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| Human Population
Posted: 7/10/2007 12:35:25 AM | You guys are looking at this from the wrong end. Assisted suicide? Cancer? HIV?
All these things kill people after they have reproduced and are essentially out of the picture. Slowed reproduction is the path to population controls. It's working in europe and to a lesser extent north america, problem is the third world. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/13/2007 8:18:53 AM | Who says the earth is overpopulated anyway?
What is the "correct" population?
Just because you live in an urban area, do not assume that the rest of the world is crowded.
I mean this is really ludicrous; why don't we just advocate suicide...if when you reach the age of thirty and you HAVEN'T had any children, you should just kill yourself.
And we should really just eliminate the entire medical field; afterall, people are living longer and not dying from injuries or diseases that 100 years ago would have killed them. So to all of you who have ever taken penicillin, that's got to go.
How absurd.
Many cultures HAVE tried to limit or control their populations. The Spartans had some way to tell if a baby was going to be a good warrior or not and if the baby was not, they would toss him off of a cliff.
The People's Republic of China has another birth control policy and you know what? In another generation or two, China is going to have a huge male population and a tiny female population.
There are many reasons why SOME people who are wealthy or "highly educated" don't have children and some of it is vanity, not really an admirable trait.
But take a look at the world population. Europe is in the red along with Canada. They are having to bring in massive amounts of immigrants from other nations to do the jobs that the highly educated Europeans can't do. So in a few generations, Europe will cease being the Europe it once was.
I mean, what are the reasons you can give that the world is too crowded? | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/13/2007 11:14:39 AM | | I think it's more about consumption of resources and production of harmful compounds than it is about having space for people (though that is a problem in some very densely-populated and poor areas), so maybe overcrowded isn't the right word for the overall view. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/13/2007 9:06:03 PM |
I think it's more about consumption of resources and production of harmful compounds than it is about having space for people (though that is a problem in some very densely-populated and poor areas), so maybe overcrowded isn't the right word for the overall view.
That's right. We keep getting misled by the fact that there is plenty of room to build new communities (and that helps the economy), without getting around to maintaining and expanding the infrastructure and considering the impact nationally on energy and water supplies. The chief limit in this country is fresh water, and there isn't enough to support both the expanding communities and the farms. The hidden debt that keeps climbing is the slow but steady lowering of water tables everywhere. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/14/2007 5:00:16 PM | No one's suggesting we get rid of the entire medical field, that's quite the logical leap, but there is such a thing as using knowledge responsibly. In the West in particular we are very focussed on keeping people alive simply because we can rather than focussing on quality of life over quantity. I've known a few elderly people who've suffered through the last decade or more of their lives, in too much pain to even enjoy themselves, simply because we have such terrible attitudes about death in our culture. (DNRO's and healthcare directives are good things people.) The ecological impact of those extra years of pain and suffering is a factor that previous posters are throwing out there to be considered as possibly unnecessary not that we should all run around committing suicide or end sound medical practices.
How is NOT having children a vain or selfish act? Human beings are animals and as such have a biological imperative to procreate. Denying that imperative should, I would think, be an altruistic act.
When I explain to people that I have no intention of having children they are often horrified and women in particular insist that this a dreadfully selfish act on my part.
Then, when they let me finish, and I say that if I ever find myself in a stable and committed relationship I would definitely consider taking in foster children they reply that, "That's not the same as having your own".
Insisting on having your own children by whatever crazy, expensive and unnatural means possible, or simply because you can/ think you need to in order to justify continuing a relationship with a member of the opposite sex/you believe that your genes are superior to everyone elses and must continue to be propogated, rather than contributing to taking care of the people who already exist in the world is a far greater act of vanity in my opinion.
It's equally irresponsible to bring children in the world when you lack the means to properly care for them. This holds on a macro and micro level.
As for China, it's a combination of their culture and their birth control policy that has lead to the gender imbalance not their birth control policy alone. Their cultural attitudes will likely shift in order to accomodate this change and, as women become scarce they will become valuable and they will quit killing their infant daughters. Or they'll become polyandrous, though I'm really hoping it will be the former.
I doubt very much that we are ever going to have to be concerned about a lack of people on this planet. Whether they're going to be able to enjoy living on this planet in the manner we've grown accustomed to in our age of excess, if the human population continues to grow, is what's at issue here.
