The central problem now is human psychology. We smile condescendingly at cults such as the Jehovahs Witnesses or the Moonies, yet we live within a cult: the dominant global religious delusion of endless GDP growth. It is now a form of self-harm; yet questioning it is seen by the corporate mind as outrageous blasphemy.
It's hard to convince people to ditch cult beliefs, but we have to try. If nothing else, we have duty to document our collapse. This is the fight of our lives.
No mistake, just a parallel. A similar history unfolded for a reindeer population introduced in the early 1940s to St Matthew Island in the Bering Sea--explosion to several thousand animals then collapse to extinction from over-grazing and harsh winters.
I am amazed at how the notion of overpopulation and overshoot are controversial even in collapse aware communities. I find it really simple to grasp - infant and maternal mortality rates declined and life expectancy increased causing a population boom over a few generations before birth rates fell. This has resulted in a much higher population than ever existed before and necessitated advances in food production to support this population. These new methods used destructive and non-renewable means to achieve that however making it a finite solution. The notion of sustaining this level of population indefinitely is absurd and the population size makes every other problem that much harder to tackle.
I've seen a lot of people who will respond to any such arguments with the thought terminating cliche 'overpopulation is a myth'. Largely they seem to have misinterpreted it as people suggesting that the population will keep rising exponentially until it becomes overpopulated rather than reaching a peak and levelling out. This understanding of it ignores the obvious reality that we are already overpopulated and only able to sustain this population size via technology that is dependent on finite resources. How many countries around the world are reliant on food imports to maintain their population size and would rapidly face problems if those imports were cut off?
Then you've got those who cling hard to the idea that it is only the rich who are the problem due to their emissions being much higher than those of a vastly larger number of poor people. This argument ignores that billions of poor people consume vastly more food and water. Fulfilling these requirements results in destroying ecosystems to create farmland and housing and overharvesting natural resources that leads to a decline in biodiversity. The rich cause all manner of problems flying around in private jets and floating about on yachts but they aren't consuming millions of kg of fish per day harvested using electrified nets.
I think a lot of people won't even contemplate the problem of overpopulation because it is one that has no solution besides billions of people dying one way or another. As an eternally pessimistic depressed nihilist I don't find this hard to imagine. For people who are inexplicably happy in the face of this nightmare dystopia and decided to bring children into it however these ideas are just too uncomfortable to consider.
My money is on cockroaches over the big brains of we fire-apes.
As a K-selected species with long maturation, few offspring, and extended offspring care, we thrive in stability. Yet our big brains are creating an increasingly unstable world. Climate chaos already threatens our industrial food supply.
r-selected species thrive in times of instability. They have short lives, tremendous fecundity, and little or no parental care of offspring. They can evolve their way out while we are merely thinking about things. They evolve about 40,000 times faster that humans!
Cockroaches have been around nearly as long as trees, three hundred times as long as Homo species. They will be here long after we're gone.
Professor Rees, what do you think maybe the differences between St Paul Island, St Matthew Island and Mouse Utopia experiments? Only St Paul Island reindeer bounced back at lower population. Can we draw parallels and to what extend from each experiment (maybe a combination)? What is disturbing though is when seemingly removing all environmental threats, there is extinction due to spiritual death. From all experiments, Mouse Utopia disturbs me the most. Maybe the “nowhere to go” and “forced interaction” factor is the number one stressor being mis-identified. Nowhere to go, physically and conceptually.
I can’t help but observing serious social withdrawal and unwillingness to participate, everywhere in the world now. Hikikomori, “lying flat”, “let it rot”, “quiet quitting” and goes on. Of course I cannot directly compare people to mice. But there is a global trend which in my opinion is very hard to be reversed: young people avoid creating families. Birth rates are plummeting, in a synchronized fashion. No government has ever succeeded in reversing demographic crash with individual incentives. Japanese women, as far as I know, are facing strain, as they have to care for two generations: the babies and the elderly.
What I wonder though is whether choosing not having children is a truly free choice among young people, people redirecting energy and finding meaning in other things in life, or whether this is an act of withdrawing from life altogether, while social expectations and the cost (financial, particularly mental and emotional) is escalating.
If success in life is “survive and reproduce” (seen in strictly biological - Darwinian terms), then not reproducing is an act against one’s best interests. And I cannot see how persuading people not having children, applying arguments from biology, boom-bust cycles and Darwin is going to work. Actually, it is a contradiction in terms, a paradoxical situation. Like arguing for a self-imposed population bottleneck.
If people are withdrawing no matter what, then things are not good, and the population conundrum has a “behavioral sink” aspect. It means that modern “civilization” is already a zombie, it passed its “expiration date” and is lagging to see that. And as happens with hysteresis, the boiling frog fails to takes notice. When the frog notices, it is already fried.
