Selects: How Zero Population Growth Works | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

hey everybody it's your old pal Josh and. for this week's select I've chosen our. 2015 episode on zero population it's an. extremely interesting episode about the. upper limits of human population that. the Earth can handle and interestingly. it's also about just how many humans. Humanity can handle too when does eating. soil and green make sense maybe you can. decide for yourself in this hey episode. [Music]. enjoy welcome to stuff you should know a.

production of iHeart. [Music]. Radio hey and welcome to the podcast I'm. Josh Clark and there's Charles W Chuck. Bryant this is stuff you should know. podcast Jerry's over. there uh it's pretty much the norm yep. yep how you doing man how you feeling. today spectacular little rough sir are. you you'll make it through won't you. yeah yesterday we cele celebrated the uh.

the the beginnings of Jin and tonic. season it's definitely that kind of. weather for sure yeah it's hard to not. sit on the deck and have a citrusy. delightful drink nice going so I'm just. a little sleepy but I'm feeling good I. feel like this topic is uh is all about. being sort of down in the dumps a little. bit well it depends it depends on where. you land and you just Place yourself. pretty squarely in the gloom and doom. Camp my friend no I'm I'm actually not. in the Doom and Gloom camp was about to.

say which if I remember correctly in our. episode was Malthus right about caring. capacity you overtly said that you are a. um an optimist that's right not a. malthusian uh. naysayer right you know y yeah I forgot. about that one we've touched on this a. few times uhhuh we talked about we did a. whole profile on Norman Bor log alone on. our yeah very shortlived and reasonably. so um live webcast oh yeah do you. remember we did basically a book report. on Norman bog yeah he was um well I.

think he's even controversial he is very. much so you know you win a a Nobel Prize. but for saving A Billion Lives yeah but. still people are going to poo poo you. yep you get poo pooed interesting stuff. so. um if you don't know what we're talking. about you should probably press pause go. listen to the uh malus episode go to. stuff you should know.com. podcasts I think it's plural archive. yeah make that your homepage and all 700.

and change episodes are there and then. do contrl f is everybody doing this so. far yeah and then type in malus m a l t. h u s uhu it's gonna highlight that link. click that and press play and then come. back to us that's right we'll wait boom. so uh so we're back it's been an hour. what we're talking about is carrying. capacity in part but carrying capacity. Chuckers is just kind of a it's a.

reflection of a larger issue yeah and. that larger issue is population. specifically overpopulation yeah and is. that a thing or not is the big question. because I mean at any given point in. time you know they have like the the the. CIA World fact book has you know a. pretty good assessment of how many. people are alive yeah it's a total guess. it's a total estimate we could be at 10. billion right now we could be at a 100. million and everybody just is really. terrible at counting the point is we. don't specifically.

it's probably pretty accurate but it's. still a guess the the point isn't to. shoot holes in the the estimates of how. many people are alive on the planet it's. to point out that like there's so many. people we don't know and we can't. possibly know at any given point in time. yeah and that has led a lot of people to. say well wait a minute there's this. thing called carrying capacity which is. the Earth's ability to support and. sustain us humans and really any any. creatures but really we're just kind of.

concerned with us humans at this moment. yeah um and with a quality of life right. and sustainably yes those two factors. have to be met or else you're putting a. tremendous amount of stress on Earth and. you're eventually bringing about your. own demise so a lot of people are saying. like uh we're probably past caring. capacity we just don't know it yet right. or other people are saying there's. really no such thing as carrying. capacity thanks to human Ingenuity. anytime we come up against it we'll.

figure out a way around it and Norman. Boro was a way to go but before borlo. really became famous there was a lot of. people who were legitimately concerned. that we were all going to die yeah borlo. um I don't if you haven't listen to that. one if you didn't follow Josh's. instructions like a good little podcast. listener uh he was the um one of the the. leaders of the Green Revolution in the'. 60s and70s yeah in which we made great. advances in agricultural uh.

in agriculture in in yields yeah new new. types of wheat in Mexico new types of. rice in India that um yielded much much. more than they ever had and and plus. they were drought resistant flood. resistant they could stand up and and. hold more grain they could stand up and. say hello they basically they could pick. the day Daily Double at. hia so uh Boro was uh you know. by all standards a very smart guy cared.

very much about uh people yeah he wasn't. doing it for fame or riches or anything. like that like this guy felt like he was. working against the clock and if he. didn't and he wasn't the only one doing. this yeah he's the most famous um but if. he didn't do it then yeah a lot of. people were going to starve yeah and I. think um I proposed to you before this. that we do just one on the Green. Revolution yeah uh and I think that will. be a a one 123 podcast sweet after this. one I love this. stuffology population that was another.

one we did too was how population works. yeah and it sounds so like eye bingly. boring but it turned out to be really. interesting stuff so go go read that too. we we'll wait go ahead we'll pause and. we're back and it's. 1968 yeah and everybody's a little. nervous everyone is nervous and uh. Stanford uh biology Professor Paul Erick. um there's another famous Paul aick this. is Paul R aick I believe oh it's a. different one well there's two dudes I. did realize that what do you mean I mean.

