Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's your old pal Josh, and for this
Speaker 1: week's select, I've chosen our twenty fifteen episode on zero population.
Speaker 1: It's an extremely interesting episode about the upper limits of
Speaker 1: human population that the Earth can handle, and interestingly, it's
Speaker 1: also about just how many humans humanity can handle too.
Speaker 1: When does eating soil and green make sense? Maybe you
Speaker 1: can decide for yourself in this heady episode. Enjoy. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's
Speaker 1: Charles w. Chuck Bryant's This Stuff you Should Know podcast.
Speaker 1: Jerry's over there. Uh, it's pretty much the norm yep, yep.
Speaker 1: How you doing, man? How are you feeling?
Speaker 2: It is spectaculate, a little rough.
Speaker 1: Sir, Are you you'll make it through?
Speaker 2: What? Yeah? Yesterday we righted the uh the beginnings of
Speaker 2: Gin and Tonic season.
Speaker 1: It's definitely that kind of weather, for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard to not sit on the deck and
Speaker 2: have a citrusy, delightful drink.
Speaker 1: Nice going.
Speaker 2: So I'm just a little sleepy, but I'm feeling good.
Speaker 2: I feel like this topic is h is all about
Speaker 2: being sort of down in the dumps.
Speaker 1: A little bit. All it depends. It depends on where
Speaker 1: you land, and you just place yourself pretty squarely in
Speaker 1: the gloom and Doom camp.
Speaker 2: My friend, No, I'm actually not in the doom and
Speaker 2: Gloom camp.
Speaker 1: I was about to say, which, if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: in our episode, was Malthus right about carrying capacity? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You overtly said that you are an optimist.
Speaker 2: That's right, not a Malthusian naysayer.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I forgot about that one. We've touched on this
Speaker 2: a few times.
Speaker 1: Uh huh. We talked about We did a whole profile
Speaker 1: in Norman Borlog alone on our very short lived and
Speaker 1: reasonably so live webcast.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, do you.
Speaker 1: Remember we did basically a book report on Borlog.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was well, I think he's even controversial.
Speaker 1: He is very much so.
Speaker 2: You know, you win a Nobel Prize but.
Speaker 1: For saving a billion lives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but still people are gonna poo poo you yep,
Speaker 2: you get poop pood interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: So if you don't know what we're talking about, you
Speaker 1: should probably press pause, go listen to the Mauthus episode,
Speaker 1: go to stuff you should know dot com slash podcasts.
Speaker 1: I think it's plural slash archive. Make that your homepage
Speaker 1: and all seven hundred and change episodes are there, and
Speaker 1: then do control f is everybody doing this so far?
Speaker 1: And then type in mouths M A L T h
Speaker 1: U S. It's gonna highlight that link, click that and
Speaker 1: press play and then come back to us. That's right,
Speaker 1: we'll wait boom. So so we're back.
Speaker 2: It's been an hour.
Speaker 1: What we're talking about is carrying capacity in part. But
Speaker 1: carrying capacity, Chuckers, is just kind of a it's a
Speaker 1: reflection of a larger issue, and that larger issue is population,
Speaker 1: specifically overpopulation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and is that a thing or not is a
Speaker 2: big question.
Speaker 1: Because I mean, at any given point in time, you know,
Speaker 1: they have, like the CIA World back Book has, you know,
Speaker 1: a pretty good assessment of how many people are alive.
Speaker 1: It's a total guess. It's a total estimate. We could
Speaker 1: be at ten billion right now, we could be at
Speaker 1: one hundred million, and everybody just is really terrible at counting.
Speaker 1: The point is, we don't specifically know. It's probably pretty accurate, sure,
Speaker 1: but it's still a guess. The point isn't to shoot
Speaker 1: holes in the estimates of how many people are alive,
Speaker 1: on the planet. It's to point out that, like, there's
Speaker 1: so many people we don't know and we can't possibly
Speaker 1: know at any given point in time, and that has
Speaker 1: led a lot of people to say, well, wait a minute.
Speaker 1: There's this thing called carrying capacity, which is the Earth's
Speaker 1: ability to support and sustain us humans and really any creatures.
Speaker 1: But really, we're just kind of concerned with us humans
Speaker 1: at this moment and with a quality of life, right
Speaker 1: and sustainably. Yes, those two factors have to be met
Speaker 1: or else you're putting a tremendous amount of stress on
Speaker 1: Earth and you're eventually bringing about your own demise. So
Speaker 1: a lot of people are saying, like, we're probably past
Speaker 1: caring capacity and we just don't know it yet, right,
Speaker 1: or other people are saying, there's really no such thing
Speaker 1: as caring capacity. Thanks to human ingenuity, anytime we come
Speaker 1: up against it, we'll figure out a way around it.
Speaker 1: And Norman Borlog was a way to go. But before
Speaker 1: Borlog really became famous, there was a lot of people
Speaker 1: who were legitimately concerned that we were all going to die.
Speaker 2: Yeah Borlog, if you haven't listened to that one, if
Speaker 2: you didn't follow Josh's instructions like a good little podcast listener.
Speaker 2: He was one of the leaders of the Green Revolution
Speaker 2: in the sixties and seventies, in which we made great
Speaker 2: advances in agricultural in agriculture, in yields. Yeah, new types
Speaker 2: of wheat in Mexico, new types of rice in India
Speaker 2: that yielded much much more than they ever had.
Speaker 1: And plus they were drought resistant, flood resistant. They could
Speaker 1: stand up and hold more grain.
Speaker 2: They could stand up and say hello.
Speaker 1: They basically they could pick the daily double at high Leaya.
Speaker 2: So Borlog was, you know, by all standards, a very
Speaker 2: smart guy. He cared very much about people.
Speaker 1: He wasn't doing it for fame or riches or anything
Speaker 1: like that. Like this guy felt like he was working
Speaker 1: against the clock. And if he didn't and he wasn't
Speaker 1: the only one doing this, yeah he's the most famous.
Speaker 1: But if he didn't do it, then, yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of people were going to starve.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think I proposed to you before this
Speaker 2: that we do just one on the Green Revolution. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I think that will be a one two three
Speaker 2: podcast suite. I can't plain this one.
Speaker 1: I love this stuff. Yeah, Psychology population that was another
Speaker 1: and what we did too, was how population Works. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it sounds so like I bleedingly boring, but it
Speaker 1: turned out to be really interesting stuff. So go read
Speaker 1: that too. We'll wait, go ahead, we'll pause.
Speaker 2: And we're back, and it's nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and everybody's a little nervous.