Earth doesn't have to be crowded to be exhausted and migration to Western countries exacerbates the problem because the lifestyles of the average Westerner has a vastly greater impact on the world's resources than the lifestyles of people living in developing nations. As such I think that it really is our duty to be better stewards of our world and population control is not a selfish or vain act but a crucial contribution towards that responsibility. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/15/2007 2:20:22 AM | MSG 55
Excellent post, I take my hat of to you.  Especially about not having children, I'm not that keen myself on starting a family as I have no wish to put more strain on resources and the envirnoment, I think it's very unselfish NOT to have children in this day and age. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/18/2007 8:48:41 AM | Actually, population control is automatic in most species, including humans. In economically advantaged countries, like the US, birth rates are lowering. In countries that have lots of poor people, the kids have to help work, so more kids = more workers = more food for all of them.
The problem is that we live in a throw-away society, not a recyclable society. We even do this with dating and employment.
In a throw-away society, we find someone to date, we hurt them, making them harder to date, and then we finish with them.
In a recyclable society, we find someone to date, we make them a better person, and then we finish with them. If we hurt them, we don't let go of them, until they are healed and a better person, and THEN we LET GO!
Take a case in point: farming. Farms used to employ crop rotation: each field would be divided into strips, one for carrots, one for onions, one for tomatoes, etc. and one left fallow. Then, the strips would be rotated each year. So each strip would be seeded with carrots, then with onions, then with tomatoes, etc. and then one year would be left fallow. The carrots would take out some nutrients and return others, the onions would do the same. The effect was that by the time you got back to the carrots, the strip would contain the exact same set of nutrients that it started with.
Now, we employ intensive farming. We grow the whole field with carrots, every year. The carrots take out some nutrients and return others, then again, and again, until the field is completely deficient in the nutrients the carrots need to grow, and overloaded with the nutrients that the carrots excrete. The crop gets less and less each year, and the field gets more and more toxic. Eventually, the toxins overwhelm the soil, and the soil breaks down into sand. This is why deserts such as the Sahara, have been growing steadily. We are burning out the fields.
It's the same as when a person does not enjoy a varied diet, and only eats one type of food. The body breaks down after a while, and needs a LOT of medical treatment.
We need to change our attitude to life: apply recycling to our lives, and not just as charity. As I said, the same applies to relationships. If not, we end up with worse and worse people to date. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/18/2007 5:24:33 PM | | Forced Sterilization starting with you | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/21/2007 12:22:45 PM | woah sir... first u are stupid... if you would actually pay some attention to whats going on in the world... there is a lot of change happening to better our world... everything from cars to arrowhead water making their bottles out of less plastic... i mean pay attention to everything new coming out... u can see its all changning just like the mayans predicted... i mean this was all expected by us and all of the great minds of our eexistence new this but we were too stupid to do nething about it... and aids and cancer? hahaha was not produced by mother nature... u think all of a sudden... in the 80's that aids came out of nowhere... blaming it on the africans because they had sexual intercourse with animals... and brought it over ... lame... since the beginnning of mankind men have been having sex with animals for hundreds of thousands of years... so why all of a sudden it comes out in the 80's? and there is no ethical way to stop the growth of our race ...if by ethical u mean going by some lame biblical morals or whats good and whats bad.... no!!! there is no good or bad in our world... whats good and bad right now has been laid down upon us by higher powers the church,, government, etc... soooo no ethical way of handling it buuut there are plenty of ways to handle it just that all of you humans who are a waste of conscious thought would be crying and start a ruckus.... to me honestly let the hurricanes and tsunamis destroy us all and its not mother nature doing it.... its our conscious minds because we created this world with our conscious minds... but thats an entire different discussion.... u guys read some boooks please before u post stupid stuff like this
ty
peace
frank | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/21/2007 1:27:58 PM | | This thread was going so well with some great thoughtful and intelligent posts from different perspectives until the last two above which resorted to insults. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/21/2007 2:08:02 PM | | sigh... like i said i didnt bother reading the other peoples posts just urs... maybe this whole thing could have been avoided if u had done some more studying... not only that... but take the advice given to u and broaden ur mind a lil more please... | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/21/2007 5:32:42 PM | (earlier thread)-It is because of the advanced technology in modern medicine & doctors, human beings are currently living longer now than we ever have.
(my respose)-Wait until global warming REALLY kicks in. That's when we're going to learn just how fragile we really are. I too, advocate the cause of not having children. Or, at the very least, having fewer children. Whether you can afford to take care of them or not the fact is, eventually you're going to unleash them into this world and there are going to have to be more trees cut down to house them, more pollution in the air, etc. etc. Everything we do has consequences. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/21/2007 9:25:08 PM | This is one of the most important issues problems of our time. Thank you for this post. One very important book to read on the subject is Jared Diamond's "Collapse: How Societies Chose to Fail or Succeed". Jared Diamond is a Pulitzer prize winning author and his book was reccomended to me by a professor of environmental law. The book documents how different civilizations fell throughout history because of how they managed their resources and their population. Because the GLOBAL population is so high now, and we spread resources all over the world through trade, we are at risk of triggering a global collapse of civilization. A global collapse would be devistating and would set us back hundreds of years in human progress... or worse.
