Posted on 11/20/2022 7:08:40 PM PST by SunkenCiv
In evolutionary terms, the human population has rocketed in seconds. The news that it has now reached 8 billion seems inexplicable when you think about our history.
For 99% of the last million years of our existence, people rarely came across other humans. There were only around 10,000 Neanderthals living at any one time. Today, there are around 800,000 people in the same space that was occupied by one Neanderthal. What's more, since humans live in social groups, the next nearest Neanderthal group was probably well over 100km away. Finding a mate outside your own family was a challenge.
Neanderthals were more inclined to stay in their family groups and were warier of new people. If they had outcompeted our own species (Homo sapiens), the density of population would likely be far lower. It's hard to imagine them building cities, for example, given that they were genetically disposed to being less friendly to those beyond their immediate family.
The reasons for our dramatic population growth may lie in the early days of Homo sapiens more than 100,000 years ago. Genetic and anatomical differences between us and extinct species such as Neanderthals made us more similar to domesticated animal species. Large herds of cows, for example, can better tolerate the stress of living in a small space together than their wild ancestors who lived in small groups, spaced apart. These genetic differences changed our attitudes to people outside our own group. We became more tolerant.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
They have no way of knowing anything with certainty.
If Neanderthals were roaming hunter-gatherers, they likely would have followed herds of game animals as they roamed across the landscape, and probably encountered other bands. With a sparse population, warfare over hunting territories shouldn’t have been an issue. Mating between members of different bands would have occurred.
When hunting large animals, using spears, a big hunting party is probably better than a small one.
Give them all a square yard to stand in and they’d fit in the land area of Florida 20 times over...
... and we would have one in the U.S. Senate ... oh ... wait ...
We would be startled and a bit scared when we turn on the stove and the fire magically appears.
So much speculation, so little facts!
Thanks to the mass sterilizing effects of the mRNA shot the population will start declining.
So pretty much like Democrat women?
Sometime in the last 15 years a figure was floated that said that the "natural" human population limit, based on the "carrying capacity" of the Earth, was 9 billion, and that the figure would be peak around 2050. We just hit eight billion (we hit three billion around the time I was in Jr High) and we hit seven billion about 15 years ago.
Mao's one child limit was imposed circa 1970, so the one child generation of Chinese will start to hit 80 years of age (those who make it that far) circa 2050. By 2100, the Chinese population of China will have dropped, hard, and continue to live in the east of the country (something like 80 percent of the entire population of China lives in the east).
This probably explains some of the motivation of the regime there to suppress and "re-educate" the Uighurs. I think the Uighurs are at least one of the largest minorities, but they're a tiny fraction of the entire population.
[reprise and edit of an older comment] IMHO, by 2100 AD, the population of the US will rise to at least 1.5 billion, possibly to as much as 3 billion, while China's will decline to about 300 million (basically, the Old Switcheroo). Like China's, India's population will begin to decline in about thirty years, while the Moslem population of India may rise as a percentage.
The population of the Middle East will rise somewhat, but with most of the increase being in Egypt, Turkey, and Iran (like now). [/reprise]
Israel's current population is about 9.5 million, and even at the current rate will double in 25 years. If that Neom project in Saudi Arabia gets built within a reasonable time frame (by that I mean, having some permanent population and economic life of its own within five years), it's not unlikely that Arabs (especially younger Arabs) will bail out of the "Palestinian" squatter camps in Israel and Gaza and head there. Regardless, Israel will become second on the most densely populated list, between Monaco and Singapore. Based on their very nice tourism ads on YT, a lot more highrise there than ever before. In 1967, at the time of the Six Day War, there wasn't even a 24 hour broadcast station in the country.
Western Europe's European population will decline, in some places vanish, replaced by African and Middle Eastern immigrants, except in Italy. Even at current rates, and figuring for longevity and attrition, by 2100 Germany's population will exceed Russia's.
Yup...maybe without the flannel...
Not a chance — exhibit A, the Demagogic Party.
And, since when has that stopped us, with or without Beer Goggles?
I'd hit it.
LOL
OOOOO...Looks too much like Steve Irvin...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.