I'm familiar with the other Eric then I. guess well who was the other one again. he wrote um some other famous books he's. a biologist I think it's it's not the. same guy yeah the other guy was a uh. German. physician uh who worked in chemotherapy. Immunology oh yeah that's not I'm. thinking of yeah different guy so this. guy he wrote other things besides the. population bomb yeah so in 1968 he. writes the population bomb uh goes on. The Tonight Show it it explodes this.

huge hit apparently he was on more than. once too yeah and everyone got super. nervous because his book started with. these words the battle defeat all of. humanity is over oh good in the 1970s. the world were under uh will undergo. famines hundreds of millions of people. are going to starve to death in spite of. any crash programs embarked upon now oh. that's not so good that's how he starts. his book he basically says there's going. to be a malthusian collapse yeah um at. one point in the book he said if I was a. betting man I would wager by the year.

2000 England won't be yeah around boom. he drops the mic yeah um and we should. probably mention who malus is Thomas. Malthus was a uh very forward-thinking. smart mathematically inclined Minister I. believe in the early 19th century late. 18th century yeah an economist and he. was the one who said we have a problem. here everyone I've just done the the. math and population grows exponentially. but but our food supply grows linearly.

right and so we are destined to outgrow. our food supply and that's where the. idea of carrying capacity came from so. malus and. malthusians um are the people who think. like we're going to exceed the food. supply eventually and die from famines. and erck was one of the most vocal and. alarmist Neo malthusians around yes. absolutely and he scared the pants off. of people back then uh in 1968 there. were about three and a half billion. people and the birth rate we're going to.

talk a lot about birth rates and such. because that has a lot to do with this. buckle up um the American women uh had. three and a half babies on average and. the global birth rate was five babies. per woman seems like a lot to me I it. was a lot five kids supposedly in the. 50s we were at six the global average. fertility rate was six babies per woman. and that's not just per woman that's so. you want to talk about fertility rates.

sure so fertility rate basically is the. number of live births that a population. has assigned to the population of women. thought to reasonably be a reproductive. age so 15 to 44 right times a thousand. so you take all of those figure out the. the how many women there are and then. you multiply it by a thousand so you. have something like um 50 births per. 1,000 women age 15 to 44 and that's your.

fertility rate yeah okay yes that's you. can figure out how many actual births. are taking place yeah with reasonable. detail yeah um so like mathus uh Erick. did the math in the 60s and said you. know what our food production isn't. keeping up just like Matha said we're in. big big trouble wrote the population. bomb and co-founded uh zero population. growth which is an organization that is. now called uh uh what are they called. Now population connection population.

connection a very uh a little sunnier. sounds electric company is it does and. you should check out their website it's. good they have a lot of good information. on there just to help you you know. figure out what you might want to. believe um so people are scared uh the. the the zero population growth group. their aim is to uh their big thing is is. contraception and giving women um. control of their reproduction basically.

and their fertility right that's you. decide how many kids you want exactly um. have that many they've identified that. the that there's an issue that could. easily address. overpopulation and that is cutting out. unwanted pregnancies or pregnancies or. having unwanted kids and they've. identified that you know plenty of. people there are two different fertility. rates there's The Wanted fertility rate. and then there's the unwanted fertility. rate and pretty much across the board in.

any country in the world The Unwanted. fertility rate is higher whether. slightly or largely Than The Wanted. fertility rate so they're saying like if. The Unwanted fertility rate is like 3.8. babies per woman in a given country and. The Wanted fertility rate is like 2.5. well if we can just figure out a way to. only have The Wanted pregnancies right. then you are doing a lot to control over. population and the the way that they. figured out how to address this is to.

just basically spread awareness and. access to contraception yeah right the. the two pronged approach um what their. goal is is they they aren't saying that. people should not have babies right like. you said they're saying people should. only have the babies that they want to. have exactly and their their ultimate. goal is to um to have a sustainable. Global birth rate below the replacement. level which means there's a lot of. different factors but it basically means. that the world is not growing when it's.

like uh work in a club at at a door. being a doorman one person goes out one. person comes in yeah you got a little. clicker yeah that's basically what that. means is you know someone dies someone. can be born right and of course it's not. that one to one but you know well if. you're big picture way if you're a. bouncer and you're tasked with keeping. it an even ratio you just have to. remember that you can't keep people. inside until a new person comes along. because that's called kidnapping. yeah you still they still have to leave. and you have to deal with an imbalance.

