in Saudi Arabia are probably better than they’ve been in most places for most of human history, and things are only going to get better.
On a more abstract level: It really seems like you are exaggerating the danger here. Since the danger is a particular culture/religious group, that’s especially insensitive & harmful.
You might say “I agree that the odds of this nightmare scenario happening are very small, but because the scenario is so bad, I think we should still be concerned about it.” I think that when we start considering odds <1% of sweeping cultural change, then we ought to worry about all sorts of other contenders in that category too. Communism could revive. A new, fiery religion could appear. World War Three could happen. So many things which would be worse, and more likely, then the scenario you are considering.
This seems extremely implausible to me. Historically, assimilation and globalization has been the norm.
“Assimilation and globalization” doesn’t imply a particular direction of value drift. It’s Eurocentric to assume that cultural assimilation always means non-European cultures assimilating in to European ones.
The word “imperialist” is typically used in conjunction with European empires, but the majority of historical empires were not European, and Europe has been a backwater throughout much of history. In particular, Islam already has a storied history of assimilating other cultures.
(I upvoted Carla_Fin’s comments back up towards 0 because I thought they explored important conceptual territory, even if they were expressed indelicately. It seems to me that if EA chooses to neglect particular lines of argument because pursuing them makes you seem like a mean person, that will be a failure mode for EA as a movement. As a reductio ad absurdum, how much potential do you think the EA movement would have if we weren’t willing to point out that PlayPumps is an ineffective charity, in order to avoid being insensitive to the founders of PlayPumps? Of course we should prevent the forum from devolving in to fruitless flame warring, and I move we all work to be especially collegial when discussing touchy topics.)
I’m sure the people whose skin is whipped to bloody shreds are very happy that their tormentors enjoy a high GDP.
A new, fiery religion could appear.
Most religions have historical roots, which are culturally perpetuated. Perhaps new cults can emerge, one might also fear the risk of new brainwashing technology. But why speculate about new religious fundamentalism when the old ones are alive and kicking?
odds <1% of sweeping cultural change
No one said anything about odds this low. They are far higher.
P.S.: A big fuck you to the people who downvoted my comment below visibility AFTER I pointed out the danger of stifling criticism in the name of PC; people like you are the reason why those girls in Rotherham could get raped without their molestors having to fear punishment.
I used to worry about this as well, but this piece was really helpful for me to put such worries to rest.
The Economist
Note that giving poor people free contraception also provides a nice solution to the meat eater problem.
I’d be curious to hear if anyone has arguments against free contraception as a cause area.
I’m hoping to help fund a randomized control trial (RCT) in Burkina Faso or another very low income area to test whether providing free family planning service vouchers increases uptake.
As discussed in http://www.povertyactionlab.org/publication/the-price-is-wrong , uptake of preventative health products increases significantly when they are provided for free to the poor. It would be interesting to see if the same holds true for contraceptives.
There is a great slideshow on what we have learned from free contraceptive programs.
I plan to post updates on https://www.facebook.com/groups/EffectiveFPCharities/
It doesn’t address the possibility of differential cultural reproduction.
Specifically, it doesn’t address that some religious cultures may retain relatively higher reproduction rates even as mortality falls, without sufficient cultural attrition rates (1) to offset the difference.
If Islamic fundamentalism reproduces faster than other cultures, and the pro-immigration crowd combined with the PC police succeed in stifling criticism, the resulting world will be a global (2) melting pot ruled by suffering-maximizing Shariah law. That’s a worse existential risk than pandemics or climate change; in fact it would be worse than human extinction.
EA will not do any good without addressing the problem of religious fundamentalism and the differential growth of morally inferior culture.
(1) The punishment for apostasy under Islam is death. (2) We already have an Islamic rape epidemic in Europe now, see Rotherham and Cologne.
“the resulting world will be a global (2) melting pot ruled by suffering-maximizing Shariah law.”
This seems extremely implausible to me. Historically, assimilation and globalization has been the norm. Also, Shariah isn’t even implemented in many Islamic countries, why would it be implemented in e.g. 2050 Britain?
“That’s a worse existential risk than pandemics or climate change; in fact it would be worse than human extinction.”
Hell no! Standards of living even in Saudi Arabia are probably better than they’ve been in most places for most of human history, and things are only going to get better.
On a more abstract level: It really seems like you are exaggerating the danger here. Since the danger is a particular culture/religious group, that’s especially insensitive & harmful.
You might say “I agree that the odds of this nightmare scenario happening are very small, but because the scenario is so bad, I think we should still be concerned about it.” I think that when we start considering odds <1% of sweeping cultural change, then we ought to worry about all sorts of other contenders in that category too. Communism could revive. A new, fiery religion could appear. World War Three could happen. So many things which would be worse, and more likely, then the scenario you are considering.
“Assimilation and globalization” doesn’t imply a particular direction of value drift. It’s Eurocentric to assume that cultural assimilation always means non-European cultures assimilating in to European ones.
The word “imperialist” is typically used in conjunction with European empires, but the majority of historical empires were not European, and Europe has been a backwater throughout much of history. In particular, Islam already has a storied history of assimilating other cultures.
(I upvoted Carla_Fin’s comments back up towards 0 because I thought they explored important conceptual territory, even if they were expressed indelicately. It seems to me that if EA chooses to neglect particular lines of argument because pursuing them makes you seem like a mean person, that will be a failure mode for EA as a movement. As a reductio ad absurdum, how much potential do you think the EA movement would have if we weren’t willing to point out that PlayPumps is an ineffective charity, in order to avoid being insensitive to the founders of PlayPumps? Of course we should prevent the forum from devolving in to fruitless flame warring, and I move we all work to be especially collegial when discussing touchy topics.)
I’m sure the people whose skin is whipped to bloody shreds are very happy that their tormentors enjoy a high GDP.
Most religions have historical roots, which are culturally perpetuated. Perhaps new cults can emerge, one might also fear the risk of new brainwashing technology. But why speculate about new religious fundamentalism when the old ones are alive and kicking?
No one said anything about odds this low. They are far higher.
P.S.: A big fuck you to the people who downvoted my comment below visibility AFTER I pointed out the danger of stifling criticism in the name of PC; people like you are the reason why those girls in Rotherham could get raped without their molestors having to fear punishment.