| Human Population
Posted: 5/8/2007 7:03:26 PM | Evolution has saddled us with genes that make us want to have children. How many is itself a genetic experiment. Those predisposed towards high reproductive rates would - if unchecked by the environment - begin to dominate the gene pool. This was self-correcting too. Communities that had too low a rate would wither, while those with too high a rate would collapse. Communities that tended to be predisposed to sustainable rates tended to prosper.
But now the micro-checks on reproduction (being able to feed your children) have disappeared in most countries because of social safety nets. And the macro-check has disappeared because all communities are increasingly linked. A surplus of people in one area leads to aid and emmigration. So we are becoming a single community in which a genetic pre-disposition towards many children should come to dominate. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 5/8/2007 7:23:55 PM | | I agree in general but the biggest factors determining reproduction rates are socio-economic, not genetic. So really it's the poor who will more and more dominate the makeup of the population. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 5/8/2007 8:08:34 PM |
I agree in general but the biggest factors determining reproduction rates are socio-economic, not genetic. So really it's the poor who will more and more dominate the makeup of the population.
They are both, and I agree that socio-economic seems to be the stronger factor. I would argue that they are both probably genetic in origin. A gene which said 'when you are comparitively poor have many children so that some might survive, and when you are comparitively rich have few so that you can concentrate your gains and standing undiluted to the next generation' might very well be successfull.
If that seems subtle, consider war. The desire to procreate goes up when you are shipping out. On the surface, a bad time to get your wife pregnant. But good genetic strategy for males, and a gene that responded to imminent stress in that way just might make the difference in passing itself on to the next generation. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 5/8/2007 8:16:21 PM | | But at the same time, if there is both a socio-economic-aware gene out there and a 'just have lots no matter what' gene, the 'just have lots' will increase in frequency and overtake the former if there is no factor which makes it a less effective strategy for maximizing representation in the gene pool. Historically, that factor has been the fact that the odds of survival increase dramatically when you are at the top of the social heirarchy, and a few descendents at the top were more likely to survive to procreate than a dozen at the bottom. Not so true anymore. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 5/9/2007 6:02:59 AM | Wars generally aren't enough to make any impact on population, apart from regionally. The most destructive war ever the Taiping rebellion killed something like 100 million people, a drop in the human ocean.
So then we have disease, this is the only thing that's seriously re-adjusted the human population in recorded history with about 1/3 of the population being killed off. Though it recovered in a a century or so.
Counterintuitively if we could reduce child mortality in the developing world (which we can, quite cheaply & easily) that will reduce the birth rate in those areas, though it make take a generation to filter through. This is what happened in the developed world around the beginning of the 20th C.
If we can bring down the population, & we really must try, all the serious problems facing the planet: over-exploitation of resources; climate change (anthropogenic if you want, but if you think it's natural, it's still going to cause problems); oil running out; deforestation & loss of habitat; lack of food and so on are all going to be mitigated if we have a smaller world population.
Therefore my* answer is to use DDT & mosquito nets to help prevent malaria. For the west to subsidize medicines for developing nations & to introduce fair trade.
*by "my" actually this comes from Prof. Jeffery Sachs who's currently giving a set of lectures available for podcast from the BBC google: "reith lectures 2007" Good stuff & free (to all you non-Brits, we have to pay our licence fee). | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 5/9/2007 10:31:05 AM | | Thanks for the heads-up on the lectures, Al. I'll check them out. The steps you mention are, ironically, the easiest to implement and would have the some of the largest, quickest and most wide-spread positive effects of all the actions the developed world could take. It's an unbelieavable shame that so little is being done, even among the least "painful" options. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 5/9/2007 3:38:01 PM | This thread reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw...
Save the planet,
Kill yourself! | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 5/9/2007 4:02:11 PM | Most historians agree, WWI had the highest number of casualties, estimated at 60 million military and civilian deaths. The Taiping Insurrection was ranked number 2, estimated between 20-30 million over a 15-20 yr period (depending on the historical source cited). However, there were also natural disasters and other political revolts at this time period in China, and their combined death toll, between the years 1850 and 1865 are estimated at nearly 200 million. The human population in Asia in 1850 was 809 million, and the total global population just under 1.3 billion, for reference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population (and other sources) | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 5/14/2007 9:57:40 AM | Ummmm.....one big problem with this theory of reducing child mortality will translate into changed lifestyles and in turn smaller families. This being that this theory would only hold true if the change occured along western societal lines and not eastern ones. Remember - in China and India, increased prosperity has historically led to INCREASED family sizes over generations, not smaller*.
****Note: China and India refers to those political units that inhabited the same geogrpahical positions from 500 BC onwards and doesn't refer to the current political units as they exist today as they are both far too recent - a mere 60 odd years. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 5/14/2007 12:05:49 PM |
it seems like all talk and no action to me but yet little or nothing is said about human population!