for a little while that's true uh right. now the replacement level uh fertility. rate in the US is 2.1 babies per woman. and 3.0 in other developing countries. because they have higher death rates and. shorter lifespans which makes sense. so we we're on to the replacement rate. basically right yeah the replacement. rate is the number of kids a woman of. reproductive age would have to have to. replace herself M and she's not just. replacing herself she's replacing.

herself and her male mate who she's. reproducing with guys can't have babies. yes and it's kind of gross to think that. a woman is giving birth to a boy and a. girl who can mate and reproduce her. that's not the point you want them to go. mingle with other people's babies but. the replacement rate you would think. then is two right yeah for every woman. 2.0 kids is what you need to have to. have an an even replacement rate that. means it's people die. new people are born and the population.

never grows or declines it stays the. same M the replacement rate is never. actually 2.0 though well it's 2.1 right. now and the reason why is because we. humans um tend to have more male. offspring than female apparently for. every 100 girls that are born 107 boys. are born yeah so the actual replacement. rate is 2.07 and then they Round Up to. 2.1 yeah plus there's I mean there's a. lot of other factors too for sure yeah. so those other factors include things.

like you said like um infant mortality. rates lifespan immigration into a. certain area and the thing is is of. birth rates or fertility rates and. replacement rates the replacement rate. tends to be a little more stable yeah um. the the birth rate the fertility rate. has a lot more to do with social. attitudes access to healthare education. and it's a it can change uh dramatically. from play to place whereas say anywhere.

in the Western World the developed world. the replacement rate's about 2.1 yeah. exactly that's in the yeah the 3.0 for. the uh developing countries all the. demographers just stood up and were. clapping so clearly uh Erick was not. correct in his dire predictions a little. off here we are in 2015 and um there are. problems but England is still around. that was a bad prediction for billion. people haven't starved to death yeah um.

but does that mean that he was wrong. altogether no not necessarily uh because. right now uh and this was a pretty. startling stat to me over the past 110. years we have grown from 1.6 billion. people to 7.2 billion people yeah in 110. years well we're expected to get up to. 9.2 in another uh 35 years by 2050 and. so one of the reasons we have this many. people uh most of the reasons are.

positive because of like advances in. healthcare M uh the lifespan in 1900 was. 31 years old and now it's 70 or maybe. even a little bit higher because that. was 2012 yeah um so imagine it is a. little bit higher and the infant uh. mortality rate globally in 1900 was 165. uh deaths per 1,000 live births and in. 2013 right it was down to 34 so that's. why there's more people it's cuz we're. doing better at taking care of ourselves. yeah and that those are two huge factors.

when it comes to um demographics and. population because the the longer you. live the more old people you have so. therefore the less babies you need to. replace those people and the fewer. babies that die or that survive infancy. um will be adults one day exactly yeah. but these are the really if you're a. demographer The Sweet Spot is that. working age so when you're a demographer. especially one that's um e economics.

minded Chuck yes that sweet spot the. reproductive working age people that's a. good sizable population you want to have. if you have a lot of babies well then. you have a lot of people who are raising. those babies who those babies are. dependent on so say you have a lot fewer. women in the workforce so your Workforce. is depleted if you have a lot like an. aging population you have a lot of older. people who have already aged out of the. workforce and are now dependent on the. tax is paid by that Workforce so a large.

population of either babies or old. people and God forbid both at the same. time it puts a lot of strain on the. middle yeah you know what I'm saying. sure so when you have a longer life. expectancy and a a lower infant. mortality rate like we have now in the. developed world you want to have. something closer to the replacement rate. right you know which makes sense right. um I got some more stats too that would. uh seem to back up uh erick's.

predictions um or not predictions but at. least his gloomy Outlook he was a gloomy. dude currently you know I couldn't find. much on what he felt today uh yeah I'm. curious is he's still around um I'm. curious I bet there's some good. interviews I'm going to check that out. so currently uh as of last year an. estimated 805 million people uh go to. bed hungry every night more than half of. which are in Asia uh one in four people. in subsaharan Africa was chronically. malnourished. um 750 million people worldwide lack.

access to clean water um contributing to. about 850,000 deaths per year and um. here's the thing though is is we're. living in cities now more than ever. right um people are moving into cities. which is a good thing in one way uh. because it provides a lot of uh. opportunity econom uh Economic. Opportunity for people right especially. in developing countries but when you. look at these cities a lot of them are. are full of slums and sweat shops yeah.

in these developing nations something. like um half of the population in a lot. of cities live in slum conditions yeah. subaran Africa 61% right so you think. subsaharan Africa I I think rural in a. lot of ways right so yes I'm aware that. they are they lack access to clean. drinking water and that's an issue that. subsaharan Africa faces yes you don't. think about that being an issue in a. city but the problem with slums. isely.

