Does it bother you at all that we are overpopulating the Earth?

[PinochetIsMyBro]

What do you mean WE?

Somehow I doubt the people in africa and the middle east that should be actually reading your post even have internet access.

Western people need to have more children, not less.

 

[LeQuack_Is_Back]

...Seeing as I'm surrounded by cows on 3 sides, it doesn't seem like overpopulation of the world is having an impact on me personally.

As stated earlier, birth rates have gone negative a some developed countries, it seems like the whole thing will sort itself out assuming the currently developing nations go through similar phases in due time.

The world doesn't just burn out as easily as you might think. For example, if gas becomes expensive (like now), people use less of it to avoid the higher cost. If it becomes expensive enough, we'll switch to something cheaper (like, say, those hydrogen things). We find ways to keep things going.

 

[-Dragmire-]

I believe that one day natural selection will be reinstated and on that day there will be a lot of darwin awards to hand out.

I feel like an awful person, all I see when I look at that pic is KKK going down the center...

 

[pulse2]

we've actually had a lot of huge topics about this, and the scientific data is actually stronger on the side of "not overpopulating the earth". We just don't seem to be doing it. Sure some countries are having population problems, and inane policies regarding the growing of food (look up the corn or beef industry or the debate about genetically engineered crops in just the US for a tasty sample) might lead to food shortages, but the world itself, responsibly managed could easily support 15-16 billion people, and that's pretty much what the world is projected to look like by the time most countries stabilize their birthrates (which for some countries, like the US etc might actually involve INCREASING birthrates).

When people start really starving (and they will) and sadly I mean the 1st world nations, eventually more responsible growing and eating habits will come out of that, long before the world "starves to death" which is just a silly concept. You can't starve your species into extinction. Eventually enough specimens die that the population can properly feed itself. I don't think it will come to that for humans though because we can control things like agriculture to fix specific problems we're having, but we won't fix it until it is a specific problem.

I could be wrong, and I don't really want to argue about this as I've literally spent hours and hours in other threads rehashing the same information over and over, so I'm not sure if I'll be back. Feel free to disregard everything I said if it doesn't mesh with what your research shows if you have any, but I'm fairly confident that it won't, if you actually take the time to look.

Valid point, I think I was looking at it more from a third world perspective as they don't have access to the things we take for granted, so their birth rates continue to climb while we in the more developed and oppotunistic parts of the world have less reason to have so many kids. Heck, the concept of any more than 6 children is pretty tabboo in 1st world contries, let alone ridiculous numbers I've heard in third world countries of anything up to 14 kids +.

Imagine every family in these places having around that number of children, it eventually begins to overflow, if that wasn't the case, China wouldn't have needed to instigate the 1 child policy and wouldn't be the country with the most people in the world.

Its far easier to say that we should educate people in the third worlds, but 1) Who is willing to do that, 2) Who cares enough to do that, 3) Why should we have any right to tell others how to live when we believe in democracy and, 4) I doubt people living in poverty will pay mind to those living 'the good life'.

What do you mean WE?

Somehow I doubt the people in africa and the middle east that should be actually reading your post even have internet access.

Western people need to have more children, not less.

The human race as a whole, lol, we could get specific and mention cities and third world countries, but it doesn't change the fact that third world country birth rates still increase the human race numbers as a whole.

 

[Falseprophet]

Malthus keeps getting proven wrong because science always finds a way. The population increased from 1 billion to 7 billion people in 200 years despite three of the most lethal wars in human history, four global flu pandemics, and numerous genocides.

Birthrates are flattening worldwide because increased prosperity means people have less children and dote on the ones they do have. The best route is to maximize prosperity worldwide.

Even so, population control might be a good idea, although China's punitive methods aren't the answer--they are dehumanizing, violate human rights, and sticks don't work as well as carrots in general. Of all places, Iran during the Rafsanjani era (assuming Wikipedia is correct) seems to have had one of the most sensible population control policies [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Family_planning_in_Iran#Rafsanjani_era_and_decreasing_natality].

 

[Danny Ocean]

Anywho, how do you think we could go about resolving this issue and if your government initiated a single child policy tomorrow for example, would it bother you at all?

Depends what you mean by 'overpopulated'. Are we really?

 

[Thyunda]

Overpopulation bothers me in the same way that our problems with oil dependency and fresh water shortage does. These are huge problems that we will likely only seriously address after it's way way too late (someone could argue that it is too late to safely address these issues already). I feel the country I live in (Canada) is doing far too little about these issues simply because they are so large in scale and because the immediate threat does not yet exist here.

