Fears of overpopulation in the 1950s and other thoughts from the time

[Legend]

I was watching a 1950s Disneyland episode as I often do and they had a random comment about solving overpopulation. Caught me off guard since it feels like a more modern talking point but nope, guess it was a growing topic back then and eventually led to some horrible stuff: The Book That Incited a Worldwide Fear of Overpopulation | Innovation|
 Smithsonian Magazine


At least for me, it's always really cool seeing how people talked about issues in the past. Their optimism about alien life was also pretty funny. They knew complex cities on Mars were unlikely but they were pretty positive there'd at least be grass and stuff.


I have a scientific book from 1953 and it has a great section about communicating with aliens and pitfalls we need to avoid. For example we shouldn't assume Martians know about Mercury since it would be pretty hard to see against the Sun for them. Any communication with Earth presented as the third planet could be confusing.

[the-pi-guy]

Malthus also prompted a lot of overpopulation discussion in the 1800's.


Ehrlich had made a huge number of erroneous predictions related to the climate. And that's how I recognized his name immediately...  

These aren't old, but it was clear that overpopulation was something people were thinking about decades ago.

[Legend]

Malthus also prompted a lot of overpopulation discussion in the 1800's.


Ehrlich had made a huge number of erroneous predictions related to the climate. And that's how I recognized his name immediately...  

These aren't old, but it was clear that overpopulation was something people were thinking about decades ago.

Yeah by modern I really was only meaning around 1980 since that's when China started its one child policy for example.

No clue they'd be a top talking point even in the fifties. My image of that era is one of post war expansion.