ACC that rural. the we're not even I mean that's that's. clean drinking water and like sanitation. and shelter we're not even talking about. education and healthare right and like. all the things that people need to live. a fruitful life you know yep so cities. are a problem even if ER was wrong there. are clearly issues um some people will. argue and we'll get to the critics and. stuff later but a lot of people argue. that it's distribution of food and stuff.

like that like we have the resources. we're just not dividing it out properly. right and apparently if uh I read that. if everyone lived like an American and. consumed like an American does yeah the. caring capacity would be something like. two billion yeah so we would have. already far exceeded it sure but if. everybody lived with just the minimal. amount that they need to live the caring. capacity would be something like 40. billion we've been able to sustain the. caring capacity as it is right now.

because not everybody lives like an. American but if you're an American that. means that a lot of the other world. especially developing world thinks that. you are um over consuming by a lot sure. and that's really evident in um there. was a graph that went around recently. that shows water use in agriculture by. type of product so everything from like. soy to Beef It showed how much water it. uses did you see that I didn't see that. but I've seen stuff like that beef is. like a huge consumer of water right.

10.28 gallons of water used to produce 1. oun of beef yeah that's a lot that's a. lot water that's a lot of water and so. that's that's part of the point whereas. if everybody's and apparently in uh. China and India and these ascending. countries with ascending economies um. one of the one of the great benefits of. being part of the developed worlds you. can get steak anytime you want baby yeah. and uh I want a big one right now put it. in front of me I'll give you some money. here here just take this and and uh put.

it in your pocket there's some money for. you give me my steak and you don't care. how much water it took yeah and it there. these people who are. saying they don't necessarily agree with. AIC but they're saying he wasn't totally. off right are alarm clearly there are. problems they're saying this is one of. the problems you know this is one of the. problems with too many people yeah and. so getting back to to uh contraception. and zero population growth are now the. population connection their big goal.

they say there are 222 uh million women. in the developing world who have an. unmet need for family planning so. they're not. saying you know we want to put our. ideals on you and you shouldn't be. having kids they're saying there are. that many women that are like I don't. want these five kids right I would have. wanted two and I either don't know about. contraception don't have contraception. or I have literally no idea how. conception works right sadly for a lot. of them I shouldn't say a lot the the.

first idea that women just need access. to contraception and they will use yeah. and they're they're they're working on. that right but they found in studies. that something like 10% or less of the. women who are defined as having unmet. contraceptive needs um site a lack of. access as to why they're having unwanted. kids yeah instead they're saying it's. things like family pressure or societal. pressure to have a bunch of kids um like. you're saying like not understanding.

contraception or how conception works. yeah they say they don't believe that um. they need contraception if you have sex. infrequently MH or after birth after. I've had one kid we don't need to use. contraception anymore got like literally. not knowing how conception works right. so that's a big educational hurdle that. uh population connection is trying to. overcome right so they're saying it's. not just getting contraception to women. it's educating them on how to use it and. changing their social Outlook yeah.

changing the culture yeah uh largely men. you know saying I want more babies right. you know like Revolutionary Road or. something you know all right so uh we're. going to talk a little bit after the. break about uh what the critics of zero. population growth have to. [Music]. say. [Applause].

[Music]. so we're back yes we're talking about um. solutions to overpopulation but not. everybody thinks it's a problem yeah. some people say overpopulation is a myth. yeah they say that ER in and of it. himself damaged his own argument yeah he. got a lot of personal heat yeah still.

does because of the the language he used. it was so alarm starting his book off. with you know that we've already lost. and no matter what we do billions of. people are going to die yeah um and then. at not panning out saying that England. wasn't going to be around in 30 years I. mean yeah that was putting a lot on the. line sure and so a lot of people said. you're you're specific landmarks or um. or Milestones were unmet Therefore your. heart pull arguments out the window yeah.

and some people believe that other. people are like that's not necessarily. true that is alarmist as well possibly. or reactionary at least but some people. say I still don't agree with ER like. because humans are smart we can figure. our way out of any problem that's right. uh critics will say that humans um are. not parasites of the earth we are the. saviors of Earth and we are the ones. that are coming up with these Solutions. like the Green Revolution yeah and uh. longer lifespans and progressing.

medically to help people live longer I. don't know about saviors of Earth you. don't think I think that's stretching it. a little bit I think we um extract a. little too much to be called saviors of. Earth well I guarantee you there's a lot. of people that think humans are savors. of Earth sure you know I would see us. more as like Homer with Pinchy the. lobster again and the salt water and. fresh water trying to strike the. balance uh I wouldn't call him a savior. of either the Goldfish or Pinchy at that. moment he's just keeping them both in. stasis how many times have you.

referenced Pinchy the L that's probably. seven seven yeah it's not bad it's one. for every 100 shows. roughly um other critics will say that. uh low birth rates are no good for the. economy um like you were talking about. earlier um older people and babies uh. well I guess low birth rates wouldn't. affect that but older people are more of. attacks on society than they are. Spenders right and investors right but. in the same in the same way if you have. too many babies that's a tax eventually. that those babies will be a Workforce SP.