I'm entirely in favor of a one child per family law. Families who want more than one child could either adopt without penalty...or have another child given the appropriate tax penalty. The idea would be to limit multi-children households to those families that can provide a proper upbringing and environment for them. For example, if a family wanted a second child they would have to pay the government a deposit of $250,000 dollars. In addition to this, their tax rate would increase to help cover the additional resources their child burdens on society until 18.

In theory at least, upper class families would populate the world with more kids who are more likely to afford proper schooling and have a much greater chance of contributing to society better than the lower class. At least that's my opinion (coming from someone living below poverty level for what it's worth).

So essentially...if you're poor, you cannot have more than one child. That's definitely going to reinforce class barriers. Coming from living below the poverty level, surely you don't think like that. I don't think the upper classes have any more right to bear children than the lower. Especially not if this is the kind of attitude it breeds.

I think what he is getting at is that people should be having kids they can't afford to begin with...

Similar sentiment to my own, except I just believe people shouldn't receive help with having children. It should not be encouraged...basically. But, at the same time, if you're going to restrict the poor, restrict the rich too.

 

[Vigormortis]

Greatly. It infuriates me to no end.

Just about every one of our social, economic, environmental problems in this modern age would practically evaporate if you cut the globally population down to 1/3rd what it is now.

I would explain why, but Ill just as likely be misquoted and taken out of context anyway. So Ill just say, the population issue pisses me off.

And, here I thought I was the only one to see this. We are quickly approaching seven billion humans on this planet. Think about that for a moment. Seven billion. There is no way this planet can support that many humans for very long. Not without drastic changes to global environmental systems. Even then, were these changes made, like expansions into unpopulated territories or creating new farm land, it would likely cause the complete annihilation of most species on the planet. Just so we could survive. Even then, how long could we last in that world?

I also have to add that, just as viranimus said, many of our current day "hot-button" issues are either influenced by or direct results of our continued over-population. Famine is already starting to run rampant in parts of the world and increased conflicts over resources and territory are becomimg more heated. Let's not forget the current economic and politic dilemmas we have at present either, or for that matter, our energy woes.

While it may be true that some (emphasis on some) developed countries have diminished, even negative, population growth rates, the exponential growth rates of the rest of the world far outweigh them. Fact is where we are now, population-wise, is completely unsustainable. We still have time to change things, but before long drastic measures will need to be taken if we are to have any hope of getting things under control.

On a side note, I do have to disagree with you on one thing viranimus. Besides the moral and ethical implications of eugenics (Nazi influence or not), there's something else to consider when judging how wise an idea it is. Our current (and even near-future) understanding of genetics is....limited at best. Even our best geneticists don't fully grasp what the vast majority of our genes do (or don't do). Even if a limited eugenics program were influenced, one with the best intentions in mind, it would inevitably lead to something sinister. Intentional or not. Eugenics, after all, is a human endeavor. And, God knows we aren't infallible.

Besides, it's more likely that we'd end up selecting the wrong genes to filter out or in. Thus leading to a corruption and eventual neutering of our own gene pool.

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

I remember hearing that the entire population of earth can fit in the state of texas with each person having at least a trailer park of room to themselves.

Almost certainly misleading. At very least, there are multiple factors for which that theory doesn't calculate.

Western people need to have more children, not less.

Source and/or explanation, please?

 

[Kitteh]

Well we haven't had a good ol' fashioned world war in a while. We could get there to be no nukes allowed too. A draft would be nice too, since some of my fellow Americans (including myself) would be too much of a pussy to join voluntarily. As ZP said in his BlOps video, perhaps Switzerland can be persuaded to blow the starting whistle.

 

[MuzzleFlash]

Human populations rise until they are culled by one of three things; War, Famine or Disease. In my opinion Famine is probably the most likely, with an overdependance on monocultures, land being used up for biofuels (honestly humanity? Using crops to power our cars with world hunger such an issue? I'm no philantropist but even t hat seems odd to me) and climate change ruining once workable land.

I think population control is going to have to be implemented, and rightly so. In western Europe it's stagnated, possibly even shrinking. When I'm annoyed by an under-controlled child (often) I find it ridulcous that in my country (Northern Ireland) you (legally) require a license to have a gun, to drive, to fish, to own a dog, to watch TV, but any moron can have a child. Which of those is the largest responsibility?

 

[mrdude2010]

I think most people aspire to have kids at some point in our life, but as innocent an aspiration it may be, its having a detrimental impact on the Earth and our living standards. Whether we like it or not, we are having more babies then dying, all the while trying to find ways to live longer, to have more kids...who is feeding all those children? I suppose our generation doesn't need to care that much because it isn't effecting us, but what about our grandchildren? We as the human race have destroyed quite a bit of what keeps us living, so I'm led to wonder at which point we will get so desperate to live that even the remainder of that is destroyed as well.