A frightening example of the dangers of high population (combined also with global warming) is the Rwanda genocide. YES, the genocide was partially triggered by racist ideologies, but this is only part of the problem. Rwanda, is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. For several years before the worst of the chaos, there was continuous drout that devistated the country's agriculture and threw the population into desperation. Jared Diamond argues that, during these desperate situations, people will turn on one another.
What can we do? We need to encourage family planning, its as simple as that. We need to provide people with contraception, education and anything else that works. Interestingly, Diamond mentions that equality for women is a natural way to quickly slow population growth. When women have a role in society besides popping out babies, they begin to pop out fewer babies. Diamond's book is a must read for anyone interested in having a family with a propserous future.
The question isn't, what can we ethically do to prevent the growth of the population. The question is, what do we do with the unethical people in this world that serve as obstacles to remedying an already overpopulated planet.
I didn't read through any of the previous messages so i'm sorry if there's some repetition. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/21/2007 9:40:26 PM | The world is too crowded if we are extracting resources quicker than we can replace them. It's basic mathematics and it's a matter of practicality. As we become more efficient and sustainable in the way we extract our resources and treat our waste we can handle a higher population. As it stands, our rate of extracting resources is unsustainable and, considering the techniques of farming, fishing, and waste management we use, we very much need to bring down the population.
This is all vague, but if you watch any discovery channel or pick up a national geographic magazine the details become quite clear. We are quickly moving down the food chain in our oceans. WE overfish one species of food in the ocean and then move on to another, less ideal choice. WE're allso losing natural ecosystems quickly. Species are becoming extinct at unprecidented rates. And global warming is one of those waste management problems gone bad. Another waste management problem is all the tiny plastic particles that are growing predominent in our oceans... or the pig waste and pesticides that washes off of our farmland and poisons our water. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/24/2007 6:12:25 PM |
This is all vague, but if you watch any discovery channel or pick up a national geographic magazine the details become quite clear. We are quickly moving down the food chain in our oceans. WE overfish one species of food in the ocean and then move on to another, less ideal choice.
I saw a great history of - of all things - the fishstick. Showing how 'filler grade' ingrediants had to change repeatedly over time highlighted in a very real way the overfishing problem.
And if you don't believe it, try getting cod in Cape Cod. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/25/2007 1:24:38 AM | ^^"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."
...and then collapse.
"I mean, what are the reasons you can give that the world is too crowded?"
Because there are humans on the planet. Joking....
Seriously though the reason is plain to the logical mind. you can't see it eh? 2 things:
1.Anything responsible for a history like ours - well having more of those who are responsible for that is not a good thing.
2. harmony
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/25/2007 2:41:52 AM | In the developed free world there was the post war Baby Boom. We of course then had the Sexual Revolution and Women's Lib. Since then the average family unit has continually dwindled and is now down to 3. The magic number required, we would think, to make up what actually constitutes "a family". Of course procreation continually increases for the sake of it and housing demand as a result has protracted accordingly and is keeping pace.
Half of all marriages end in divorce and one in every two children can expect to live in a single parent household at some point during their childhood. Childcare is now a booming industry and we all travel to and from work, with the overwhelming majority of us driving our own vehicles. At the end of our working day we leave our jobs, which pay us accordingly as individuals rather than bread winners with dependants and we come home to our under-inhabited households, in our over-inhabited suburbs.
The irony is so obvious it's blinding. How can we sustain our resources and environment when we can't even sustain healthy family environments for our own children? I know this sounds a little off center and different as far as concern for our environment goes, but certainly food for thought as to what is happening right under our noses. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/25/2007 10:21:28 AM |
^^"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."
...and then collapse.
But that's the difference today. The world is interconnected. We work very hard to prevent collapse in North Korea, Somalia, etc, whether it be from over-population or poor policy. And to the extent that these problems may be codified genetically, individuals and their genetic predispositions will find refuge elsewhere as long as the world is still functioning. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/25/2007 3:32:59 PM |
Actually, population control is automatic in most species, including humans. In economically advantaged countries, like the US, birth rates are lowering. In countries that have lots of poor people, the kids have to help work, so more kids = more workers = more food for all of them.
Right, like lemmings ;)
Seriously though, you know what they call the natural forms of population control?
Predators (which often flourish when their population does) disease(ditto) and starvation. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/28/2007 1:59:29 PM | Haha. You think the earth is too populated?
I've got the solution:
Wait for it.
Stop putting warning labels on things. Yes, that's right. I blame warning labels. The curling iron that says "for external use only?"