Speaker 2: Everyone is nervous. And Stanford biology professor Paul Erlick. There's
Speaker 2: another famous Paul Erwick. This is Paul our Airlick. I believe.
Speaker 1: Oh it's a different one.
Speaker 2: Well there's two, dude.
Speaker 1: I did not realize that.
Speaker 2: What do you mean.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm familiar with the other Erlk. Then I guess, well,
Speaker 1: who was the other one?
Speaker 2: Again?
Speaker 1: He wrote some other famous books. He's a biologist. I
Speaker 1: think it's not the same guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The other guy was a German physician who worked
Speaker 2: in chemotherapy, immunology.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's not what I'm thinking of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, different guy.
Speaker 1: So this guy he wrote other things besides The Population Bomb.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so in nineteen sixty eight, he writes the Population Bomb,
Speaker 2: goes on the Tonight Show, it explodes, this huge hit.
Speaker 1: Apparently he was on more than once.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and everyone got super nervous because his book started
Speaker 2: with these words, the battle de f he edd all
Speaker 2: of humanity is over.
Speaker 1: Oh good.
Speaker 2: In the nineteen seventies, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds
Speaker 2: of millions of people are going to starve to death
Speaker 2: in spite of any crash programs embarked upon.
Speaker 1: Now, oh, that's not so good.
Speaker 2: That's how he starts his book. He basically says there's
Speaker 2: going to be a Malthusian collapse. At one point in
Speaker 2: the book he said, if I was a betting man,
Speaker 2: I would wager by the year two thousand, England won't
Speaker 2: be around.
Speaker 1: Boom. He drops the mic. Yeah, and we should probably
Speaker 1: mention who mauthusays. Thomas Mauthis was a very forward thinking, smart,
Speaker 1: mathematically inclined minister, I believe in the early nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: late eighteenth century. Yeah, an economist, and he was the
Speaker 1: one who said we have a problem here everyone. I've
Speaker 1: just done the math. And population grows exponentially, but our
Speaker 1: foods apply grows linearly, and so we are destined to
Speaker 1: outgrow our food supply. And that's where the idea of
Speaker 1: carrying capacity came from. So Malthus and Malthusians are the
Speaker 1: people who think like we're going to exceed the food
Speaker 1: supply eventually and die from famines. And ERLK was one
Speaker 1: of the most vocal and alarmist neo Malthusians around.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, and he scared the pants off of people.
Speaker 2: Back then. In nineteen sixty eight there were about three
Speaker 2: and a half billion people, and the birth rate. We're
Speaker 2: going to talk a lot about birth rates and such,
Speaker 2: because there's a lot to do with this.
Speaker 1: Buckle up.
Speaker 2: The American women had three and a half babies on average,
Speaker 2: and the global birth rate was five babies per woman.
Speaker 2: Seems like a lot to me. It was a lot
Speaker 2: five kids.
Speaker 1: Supposedly, in the fifties we were at six the global
Speaker 1: average fertility it was six babies per woman. And that's
Speaker 1: not just per woman. That's you want to talk about
Speaker 1: fertility rates, sure, So, fertility rate basically is the number
Speaker 1: of live births that a population has assigned to the
Speaker 1: population of women thought to reasonably be a reproductive age.
Speaker 1: So fifteen to forty four times a thousand, So you
Speaker 1: take all of those, figure out the how many women
Speaker 1: there are, and then you multiply it by a thousand,
Speaker 1: so you have something like fifty berths per one thousand
Speaker 1: women age fifteen to forty four and that's your fertility rate. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: that's you can figure out how many actual births are
Speaker 1: taking place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with reasonable detail. Yeah. So like malthus Erlich did
Speaker 2: the math in the sixties and said, you know what,
Speaker 2: our food production isn't keeping up, just like Mautha said,
Speaker 2: we're in big, big trouble, wrote the population Bomb and
Speaker 2: co founded Zero Population Growth, which is an organization that
Speaker 2: is now called what.
Speaker 1: Are they called now, Population Connection?
Speaker 2: Population Connection very a little sunnier.
Speaker 1: Sounds electric company.
Speaker 2: It does, and you should check out their website. It's good.
Speaker 2: They have a lot of good information on them, just
Speaker 2: to help you, you know, figure out what you might
Speaker 2: want to believe. So people are scared the Zero Population
Speaker 2: Growth group. Their aim is to uh, their big thing
Speaker 2: is is contraception and giving women control of their reproduction
Speaker 2: basically and their fertility. Right, that's the you decide how
Speaker 2: many kids you want exactly they have that many.
Speaker 1: They've identified that that there's an issue that could easily
Speaker 1: address over population, and that is cutting out unwanted pregnancies
Speaker 1: or pregnancies or having unwanted kids. They've identified that, you know,
Speaker 1: plenty of people there are two different fertility rates. There's
Speaker 1: the wanted fertility rate and then there's the unwanted fertility rate.
Speaker 1: Pretty much across the b in any country in the world,
Speaker 1: the unwanted fertility rate is higher, whether slightly or largely,
Speaker 1: than the wanted fertility rate. So they're saying, like, if
Speaker 1: the unwanted fertility rate is like three point eight babies
Speaker 1: per woman in a given country and the wanted fertility
Speaker 1: rate is like two point five, well, if we can
Speaker 1: just figure out a way to only have the wanted pregnancies,
Speaker 1: then you are doing a lot to control over population.
Speaker 1: And the way that they figured out how to address
Speaker 1: this is to just basically spread awareness and access to contraception.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, the two pronged approach. What their goal is
Speaker 2: is they aren't saying that people should not have babies
Speaker 2: like you said. They're saying people should only have the
Speaker 2: babies that they want to have exactly, and their ultimate
Speaker 2: goal is to have a sustainable global birth rate below
Speaker 2: the replacement level, which means there's a lot of different factors,
Speaker 2: but it basically means that the world is not growing.
Speaker 2: When it's like working a club at a door, being
Speaker 2: a doorman, one person goes out, one person comes in. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you got a little clicker. Yeah, that's basically what that
Speaker 2: means is, you know, someone dies, someone can be born, right,
Speaker 2: and of course it's not that one to one, but
Speaker 2: you know, well.
Speaker 1: If you're in a big picture a way, if you're
Speaker 1: a bouncer and you're tasked with keeping it an even ratio,
Speaker 1: you just have to remember that you can't keep people
Speaker 1: inside until a new person comes along, because that's called kidnapping. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you still they still have to leave and you have
Speaker 1: to deal with an imbalance for a little while.
