Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990

[bruce]

Has anyone read this report by Michael Kremer?

The nonrivalry of technology, as modeled in the endogenous growth literature, implies that high population spurs technological change. This paper constructs and empirically tests a model of long-run world population growth combining this implication with the Malthusian assumption that technology limits population. The model predicts that over most of history, the growth rate of population will be proportional to its level. Empirical tests support this prediction and show that historically, among societies with no possibility for technological contact, those with larger initial populations have had faster technological change and population growth. Copyright 1993, the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990

The basic premise seems to be that innovation flourishes the more people there are to have ideas. So for instance islands such as Tasmania failed to grow until colonisation, despite having good natural conditions to do so, because they were a small population and therefore deprived of innovation.

[Richard]

It's not just that more people = more ideas. Larger populations put greater pressure on the available resources so societies then invest more time/money into researching ways in which to utilise existing resources more efficiently, and/or developing further resources. It's one of the main reasons why it's pointless to talk about there being "x" amount of a given resource, optimum populations etc. Even if a number can be put on indicators such as these, that number wouldn't be static as it changes in relation to technology, policies, cultural factors, economics + many other factors.

[veetermon]

434 views. Pretty popular thread huh?

Good stuff though and does put things into a new light.

[imp]

Originally Posted by bruce

Has anyone read this report by Michael Kremer?



Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990

The basic premise seems to be that innovation flourishes the more people there are to have ideas. So for instance islands such as Tasmania failed to grow until colonisation, despite having good natural conditions to do so, because they were a small population and therefore deprived of innovation.

Hopefully some of the ecofascists on this site will be "converted" to people who realize that mankind can overcome any obstacle - without government regulation.

[sparky]

Even assuming this trend is true it's not something we can simply stick our head in the sand and assume things will be ok though is it?

[Richard]

Originally Posted by sparky

Even assuming this trend is true it's not something we can simply stick our head in the sand and assume things will be ok though is it?

Societies aren't sticking their heads in the sand though, that just seems to be a popular view amongst some environmentalists. There are countless people working on solving resource scarcity issues, we invest huge amounts of resources on these sorts of problems.

[spadlet]

Originally Posted by imp

Hopefully some of the ecofascists on this site will be "converted" to people who realize that mankind can overcome any obstacle - without government regulation.

But societies invented the concept and systems of government so why shouldn't they be part of a society's solution?

[matthew0oh]

This is something that I have concluded on my own observations. There is an upward spiral of progress as the world population has grown, so to has technology which has further contributed to health of world populations. Each person has a unique set of needs and because of the natural variation that exists from one individual to the next, each has natural strengths that others wouldn't have. With recent advances of technology, a person can produce something once and have many people use it over and over again, to the benifit of many (i.e. someone creates a website like wikipedia.org).

If people are worried that global resources are being depleted, just think, there are TRILLIONS upon TRILLIONS of GALAXIES, each having BILLIONS of stars! Just look at the planets in our own solar system. Jupiter alone has enough resources (i.e. gases) to last us a very long time.

(Check out my blog for more on this: blog on sci-fi and nature )

[forfismum]

Not nice to push your blog on your first visit.It could be a porn site for all we know.tell us about it again when you have maybe done 50 or more posts.