money exactly so the baby boom and the. um post-war uh. boom economic boom in the United States. it's not coincidental that they went. hand inand there a bunch of people. having babies and eventually they grew. into the workforce and they made a bunch. of money in the 80s for the United. States yeah and there's it's also. supported in developing countries uh. more than 70 countries are categorized. now as low fertility with two babies or.

less per woman and those uh areas are. expected to make a big economic gains in. the coming decades right because there. are going to be people to spend money. right and be in the workforce. and there's kind of a a few ways that. the workforce and and wealth and the. economy and birth rates are all kind of. tied together too yeah it turns out that. if you give a woman right. to her own contraceptive decisions yeah.

sure um the birth rate tends to. inevitably fall as a result yeah uh and. then when that happens it happens. because some women have more babies than. they want to when they don't have right. to their own contraceptive decisions um. another reason is when they have those. kind of Rights they usually also have. the right to an education yeah when they. enter um school they will tend to put. off having kids because once they. graduate from school usually enter the. workforce and so just by nature of.

getting to the whole thing later on in. life they're having fewer kids as well. yeah uh and when you have more educated. women in the workforce your economy is. stronger too so directly and by proxy um. lower birth rates are associated with. the stronger economy but again you don't. want to get too low because if you get. too low then all of a sudden the. generation before it started to taper. off is going to be bigger than the. generation that's working and if it. costs. $50,000 in tax money to keep the average.

retiree afloat say in the United States. well that divided by a thousand people. is a lot easier to bear than divided by. 100 people 100 working people you know. what I mean yeah we got to keep the old. folks in uh keep them in Stak in oval te. right you know so if you're if you're an. economist a demographer whatever. everybody's kind of saying like you want. to get a country developed and you want. get them at that 2.1 replacement rate. and everything will be hunky dory from.

there yeah and the other uh thing a. Critic might say too is um and this is. what we were talking about earlier about. the environment uh the impact on the. environment like we're just going to. destroy our world with so many people. right um it turns out that uh impact. carbon emissions aren't really tied to. population growth rates it's tied to per. capita income levels Yeah by evidence. that China and the US have some of the. lowest uh fertility rates right now and. we are the worst polluters so it's not.

because we have all these people right. it's because we're consuming Too Much As. Americans exactly and I guess in China. as well which actually makes it seem. kind of nerve-racking that sure India. and China with these enormous. populations are starting to become. wealthier and wealthier because that's. just going to make it even worse as far. as the environment goes did you check. out the population connection site no I. didn't they have a pretty interesting.

FAQ um that if you don't know where you. stand I mean it's helpful to read uh. like they say things like instead of we. want to focus on quality of life not. quantity and instead of saying how many. people can the earth support maybe how. many people can't the earth support. because right now all these people are. dying from lack of you know clean water. and sanitation and food right um and. there's the counterargument that you. hear from critics a lot I've seen this. stat uh thrown around that the entire.

world's population could live in. Texas Texas SE before it's so. mindboggling I have trouble like. believing it well I think somebody. forgot to carry a one or something no. it's true population connection says. sure they can uh you could fit everyone. in Texas you could also fit 40 people in. a phone booth yeah but um Texas they. said no way has the carrying capacity to. take care of those people so it's a. little bit of a H you know fact that you. throw out when you say that right like.

sure you can jam everyone in there um. Texas would be like what are you guys. doing here every exactly um but it's. pretty interesting stuff I I recommend. people read their FAQ uh it seems like. they definitely have the right. um mindset because that what they want. to do is you know make sure people have. a good quality of life all over the. world well I will go read their FAQ. because I suddenly feel underprepared. but. I will tell you that the impression that. I have from researching them without.

going on their website was um I didn't. find anything like beware population. connection or the population connection. myth or anything like that there's. definitely debate on the other side. saying overpopulation is a myth but no. one seems to be attacking population. connection as like a nefarious. organization yeah because they're not. saying don't have babies right and. that's a really sticky situation to be. in because a lot of people are like well. God wants us to have as many babies as. we possibly can who are you to be.

meddling in that kind of thing it's a. it's a fine line that a group like that. has to walk and they seem to be walking. at fine yeah they're just saying like. here's some contraception maybe let's. not have unwanted babies let those. little angels stay in. heaven and uh we'll just go from there. yeah I think that's their uh on their. [Laughter]. homeage.