Speaker 2: That's true. Right now. The replacement level of fertility rate
Speaker 2: in the US is two point one babies for woman
Speaker 2: and three point zero and other developing countries because they
Speaker 2: have higher death rates and shorter lifespans, which makes sense.
Speaker 1: So we were onto the replacement rate basically, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: The replacement rate is the number of kids a woman
Speaker 1: of reproductive age would have to have to replace herself.
Speaker 1: And she's not just replacing herself, she's replacing herself and
Speaker 1: her male mate who she's reproducing with. Yes, yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of gross to think that a woman is
Speaker 1: giving birth to a boy and a girl who can
Speaker 1: mate and reproduce her. That's not the point you want
Speaker 1: them to go mingle with other people's babies. But the
Speaker 1: replacement rate, you would think then is two, right for
Speaker 1: every woman two point zero kids is what you need
Speaker 1: to have to have an even replacement rate. That means
Speaker 1: it is people die, new people are born, and the
Speaker 1: population ever grows or declines, it stays the same. The
Speaker 1: replacement rate is never actually two point zero.
Speaker 2: Though, those two point one right now.
Speaker 1: And the reason why is because we humans tend to
Speaker 1: have more male offspring than female. Apparently for every one
Speaker 1: hundred girls that are born, one hundred and seven boys
Speaker 1: are born, So the actual replacement rate is two point
Speaker 1: zero seven and then they round up to two point one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Plus there's I mean, there's a lot of other
Speaker 2: factors too, for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Other factors include things like you said, like infant mortality rates, lifespan,
Speaker 1: immigration into a certain area, And the thing is of
Speaker 1: birth rates or fertility rates and replacement rates. The replacement
Speaker 1: rate tends to be a little more stable the birth rate.
Speaker 1: The fertility rate has a lot more to do with
Speaker 1: social attitudes, access to healthcare, education, and it can change
Speaker 1: dramatically from place to place, whereas say, anywhere in the
Speaker 1: Western world, the developed world, the replacement rates about two
Speaker 1: point one.
Speaker 2: Yeh, exactly, that's in the three point zero for the
Speaker 2: developing countries.
Speaker 1: All the demographers just stood up and were clapping.
Speaker 2: So clearly Eric was not correct in his dire predictions.
Speaker 1: Still well off.
Speaker 2: Here we are in twenty fifteen and there are problems,
Speaker 2: but England is still around. That was a bad prediction,
Speaker 2: four billion people having starved to death. But does that
Speaker 2: mean that he was wrong altogether? No, not necessarily, because
Speaker 2: right now, and this was a pretty startling stat to me,
Speaker 2: over the past one hundred and ten years, we have
Speaker 2: grown from one point six billion people to seven point
Speaker 2: two billion people in one hundred and ten years.
Speaker 1: Well, we're expected to get up to nine point two
Speaker 1: in another thirty five years by twenty fifty.
Speaker 2: And so one of the reasons we have this many people,
Speaker 2: most of the reasons are positive because of like advances
Speaker 2: in healthcare. The lifespan in nineteen hundred was thirty one
Speaker 2: years old, and now it's seventy or maybe even a
Speaker 2: little bit higher, because that was twenty twelve. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: imagine it is a little bit higher. And the infant
Speaker 2: mortality rate globally in nineteen hundred was one hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty five deaths per one thousand live births. In twenty
Speaker 2: thirteen it was down to thirty four. So that's why
Speaker 2: there's more peoples, because we're doing better at taking care
Speaker 2: of ourselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are two huge factors when it comes to demographics
Speaker 1: and population, because the longer you live, the more old
Speaker 1: people you have, so therefore, the less babies you need
Speaker 1: to replace those people, and the fewer babies that die
Speaker 1: or that survive infancy will be adults one day exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but these are the really if you're a demographer, the
Speaker 1: sweet spot is that working age. So when you're a demographer,
Speaker 1: especially one that's economics minded, Chuck, Yes, that sweet spot
Speaker 1: the reproductive working age people. That's a good sizable population
Speaker 1: you want to have. If you have a lot of babies,
Speaker 1: well then you have a lot of people who are
Speaker 1: raising those babies, so those babies are dependent on So
Speaker 1: say you have a lot fewer women in the workforce,
Speaker 1: so your workforce is depleted. If you have a lot
Speaker 1: of like an aging population, you have a lot of
Speaker 1: older people who have already aged out of the workforce
Speaker 1: and are now dependent on the taxes paid by that workforce.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So a large population of either babies or old people,
Speaker 1: and god forbid both at the same time. It puts
Speaker 1: a lot of strain on the middle. Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Sure, So when you have a longer
Speaker 1: life expectancy and a lower infant mortality rate like we
Speaker 1: have now in the developed world, you want to have
Speaker 1: something closer to the replacement rate.
Speaker 2: Right, you know, which makes sense?
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I got some more stats too that would seem to
Speaker 2: back up Airlick's predictions, or not predictions, but at least
Speaker 2: his gloomy outlook.
Speaker 1: He was a gloomy dude currently.
Speaker 2: You know, I couldn't find much on what he felt today. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm curious he's still around. I'm curious. I bet there's
Speaker 2: some good interviews. I'm going to check that out. So currently,
Speaker 2: as of last year, an estimated eight hundred and five
Speaker 2: million people go to bed Hungary every night, more than
Speaker 2: half of which are in Asia. One in four people
Speaker 2: in Sub Saharan Africa was chronically malnourished. One hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty million people worldwide lack access to clean water, contributing
Speaker 2: to about eight hundred and fifty thousand deaths per year.
Speaker 2: And here's the thing, though, is we're living in cities
Speaker 2: now more than ever. People are moving into cities, which
Speaker 2: is a good thing in one way because it provides
Speaker 2: a lot of opportunity, economic opportunity for people, especially in
Speaker 2: developing countries. But when you look at these cities, a
Speaker 2: lot of them are full of slums and sweatshops. In
Speaker 2: these developing nations, something.
Speaker 1: Like half of the population and a lot of cities
Speaker 1: live in slum conditions.
Speaker 2: Yes, without are in Africa sixty one percent.
