In the year 2124, how many people are we talking about?
From antiquity until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the global population grew very slowly, at about 0.04% per year. After about 1800, the growth rate accelerated to a peak of 2.1% annually during the 1962–1968 period, but since then, due to the worldwide collapse of the total fertility rate, it has slowed to 0.9% as of 2023. The global growth rate in absolute numbers accelerated to a peak of 92.8 million in 1990, but has since slowed to 64.7 million in 2021.
By Max Roser and Hannah Ritchie CC BY 4.0 By United Nations, DESA, Population Division CC BY 3.0Fertility Rate / By Korakys – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0
Projecting population growth is an extremely complicated topic.
One interesting factor is the level of female education on the birth rate.
The Barry White Factor
There doesn’t appear to be any scholarly research, but to accurately predict birth rates, we will have to estimate future societies’ access to Barry White.
Semi-Sequitor: Peter Zeihan
Peter Zeihan is an interesting guy.
Peter Henry Zeihan (born January 18, 1973) is an American author whose books span geopolitics. He is the author of The Absent Superpower (2017), Disunited Nations (2020), and The End of the World Is Just the Beginning (2022).
Zeihan’s big on using demographic trends to predict future outcomes, and he’s especially concerned with demographic charts that narrow at the bottom.
(Google image search for Zeihan/Demographics)
We’ve read two of his books. They are highly entertaining – seriously, a book on supply chains and demographics is a page turner? Absolutely.
It’s hard to tell where Zeihan falls on the BS spectrum. Some of his conclusions (after a well thought out chain of logic) seem preposterous, even scary. Only time will tell.
Semi-Sequitor: Special Case – Demographics of Russia
As of 2020, the overall life expectancy in Russia at birth was 71.54 years (66.49 years for males and 76.43 years for females).
Russia appears to be the worst country in terms of gender disparity for life expectancy.
The countries of the former Soviet Union have a large gap between male and female life expectancy. The main cause of high mortality of men in Russia and neighboring countries are alcoholism and smoking.
A detailed analysis of Russia’s demographic crises can be found in this video by William Spaniel.
So a lot of countries are experiencing a “pinching” in the lower sections of their demographics charts. This is known as “Population aging“. What does that mean for the future?
In a nutshell, the burden of caring for a growing elderly population will fall to a shrinking younger population. The healthcare system will be stretched. There will be labor shortages, changes in retirement age, crises with pensions and social security, and societies will grapple with some difficult moral choices.
In one WLBOTT timeline, in the year 2051, under republican leadership, America introduces a major change to Medicare. The “Be Best for Granny” (BB-FoGra) makes it a felony to provide any unapproved health care for anyone aged 75 or older. The bad news: no antibiotics for Grandma. The good news: “approved” health care (strictly palliative) includes all the free alcohol, tobacco, Xanax, morphine, codeine, Fentanyl, and Ritalin you want.
129 Year Old Granny McConnell, proud author of the “Be Best Granny” legislation
This solution saved Social Security, in the sense that rich peeps could keep their tax break.
The limit for 2024 is $168,600, meaning that any income above that amount is not subject to Social Security tax.
Goggle AI
The Number
So let’s pick a number. Since we are filled with hope and good cheer, we will assume that many of the events that could put sharp, discontinuous kink in the projection curve do not occur.
WLBOTT Projection: Global Population on 5/10/2124 is 8,724,314,159 souls.
8,724,314,159 Souls
How does that fit in with the UN’s 25/25/25 Promise[1]?
Total Global Calorie Consumption: 21,810,785,397,500 C (21,810 MC)
According to the good folks at Modern Survival Blog, here are the calorie counts per pound of dried goods:
Rice Calories Per Pound: There are 1648 calories in a pound of rice (uncooked). Beans Calories Per Pound: There are about 1568 calories in a pound of dry beans (uncooked). Wheat Berries Calories Per Pound: 1520 calories per pound (uncooked)
To make the numbers easy, let’s say these staples are about 1,600 C/lb. For the 25/25/25 Promise, this works out to about 1.6lb of staples per person.
That’s about 14 billion pounds of food a day, or 7 million tons.
A ton of beans can fit in a container that is 0.75 m3. How do we know this? We went to the pallet kings.
So, the minimum volume of our daily Project 2124 food supply would be
7 million tons x 0.75 m3., or 5,180,000 3., or a cube that is 5km on a side.
[1]2080: The 25/25/25 Promise
The United Nations institutes the Peter Albert David Singer Resolution (informally known as Three Squares and a Flop). All humans are guaranteed adequate nutrition, clean water, shelter, and a monthly stipend. It is also known as the 25/25/25 Promise: 2,500 Calories/day, 2,500 watts available per day, and $2,500 (2024 dollars) minimum monthly income. The UN will be authorized (by military force, if necessary) to seize assets from the top 1% of the countries’ wealthy.
Project 2124 Timeline
How much food are we talking about? Let’s start on beans. How many beans are currently grown per year? Let’s stick to America for now.
Beans, Peas, and Lentils – Just from the US (2023) 2,294,000 MTons, or 6.3 MegaTons/day. In other words, the US bean/pea/lentil production alone could almost feed the world of 2124.
Energy Consumption
Total promised energy consumption 21,810,785,397,500 W (21.8 GW)