[Music]. all right the behavioral sync what um. where did you find this I don't remember. where I ran across it but um I read it a. while back but I have to give a shout. out to Josh from Jersey the original.

jersey not New Jersey who recently wrote. in to suggest we we do an episode on. that and had perfect timing because he. wrote in after you'd selected this one. oh yeah and I was like these two would. go great together hand in hand yeah so. thanks Josh for reminding us well thank. you Josh for thanking Josh which Josh. but I'm thanking all the Josh's okay so. in 1972 this dude named John B Calhoun. um this is one of his experiments this. guy what he liked to do was build um rat.

and mouse Utopias he' been doing it. since the 40s yeah and basically with. the aim to see what would happen to a. population in this case mice or rats if. you gave them a perfect Mouse world. right and he called these World. universes yeah and the one in 1972 the. one that really like made all the. headlines I guess was called Universe 25. so he had. his Bel already and it was pretty good. size it was 100 over 100 in square um.

the walls were 54 in high it had space. for um let's see what's 256 * 15 Chuck. um I'm going to go with about I'm in my. head I'm going to say like close to. 30,000 it is exactly. 3,800 yeah that's what I meant I meant. 3,000 3840. okay okay um so there was enough room.

comfortably for. 3840 mice yes um and long before that he. introduced four breeding pairs so eight. mice he first is introduced to Universe. 25 yeah and it was well stocked by the. way they had everything they wanted food. water that was cleaned out they were all. disease free no Predators yeah no yeah. he threw a cat in there once a week. right just to keep them on their toes or. something yeah I mean it was it was. Mouse Heaven is what they called it yes. and he actually did in papers about. these universes he would refer to them.

as heaven or Utopia and he would use. words like that yeah um so he introduces. these four breeding pairs of mice to um. to Universe 25 and um after 104 days it. took them to finally settle down and be. like okay this place is actually pretty. great it's not too good to be true right. um despite the fact that it seems to be. built by human hand which is weird and. the temperature never changes but we're. just going to say it's probably fine and. start breeding and they started breeding.

pretty quickly oh yes they started. doubling in population every 55 days. after that right yeah uh like you said. because it was so great there they were. just like hey let's eat and uh do it and. make little baby mice like you know. there is no end in sight right so you're. doubling every 55 days uh this was all a. big study to study what overpopulation. uh what would happen and what he found. Time After Time was that uh things went. bad yeah which is really something.

because remember Paul erck released the. population bomb in. 1968 but for decades before. that John Calhoun saw firsthand what the. real problem was the real problem wasn't. overpopulation leading to scarcity of. food and conflicts conflict and resource. Wars and famine starvation what he found. was that the real problem was. overpopulation itself yeah but just too.

many too many mice and not enough. valuable roles for mice to play exactly. so there comes to be a point in any. Mouse population as far as Calhoun was. concerned and again this is Universe 25. and he wasn't making like one a week or. something these were detailed smart. studies he was hired by the National. Institutes of Health he spent like 20 or. 30 years working there he's like a. Bonafide uh legitimate researcher um and. he would find that at some point the.

abundance would lead to overpopulation. rather than scarcity like he he he never. ran out of food they always had enough. food and water and everything what came. to be an issue was space and social. interactions there were just too many. people there too many mice I should say. to the mice they're people sure um and. they're rubbing shoulders up against one. another constantly moving past one. another there's not enough room and like. you said there wasn't enough um there. were too many mice to fulfill the the.

number of social roles yeah needed right. yeah it says by day 3:15 so this is. close to a year um a lot of mice are. living in there and they said there were. more peers uh to defend against so. males were stressed out and stopped. defending their territory they abandon. it uh it said normal social discourse um. broke down completely uh social bonds. broke down um there was like randomized.

violence for no reason it seemed like. yeah um the the female mice the mothers. saw this and would attack their own. babies right and it was procreation. slumped uh infant abandonment increased. mortality soared um then he talked about. the beautiful ones which I thought was. hysterical yeah there were these male. mice that just they never fought they. never sought to reproduce or have sex. all they did was eat sleep and groom. room and just sort of loaf around yeah. so all these social barriers are.

completely being destroyed right these. social norms I should say yeah and these. the the females that could reproduce. went off by themselves sequester. themselves away from society and the. males that were capable of reproduc and. became those beautiful ones and didn't. seek sex either so over time they lost. their ability to carry out these complex. social interactions that lead to. reproduction and they just stopped. reproducing it in general Yeah by 560. and this is um I guess that's the close.

to two-year Mark um well I guess 18. months they had 2200 mice and then. growth ceased yeah which isn't even. close to the 3840 that this place could. could conceivably hang on to yeah so it. was how many was it 3,800 3840 yeah so. at 2200 they stopped reproducing um very. few mice survived past weaning at that. point uh the beautiful ones were still. secluded Ed the. females they basically called this the. first death of of two deaths he did.

specifically call social death. essentially exactly like the death of. the spirit the death of the society yeah. and then eventually the the physical. death the second death would come the. one leads to the second like there is a. point that you pass and he came up with. a great name for it called the. behavioral sync yeah um where they I. think they rever to it as the Event. Horizon once you pass that it's all over. right right there's no coming back from. that and once there's no coming back.