I am fascinated by the ecological experiment of Peter and Paul lake. The fact that complex systems emit signals before their transitions from one state to another. SOS signals perhaps. It the above context, i.e. tipping points, is there any recent research with regards to the phenomenon of social withdrawal and plummeting birth rates?
Wolfgang Lutz, an Austrian demographer, made an attempt in 2007 to grapple with the notion with the “low fertility trap” hypothesis, and examine low fertility from a systems thinking perspective. (The Low Fertility Trap Hypothesis / Wolfgang Lutz, Vegard Skirbekk, and Maria Rita Testa / March 2007).
It is 2026, and the trend appears to amplify, not recede. And somehow, optimists assume that it will bounce back with incentives, because... people always want children. Seen in this context, perhaps the system is tipping to a long term state change: Low fertility being the norm. If this is true, then there is no need for advocating for less children, it is like breaking into an already open door. If this is true, the system is re-organizing itself around low fertility, no matter how much pronatalists, various ultra-nationalists, economists, and proponents of infinite growth rant.
George, you pose some crucial questions. Can we compare reindeer, mice and (wo)men? Oh, yes, methinks!
First, there is a major difference between the Reindeer population collapses and the mouse utopia and similar experiences. For one thing, the reindeer on isolated islands experienced a mostly food-related population boom-to-bust cycle. In the mouse experiments food and water were abundant—the population boomed but then became rife with various behavioural pathologies with fatal results.
Apparently, mice form social hierarchies: dominant males were forced constantly to defend themselves and their females from challengers; females were harassed by the same challengers; the male losers could not escape to greener pastures and formed outcast clusters plagued by constant infighting. In short, most individuals in the mouse colonies were under constant psychological stress which led to a breakdown of normal social behaviours: indifference to interactions, even with alpha males; females abandoning, or worse, their offspring; high pup mortality; falling fertility, and eventual population collapse.
I believe this is homologous to what you are describing when you write, concerning humans:
“What is disturbing though is when seemingly removing all environmental threats, there is extinction due to spiritual death… Maybe the “nowhere to go” and “forced interaction” factor is the number one stressor being mis-identified. Nowhere to go, physically and conceptually.
I can’t help but observing serious social withdrawal and unwillingness to participate, everywhere in the world now…. “
Importantly, however, you remark: “Of course I cannot directly compare people to mice…” .
Well, I am not so reticent. The hostility people feel when being compared to animals (mice, no less!!) is, I suppose, normal, but is perhaps mostly an irrational attitude of mind linked to human exceptionalism. And of course, H. sapiens is more socially and behavioural complex than Mus musculus so we cannot take comparisons too far.
That said, both mice and humans are social animals and, according to Dr Google, share about 85% of their genetic protein coding and about 99% of mouse genes have a corresponding human equivalent (ortholog). It would not surprise me in the least if it were shown that what you call increasing “..serious social withdrawal and unwillingness to participate, everywhere in the world…” among humans, as well as the increase in urban pathologies such as substance abuse and addiction, homelessness, underemployment, criminal gangs and violence among displaced youth are, in crucial ways related to increasing crowding, broken hierarchies and a sense of entrapment. Everyone is facing an uncertain (and increasingly fearsome) future with no where to go and no help in sight.
BTW, in these circumstances, the failure to reproduce may not be “against one’s best interests” particularly if people fear they might be unable to successfully raise a child and would consume essential resources in trying. Indeed, the preservation of self necessarily trumps child-rearing, so if people feel sufficiently insecure or threatened, they will focus on the former (which is, after all, prerequisite for the latter).
I suspect that any analysis of the demise of MTI culture will revisit not only John Calhoun’s work but the contributions of other ethologists and experimental psychologists including Hans Selye who proposed the general adaptation syndrome as a mammalian response to stress. Is it not possible that many humans today, suffering in over-crowded cities from wretched physical conditions, social breakdown, dashed expectations and no chance of escape, are suspended in something like the ‘resistance stage’ on the way to the ‘exhaustion phase’ of Selye’s syndrome? Why should the human psychological and physical response to chronic, hopeless stress not be at least as complex, more nuanced and vitally more interesting than that of other mammals?
So, I agree with your assessment that “If people are withdrawing no matter what, then things are not good, and the population conundrum has a ‘behavioral sink’ aspect. It means that modern “civilization” is already a zombie, it passed its ‘expiration date’… And as happens with hysteresis, the boiling frog fails to takes notice. When the frog notices, it is already fried.” (Or at least, boiled)
Finally, you suggest that society (such as it is) is retreating into a low-fertility norm and “ If this is true, then there is no need for advocating for less children, it is like breaking into an already open door.” I’m not so sure—the world is in gross overshoot destroying the biophysical basis of its own and any future population’s survival and, even with unassisted fertility decline, will continue this erosion for decades.