Any intelligent person should be able to see that an increased population means more industrial production of materials and pollutants that cause our major environmental problems. A reduction of pollutants will be counteracted by the forced increased production due to increased population.
I think the problem is that there is no viable way to address the population problem. If a politician even suggested anything about population control, or "people should watch how many kids they have".... there would be an unholy backlash against him. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 5/14/2007 1:36:34 PM |
I think the problem is that there is no viable way to address the population problem. If a politician even suggested anything about population control, or "people should watch how many kids they have".... there would be an unholy backlash against him.
Just look at China and their 'one family, one child' policy. Draconian, yes, but at least on paper it was a fair and equitable attempt to come to grips with the problem. Yet blasting it as against basic human rights seems to be the one China issue that unites US politicians of both parties. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 5/17/2007 10:32:22 AM | I agree entirely that the world is overpopulated. However, that's not a popular point of view to many.
We have a finite world with finite resources....and.....even many of the renewable ones are running out!
The ocean's are being factory farmed. Species are disappearing at an alarming rate and the entire ecosystem is being drastically altered. Still....people demand more!
Our entire system of commerce demands continual growth and consumption.
IMO it's nothing short of insane to continue along this path, but, we will anyhow, until nature does something about it, because we never will!
Because of the demand for ever increasing growth and consumption, resources will become ever more scarce, and the corresponding levels of pollution will rise as well.
I like to use the aquarium analogy...once there are too many fish in the aquarium...and the filters can no longer cope, the water quality becomes degraded to a point where the survival of any is doubtful. Not the best analogy, but, I'm sure that you get the picture.
If the human race is going to survive "itself", some new thinking about our world, and our place in it, needs to be done before it's too late! | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 6/26/2007 11:57:34 AM | I don't think this is going to be a catastrophic problem.
Its not like we are gonna wake up one morning and have an extra 6 billion babies.
The growth is a pace which is gonna be relatively manageable. There is a lot of land on the world that can be developed and habitated...
Eventually, maybe we will settle the moon. *shrug* | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 6/26/2007 12:15:58 PM | I agree that the current level of population is too high, and further increases will be even more environmetally unsustainable. Yes, perhaps the earth will support more people for awhile, but at what cost to other species, environments, and long-term sustainability?
There is no easy way to cut population aside from massive natural disasters such as epidemics.
I think the best long-term approach is to encourage the gradual lowering of population, so economies can adapt to a smaller workforce. One way to achieve this may be to progressively tax people who have more than one child, in such a way that it reduces their ability to obtain luxuries and leisure, but not at the cost of subsistence and ability to care for any children they do have. Improved education is also a good way to reduce fertility. Taxes could also be lowered for people who do not have any children.
This works well mostly for first world countries. Education and improved living standards would work better for less-developed nations, where personal wealth isn't sufficient to permit an aggressive tax policy. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 6/26/2007 1:21:06 PM | 63strat, one of the reasons Canada's population has been decreasing is because my wonderful country on the other side of the fence has been sending you our acid rain, and our pollution and poisons.
Since when has my government given a rats patootee about Canada's people. Most people in the US of A even know that our government doesn't care about our neighbors who have never done a nasty thing to us.
 Canadians should be pretty angry with our stupid and evil Bush | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 6/26/2007 3:24:28 PM | | Want to know something else mindboggling that many people do not realize. There are more people alive than people that have died all thruout history. That is another perspective that you do not hear and a truism . | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 6/26/2007 7:25:14 PM |
I don't think this is going to be a catastrophic problem.
Its not like we are gonna wake up one morning and have an extra 6 billion babies.
The growth is a pace which is gonna be relatively manageable. There is a lot of land on the world that can be developed and habitated...
Eventually, maybe we will settle the moon. *shrug*
Lot's of land. Not enough fresh water. You already have political fights in the US (let alone the middle east!) between the cities and farms/industry over allocation, and it only gets worse with continued development.
As for 6 billion, well - the earths population was 4 billion in 1975. It is 6.4 now. That's about a 50% increase in 25 years, and the rate itself has been increasing over the last century. Expect your extra 6 billion to be here in about 35 years. Will we have licked the water problem AND the energy problem AND climate change by then? | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/1/2007 3:17:09 AM |
Lot's of land. Not enough fresh water. You already have political fights in the US (let alone the middle east!) between the cities and farms/industry over allocation, and it only gets worse with continued development.
As for 6 billion, well - the earths population was 4 billion in 1975. It is 6.4 now. That's about a 50% increase in 25 years, and the rate itself has been increasing over the last century. Expect your extra 6 billion to be here in about 35 years. Will we have licked the water problem AND the energy problem AND climate change by then?
