this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2024
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I never realized that the USA was in the top 3. Wow, what a rapid drop-off then, from roughly a billion or so people to a mere ~0.3. India and China truly stand apart, towering above so many others combined.
Since that is the case, it might be neat to show the EU then, if that helps close the gap to make them more comparable? But maybe that would be too improper a comparison.
I think it's odd to see how China does not include Hong Kong or Taiwan. Like... of course it doesn't!? I kinda get why someone wants to be precise to say that, but also it feels like giving in to a grumpy toddler child who claims that the whole world belongs to them - just bc they say it, doesn't make it true!? Maybe there's some other way to convey it that avoids that stigma, like "China refers only to the Mainland areas" or some such.
Or even more generally, "imperial powers like UK and China do not include their territories or projections" (whatever that last word should be). Similarly, does "USA" include things like Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, etc.? Maybe the population numbers don't statistically matter for those situations, but then do they matter for China? It's odd to see China uniquely called out then, like someone going out of their way to not anger Pooh-bear, when there may not even be a need to say anything about it at all?
I can understand Taiwan, as it is an independent country except for China's claim to it.
HK is strange not to include at this point and moving forward. It's part of China by every definition.
Thank you for the feedback.
But this graph goes back to 1950? So like, did that data point exclude it, and then the 2100 one... who knows? It seems to bring up far more questions than answers.
Not sure if this is correct or not, but https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/HKG/hong-kong/population says that the population is only 7 million, despite being so dense but also overall the geographic area is small, and used to be like 2 million in 1950. Which is only 0.007 billion - not really significant.
Taiwan is more so, at 23 million, https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/taiwan-population/.
But the two of them together are only 0.03 billion - and as you mentioned, why include another sovereign nation into China's figures? It demeans Taiwan, appeases a country that may use violence to take it over... well anyway my original point that I need to stick with that if the goal is to avoid politics and convey information most accurately, then this disclaimer still seems to single out China, to the exclusion of every other nation in the world that might make a claim on other areas as well. And despite how the HK situation that was mutually agreed upon for a time and is more significant, the Taiwan situation is what seemed to bring "politics" into this, whereas I mentioned possibilities that would have made it more truly apolitical, and removed the focus from specifically China to highlight how most imperialistic nations have such territories associated with them.
~~What?~~
i misunderstood, as explained below
By drop-off, they mean the top two countries have over a billion people and the third country only has 330 million.
oh.... i thought they are suggesting that US somehow shrank from past moment when they had a billion. my bad.
Um... are you joking?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
Also, even in just your link alone, 300,000, in units of thousands, is still 300,000,000, hence 300 million. They should have used a better unit there imho... knowing that it would lead to exactly this misunderstanding.
Always distrust everything that you read - you are right about that!:-)
this wasn't misunderstanding regarding units, i was confused about that billion, not 300m.
I see that part of this was explained in another comment already, or I would still have been very confused:-).
Right, well... also distrust your own understanding of everything that you read too!:-P Examine from every angle, if that helps, and then let Occam's Razor be your guide.
From my POV, I presumed it was common knowledge that the USA has never had a billion people, even in the past (even before it was the USA). Nor has any nation on earth, excepting China, and India is much worse, at one point projected to be on track to reach 2 billion by... well now I forget, but anyway, those two are well-known to be isolated having BY FAR the largest number of people than have ever existed on planet Earth before now (that we know of, or have even the remotest shred of evidence for or is even thought to have the tiniest likelihood of having been).
Which is kind-of a big deal when combined with issues of e.g. climate change. China may not have handled it perfectly, but at least they tried SOMETHING, with their various child restriction policies, whereas India's stance that is of a more religious nature, very often prohibits any form of birth control (it's more complex than that b/c there is no singular religion or even vague category of one there, yet many of them share that stipulation, including Catholicism and much of Hindu, and portions though by no means all of Buddhism, and some of the more conservative sects of Muslim & Mormon, etc.).