This is… er, unhelpful. We arguably enhance long-term human prospects to the extent we can accelerate non-coercive population decline through, for example, free access to fertility control technologies for all women.
Professor Rees, I am not refraining from comparison because of human exceptionalism. I already perceive myself as a speckle of dust, in this population congestion, “identity” congestion, information congestion. But I was wondering if an experiment concerning mice, which was never replicated by other researchers (if I am not wrong), is representative of the situation, without taking under consideration other parameters and variables. After all, mice is one species, humans is another. What I see in common here, is that there is a loss of individual space, physical and mental-conceptual, in both situations. What I also see in human societies is that there is environmental negative feedback, too. I was wondering what example fits most the case and to what extent, whether Calhoun’s experiment describes the situation best, and what made the St Paul island reindeer adapt, contrary to St Matthew’s that perished. Was a harsh winter enough (apart from food scarcity) to make the difference, compared to St Paul island reindeer?
If the Calhoun experiment is relevant, then research would benefit by directing attention to it. Or else it remains an "incomplete" case study. But such experiments are perhaps unethical today.
I am not aware of mothers massively harming or neglecting their babies (yet). I believe that people that are mentally and physically exhausted, will not have the stamina to reproduce, anyway. The Hikikomori phenomenon is not “ideology” or a fad. In my opinion it is existential, signifying burnout and total disengagement, as self-preservation strategy. What is odd with the Hikikomori, is the 80/50 phenomenon. Elderly parents, 80-year old, are supporting 50-year old Hikikomoris. That is not the case in Mouse Utopia.
Mouse Utopia was no Heaven. It was a place with a threat so lethal and impossible, so as to make St Paul reindeer sound as a success story. And success it was; the reindeer survived and returned. This totally re-arranges the threat-scale here. Suddenly, the loss of food (biophysical basis) is much better than crowding with ample food (recreation, fuel, etc - whatever the MTI system offers, without external threats). The reindeer were able to adapt by a dietary change (if I am not wrong). Why then was COVID such a fuss, with unprecedented measures for all population, instead of focusing on the vulnerable? If some negative feedback is necessary, then why the world tried to achieve a world without threats whatsoever, as there is no such thing as terminal happiness without threat and danger?
Let’s engage in a thought experiment.
In Europe, fertility rate is 1.34 children per woman, well behind replacement rate. S. Korea is at 0.72. In China, it is one child per woman. Those fertility rates are already very low, well behind replacement rate, as to seriously alarm demographers.
What fertility rate would be suggested as for a quick down-scaling, taking under consideration the population momentum, and all problems that arise from a loss of pension systems? One child (as policy) is the lowest that can be, and has ever been implemented. Europe is close to that. China is there. Or else a policy would have to mandate reproduction by means of discrimination (who is “qualified” in this “civilization” to reproduce) which would awaken phantasms of eugenics. Not to mention that if one line is crossed in the race to make population “sustainable”, other lines may, and the results may be appalling. The low fertility trap hypothesis suggests, in a way, that low fertility may be self-reinforcing. If this is the case, then fertility will fall even more.
Is there a mathematical formula of “population down-scaling”, talking under consideration population momentum, and what timeline exists for this down-scaling? And what if all people suddenly turned collapse-aware? Would it suffice, or population momentum has already passed a point of no return? I want to be as honest as I can. I believe that this time window is lost. Tipping points are already crossed. We are entering an era of transitioning to a new “equilibrium”, whatever this equilibrium could mean. And I agree, it is helpful to instruct people on their reproductive rights.
But, after all, if humans are part of Nature (I do not disagree on that), it is natural for them to live out constructed stories and narratives, and resisting reality is expected. What people exhibited all those years was their natural tendency (living their myth). Nature and evolution made people that way. Not only people are part of Nature, but Nature has a part of humans in her: they have already changed her. And Nature is changing them in return. Why not ponder on the possibility that the people that will survive (if they survive), will be adapted as reindeer did, signifying a new stage in evolution? After all, if people make up stories, and this is the necessary way of them bearing this world, wouldn’t it be a massive “evolutionary leap” as for them to be able to see reality “As Is”, and bear their finitude and the harshness of life?
Thank you, William. Nothing to add really except that Denis Meadows says in an interview (link to follow) that the worst period in history to live is NOW just before the peak. Both positive and negative feedback mechanisms are at their highest. Counter-intuitively, most people (me included) would have thought post-peak would be the worst. I think that this would explain the confusing nature of living at the moment, when we have AI, space colonisation, bio-tech, etc. all driving economic growth higher and at the same time we have two major wars, ebola, cost-of-living crisis and heatwaves all increasing. Accelerator and brake are both full on! I'm not surprised that people 'choose' one or the other to put their faith in, rather than understand the complexity of the situation which is not easy. (Link to YouTube video: 'Interview with Dennis Meadows on "Limits to Growth", approx. 24mins in).