Speaker 1: So you think sub Saharan Africa, I think rural in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. So yes, I'm aware that they
Speaker 1: lack access to clean drinking water, and that's an issue
Speaker 1: that Sub Saharan Africa faces. Yes, you don't think about
Speaker 1: that being an issue in a city, But the problem
Speaker 1: with slums is they very rarely have access to clean
Speaker 1: drinking water in the exact same way that places like
Speaker 1: rural Africa have the same problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're not even I mean, that's that's clean
Speaker 2: drinking water, and like sanitation and shelter. We're not even
Speaker 2: talking about education and healthcare and like all the things
Speaker 2: that people need to live a fruitful life. You know, yep,
Speaker 2: So cities are a problem. Even if Eric was wrong,
Speaker 2: there are clearly issues. Some people will argue, and we'll
Speaker 2: get to the critics and stuff later, but a lot
Speaker 2: of people argue that it's distribution of food and stuff
Speaker 2: like that, Like, we have the resources, we're just not
Speaker 2: dividing it out properly.
Speaker 1: Right. And apparently, if I read that, if everyone lived
Speaker 1: like an American and consumed like an American does, yeah,
Speaker 1: the caring capacity would be something like two billion, So
Speaker 1: we would have already far exceeded it. Sure, but if
Speaker 1: everybody lived with just the minimal amount that they need
Speaker 1: to live, the carring capacity would be something like forty billion.
Speaker 1: We've been able to sustain the car as it is
Speaker 1: right now because not everybody lives like an American. But
Speaker 1: if you're an American, that means that a lot of
Speaker 1: the other world, especially developing world, thinks that you are
Speaker 1: over consuming by a lot. And that's really evident in
Speaker 1: there's a graph that went around recently that shows water
Speaker 1: use in agriculture by type of product, so everything from
Speaker 1: like soy to beef. It showed how much water, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: did you see that.
Speaker 2: I didn't see that, but I've seen stuff like that,
Speaker 2: because beef is like a huge consumer of water.
Speaker 1: Right, one hundred and six point two eight gallons of
Speaker 1: water used to produce one ounce of beef. That's a lot.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of water. And so that's that's part
Speaker 1: of the point. Whereas if everybody's and apparently in China
Speaker 1: and India and these ascending countries with ascending economies, one
Speaker 1: of the great benefits of being part of the developed
Speaker 1: world is you can get steak anytime you want, baby, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I want a big one right now, put it
Speaker 1: in front of me. I'll give you some money here. Here,
Speaker 1: just take this and put in your pocket. There's some
Speaker 1: money for you. Give me my stake, and you don't
Speaker 1: care how much water it took. Yeah, And it's there
Speaker 1: these people who are saying they don't necessarily agree with Aeric,
Speaker 1: but they're saying he wasn't totally.
Speaker 2: Off right, he was alarmed as clearly they're a problems.
Speaker 1: They're saying, this is one of the problems, right, you know,
Speaker 1: this is one of the problems with too many people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so getting back to contraception and zero population
Speaker 2: growth are now the population connection their big goal. They
Speaker 2: say there are two hundred and twenty two million women
Speaker 2: in the developing world who have an unmet need for
Speaker 2: family planning. So they're not saying, you know, we want
Speaker 2: to put our ideals on you and you shouldn't be
Speaker 2: having kids. They're saying they are that many women that
Speaker 2: are like, I don't want these five kids I would
Speaker 2: have wanted to, and I either don't know about contraception,
Speaker 2: don't have contraception, or I have literally no idea how
Speaker 2: conception works.
Speaker 1: Right. Sadly for a lot of them, say a lot
Speaker 1: the first idea that women just need access to contraception
Speaker 1: and they will use it. Yeah, and they're they're they're
Speaker 1: working on that, right, sure, but they've found in studies
Speaker 1: it's something like ten percent or less of the women
Speaker 1: who are defined as having unmet contraceptive needs cite a
Speaker 1: lack of access as to why they're having unwanted kids. Instead,
Speaker 1: they're saying it's things like family pressure or societal pressure
Speaker 1: to have a bunch of kids. Like you're saying, like
Speaker 1: not understanding contraception or how conception works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they say they don't believe that they need contraception.
Speaker 2: If you have sex infrequently or after birth, after I've
Speaker 2: had one kid, we don't need to use contraception anymore,
Speaker 2: like literally not knowing how conception works. Right, So that's
Speaker 2: a big educational hurdle that Population Connection is trying to overcome.
Speaker 1: Right, So they're saying it's not just getting contraception to women,
Speaker 1: it's educating them on how to use it and changing
Speaker 1: their social outlook.
Speaker 2: Yeah, changing the culture. Yeah, largely men, you know, saying
Speaker 2: one more babies, right, you know, like revolutionary road or something,
Speaker 2: you know. All Right, so we're going to talk a
Speaker 2: little bit after the break about what the critics of
Speaker 2: zero population growth have to say.
Speaker 1: So we're back. Yes, we're talking about solutions to overpopulation,
Speaker 1: but not everybody thinks it's a problem. Yeah, some people
Speaker 1: say over population is a myth. Yeah, they say that.
Speaker 1: Eric in and of it himself damaged his own argument.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he got a lot of personal heat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, still does because of the language he used. It
Speaker 1: was so alarmist, starting his book off with you know
Speaker 1: that we've already lost and no matter what we do,
Speaker 1: billions of people are going to die. And then it
Speaker 1: not panning out, saying that England wasn't going to be
Speaker 1: around in thirty years. I mean, that was putting a
Speaker 1: lot on the line, and so a lot of people said,
Speaker 1: your specific landmarks or milestones were unmet. Therefore your whole
Speaker 1: arguments out the window. And some people believe that other
Speaker 1: people are like, that's not necessarily true. That is alarmist
Speaker 1: as well, possibly your reaction area at least. But some
Speaker 1: people say I still don't agree with erlik because humans
Speaker 1: are smart. We can figure our way out of any problem.
Speaker 2: That's right. Critics will say that humans are not parasites
Speaker 2: of the earth. We are the saviors of Earth, and
Speaker 2: we are the ones that are coming up with these
Speaker 2: solutions like the Green Revolution and longer lifespans and progress
Speaker 2: sing medically to help people live longer.
Speaker 1: I don't know about saviors of Earth. I think that's
Speaker 1: stretching it a little bit. I think we abstract a
Speaker 1: little too much to be called saviors of Earth.
Speaker 2: Well, I guarantee you there's a lot of people that
Speaker 2: think humans are saviors of Earth. Sure, you know.
Speaker 1: I would see us more as like Homer with Pinchy
Speaker 1: the lobster again in the salt water and fresh water,
Speaker 1: trying to strike the balance I wouldn't call him a
Speaker 1: savior of either the Goldfish or Pinchy at that moment.
Speaker 1: He's just keeping them both in stasis.
