Which Is Worse: Underpopulation Or Overpopulation?

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This video was made in partnership with Gates Ventures. The human population of the world will soon peak – and then decrease – thanks to a combination of two quickly changing economic and educational trends.

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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
- Overpopulation: a situation in which there are too many people for the amount of food, materials, and space available.
- Underpopulation: a situation in which there are too few people to realize the economic potential of an area or support its population's standard of living.
- Exponential growth: a pattern of data that shows greater increases with passing time, creating the curve of an exponential function.
- Extreme poverty: an income below the international poverty line of ~$2/day
- Total fertility rate: the average number of children born to each woman over her lifetime.
- Population bomb: a theory that the human population would grow faster than available food supplies.

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David Goldenberg | Script Writer, Narrator and Director
Lizah van der Aart | Illustration, Video Editing and Animation
Nathaniel Schroeder | Music

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Question not answered: "Which is Worse"... not even really described.
Real title: "Why exponential population growth is starting to reverse".

enotdetcelfer
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Also worth noting. I’m 29. 5 years ago I was so sure I round be a mother. But with skyrocketing rent and cost of living, I just can’t afford a family. I can hardly afford me

roymustangsgirl
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I'm 32 and I still have to live with family because rent is too expensive here in the United States. Starting a family or meeting someone is below my priorities.

afrikasmith
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One thing that was overlooked was the problem of a shrinking *working* population, while the retired/disabled/unemployed population grows.

JWQweqOPDH
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One thing that's not spoken about enough is that the issue isn't necessarily the population in _absolute_ terms, it's the rate of change. If a population doubles or halves over 500 years, that's not likely too problematic for people within it - tax revenues, pensions, infrastructure...etc. will adapt.

But if a population doubles or halves in 50 years, then you are looking at a really serious strain on society and keeping a country functioning. _That's_ why South Korea, Japan, Italy and Bulgaria's (to name a few) are in a difficult situation. Their rates of decline are going to be _really_ steep, with the possibility of their populations halving by the end of the century. Which creates all sorts of problems the same decline over a longer period would not, like a disproportionately large elderly population and relatively small workforce.

merrymachiavelli
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When resources are limited. over-population is definitely much worse as more people are suffering.

nawwk
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Main issue is that most social securities depend on a very large ration of working:retired people. As it shrinks, the older generation has in some countries started to crush the younger ones.

Linares
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i think the bigger issue with decreasing population is that the average age of people gets higher. Meaning you have the same amount of elderly people but less working age young people to support them.

thestateofalaska
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Overpopulation problems IMHO are much worse than underpopulation problems. For example with overpopulation you get more pollution, more traffic, more people competing for resources. Underpopulation problems don’t really hold water because the Earth has had less people before. Underpopulation really only hurts giant corporations because they will have fewer people to sell their products to. For example if you are a company that sells cars, 10 billion people is better than 5 billion people because it means you have more people to sell cars to which means more 💰 for wealthy corporations.

jimmbear
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It constantly feels like we're both way too many humans, and that it creates huge issues, but never enough humans to find solutions to the problems we have.

ambergris
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the "money on average" is kind of useless if a few people have so much of the money

whoeveriamiam
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The bigger problem with overpopulation, I'd say, is that we can't keep up with our various wastes. And the more of us there are, the worse that problem becomes.

tenzhitihsien
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There is no overpopulation issue, there is a resource distribution issue. Wealth inequality is what causes people to have less kids

That_Guy
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Overpopulation is worse. I mean there would be enough wild food and wild animals around to eat if you were in a underpopulated world.

luxofortis
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The problem with the economy is that currently, it's goal is to grow instead of working on a cycle with a constant amount of resources, we keep the need of ever more and more while it doesn't make sense in an universe where you can't make up matter for the resources

OBO
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Both scenarios should be avoided. Slow consistent growth, or slow declines, or just flatlining the population numbers would probably lead to better results compared to extreme fluctuations.

DudeWhoSaysDeez
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The concern about under-population has priorities reversed. The economy exists to serve the population, not vice versa. It's upside-down to say the population should grow or shrink or do anything because we're worried about the economy. The economy needs to adjust and reconfigure itself to best serve the population.

mediawolf
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over population
is worse for the ecosystems that keep us alive

underpopulation is worse for only us but will also keep us sustainably alive

SIyMarbo
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This is a good overview of the birth rate tapering off, but I would point out some people have been worrying about population growth for much longer than a few decades. Famously Malthus even worried about it before the industrial revolution! But said revolution massively improved farm output with mechanised harvesting and fertiliser, averting Malthus’ fears.

kaitlyn__L
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A major problem with populations shrinking is you get more and more old people, which puts incredible pressures on a country’s finances (particularly pensions and health care), with fewer working age adults to pay for it all.

fenhen