We rapacious apes would've had to evolve on small islands dotting an ocean planet, to have any chance at a different outcome. An ocean planet with submerged continents, and vast reserves of fossil fuels just waiting to be tapped.
Overshoot has two factors: consumption per capita and population size. You seem to be focused on population size. However, with the population pyramid already being skewed by medical advances, birth control and a falling sperm count, advocating antinatal policies, if enacted, would surely skew the pyramid much more, making modern economies untenable. That might not, ultimately, be a bad thing for the rest of nature but often seems to be ignored by antinatalists.
You also concentrate on biocapacity, which is important, but for a modern society non-renewable resource depletion is also important in terms of sustainability. Living at the biocapacity of the planet would be impossible if a modern way of life is desired. Indeed, any way of life that requires non-renewable resources would eventually become impossible. Such a way of life requires growth, if only for the reason that growth is required to support the increasing complexity that is required to extract and refine depleting and degrading non-renewable resources. Eventually, though, such a way of life will become impossible.
Humans can't live sustainably at what people might think of as a "reasonable material standard."
Brilliant, canonical, and saddening. Some individual human beings are highly intelligent; as a species, however, we fall far short of ants, bees, cockroaches, sharks, or even earthworms.
It's because we evolved as apes living in small troops, first in the trees and then coming down to earth to hunt. For millions of years, every human being was born with elaborate instincts enabling it to survive, reproduce, and participate in the survival of the species.
Then the conscious mind - or, if you will, the arrogant, half-blind left hemisphere - took over and went on a rampage that has led us to our current predicament. I imagine that well over half of all currently living humans either don't know there is a problem or refuse to face it.
The thunder of the waterfall is gradually getting louder.
It appears increasingly less likely as we squander the limited window of opportunity that we will self correct. There’s no profit in scaling back, therefore the immediate challenge is voluntarily dealing with an extended period of contraction [40-year recession].
Theoretically, population could be responsibly reduced by half in 50 even as little as 40 years, provided the implementation of a unified global effort to educate and rid ourselves of the ideology of growth modeled economic systems.
If we instead, decide to waste these next 40 to 50 years and continue to exist as we are, then the worst case hellscape scenario awaits our children and theirs. It is, as you say, a taboo subject, so how do we get people to listen and act accordingly.
I wrote a book on this very subject and I believe it starts with a very public campaign of shaming governments that employ pro natalist policies.
Great to see such bracing, well-written consideration of such vital matters. The third paragraph above Fig. 3 has a “1980s” typo that obviously should be “2080s”.
I don’t see listed in the causes of overshoot denialism and inaction the overwhelming social power held by the ultimate expression of human ultrasociality, transnational corporations. They are ungoverned, and ungovernable. They exist to exploit, not to manage, making every other cause of overshoot trifling in comparison. They are the “we, “ - they have now become humanity.
Indeed, corporations are the exact equivalent of Terminators - with the difference that their imperative is not to kill humans, but to maximise profit. It's not clear to me that it's a difference that matters in the medium to long term. Paperclips, profits...
China did for a while, and no doubt still does to a limited extent. But then the Chinese have a very long (relatively) history of population swings and disasters such as floods, famines, and invasions. They have learned to cope - somewhat.
In the global commons, we are all in a death struggle.
You can choose not to procreate, or to drastically limit your procreation, or to look down on those who procreate and who must therefore bear the severe burden of raising children not only alone, but under the sneering opprobrium of al bien pensants.
It is the tragedy of the commons, writ globally.
But bear in mind that the children you refrain from sending out to into the collapsing commons will be more than replaced by your neighbour, who, by pure coincidence, is pressuring you to do exactly that. And so the commons will be destroyed anyway, because unilateral retreat only means that your genes will be eliminated, not that the commons will be preserved. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Those with brains evolved enough to worry about the environment and be willing to make personal sacrifices to protect it will be removed from the gene pool, while those who do not and will not (consider that 36% of oceanic plastic bag pollution comes from ONE COUNTRY, the Philippines) will see their genes take over the world and turn the whole thing into a garbage dump.
“Two realisations can act as beacons to light our way through this fog of mystification.
The first is that meaningful growth has ended, and that the economy is starting to shrink.
The second is that nobody, in any position of authority or influence, can possibly afford to admit that this is happening.” Economist Dr Tim Morgan
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2026/01/30/318-the-surplus-energy-economy-part-one/
The central problem now is human psychology. We smile condescendingly at cults such as the Jehovahs Witnesses or the Moonies, yet we live within a cult: the dominant global religious delusion of endless GDP growth. It is now a form of self-harm; yet questioning it is seen by the corporate mind as outrageous blasphemy.