Speaker 2: How many times would you reference Pinchy the lot that's
Speaker 2: probably seven seven. Yeah, it's not bad. It's one for
Speaker 2: every one hundred shows roughly. Other critics will say that
Speaker 2: low birth rates are no good for the economy, like
Speaker 2: you were talking about earlier, older people and babies. Well,
Speaker 2: I guess low birth rates wouldn't affect that, but older
Speaker 2: people are more of a tax on society than they
Speaker 2: are spinders right and investors right.
Speaker 1: But in the same way, if you have too many babies,
Speaker 1: that's a big tax. Eventually that those babies will be
Speaker 1: a workforce.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like we spend money exactly.
Speaker 1: So the baby boom and the post war boom economic
Speaker 1: boom in the United States, it's not coincidental that they
Speaker 1: went hand in hand. There are a bunch of people
Speaker 1: having babies and eventually they grew into the workforce and
Speaker 1: they made a bunch of money in the eighties for
Speaker 1: the United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's also supported in developing countries. More than
Speaker 2: seventy countries are categorized now as low fertility with two
Speaker 2: babies or less per woman, and those areas are expected
Speaker 2: to make big economic gains in the coming decades because
Speaker 2: they're going to be people to spend money right and
Speaker 2: be in the workforce.
Speaker 1: And there's kind of a few ways that the workforce
Speaker 1: and wealth in the economy and birth rates are all
Speaker 1: kind of tied together too. It turns out that if
Speaker 1: you give a woman rights to her own contraceptive decisions,
Speaker 1: ye sure, the birth rate tends to inevitably fall as
Speaker 1: a result. And then when that happens, it happens because
Speaker 1: some women have more babies than they want to when
Speaker 1: they don't have right to their own contraceptive decisions. Another
Speaker 1: reason is when they have those kind of rights, they
Speaker 1: usually also have the right to an education. When they
Speaker 1: enter school, they will tend to put off having kids
Speaker 1: because once they graduate from school, they'll usually enter the workforce,
Speaker 1: and so just by nature of getting to the whole
Speaker 1: thing later on in life, they're having fewer kids as well.
Speaker 1: And when you have more educated women in the workforce,
Speaker 1: your economy is stronger too, So directly and by proxy,
Speaker 1: lower birth rates are associated with the stronger economy. But again,
Speaker 1: you don't want to get too low, because if you
Speaker 1: get too low, then all of a sudden, the generation
Speaker 1: before it started to taper off is going to be
Speaker 1: bigger than the generation that's working. And if it costs
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars in tax money to keep the average
Speaker 1: retiree afloat, say in the United States, well that divided
Speaker 1: by a thousand people is a lot easier to bear
Speaker 1: than divided by one hundred people one hundred working people,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got to keep the old folks and keep
Speaker 2: them in stake and ovaltine right. You know.
Speaker 1: So if you're an economist, a demographer, whatever, everybody's kind
Speaker 1: of saying like, you want to get a country developed,
Speaker 1: and you want to get them at that two point
Speaker 1: one replacement rate, and everything will be hunky dory from there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the other thing a critic might say, too,
Speaker 2: is and this is what we were talking about earlier
Speaker 2: about the environment, the impact on the environment, like we're
Speaker 2: just going to destroy our world with so many people.
Speaker 2: It turns out that impact carbon emissions aren't really tied
Speaker 2: to population growth rates. It's tied to per capita income levels.
Speaker 2: By evidence that China and the US have some of
Speaker 2: the lowest fertility rates right now, and we are the worst.
Speaker 2: So it's not because we have all these people, right
Speaker 2: it's because we're consuming too much as Americans exactly, and
Speaker 2: I guess in China as well.
Speaker 1: Which actually makes it seem kind of nerve racking that sure,
Speaker 1: India and China with these enormous populations are starting to
Speaker 1: become wealthier and wealthier, because that's just going to make
Speaker 1: it even worse as far as the environment goes.
Speaker 2: Did you check out the Population Connection site?
Speaker 1: No? I didn't.
Speaker 2: They have a pretty interesting faq that if you don't
Speaker 2: know where you stand, I mean, it's helpful to read.
Speaker 2: Like they say things like, instead of we want to
Speaker 2: focus on quality of life, not quantity, and instead of
Speaker 2: saying how many people can the earth support, maybe how
Speaker 2: many people can't orth support? Because right now, all these
Speaker 2: people are dying from lack of you know, clean water
Speaker 2: and sanitation and food. And there's the counter argument that
Speaker 2: you hear from critics a lot. I've seen a stat
Speaker 2: run around that the entire world's population could live in Texas, Texas.
Speaker 1: It's so mind boggling. I have trouble like believing it. Well,
Speaker 1: I think somebody forgot to carry a one or something.
Speaker 2: No, it's true. Population Connection says, sure they can. You
Speaker 2: could fit everyone in Texas. You could also fit forty
Speaker 2: people in a phone booth. Yeah, but Texas, they said,
Speaker 2: in no way has the carrying capacity to take care
Speaker 2: of those people. So it's a little bit of a
Speaker 2: hollow you know, fact that you throw out when you
Speaker 2: say that, right, Like, sure you can jam everyone in there.
Speaker 2: Texas would be like.
Speaker 1: What are you guys doing here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, But it's pretty interesting stuff. I recommend people
Speaker 2: read their FAQ. It seems like they definitely have the
Speaker 2: right mindset because what they want to do is, you know,
Speaker 2: make sure people have a good quality of life all
Speaker 2: over the world.
Speaker 1: Well, I will go read their FAQ because I suddenly
Speaker 1: feel underprepared. But I will tell you that the impression
Speaker 1: that I have from research them without going on their
Speaker 1: website was I didn't find anything like beware population Connection
Speaker 1: or the population Connection myth or anything like that. There's
Speaker 1: definitely debate on the other side saying overpopulation is a myth,
Speaker 1: but no one seems to be attacking Population Connection as
Speaker 1: like a nefarious organization.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because they're not saying don't have babies.
Speaker 1: Right, And that's a really sticky situation to be in
Speaker 1: because a lot of people are like, well, God wants
Speaker 1: us to have as many babies as we possibly can.
Speaker 1: Who are you to be meddling in that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It's a fine line that a group like that has
Speaker 1: to walk, and they seem to be walking at fine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just saying like, here's some contraception. Maybe let's not
Speaker 1: have unwanted babies. Let those little angels stay in heaven
Speaker 1: and we'll just go from there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's their homepage, all right, the Behavioral Sink.
Speaker 2: What where did you find this?
