The Population Bomb

What Hacker News says

1. apiJul 2026
   “Anti” is a kind of super-meme that took over discourse in a lot of spheres, especially anywhere near academia, starting in the 1970s.

   If I had to trace it to one source it would probably be the Club of Rome and Limits to Growth. Paul Erlich would be a close second with The Population Bomb.

   Here’s a great podcast on the latter:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn1gieFMuWI

   This stuff sounds right because obviously you can’t have infinite growth in population or resource use on a finite planet. That means it won’t happen. The question is “how will it not happen?” The answer right now looks like “as people get wealthier they have fewer kids.” There are other possible answers like dematerialization of the economy which is also a thing.

   Before the 70s this stuff would have been called far right and identified with ideologies like authoritarian eugenics and fascism. The 70s is when a lot of “volkisch” proto-fascist and crypto-fascist ideas got a lefty hippie makeover. The other big one is the idea that “natural” is inherently good.

   I finally see this stuff getting some challenge from all across the political spectrum, even from the left. In previous decades you only ever saw it get challenged from the right or from what were once called libertarians.

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2. socalgal2Sep 2026
   Let me add further, I think there is value in separating people like Kurzweil (who I think is basically correct) and people like Paul R. Ehrlich who wrote "The Population Bomb" and who's predictions have almost entirely been falsified completely. They weren't even in the correct direction.

   The same is true for Ed Zitron. He's not been even directionally correct.

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3. toomuchtodoMar 2026
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb

   https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3294965W/The_Population_Bomb

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4. next_xibalbaMar 2026
   Doomerism is a kind of religion that goes back as far as they eye can see. What's interesting about it is that in spite of being perpetually incorrect in its myriad predictions, it continues to adapt and attract new adherents.

   See also (recent only):

   - Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb (Malthusian collapse)

   - The Club of Rome's The Limits of Growth (resource exhaustion)

   - Thomas Malthus' Population growth / famine cycle

   - James Lovelock's Global warming catastrophe predictions

   - Hubbert's (et al) Peak oil economic disaster

   - Molina & Rowland's Ozone catastrophe

   - Metcalfe's internet collapse

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5. Unearned5161Nov 2025
   The conflation of Ehrlich with the LtG team is an extremely dead horse that people should stop beating. The Population Bomb (Ehrlich's 1968 book) was an entirely separate production, with separate teams, separate conclusions, and separate levels of academic rigor.

   Furthermore, Ehrlich's PR stunt with Julian Simon of a bet during the peak of a commodity cycle was neither epistemologically sound nor a proof of absolutely anything other than markets do what markets do.

   I challenge people who reach for the Ehrlich card whenever these growth conversations come up to reflect on what they're acting on and to recognize that the road of thought on LtG is dark and overwhelming. In fact, it ends at a destination that implies deep unflattering things about our fundamental capabilities as humans and role on this earth. It is natural, and human, to meet this with reactive fear. Keep this in mind as you read what follows.

   I mention revisiting Limits to Growth because if you read the introduction[1] you would notice that they state their conclusions as follows:

   1. If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.

   2. It is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of ecological and economic stability that is sustain able far into the future. The state of global equilibrium could be designed so that the basic material needs of each person on earth are satisfied and each person has an equal opportunity to realize his individual human potential.

   3. If the world's people decide to strive for this second outcome rather than the first, the sooner they begin working to attain it, the greater will be their chances of success.

   Furthermore, if you look at their 30-year update [2] published in 2002, you can get a few more notable quotes:

   "We still see our research as an effort to identify different possible futures. We are not trying to predict the future. We are sketching alternative scenarios for humanity as we move toward 2100." (p. xvii)

   and most telling:

   "Our most important statements about the likelihood of collapse do not come from blind faith in the curves generated by World3. They result simply from understanding the dynamic patterns of behavior that are produced by three obvious, persistent, and common features of the global system: erodable limits, incessant pursuit of growth, and delays in society’s responses to approaching limits." (p. xviii)

   The story Limits To Growth is trying to communicate is still pending and will be until ~2072. Nothing has failed and their nuanced commentary on the complexity of the issue has only aged well.

   [1]: https://www.clubofrome.org/publication/the-limits-to-growth/

   [2]: https://www.peakoilindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Limi...

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6. boxerabOct 2025
   “We cannot hide away from human population growth, because it underlies so many of the other problems. All these things we talk about wouldn’t be a problem if the world was the size of the population that there was 500 years ago.”

   -- Goodall at 2002 WEF panel discussion on Amazon rainforest

   The population 500 years ago was around 500 million. The only way we return to this level is de-industrialization.

   Paul Ehrlich wrote "The Population Bomb" almost 60 years ago - all of his predictions turned out to be dead wrong.

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