It's hard to convince people to ditch cult beliefs, but we have to try. If nothing else, we have duty to document our collapse. This is the fight of our lives.
https://newptc75.medium.com/human-nature-and-the-climate-041b9273653e
"[N]obody, in any position of authority or influence, can possibly afford to admit that this is happening”.
Is it just me, or was that an adequate definition of a failed species?
No mistake, just a parallel. A similar history unfolded for a reindeer population introduced in the early 1940s to St Matthew Island in the Bering Sea--explosion to several thousand animals then collapse to extinction from over-grazing and harsh winters.
I am amazed at how the notion of overpopulation and overshoot are controversial even in collapse aware communities. I find it really simple to grasp - infant and maternal mortality rates declined and life expectancy increased causing a population boom over a few generations before birth rates fell. This has resulted in a much higher population than ever existed before and necessitated advances in food production to support this population. These new methods used destructive and non-renewable means to achieve that however making it a finite solution. The notion of sustaining this level of population indefinitely is absurd and the population size makes every other problem that much harder to tackle.
I've seen a lot of people who will respond to any such arguments with the thought terminating cliche 'overpopulation is a myth'. Largely they seem to have misinterpreted it as people suggesting that the population will keep rising exponentially until it becomes overpopulated rather than reaching a peak and levelling out. This understanding of it ignores the obvious reality that we are already overpopulated and only able to sustain this population size via technology that is dependent on finite resources. How many countries around the world are reliant on food imports to maintain their population size and would rapidly face problems if those imports were cut off?
Then you've got those who cling hard to the idea that it is only the rich who are the problem due to their emissions being much higher than those of a vastly larger number of poor people. This argument ignores that billions of poor people consume vastly more food and water. Fulfilling these requirements results in destroying ecosystems to create farmland and housing and overharvesting natural resources that leads to a decline in biodiversity. The rich cause all manner of problems flying around in private jets and floating about on yachts but they aren't consuming millions of kg of fish per day harvested using electrified nets.
I think a lot of people won't even contemplate the problem of overpopulation because it is one that has no solution besides billions of people dying one way or another. As an eternally pessimistic depressed nihilist I don't find this hard to imagine. For people who are inexplicably happy in the face of this nightmare dystopia and decided to bring children into it however these ideas are just too uncomfortable to consider.
"Where would you put your money?"
My money is on cockroaches over the big brains of we fire-apes.
As a K-selected species with long maturation, few offspring, and extended offspring care, we thrive in stability. Yet our big brains are creating an increasingly unstable world. Climate chaos already threatens our industrial food supply.
r-selected species thrive in times of instability. They have short lives, tremendous fecundity, and little or no parental care of offspring. They can evolve their way out while we are merely thinking about things. They evolve about 40,000 times faster that humans!
Cockroaches have been around nearly as long as trees, three hundred times as long as Homo species. They will be here long after we're gone.
To bad I won't be around to collect on that bet.
Yo apuesto por las hormigas.
De momento, no sabemos que las cucarachas tengan sociedades avanzadas. 😉
A little ditty 'bout modern man
exceptional humans doin' the least they can
So let us live, let us grow
Let wall street come and save our soil
Holdin' on to individualism for as long we can
Changes come around real soon, thrill of living is gone...
Professor Rees, what do you think maybe the differences between St Paul Island, St Matthew Island and Mouse Utopia experiments? Only St Paul Island reindeer bounced back at lower population. Can we draw parallels and to what extend from each experiment (maybe a combination)? What is disturbing though is when seemingly removing all environmental threats, there is extinction due to spiritual death. From all experiments, Mouse Utopia disturbs me the most. Maybe the “nowhere to go” and “forced interaction” factor is the number one stressor being mis-identified. Nowhere to go, physically and conceptually.
I can’t help but observing serious social withdrawal and unwillingness to participate, everywhere in the world now. Hikikomori, “lying flat”, “let it rot”, “quiet quitting” and goes on. Of course I cannot directly compare people to mice. But there is a global trend which in my opinion is very hard to be reversed: young people avoid creating families. Birth rates are plummeting, in a synchronized fashion. No government has ever succeeded in reversing demographic crash with individual incentives. Japanese women, as far as I know, are facing strain, as they have to care for two generations: the babies and the elderly.
What I wonder though is whether choosing not having children is a truly free choice among young people, people redirecting energy and finding meaning in other things in life, or whether this is an act of withdrawing from life altogether, while social expectations and the cost (financial, particularly mental and emotional) is escalating.
If success in life is “survive and reproduce” (seen in strictly biological - Darwinian terms), then not reproducing is an act against one’s best interests. And I cannot see how persuading people not having children, applying arguments from biology, boom-bust cycles and Darwin is going to work. Actually, it is a contradiction in terms, a paradoxical situation. Like arguing for a self-imposed population bottleneck.