Speaker 1: I don't remember where I ran across it, but I'd
Speaker 1: read it a while back. But I have to give
Speaker 1: a shout out to Josh from Jersey, the original Jersey,
Speaker 1: not New Jersey, who recently wrote in to suggest we
Speaker 1: do an episode on that, and had perfect timing because
Speaker 1: he wrote in after you'd selected this one, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and I was like, these two would go great together,
Speaker 1: hand in hand. Yeah, So thanks Josh for reminding us.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you Josh for thanking Josh, which Josh, I'm
Speaker 2: thinking all the Josh's Okay. So in nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 2: this dude named John B. Calhoun. This is one of
Speaker 2: his experiments. This guy, what he liked to do was
Speaker 2: bill rat and mouse utopias.
Speaker 1: You've been doing it since the forties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And basically with the aim to see what would
Speaker 2: happen to a population, in this case mice or rats
Speaker 2: if you gave them a perfect mouse world.
Speaker 1: Right, And he called these world universes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the one in nineteen seventy two, the one that
Speaker 1: really like made all the headlines, I guess, was called
Speaker 1: Universe twenty five. So he had twenty four under his
Speaker 1: bell already, and it was pretty good size. It was
Speaker 1: one hundred over one hundred inches square, The walls were
Speaker 1: fifty four inches high. It had space for let's see,
Speaker 1: what's two hundred and fifty six times fifteen, chuck.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go with about in my head. I'm gonna say,
Speaker 2: like close to thirty thousand.
Speaker 1: It is exactly thirty eight hundred.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I meant.
Speaker 1: I meant three thousand, thirty eight hundred and forty okay, okay,
Speaker 1: So there was enough room comfortably for thirty eight hundred
Speaker 1: and forty mice. Yes, And long before that he introduced
Speaker 1: four breeding pairs, so eight mice he first is introduced
Speaker 1: to Universe twenty five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was well stocked by the way.
Speaker 1: They had everything they want, food.
Speaker 2: Water that was cleaned out. They were all disease free,
Speaker 2: no predators, yeah, no, yeah. He threw a cat in
Speaker 2: there once.
Speaker 1: Right, just to keep them on their toes or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was it was mouse heaven is
Speaker 2: what they called it.
Speaker 1: Yes, and he actually did in papers about these universes.
Speaker 1: He would refer to them as heaven or utopia, and
Speaker 1: he would use words like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he introduces these four breeding pairs of mice to
Speaker 1: Universe twenty five, and after one hundred and four days,
Speaker 1: it took them to finally settle down and be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this place is actually pretty great. It's not too good
Speaker 1: to be true, despite the fact that it seems to
Speaker 1: be built by human hand, which is weird, and the
Speaker 1: temperature never changes, but we're just gonna say it's probably fine, right,
Speaker 1: and start breeding. And they started breeding pretty quickly. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: they started doubling in population every fifty five days after.
Speaker 2: That, right, Yeah, like you said, because it was so
Speaker 2: great there, they were just like Hey, let's eat and
Speaker 2: do it and make little baby mice. Like you know,
Speaker 2: there is no end in sight, so you're doubling every
Speaker 2: fifty five days. This was all a big study to
Speaker 2: study what overpopulation, what would happen. And what he found
Speaker 2: time after time was that things went bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is really something because remember Paul Erlick released
Speaker 1: the population bomb in nineteen sixty eight, but for decades
Speaker 1: before that, John Calhoun saw firsthand what the real problem was.
Speaker 1: The real problem wasn't overpopulation leading to scarcity of food
Speaker 1: and conflicts, conflict and resource wars and famine starvation. What
Speaker 1: he found was that the real problem was overpopulation itself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but just too many, too many mice and not
Speaker 2: enough valuable roles for mice to play exactly.
Speaker 1: So there comes to be a point in any mouse
Speaker 1: population as far as Calhoun was concerned. And again this
Speaker 1: is Universe twenty five, and he wasn't making like one
Speaker 1: a week or something. These were detailed, smart studies. He
Speaker 1: was hired by the National Institutes of Health. He spent
Speaker 1: like twenty or thirty years working there. He's like a
Speaker 1: bona fide legitimate researcher, and he would find that at
Speaker 1: some point the abundance would lead to overpopulation rather than
Speaker 1: scarcely like he never ran out of food. They always
Speaker 1: had enough food and water and everything. What came to
Speaker 1: be an issue was space and social interactions. There were
Speaker 1: just too many people. There are too many mice, I
Speaker 1: should say to the mice. There people, sure, and they're
Speaker 1: rubbing shoulders up against one another, constantly moving past one another.
Speaker 1: There's not enough room. And like you said, there wasn't enough.
Speaker 1: There were too many mice to fulfill the number of
Speaker 1: social roles needed. Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it says by day three point fifteen, so this
Speaker 2: is close to a year, a lot of mice are
Speaker 2: living in there. And they said there were more peers
Speaker 2: to defend against, so males were stressed out and stopped
Speaker 2: defending their territory. Yeah, they abandon it. It said normal
Speaker 2: social discourse broke down completely, Social bonds broke down. There
Speaker 2: was like randomized violence for no reason. It seemed like
Speaker 2: the female mice, the mothers saw this and would attack
Speaker 2: their own babies, and it was procreation slumped, infant abandonment
Speaker 2: increased mortality. Sword Then he talked about the beautiful ones,
Speaker 2: which I thought was hysterical. There were these male mice
Speaker 2: that just they never fought, They never sought to reproduce
Speaker 2: or have sex. All they did was eat, sleep, and
Speaker 2: groom and just sort of loaf around.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: All these social barriers are completely being destroyed, right, these
Speaker 2: social norms, I should say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and these the females that could reproduce went off
Speaker 1: by themselves, sequestered themselves away from society, and the males
Speaker 1: that were capable of reproducing became those beautiful ones yeah,
Speaker 1: and didn't seek sex either. So over time they lost
Speaker 1: their ability to carry out these complex social interactions that
Speaker 1: lead to reproduction, and they just stopped reproducing it in general.
Speaker 2: Yeah. By day five sixty, and this is I guess
Speaker 2: that's the close to two year mark. Well, I guess
Speaker 2: eighteen months they had twenty two hundred mice and then
Speaker 2: growth ceased.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which isn't even close to the thirty eight hundred
Speaker 1: and forty that this place could could conceivably hang on to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it was how many, was it, thirty eight hundred,
Speaker 2: thirty eight to forty? Yeah, so at twenty two hundred
Speaker 2: they stopped reproducing. Very few mice survive pass weaning. At
Speaker 2: that point, the beautiful ones were still secluded the females.
Speaker 2: They basically called this the first death of two deaths.