Anywho, how do you think we could go about resolving this issue and if your government initiated a single child policy tomorrow for example, would it bother you at all?

EDIT: Just to clear things up as I suspect people are getting slightly confused, I mean people vs resources, not "available space", its pretty obvious the Earth isn't quite crowded just yet....except if you live in Japan, to which I'd have to disagree.

EDIT 2: Oh, and I'm not going to get into the NWO's supposed plan to take over the world and cut the human race in half etc etc etc

the earth isn't overpopulated, the resources we have are poorly distributed. the US is capable of producing enough food to feed the entire world by itself

 

[Lord_Nemesis]

Yes, it does.
*cocks gun*

Seriously: LOL'Z

Brilliant, fuckin brilliant.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Why should it bother me I don't have kids :/ If on the tiny chance I did I would probably just have 1 so i can give it the attention it needs I pretty much spend most of my time in my own head anyway.

 

[Uberpig]

Seen a couple of threads like this today. Overpopulation is a concern but it's the dwindling resources that are the problem - there's varying views on when or if stuff like oil will run out, but I think it will and when it does the world economy is screwed.
And to the people saying there's plenty of space left for us to live, that's like dropping a cake and saying it's fine to eat because it's not totally covered in grit.
So yeah, overpopulation is an issue. And people like this guy aren't helping.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgXJbJeRxHo

 

[BabySinclair]

At some point the human population will exceed Max Q and all will balance after the inevitable population decay.

 

[Altorin]

we've actually had a lot of huge topics about this, and the scientific data is actually stronger on the side of "not overpopulating the earth". We just don't seem to be doing it. Sure some countries are having population problems, and inane policies regarding the growing of food (look up the corn or beef industry or the debate about genetically engineered crops in just the US for a tasty sample) might lead to food shortages, but the world itself, responsibly managed could easily support 15-16 billion people, and that's pretty much what the world is projected to look like by the time most countries stabilize their birthrates (which for some countries, like the US etc might actually involve INCREASING birthrates).

When people start really starving (and they will) and sadly I mean the 1st world nations, eventually more responsible growing and eating habits will come out of that, long before the world "starves to death" which is just a silly concept. You can't starve your species into extinction. Eventually enough specimens die that the population can properly feed itself. I don't think it will come to that for humans though because we can control things like agriculture to fix specific problems we're having, but we won't fix it until it is a specific problem.

I could be wrong, and I don't really want to argue about this as I've literally spent hours and hours in other threads rehashing the same information over and over, so I'm not sure if I'll be back. Feel free to disregard everything I said if it doesn't mesh with what your research shows if you have any, but I'm fairly confident that it won't, if you actually take the time to look.

Valid point, I think I was looking at it more from a third world perspective as they don't have access to the things we take for granted, so their birth rates continue to climb while we in the more developed and oppotunistic parts of the world have less reason to have so many kids. Heck, the concept of any more than 6 children is pretty tabboo in 1st world contries, let alone ridiculous numbers I've heard in third world countries of anything up to 14 kids +.

Imagine every family in these places having around that number of children, it eventually begins to overflow, if that wasn't the case, China wouldn't have needed to instigate the 1 child policy and wouldn't be the country with the most people in the world.

Its far easier to say that we should educate people in the third worlds, but 1) Who is willing to do that, 2) Who cares enough to do that, 3) Why should we have any right to tell others how to live when we believe in democracy and, 4) I doubt people living in poverty will pay mind to those living 'the good life'.

What do you mean WE?

Somehow I doubt the people in africa and the middle east that should be actually reading your post even have internet access.

Western people need to have more children, not less.

The human race as a whole, lol, we could get specific and mention cities and third world countries, but it doesn't change the fact that third world country birth rates still increase the human race numbers as a whole.

The answer is to increase the standard of living in the third world. And remember that the the stable birthrate is 2.1 children per woman. That's how many kids the average woman needs to have just to sustain the population we have now. Any less then that and population decreases, any more and it increases. That's pretty much what the western world is at now, and that's because of a higher standard of living. It's not just to educate them and tell them that that's bad, don't do that. The world is a huge place. There is LOTS of room, and it's capable of producing as much food as we need (other things like potable water and clean air are a completely different kettle of fish that might be tied to population but I'm not discussing them here).

Time heals all, and that includes notions like overpopulation. The third world isn't overpopulated, despite it's ridiculous birthrates. that in itself is food for thought. They need those birthrates or they'd probably disappear. Increasing the standard of living lowers the deathrate which also lowers the stable birthrate. Then we might see some overpopulation, but if they're still 3rd or 2nd world by then, we'll see starvation and numbers return to a stable area, until they're advanced enough to support that population, through responsible use of land and food.