If people are withdrawing no matter what, then things are not good, and the population conundrum has a “behavioral sink” aspect. It means that modern “civilization” is already a zombie, it passed its “expiration date” and is lagging to see that. And as happens with hysteresis, the boiling frog fails to takes notice. When the frog notices, it is already fried.
I am fascinated by the ecological experiment of Peter and Paul lake. The fact that complex systems emit signals before their transitions from one state to another. SOS signals perhaps. It the above context, i.e. tipping points, is there any recent research with regards to the phenomenon of social withdrawal and plummeting birth rates?
Wolfgang Lutz, an Austrian demographer, made an attempt in 2007 to grapple with the notion with the “low fertility trap” hypothesis, and examine low fertility from a systems thinking perspective. (The Low Fertility Trap Hypothesis / Wolfgang Lutz, Vegard Skirbekk, and Maria Rita Testa / March 2007).
It is 2026, and the trend appears to amplify, not recede. And somehow, optimists assume that it will bounce back with incentives, because... people always want children. Seen in this context, perhaps the system is tipping to a long term state change: Low fertility being the norm. If this is true, then there is no need for advocating for less children, it is like breaking into an already open door. If this is true, the system is re-organizing itself around low fertility, no matter how much pronatalists, various ultra-nationalists, economists, and proponents of infinite growth rant.
George, you pose some crucial questions. Can we compare reindeer, mice and (wo)men? Oh, yes, methinks!
First, there is a major difference between the Reindeer population collapses and the mouse utopia and similar experiences. For one thing, the reindeer on isolated islands experienced a mostly food-related population boom-to-bust cycle. In the mouse experiments food and water were abundant—the population boomed but then became rife with various behavioural pathologies with fatal results.
Apparently, mice form social hierarchies: dominant males were forced constantly to defend themselves and their females from challengers; females were harassed by the same challengers; the male losers could not escape to greener pastures and formed outcast clusters plagued by constant infighting. In short, most individuals in the mouse colonies were under constant psychological stress which led to a breakdown of normal social behaviours: indifference to interactions, even with alpha males; females abandoning, or worse, their offspring; high pup mortality; falling fertility, and eventual population collapse.
I believe this is homologous to what you are describing when you write, concerning humans:
“What is disturbing though is when seemingly removing all environmental threats, there is extinction due to spiritual death… Maybe the “nowhere to go” and “forced interaction” factor is the number one stressor being mis-identified. Nowhere to go, physically and conceptually.
I can’t help but observing serious social withdrawal and unwillingness to participate, everywhere in the world now…. “
Importantly, however, you remark: “Of course I cannot directly compare people to mice…” .
Well, I am not so reticent. The hostility people feel when being compared to animals (mice, no less!!) is, I suppose, normal, but is perhaps mostly an irrational attitude of mind linked to human exceptionalism. And of course, H. sapiens is more socially and behavioural complex than Mus musculus so we cannot take comparisons too far.
That said, both mice and humans are social animals and, according to Dr Google, share about 85% of their genetic protein coding and about 99% of mouse genes have a corresponding human equivalent (ortholog). It would not surprise me in the least if it were shown that what you call increasing “..serious social withdrawal and unwillingness to participate, everywhere in the world…” among humans, as well as the increase in urban pathologies such as substance abuse and addiction, homelessness, underemployment, criminal gangs and violence among displaced youth are, in crucial ways related to increasing crowding, broken hierarchies and a sense of entrapment. Everyone is facing an uncertain (and increasingly fearsome) future with no where to go and no help in sight.
BTW, in these circumstances, the failure to reproduce may not be “against one’s best interests” particularly if people fear they might be unable to successfully raise a child and would consume essential resources in trying. Indeed, the preservation of self necessarily trumps child-rearing, so if people feel sufficiently insecure or threatened, they will focus on the former (which is, after all, prerequisite for the latter).
I suspect that any analysis of the demise of MTI culture will revisit not only John Calhoun’s work but the contributions of other ethologists and experimental psychologists including Hans Selye who proposed the general adaptation syndrome as a mammalian response to stress. Is it not possible that many humans today, suffering in over-crowded cities from wretched physical conditions, social breakdown, dashed expectations and no chance of escape, are suspended in something like the ‘resistance stage’ on the way to the ‘exhaustion phase’ of Selye’s syndrome? Why should the human psychological and physical response to chronic, hopeless stress not be at least as complex, more nuanced and vitally more interesting than that of other mammals?
So, I agree with your assessment that “If people are withdrawing no matter what, then things are not good, and the population conundrum has a ‘behavioral sink’ aspect. It means that modern “civilization” is already a zombie, it passed its ‘expiration date’… And as happens with hysteresis, the boiling frog fails to takes notice. When the frog notices, it is already fried.” (Or at least, boiled)
Finally, you suggest that society (such as it is) is retreating into a low-fertility norm and “ If this is true, then there is no need for advocating for less children, it is like breaking into an already open door.” I’m not so sure—the world is in gross overshoot destroying the biophysical basis of its own and any future population’s survival and, even with unassisted fertility decline, will continue this erosion for decades.
