The world has three main issues: population, politics, and economics. Population is the first problem. Earth is about to reach 8.3 billion people. This year, 30.23 million people have been born and 14.24 million have died, with population still continuously increasing. This year's causes of death: infectious diseases rank first with 3 million deaths. Second is cancer with 1.87 million deaths. Third is child mortality under age 5 with 1.73 million deaths. Smoking-related deaths number 1.14 million.

From a historical cycle perspective, the most severe population declines have often not been caused by war, but by disease. However, as medical standards improve, diseases become less difficult to resolve. Today, infectious diseases remain a leading cause of death, particularly in poor countries (vaccine and medical facility shortages), but in wealthy countries chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer are the primary causes (vaccine overuse, food safety issues).