Speaker 2: He did specifically call it a social death essentially.
Speaker 1: Exactly like the death of the spirit, the death of
Speaker 1: the society, and then eventually the physical death the second death.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, the one leads to the second, like there
Speaker 2: is a point that you pass, and he came up
Speaker 2: with a great name for it, called the behavioral sink
Speaker 2: where they I think they refer to it as the
Speaker 2: event horizon. Once you pass that, it's all.
Speaker 1: Over, right, there's no coming back from that. And once
Speaker 1: there's no coming back from that, not only has your
Speaker 1: society collapsed, or does your society collapse, your population becomes
Speaker 1: extinct because reproduction becomes impossible. Even he found, which is
Speaker 1: pretty startling. He found that even after enough of the
Speaker 1: population dies off that it returns to those factible, ideal
Speaker 1: numbers of the early days in Universe twenty five or
Speaker 1: any of the universes, they still don't reproduction doesn't start
Speaker 1: up again because remember, social norms and bonds have broken down, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were, so they can't even figure out how to
Speaker 1: reproduce once there's room for people enough.
Speaker 2: Again, it's crazy, it is so interesting.
Speaker 1: He said that he wrote this really kind of blockbuster
Speaker 1: paper called Population Density and Social Pathology, and it was
Speaker 1: published in Scientific American in nineteen sixty two, and he
Speaker 1: said that the individuals that are born under these circumstances
Speaker 1: will be so out of touch with reality as to
Speaker 1: be incapable even of alienation.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: So like they can't even feel like they're not connected
Speaker 1: as society anymore because there's no society for them to
Speaker 1: ever connect or disconnect from.
Speaker 2: It's frightening, it really is.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people jumped on this and said, WHOA,
Speaker 1: what's going on here? Because if you look at his data,
Speaker 1: every time he ran this experiment, the results became the same.
Speaker 1: There was an abundance of resources, there was never scarcity.
Speaker 1: Population became overpopulation. Once it reached the point of the
Speaker 1: behavioral sink, pulation slid into extinction. And on the way
Speaker 1: there was violence, cannibalism and sexualism. Yeah yeah, in fan aside,
Speaker 1: just like all the horrible things you can possibly think of, right,
Speaker 1: you know, on the way toward extinction. And so a
Speaker 1: lot of people said, you know, these mice kind of
Speaker 1: are reflective of our own society, don't you think? And
Speaker 1: Calhoun was kind of like, yeah, I would say that's
Speaker 1: probably correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there was a big boom at the time
Speaker 2: because of this experiment in literature and movies with a
Speaker 2: lot of doomsday scenarios. Tom Wolfe, the Great writer wrote
Speaker 2: in The Pumphouse Gang in nineteen sixty eight he actually
Speaker 2: referenced the behavioral sink in reference to New York City,
Speaker 2: and he said, it got to it was easy to
Speaker 2: look at New Yorker's as animals, especially looking down from
Speaker 2: someplace like a balcony at Grand Central at the rush
Speaker 2: hour Friday afternoon floor was filled with poor white humans
Speaker 2: running around, dodging, blinking their eyes, making a sound like
Speaker 2: a pin full of starlings or rats or something. And
Speaker 2: there are all these movies that came out. There was
Speaker 2: one called ZPG with Oliver Reed and Geraldine Chapman chaplain.
Speaker 2: It was called Zuropopulation Growth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like for a generation the government said no one's
Speaker 1: allowed to have babies. Here's your robot.
Speaker 2: Baby, right, and they're like, no, we're gonna have a
Speaker 2: real baby, and they're like, no, you're not. I think
Speaker 2: I didn't see it, but I'm sure it ended very poorly.
Speaker 1: I didn't see it either. Yeah, I saw it on
Speaker 1: IMDb though.
Speaker 2: And of course, of course Soilent Green. Yeah, great, great movie.
Speaker 1: From the novel make Room, Make Room, And there wasn't
Speaker 1: no idea it's called that I didn't either. There's another
Speaker 1: novel called stand On Zanzibar and there were people called
Speaker 1: Muckers who ran amuck and just suddenly went crazy and
Speaker 1: started killing a bunch of people. Oh no, it happens
Speaker 1: from time to time in the news a lot of
Speaker 1: people wood. We're saying, yeah, the stuff that Calhoun's finding
Speaker 1: is clearly extrapolatable onto human society. And at the time too,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of discussion about what to do
Speaker 1: about inner city over population, crime, housing projects. There's this
Speaker 1: really great documentary called The pruit I Go Myth and
Speaker 1: it's about there was this the prud I Go project
Speaker 1: in Saint Louis. This became I think we've talked about
Speaker 1: it before, but it became like the the the poster
Speaker 1: child for how no matter what you do for poor
Speaker 1: inner city people, they're going to screw it up and
Speaker 1: it's going to become crime ridden. And it's them, it's
Speaker 1: not it's not their their their quality of life or education,
Speaker 1: or anything like that. It's them and this this, this
Speaker 1: documentary just totally demolishes that idea, but it's still a
Speaker 1: long standing idea. And there were a group of police
Speaker 1: policymakers who looked at Calhoun's research and said, clearly, we
Speaker 1: need to do something. There's there's too many people, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who don't have valuable social
Speaker 1: roles and they're turning to crime and everything. It was
Speaker 1: very much open to interpretation because Calhoun, even though he
Speaker 1: was putting these things in terms like heaven and utopia
Speaker 1: and hell and behavioral sink and that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: he was still just kind of putting data out there
Speaker 1: and it was up to society at large you interpret it,
Speaker 1: And it really said a lot about your attitudes towards
Speaker 1: your fellow human how you interpreted it. Yeah, but Calhoun
Speaker 1: himself actually took something of an optimistic view of all
Speaker 1: of this data, which is kind of mind boggling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was surprised to read this. Actually it makes sense though,
Speaker 1: if you think about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he found that there were outliers and that not
Speaker 2: all the mice descended into hellish violence and looting, right
Speaker 2: and mouse looting. He found that some could actually handle this,
Speaker 2: and what he called the ones that could had high
Speaker 2: social velocity, mice that fared well with a lot of
Speaker 2: high number of social interactions.
Speaker 1: That is not me, And he said, I'm a type,
Speaker 1: A blood type, blood personality type.
Speaker 2: He said that basically, these mice will thrive. And he said,
Speaker 2: and even the ones who don't, what he termed the losers,
Speaker 2: found ways to be more creative.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's so sufficient. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He had a son of your outlook, basically saying that
Speaker 2: man is essentially a positive animal, and we will create
Speaker 2: and design our own solutions.