This is… er, unhelpful. We arguably enhance long-term human prospects to the extent we can accelerate non-coercive population decline through, for example, free access to fertility control technologies for all women.
Professor Rees, I am not refraining from comparison because of human exceptionalism. I already perceive myself as a speckle of dust, in this population congestion, “identity” congestion, information congestion. But I was wondering if an experiment concerning mice, which was never replicated by other researchers (if I am not wrong), is representative of the situation, without taking under consideration other parameters and variables. After all, mice is one species, humans is another. What I see in common here, is that there is a loss of individual space, physical and mental-conceptual, in both situations. What I also see in human societies is that there is environmental negative feedback, too. I was wondering what example fits most the case and to what extent, whether Calhoun’s experiment describes the situation best, and what made the St Paul island reindeer adapt, contrary to St Matthew’s that perished. Was a harsh winter enough (apart from food scarcity) to make the difference, compared to St Paul island reindeer?
If the Calhoun experiment is relevant, then research would benefit by directing attention to it. Or else it remains an "incomplete" case study. But such experiments are perhaps unethical today.
I am not aware of mothers massively harming or neglecting their babies (yet). I believe that people that are mentally and physically exhausted, will not have the stamina to reproduce, anyway. The Hikikomori phenomenon is not “ideology” or a fad. In my opinion it is existential, signifying burnout and total disengagement, as self-preservation strategy. What is odd with the Hikikomori, is the 80/50 phenomenon. Elderly parents, 80-year old, are supporting 50-year old Hikikomoris. That is not the case in Mouse Utopia.
Mouse Utopia was no Heaven. It was a place with a threat so lethal and impossible, so as to make St Paul reindeer sound as a success story. And success it was; the reindeer survived and returned. This totally re-arranges the threat-scale here. Suddenly, the loss of food (biophysical basis) is much better than crowding with ample food (recreation, fuel, etc - whatever the MTI system offers, without external threats). The reindeer were able to adapt by a dietary change (if I am not wrong). Why then was COVID such a fuss, with unprecedented measures for all population, instead of focusing on the vulnerable? If some negative feedback is necessary, then why the world tried to achieve a world without threats whatsoever, as there is no such thing as terminal happiness without threat and danger?
Let’s engage in a thought experiment.
In Europe, fertility rate is 1.34 children per woman, well behind replacement rate. S. Korea is at 0.72. In China, it is one child per woman. Those fertility rates are already very low, well behind replacement rate, as to seriously alarm demographers.
What fertility rate would be suggested as for a quick down-scaling, taking under consideration the population momentum, and all problems that arise from a loss of pension systems? One child (as policy) is the lowest that can be, and has ever been implemented. Europe is close to that. China is there. Or else a policy would have to mandate reproduction by means of discrimination (who is “qualified” in this “civilization” to reproduce) which would awaken phantasms of eugenics. Not to mention that if one line is crossed in the race to make population “sustainable”, other lines may, and the results may be appalling. The low fertility trap hypothesis suggests, in a way, that low fertility may be self-reinforcing. If this is the case, then fertility will fall even more.
Is there a mathematical formula of “population down-scaling”, talking under consideration population momentum, and what timeline exists for this down-scaling? And what if all people suddenly turned collapse-aware? Would it suffice, or population momentum has already passed a point of no return? I want to be as honest as I can. I believe that this time window is lost. Tipping points are already crossed. We are entering an era of transitioning to a new “equilibrium”, whatever this equilibrium could mean. And I agree, it is helpful to instruct people on their reproductive rights.
But, after all, if humans are part of Nature (I do not disagree on that), it is natural for them to live out constructed stories and narratives, and resisting reality is expected. What people exhibited all those years was their natural tendency (living their myth). Nature and evolution made people that way. Not only people are part of Nature, but Nature has a part of humans in her: they have already changed her. And Nature is changing them in return. Why not ponder on the possibility that the people that will survive (if they survive), will be adapted as reindeer did, signifying a new stage in evolution? After all, if people make up stories, and this is the necessary way of them bearing this world, wouldn’t it be a massive “evolutionary leap” as for them to be able to see reality “As Is”, and bear their finitude and the harshness of life?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZnlrxm1vAY
Thank you, William. Nothing to add really except that Denis Meadows says in an interview (link to follow) that the worst period in history to live is NOW just before the peak. Both positive and negative feedback mechanisms are at their highest. Counter-intuitively, most people (me included) would have thought post-peak would be the worst. I think that this would explain the confusing nature of living at the moment, when we have AI, space colonisation, bio-tech, etc. all driving economic growth higher and at the same time we have two major wars, ebola, cost-of-living crisis and heatwaves all increasing. Accelerator and brake are both full on! I'm not surprised that people 'choose' one or the other to put their faith in, rather than understand the complexity of the situation which is not easy. (Link to YouTube video: 'Interview with Dennis Meadows on "Limits to Growth", approx. 24mins in).
