New at Reason

David Weigel | October 17, 2006

Katherine Mangu-Ward welcomes the 300 millionth American with the gift every kid dreams about - a bullshit detector.

Comments

|10.17.06 @ 3:19PM|#

All I ask is that no more people move to Tampa. Or to Florida, for that matter. We're done, thanks.

Is that photo on the main page from the TOS episode, The Mark of Gideon? Guess we can't always go to the Soylent Green trough for all of our overpopulation needs. Too bad.

|10.17.06 @ 3:38PM|#

What is the problem?
Are we gonna entertain the population bomb idiots again.

|10.17.06 @ 4:01PM|#

That was a great article. Thanks.

At the risk of looking really dumb (I know, it wouldn't be the first time), the article states "Our birthrate has drifted.. down to 2.0 children per woman, just a bit less than replacement rate."

Does anyone know why the replacement rate isn't exactly 2.0?

|10.17.06 @ 4:07PM|#

"there were no famines caused by overpopulation. No food riots broke out in the streets of Chicago. We didn't run out of land to farm and develop."

Yes but the Colorado river fails to reach the sea almost every year, we issue warnings against breathing the the air over our population centers, we have substantually depleted almost all of the formerly staple marine fisheries, etc... The solution to finite resources does lie in market solutions but only if consumers are educated about the consequences of their choices. We are feeling the effects of out consumption and the only way to reverse the ill effects is to empower consumers and then hold them responsible for their choices.

|10.17.06 @ 4:11PM|#

Cab - ~1 in 50 children who are born will not reproduce (either because they die before they have a chance to, are sterile, or decide not to)

|10.17.06 @ 4:30PM|#

got it - thanks tarran. It has to do with infant mortality. With current levels of infant mortality, the replacement rate is about 2.1. I assumed infant mortality was accounted for in the 2.0 calculation. My bad.

|10.17.06 @ 4:30PM|#

Cab - ~1 in 50 children who are born will not reproduce (either because they die before they have a chance to, are sterile, or decide not to)

Hate to quibble but that doesn't really answer Cabs question. Replacement rate is the rate at which births replace deaths.

According to wikipedia, the "sub-replacement fertility rate" (as it's officially known) for industrialized countries is 2.1.

2.1 children per woman includes 2 children to replace the parents, with one-tenth of a child extra to make up for the mortality of children who do not reach the age of 15, which is the defined age when the fertility rate is calculated

Thus a birth rate of 2.0 is just below replacement rate of 2.1.

|10.17.06 @ 4:30PM|#

Another explanation I found for replacement rate != 2.0 is that all a woman's offspring would have to live to at least 15 years old for replacement rate to = 2.0 (infant mortality/etc affect this ideal).

|10.17.06 @ 4:34PM|#

Looks like Cab hit the same article I did. Incidentally, it lists our rate at 2.09

|10.17.06 @ 4:41PM|#

"...Canada, which we can always annex if we need more room later on."

Canada also has lots of water and oil, so I recommend we annex it now so they don't waste "our" resources.

|10.17.06 @ 4:57PM|#

Apostate Jew... the welcome mat is out as far as myself and may other Albertans are concerned. With Alberta as the 51st, the US could tell the rest of the world where to put thier oil

Tim Cavanaugh|10.17.06 @ 5:01PM|#

As Canadians never tire of pointing out, the United States has tried to take over Canada twice, and we got our asses kicked both times.

|10.17.06 @ 5:20PM|#

Both of those times Canada was still a colony of a world power. The first invasion was by a mob of rebellious colonials and the second by the ineffective army of an upstart republic. The situation now is decidely to our advantage.

Canada is presently at our mercy and there are many Quislings like Al who will support us. We must strike now before the situation changes, perhaps to our disadvantage.

|10.17.06 @ 5:43PM|#

Why don't we just extend an offer to each Canadian province to join the United States? Except maybe Quebec, which would avoid all the fuss and would allow it to oppress English speakers freely. A win-win! Oh, and maybe Nunavut should be granted nation status. I'm feeling magnanimous.

Heck, I'd be happy if just Alberta and B.C. joined.

|10.17.06 @ 5:53PM|#

Tim,

I think the margin between U.S. military might and Canadian has grown somewhat since 1812. Not that I countenance an invasion of Canada, who is a great ally in practice, even if it says snarky things to make clear that it is not, in fact, the United States.

|10.17.06 @ 6:06PM|#

no more people please... it's the excuse the liberals in my town consistently give for evermore stringent zoning laws... then again, when we get too populated, the earth will dust us off like a flea on a dog...

|10.17.06 @ 6:11PM|#

"As Canadians never tire of pointing out, the United States has tried to take over Canada twice, and we got our asses kicked both times.

They've obviously never seen Canadian Bacon. We don't necessarily need to take over the whole country... just push all the Canucks into Quebec (we definitely don't want that) or the Yukon... we'll take the rest. Or, like many of my Canadian friends say, "we're just waiting for the chance to secede and join the U.S."

Larry A|10.17.06 @ 6:14PM|#

I think it's time for a real BS detector. Sportscasters can tell you any piece of trivia about any popular sports figure. Why can't someone invent an EPA, Earned Prediction Average, for folks in the prognostication business?

|10.17.06 @ 6:28PM|#

Canadian Bacon is a very funny movie, too bad the Dirrector lost his mind.

|10.17.06 @ 6:37PM|#

Canadian Bacon is a very funny movie, too bad the Dirrector lost his mind.

Wow, all these years and I never realized he was the director... looks like I'll have to throw that movie into the wood stove.

|10.17.06 @ 6:56PM|#

As Canadians never tire of pointing out, the United States has tried to take over Canada twice, and we got our asses kicked both times.

Canada does have its charms: hockey, Tim Horton's coffee, Tylenol III over the counter...

|10.17.06 @ 9:04PM|#

I piss on the thoughts of violence between the US and Canada.
I piss to illustrate we don't really have a water shortage problem. (And to change the subject.) We may have a water circulation problem, similar to getting the right food to the right places at the right time--a food circulation problem--if we ever hope to end hunger.
Governments are always the hardening of the arteries of any circulatory problem.