Hence we are screwed as politicians will always put economical growth before the envirnoment. China is now the largest polluter ahead of USA... | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/6/2007 6:17:41 PM | | There are way too many people already. The population is increasing and becoming more greedy and wasteful than ever in history. Polititians and businesses want a growing population. They need young workers, and polititians want tax paying workers. It's all about the economy, and greed. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/7/2007 10:21:53 AM | Humans are, by and large, like locusts. We settle an area, we reproduce, and then we move on when resources run out to settle new areas. We also tend to gain in numbers - that's common sense - if we didn't we'd have long since became extinct.
I agree, in principle, that the number of people on the planet cannot continue to grow; but the reality of controlling it is a minefield at best, without ending up sounding like some extreme left or right wing politician.
It's worth noting that China has laws to limit the number of children that a family can have for quite some time. However due to social pressures, many females are terminated in order that a family can have a boy instead. What a horrible thought... Where would we be without women!
Sterilisation and/or just plain culling goes against every rational thought imaginable, and is obviously not an option.
Education is the only forseeable way to thin out our numbers - most "westernised" nations have either stable or slightly increasing populations. The maths of having a large family in the poorest places in Africa is much more harsh. People have large families, firstly as a survival technique. How many of your children would die of diseases out there that we would regard as a minor nuisance here instead? Having a large family is also one of the few ways to earn any significant amount of money.
It's not happened in many countries, there are a some places where death rates exceed birth rates (Switzerland comes to mind). This has represents a real problem for the economic system, as it means there will be progressively less and less people of working age to support a greater aging population. But can a apparently stable westernised country stay that way?
Whatever happens - the worlds resources are being consumed by those developed countries at an ever expanding rate. What we need is to determine a way of living, that is sustainable; within the limits of the available land to us... If you can figure that out, then you'll have more than a Nobel prize to your name. Then you also have to convince the rest of the world that they need to look after the future too. China is constructing - every year - the equivalent electricity generation facilities of the entire UK - try telling their government they need to slow down, or they are going to die and take everyone else with them.
The other alternative, is that we continue to be locusts - and have to look to the stars.
I'm no swampy - I work for a power company myself and love aircraft and fast cars - but wherever I can I'll do my bit to try and make the world that bit more sustainable... Being green is more than just talking about it - we have to make the move to BE green! | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/7/2007 5:09:41 PM |
In my view no matter how hard we try to become more envirnomentally aware and friendly we are screwed until human population is drastically reduced. Maybe AIDS and Cancer are Mother Nature's way to try to stablize the population of humans?
This is similar to a Malthusian catastrophe. Robert Malthus was a British economist who suggested that the Earth's population would grow faster than Earth's ability to produce enough food for the population and various checks - war, disease, famine etc - would decrease the population accordingly. What he didn't count on was man's inventiveness and ability to increase yield per acre due to industrialisation and technology.
A declining world population would most likely also result in a declining economy. Many countries, especially in Europe, have a below-replacement birth rate already and need immigration to keep their population growing. Australia's birth rate was declining until the Federal Government introduced a baby bonus (I think it's $4000 at the moment) to increase the birth rate and support the ageing population.
Personally I think the world population will spike and decline slowly, which I don't think is a bad thing for the environment or the world population, provided the decline is measured and gradual. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/7/2007 5:27:14 PM | | George Bush will control population growth. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/9/2007 11:42:35 AM | Most complex questions require complex solutions and this is no different. Let's take in consideration a few topics:
Artificial insemenation: If it wasn't for science interviening these couples probably would not concieve any children. Would one be in favor of eliminating all artifical insemenation births?
Assisted suicied for the terminally ill. There is strong beliefs on boths sides. Would one be in favor of legalizing assisted suicied for the terminally ill?
Removing tax breaks for having more than "x" amount of children.
Just a few things to ponder. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/9/2007 8:26:02 PM | the reason we have a problem of human overpopulation is because there isnt enough wars anymore- we need a nice big ol world war to cull the herd- suvival of the fittest style. Its the only way for the dominant speicies of a planet to control itsself- no animal is a preditor to humans, except for other humans...
Besides, war has fuelled technilogical progress since the dawn of time. World War 2 was the only reason the planet got out of the Great Depression, it spurned more growth in the areas of econimics, technology, and science than any other force in the history of mankind.
or, maybe Im just an ***hole and my ideas are a reflection of my ***holeism, but hey, it makes logical sense to me... | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/9/2007 11:28:24 PM |
George Bush will control population growth.
Is this a joke? If not, it should be.
He'll be out of office in a few years (unless he declairs martial law or something, I wouldn't put it past him), so he won't have time for any major fixes. Also if he's as religious as he acts, then he'd be against birth control and thinking "the rapture" is just right around the corner so why worry about it anyway. | |
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