We rapacious apes would've had to evolve on small islands dotting an ocean planet, to have any chance at a different outcome. An ocean planet with submerged continents, and vast reserves of fossil fuels just waiting to be tapped.
Overshoot has two factors: consumption per capita and population size. You seem to be focused on population size. However, with the population pyramid already being skewed by medical advances, birth control and a falling sperm count, advocating antinatal policies, if enacted, would surely skew the pyramid much more, making modern economies untenable. That might not, ultimately, be a bad thing for the rest of nature but often seems to be ignored by antinatalists.
https://mikerobertsblog.wordpress.com/2024/08/09/what-can-antinatalism-achieve/
You also concentrate on biocapacity, which is important, but for a modern society non-renewable resource depletion is also important in terms of sustainability. Living at the biocapacity of the planet would be impossible if a modern way of life is desired. Indeed, any way of life that requires non-renewable resources would eventually become impossible. Such a way of life requires growth, if only for the reason that growth is required to support the increasing complexity that is required to extract and refine depleting and degrading non-renewable resources. Eventually, though, such a way of life will become impossible.
Humans can't live sustainably at what people might think of as a "reasonable material standard."
Brilliant, canonical, and saddening. Some individual human beings are highly intelligent; as a species, however, we fall far short of ants, bees, cockroaches, sharks, or even earthworms.
It's because we evolved as apes living in small troops, first in the trees and then coming down to earth to hunt. For millions of years, every human being was born with elaborate instincts enabling it to survive, reproduce, and participate in the survival of the species.
Then the conscious mind - or, if you will, the arrogant, half-blind left hemisphere - took over and went on a rampage that has led us to our current predicament. I imagine that well over half of all currently living humans either don't know there is a problem or refuse to face it.
The thunder of the waterfall is gradually getting louder.
It appears increasingly less likely as we squander the limited window of opportunity that we will self correct. There’s no profit in scaling back, therefore the immediate challenge is voluntarily dealing with an extended period of contraction [40-year recession].
Theoretically, population could be responsibly reduced by half in 50 even as little as 40 years, provided the implementation of a unified global effort to educate and rid ourselves of the ideology of growth modeled economic systems.
If we instead, decide to waste these next 40 to 50 years and continue to exist as we are, then the worst case hellscape scenario awaits our children and theirs. It is, as you say, a taboo subject, so how do we get people to listen and act accordingly.
I wrote a book on this very subject and I believe it starts with a very public campaign of shaming governments that employ pro natalist policies.
What do think?
Great to see such bracing, well-written consideration of such vital matters. The third paragraph above Fig. 3 has a “1980s” typo that obviously should be “2080s”.
I don’t see listed in the causes of overshoot denialism and inaction the overwhelming social power held by the ultimate expression of human ultrasociality, transnational corporations. They are ungoverned, and ungovernable. They exist to exploit, not to manage, making every other cause of overshoot trifling in comparison. They are the “we, “ - they have now become humanity.
Indeed, corporations are the exact equivalent of Terminators - with the difference that their imperative is not to kill humans, but to maximise profit. It's not clear to me that it's a difference that matters in the medium to long term. Paperclips, profits...
Which cultures regard procreation as anything other than a personal decision?
China did for a while, and no doubt still does to a limited extent. But then the Chinese have a very long (relatively) history of population swings and disasters such as floods, famines, and invasions. They have learned to cope - somewhat.
Are you referring to China's one child policy?
Yes.
I'm unsure if I would categorize that policy as cultural.
Every cent of my bet goes on humanity acting in ‘normal’ ways that facilitate a fast and brutal collapse .
In the global commons, we are all in a death struggle.
You can choose not to procreate, or to drastically limit your procreation, or to look down on those who procreate and who must therefore bear the severe burden of raising children not only alone, but under the sneering opprobrium of al bien pensants.
It is the tragedy of the commons, writ globally.
But bear in mind that the children you refrain from sending out to into the collapsing commons will be more than replaced by your neighbour, who, by pure coincidence, is pressuring you to do exactly that. And so the commons will be destroyed anyway, because unilateral retreat only means that your genes will be eliminated, not that the commons will be preserved. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Those with brains evolved enough to worry about the environment and be willing to make personal sacrifices to protect it will be removed from the gene pool, while those who do not and will not (consider that 36% of oceanic plastic bag pollution comes from ONE COUNTRY, the Philippines) will see their genes take over the world and turn the whole thing into a garbage dump.