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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 22, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Can anyone recommend any good books about the 20th century overpopulation scare / population control movement?

I've been reading some books that touch on the topic (mostly in terms of its overlap with the eugenics movement), and a thought I can't get out of my head (which maybe I'll turn into a top-level CWR post sometime) is how similar it feels to the climate change movement today. It's largely forgotten today, but from what I can tell, it really penetrated the public consciousness in the 60's and 70's, and it was really treated as a crisis and an imminent existential threat. e.g. Paul Ehrlich predicted in 1970: "In the next 15 years the end will come, and by the end I mean an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity."

One aspect of the comparison I'm interested in teasing out some more is how the movement's opponents were treated. It seems critics of the climate change movement ("denialists") are shunned by the scientific community and vilified in mainstream media. Was it a similar case with overpopulation skeptics during the height of the movement, or was there more space for robust debate? I'd be interested in pointers to any prominent contemporary critics of the movement.

I read Merchants of Despair by Robert Zubrin a few years ago and while the crux of the book is an examination of what he calls "anti-humanism", the first several chapters discuss the population control movement in about as much detail as you could want without reading some ponderous academic work. It should be noted, though, that Zubrin's areas of expertise are aerospace and nuclear engineering, not history, and he's best known as an advocate for Mars colonization, so take that for what it's worth. The book is pretty good, though, and he does talk about climate change a great deal as being similar to the overpopulation scare. In other words, it seems to be exactly what you're looking for.