Astral Codex Ten

Paul Ehrlich

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Paul Ehrlich

Article

Paul Ehrlich is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 4 times across 4 issues between August 04, 2022 and October 24, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “native-born white American Paul Ehrlich wrote Population Bomb”; “Paul Ehrlich is an environmentalist leader best known for his 1968 book The Population Bomb”; “Paul Ehrlich did nothing wrong. He thought a population explosion was going to end the world!“. It most often appears alongside United States, Germany, India.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 4
  • Issue count: 4
  • First seen: August 04, 2022
  • Last seen: October 24, 2024

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Slightly Against Underpopulation Worries
August 04, 2022 · Original source
The same is true in the West. The number of native-born white Americans is predicted to fall from 200 million to 140 million by 2100, a 30% decrease. But 140 million native-born white Americans is about as many as there were in 1965, when native-born white American Paul Ehrlich wrote Population Bomb, claiming that current populations were unsustainable and the world would collapse soon. On the way up, people were able to look at same these numbers and see them as terrifyingly high. Is there some objective standard by which we should look at them and instead find them worryingly low?
Galton, Ehrlich, Buck
May 15, 2023 · Original source
Paul Ehrlich is an environmentalist leader best known for his 1968 book The Population Bomb. He helped develop ideas like sustainability, biodiversity, and ecological footprints. But he’s best known for prophecies of doom which have not come true - for example, that collapsing ecosystems would cause hundreds of millions of deaths in the 1970s, or make England “cease to exist” by the year 2000.
Francis Galton’s ideas led - without his support or consent - to several hundred thousand forced sterilizations. Paul Ehrlich’s ideas - with his full support and consent - led to several million forced sterilizations.
Coria: I want to claim that, in expectation, Paul Ehrlich did nothing wrong. He thought a population explosion was going to end the world! In fact, he had good reason to think this - it was the natural continuation of the trends at the time, averted only by a Green Revolution outside the window of what most forecasters considered possible. If he had been right, mass sterilization would have been the only way to save the world.
Highlights From The Comments On Fetishes
August 30, 2023 · Original source
This is going to sound insensitive, but as far as “bad US medical policies” go, 2,500 children having their lives low-key ruined is nothing. I can think of a dozen US medical policies that are much worse than that! I wrote here about how bad IRB policies probably kill about 50,000 people per year! The failure to allow human challenge trials for COVID vaccines probably killed about 10,000 people; the decision to delay the vaccine an extra few weeks to influence the 2020 election probably killed about 1,000. Inappropriate prescribing of antipsychotics causes 1800 deaths in the UK each year (the US number is probably closer to 10,000). Laws about organ donation incentives are “responsible for millions of needless deaths”. Even if you only care about children, there was the whole FDA fish oil story. Even if you only care about sterilization, Paul Ehrlich is still around! I’ve tried so hard to raise awareness of some of these issues, and although I’m deeply grateful for the five people who take them seriously, it’s a massively uphill battle.
Inline links: wrote here, 1800 deaths, “responsible for millions of needless deaths”, FDA fish oil story, Paul Ehrlich is still around
Notes From The Progress Studies Conference
October 24, 2024 · Original source
The speaker said it was complicated, but mentioned a social shift from the techno-optimism of the 1960s to the techno-pessimism of the hippies and paranoid Nixonesque conservatives. The public consciousness rejected The Jetsons in favor of Paul Ehrlich, Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, and Ralph Nader, and this probably had downstream effects on lots of things, including regulation.