Speaker 1: Right. And his solution was since and it makes sense
Speaker 1: because he found that it's not scarcity or famines or
Speaker 1: anything that leads to trouble. Yeah, it's overpopulation itself. His
Speaker 1: idea was, well, let's go find more space.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so he was a member of this group called
Speaker 1: the Space Cadets, which was a group of thinkers that
Speaker 1: were trying to figure out how to establish colonies on
Speaker 1: Mars or the moon or wherever, right, which is exactly
Speaker 1: what cal Who's point was is that we just need
Speaker 1: more space. As long as we can sustain ourselves, that's fine.
Speaker 1: But even if we don't stress agriculture, the planet or whatever.
Speaker 1: We're still going to run into problems. So let's go
Speaker 1: off to other worlds.
Speaker 2: And terror form.
Speaker 1: Oh and did you see the thing about the rats
Speaker 1: of nim.
Speaker 2: Oh was that taken?
Speaker 1: Uh? It was based inspired by this, It was based
Speaker 1: directly on his research. Oh really and that cool? Very
Speaker 1: missus Brisbee and the Rats of nim nice. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: go see that again and also go read the Behavioral Sink.
Speaker 2: Super interesting.
Speaker 1: Read an article on Cabinet by Will Wiles that informed
Speaker 1: a lot of this episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this stuff is fascinating to me. I agree because
Speaker 2: I see kind of both sides. Clearly, there are some
Speaker 2: issues going right now, but I also think that there
Speaker 2: are solutions around the corner.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I ultimately don't have a strong opinion either way,
Speaker 1: And I think if I think about it, it's because
Speaker 1: I think humans will yeah, becomeing ingenuitive.
Speaker 2: You can have steak tonight, tons me too grasped.
Speaker 1: Only you know it doesn't make it any better. I
Speaker 1: mean that's why beef is so It uses so much
Speaker 1: because it eats so much food that also requires water.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, it requires water like two times over at
Speaker 1: least Dumb cows yeah, I should feel bad about our
Speaker 1: steak consumption, Chuck, I don't eat much steak.
Speaker 2: Good for you, buddy, it's because Emily doesn't eat beef.
Speaker 2: So oh yeah, you know, usually I just will cook
Speaker 2: chicken because it's not like I'll have a steak and
Speaker 2: I'll cook her chicken every now and then. But usually
Speaker 2: it's just easier, yeah, because chicken comes in like a
Speaker 2: two or three pack, right, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Plus you cook it until as dry as a bone,
Speaker 1: so you can feel better about the water consumption.
Speaker 2: Right, that's right.
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about population growth and
Speaker 1: specifically zero population growth, type those words into the search
Speaker 1: bar housetiforks dot com. And since I said search bar
Speaker 1: in there somewhere, it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 2: I'm going to call this linguist sticks up for us.
Speaker 2: Oh right, right, Hey, guys, I studied linguistics in college,
Speaker 2: so it always tickles me when you guys go on
Speaker 2: tangents about words and language. The main reason I'm writing
Speaker 2: is because I want to offer you a counterpoint to
Speaker 2: the language police that have been harshing your vibe. Grammar
Speaker 2: nuts are what we call in the biz prescriptivists. Yeah,
Speaker 2: who like to dictate how people should speak. Linguists, on
Speaker 2: the other hand, are descriptivists who make their careers out
Speaker 2: of how people actually speak in real world situations.
Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't realize. I thought linguists could be one
Speaker 1: or the other. I didn't realize that, like linguists tend
Speaker 1: to be descriptivists.
Speaker 2: That's what she says.
Speaker 1: What is who wrote Infinite Jess David Foster Wallace. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a big time prescriptivist. Oh really, you used
Speaker 1: to drive him crazy, like how people should speak?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like that.
Speaker 1: There is a specific way that humans are supposed to
Speaker 1: speak and write right and communicate, and if you deviate
Speaker 1: from that, you're about as bad a human.
Speaker 2: Being as you can be, and that would be like
Speaker 2: the downfall of society or pretty much. Come on, we
Speaker 2: don't use the terms good or bad grammar. Instead, we
Speaker 2: prefer standard and non standard Linguists recognize the social functions
Speaker 2: of non standard grammars and observe their uses and functions,
Speaker 2: rather than to try and micromanage them. A final point,
Speaker 2: I'm certain your listeners still know what you mean when
Speaker 2: you say things like there's a lot of something, even
Speaker 2: if it isn't standard grammar and the laws of linguistics.
Speaker 2: As long as you're interlocutor, which is a.
Speaker 1: Listener interlocutor interlocutor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as long as they accurately understand what you mean,
Speaker 2: you have successfully communicated. Okay, And that's why humans invented language,
Speaker 2: isn't it. So go be free and know that I
Speaker 2: will always love your show no matter how you speak.
Speaker 2: And that is from Kristin.
Speaker 1: Thanks Kristin. The supportive linguists appreciate that. That's funny that
Speaker 1: Kristin mentions that as long as you're interlocutor understands what
Speaker 1: you're saying, you're communicating correctly. Sure, someone else I don't
Speaker 1: remember who it was they wrote in and suggested we
Speaker 1: do an episode on shorthand.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting. I was just talking about that with Emily
Speaker 2: last night.
Speaker 1: Damn, it's all over the place.
Speaker 2: I took speed writing in high school and she was did.
Speaker 2: She very surprised at that.
Speaker 1: So like speedwriting with hand.
Speaker 2: Speed writing is like like stenography, No, write with your hand.
Speaker 2: It's basically a version of shorthand, but not exact shorthand. Gotcha,
Speaker 2: it's a kind of shorthand.
Speaker 1: It sounds like shorthand, but like more aggressive. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: max power or something.
Speaker 2: The joke was my friend Shannon, I won't say her
Speaker 2: last name, but she would cheat in class because she
Speaker 2: didn't learn the shorthand. So the test where they would
Speaker 2: just read a long passage quickly and you would have
Speaker 2: to do it and then transcribe that into long hand.
Speaker 2: She was just super good at writing really fast, so
Speaker 2: she would just write down everything in longhand super fast
Speaker 2: and then figure out how to transcribe it back to
Speaker 2: shorthand and then back to long hand. And she got
Speaker 2: caught doing that. Yeah, and the teacher's like, that's cheating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like it. She was like, well, mnd
Speaker 1: me with fast still liven't. Nope, that's not speedwriting. That's
Speaker 1: just writing fast.
Speaker 2: Yep.
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