The children's superhero costume with the tag which reads "Does Not Allow Wearer to Fly?"
All hindering natural selection. We're keeping too many people alive who should've misused the curling iron. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/30/2007 8:04:00 PM | | I agree with you wholeheartedly.....religious idealism also helps placate those who feel that it is Virtue to just have children,AKA,,Mexcco,India,China,and at least China is trying.they understand the demands of higher population. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 8/14/2007 3:17:48 AM | | I do not think it is feasibl;e to control human population (on a global scale) in an ethical manner, because fluctuations in population are a naturally occuring phenonema, while "ethics" are just an ideas. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 8/14/2007 8:14:23 PM | Kill all the reiligious people. They go to heaven, we get much less strain on the earth's resources, everybody's happy.
On a serious note, overpopulation is not as simple as a numbers game; it's also about lifestyles. If everyone on the planet consumed as much as Americans do, we would need TWO more earths to sustain it - with our current population!
The episode of Eyes of Nye about overpopulation has a lot of good info on the subject, I recommend it if you can find it (it's available on many bittorrent trackers) | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/18/2008 10:04:27 PM | lol You are so right my friend. Few people talk about population control despite the fact that it is probably the best solution. Religion is one factor. "Be fruitful and multiply." Does that sound familiar? No, I'm not a Christian either, but I'm greatly outnumbered. Many people believe that it is their obligation to have many babies and in some countries, it's simply a way of life regardless of religion. Are you going to tell your citizens that they should only produce two children at the most??? Are you going to talk about passing such laws and at the same time hope to be elected to Congress? Starting to see the picture? People that promote population control are rarely in positions of power to implement such changes because in order to get that power in the first place, they must advocate (or pretend) socially acceptable ideas; i.e. having as many babies as one feels like.
I wish people would have fewer children like in Japan and Western Europe. Both regions have very low birth rates especially Japan, and it is ALL by choice; not diseases or famine or war of course. It is possible for countries to go through the epidemiological transition and demographic transition (Google that), but in order for it to happen, the mortality rate must fall first, and that just isn't happening in places like Africa and some parts of China and India (note: the mortality rate, high as it might be in these regions due to AIDS and other diseases, is still lower than the birth rate, so the net growth in population is positive). Even in the U.S., a relatively "advanced" nation, numbers tend to increase so the real problem is getting people to change cultural and religious ideas about progeny. Good luck with that, friend :)
I think that if you started paying people in the U.S. for not having more than 2 children (i.e. having a vasectomy after second child yields a man 500 dollars a year for the next 10 years), you MIGHT be successful. I'm not suggesting that they actually do this, but just brainstorming a bit. Still, the largest problems are in China, India, and Africa. Most of the human race is located in Asia and Africa. | |
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| Human Population
Posted: 7/18/2008 10:42:10 PM | I agree the world's population is too high. The world can probably sustain 2 billion or so people at Western-level living standards. Even so, the truth is that the majority of the world's resources are consumed by people in richer countries, and these people also produce most of the world's pollution. The problem is more one of a rich minority consuming too much, rather than too many people existing on the planet.
Another problem with dramatically reducing population growth and birthrates is it can create demographic problems. In Europe and Japan, where birthrates are far below the level needed to keep the rate of population stable, there is a rapidly growing number of elderly people and a shrinking workforce. This has created a number of economic and social problems, including large numbers of elderly people who need support of various kinds (including pensions and healthcare) but on a reduced base of productive workers who can support social welfare for the elderly. Another problem is the shrinking population has created labour shortages which are increasingly filled through migration. For the most part, immigration is a good thing, but as we have seen in some cases such as France, migration can also cause social tensions and other consequences which can explode into strife. Also in Australia we are struggling with labour shortages, in part because the birthrate declined considerably from the 1960's onwards, leading to a shrinkage of family sizes and also reducing the supply of human labour.
There is also another problem in that the promotion of family planning in some developing countries has resulted in governments trying to force people to have only a specific family size (as we see in China) and also negative consequences like sex-selective abortion.
A better solution to the problem of population is to reduce our excessive levels of greed and consumerism in the West and elsewhere in the world, and also work to ensure women have a strong role in family planning. It does seem when women are more educated and have more choice over decisions like when they marry and how many children they will have, family sizes are reduced to much smaller and more reasonable levels. However at the same time, family stability needs to be encouraged (things like divorce and separation should be discouraged as much as possible, save where the relationships are abusive in nature) and having children should be seen as a joy and a blessing, not as a lifestyle option, consumer item or economic burden. We also need to implement policies that ensure the rate of population remains at replacement level or slightly above, and also in the long term try to reduce our reliance on very high levels of immigration to deal with problems caused by very low birthrates. | |
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