from that not only has your Society. collapsed or does your Society collapse. um you your population becomes extinct. because reproduction becomes impossible. yeah even he found which is pretty. startling he found that even after. enough of the population dies off that. it returns to those optimal ideal. numbers of the early days in Universe 25. or any of the universes they still don't. that reproduction doesn't start start up. again because remember social norms and. bonds have broken down yeah they were so.

messed up so they can't even figure out. how to reproduce once there's room for. people enough again it's crazy it is so. interesting he said that um he wrote he. wrote this really kind of Blockbuster. paper called population density and. social pathology and it was published in. Scientific American in 1962 and he said. that the individuals that are born under. these circumstances will be so out of. touch with reality as to be incapable. even of alienation wow so like they. can't even feel like they're not.

connected to society anymore because. there's no Society for them to ever yeah. connect or disconnect from it's. frightening it really is and a lot of. people jumped on this and said whoa what. what's going on here because if you look. at his data every time he ran this. experiment the results became the same. yeah there was an abundance of resources. there was never scarcity population. became overpopulation once it reached. the point of the behavioral snc the. population slid into Extinction and on.

the way there was violence. cannibalism um like uh pansexualism yeah. infanticide um just like all the. horrible things you can possibly think. of um right you know on the way toward. Extinction and so a lot of people said. you know these mice kind of are. reflective of our own Society don't you. think yeah and um. Calhoun was kind of like yeah I would. say that's probably correct yeah and.

there was a big boom at the time because. of this experiment in uh literature and. movies with a lot of Doomsday uh. scenarios uh Tom Wolf the great writer. uh wrote uh in the pump house gang in. 1968 uh he actually referenced the. behavioral snc um in uh in reference to. New York City and he said it got to uh. it was easy to look at New Yorkers as. animals especially looking down from. some place like a balcony at Grand. Central at the rush hour Friday. afternoon the floor was filled with poor.

white humans running around dodging. blinking their eyes making a sound like. a pin full of Starlings or rats or. something mhm and there are all these. movies that came out there was one. called zpg right uh with Oliver Reed and. uh Geraldine Chapman chaplain yeah that. was called zero population growth yeah. like for a generation the government. said no one's allowed to have babies. here's your robot baby right and they're. like no we're going to have a real baby. and they're like no you're not. um I think it I didn't see it but I'm. sure it ended very poorly for them I.

didn't see it either yeah I saw it on. IMDb though and of course uh of course. soent green yeah great uh great movie. from the novel make room make room I no. idea what was called that I didn't. either there's another novel called. Stand on Zanzibar and um there were uh. people called muckers who ran a muck and. just suddenly went crazy and started. killing a bunch of people I don't know. it happens from time to time in the news. yeah a lot of people would were saying.

yeah this stuff that Calhoun's finding. is clearly. extrapolatable onto Human Society yeah. and at the time too there was a lot of. discussion about what to do about um. inner city overpopulation crime housing. projects um there's this really great. documentary called the pruit iigo myth. and it's about there was this the pruit. iigo um project in St Louis I've heard. of this became I think we've talked.

about it before but it became like the. um the the poster child for how no. matter what you do for poor inner city. people they're going to screw it up and. it's going to become crime ridden and. it's them it's not it's not the their. their quality of life or education or. anything like that it's them and this. this this documentary just totally. demolishes that idea but it's still a. long-standing idea and there were a. group of policy policy makers who looked.

at Calhoun's research and said clearly. we need to we need to do something. there's there's too many people and. there's a lot of people who don't have. um valuable social roles and they're. turning to crime and everything um it. was very much open to interpretation. because Calhoun even though he was. putting these things in terms like. heaven and Utopia and hell and. behavioral sync and that kind of stuff. he was still just kind of putting data. out there and it was up to Society at. large to interpret it and it really said.

a lot about your attitudes toward your. fellow human how you interpreted it yeah. but Calhoun himself actually took. something of an optimistic view of all. of this data which is kind of. mindboggling yeah I was surprised to. read this actually he um it makes sense. though if you think about it yeah he. found that there were outliers and that. not all the mice descended into uh. hellish uh violence and and looting. right and mouse looting he found that. some could actually handle this and what. he called uh the ones that could had a.

high social velocity um mice that fared. well with a lot of high number of social. interactions that is not me and he said. I'm a type A blood type blood. personality type uh he said that. basically you these mice will Thrive um. and he said and even the ones who don't. what he term the losers um found ways to. be more creative yeah and he had. self-sufficient he had sunnier out. basically saying that man is essentially. a positive animal and we will create and.

design our own uh Solutions right and. his solution was since and it makes. sense because he found that it's not. scarcity or famines or anything that. leads to trouble yeah it's. overpopulation itself his idea was well. let's go find more space yeah and so he. was a member of this group called The. Space kets which was a group of thinkers. that were trying to figure out how to. establish colonies on like Mars or the. moon or wherever right which is exactly. what Calhoun's point was is that we just.

need more space right as long we can. sustain ourselves that's fine but even. if we don't stress agriculture the. planet or whatever we're still going to. run into problems so let's go off to. other worlds and. terraform oh and did you see the thing. about the Rats of nim oh was that taken. uh was that inspired by this it was. based directly on his research oh really. isn't that cool cool Mrs brisbee and the. Rats of nim nice yeah so go see that.

again and also go read the behavioral. sync super interesting read it's an. article on cabinet by Will Wilds that. informed a lot of this episode yeah this. stuff is fascinating to me a agree. because I I see kind of both sides um. clearly there are some issues going. right now and uh but I also think that. there are solutions like around the. corner yeah I ultimately don't have a. strong opinion either way and I think if. I think about it it's because I I think. humans will yeah become in ingenu of you.

can have steak tonight tons me too. grass-fed. only you that doesn't make it any better. I mean that's why beef is so it uses so. much is because it eats so much food. that also requires water yeah right it. requires water like two times over at. least like dumb cows oh yeah we should. feel bad about our steak consumption. Chuck I don't eat much steak good for. you buddy it's because Emily doesn't eat. beef so oh yeah you know usually I just.

will cook chicken because it's not like. I'll have a steak and I'll cook her. chicken every now and then but usually. it's just easier yeah cuz chicken comes. in like a two or three pack right you. know yeah plus you cook it until it's. dry as a bone so you can feel better. about the water consumption right that's. right uh if you want to know more about. population growth and specifically zero. population growth type those words into. the search bar house storks.com uh and. since I said search bar in there. somewhere it's time for for listener. mail I'm going to call this linguist.

sticks up for us all right right uh hey. guys I studied Linguistics in college so. it always tickles me when you guys go on. tangents about words and language uh the. main reason I'm writing is because I. want to offer you a Counterpoint to the. language police that have been harshing. your. Vibe uh grammar nuts are what we call In. The Biz uh prescriptivists yeah um who. like to dictate how people should speak. linguists on the other hand are are. descriptivists who make their careers. out of how people actually speak in real.

world situations oh I didn't realize I. thought linguist could be one or the. other I didn't realize that like. linguists tend to be descriptivist. that's what she says what is um who. wrote infinite J David Foster Wallace. yeah he was a big-time prescriptivist oh. really he used to drive him crazy like. how people should speak yeah yeah I'm. not like that there is a a specific way. that humans are supposed to speak and. write and communicate and if you deviate. from that you're about as bad a human.

being as you can be then that would be. like the downfall of society or. something Prett much oh come on um we. don't use the terms good or bad grammar. instead we prefer standard and. non-standard uh linguists recognize the. social functions of non-standard. grammars and observe their uses and. functions rather than to try and. micromanage them uh a final point I'm. certain your listeners still know uh. what you mean when you say things like. there's a of something even if it isn't. standard grammar in the laws of. linguistics as long as you're uh.

interlocutor which is a listener. interlocutor interlocutor. yeah as long as they accurately. understand what you mean you have. successfully communicated okay uh and. that's why humans invented language. isn't it so go be free and know that I. will always love your show no matter how. you speak and that is from Kristen. thanks Kristen the supportive linguists. appreciate that that's funny that uh. Kristen mentions that as long as your. interlocutor mhm understands what you're.

saying you're communicating correctly. sure um someone else I don't remember. who it was they wrote in and suggested. we do an episode on shorthand oh. interesting I was just talking about. that with Emily last night bam it's all. over the place I took speed writing in. high school and she was very surprised. at that so like speed writing with hand. speed writing is like or like. stenography no right with your hand um. it's basically a version of shorthand. but not exact shorthand gotcha it's a a. kind of shorthand it sounds like.

shorthand but like more aggressive yeah. like max power or something the uh the. joke was my friend Shannon uh I won't. say her last name but uh she would cheat. in class because she didn't learn the. shorthand uhh so the test were they. would just read a a long passage quickly. and you would have to do it and then. transcribe that into uh long hand she. was just super good at writing really. fast MH mhm so so she would just write. down everything in long hand super fast. and then figure out how to transcribe it. back to shorthand and then back to long.

hand and she she got caught doing that. yeah and the teacher's like that's. cheating yeah it sounds like it she was. like well ring really fast still nope. that's not speed writing that's just. writing fast yep uh if you want to get. in touch with us either to show us. support criticize us and even something. neutral is fine you can tweet to us at. sysk podcast you can join us on. facebook.com/ stuff you should know you. can send us an email to stuff podcast. howstuffworks.com and as always join us.

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