Overpopulation

[joshuaayt]

We're overdue for migration- focusing too much on improving our sex stats, nowhere near enough on our space exploration stats. We should grind some high level peace treaties, and use all of the reward money to train some commercial extra-terrestrial transportation.

Here's an actual solution: educate women in third-world countries. Teach them how to use birth control, that they have a right to do what they want with their bodies, that they aren't slaves to their husbands, and that they can have a fulfilling life without having a lot of children. That would help considerably with the numbers problem.

That's too naive- it's not lack of awareness that is the problem, it's just run of the mill oppression. And rape. A whole lot of it.

 

[Biosophilogical]

I haven't got statistics (mainly just Word of mouth information), but apparently most births are the result of accidental pregnancies. So what we need to do is stop recreational sex between opposite sex, fertile couples until we have guaranteed contraceptions[footnote]That's right, go gay, get the snip or go without, that's my plan[/footnote] This way, we can prevent most births and people can still have kids should they choose to. It is basically my non-sterilisation method[footnote]I would have suggested sterilisation, but everyone else already has[/footnote]. This method isn't as fast-acting as most methods, but combine it with educating people about the hardships of child raising and within the next 50-100 years or so the population will drop to a reasonable range without the massive unbalancing of the generational scales that the more 'Straight-forward' methods would produce.

 

[jackknife402]

Wouldn't one of the first steps be for the US to stop consuming so much? It's been a long time since I looked at the numbers, but if I remember correctly, 5% of the world's population (assuming 6 billion total and 300 million US) consumes 25% of the world's "output." Sounds odd to me... sadly my computer and I aren't doing anything to remedy that.

Oh yeah we'd love to stop consuming so much, but how can we when 3rd world countries(mostly their dictator leaders) would rather consume less on a whole? We've gotta pick up the slack elsewhere....

Alright, now I'm done being a dick on the account that other countries always whine that they have little, just do what we did. Have great depression that shuts down most of the factories, then get into a large planet changing war that revitalizes those factories. Then ride the train until the masses of the world start complaining about you. That way some upstart will come and try to dismantle your economic prosperity to make everything nice and "fair." Life isn't fair, and the only way things will get better is if people improve them...that simple.

Kk now onto the topic. My resource studies suggest that in order for us all to live a comfortable, uniform and completely fair life style, we all should either become amish, or lose about 5 billion people from the world, since our consumption rate(as a planet, not as a single "capitalist pig" nation known as the US to most of you hypocrites out there) by terraforming other planets(in the solarsystem) which basicly means mars. A project like that even if we begin today will take about 40-80 years to see any potential benefits, and travel to other planets with technology that we currently possess will take about 150 years to reach even the closest systems thought to be able to sustain life from the get-go.

Also other two ways that seem best is the limiting of offspring to 1 or two per family(1 to lower our total population, 2 to maintain it) or limit our lifespans so that the population drops more quickly. Personally, I'd rather not survive on drugs and tubing throughout my body and be a cripple in a bed, or hardly be able to move about, or think coherently. Our bodies naturally are designed to live, with proper diets and physical stimulation, to the ripe old age of 65-73. You get people whose lives rely solely on drugs, which sustain their bodies, but what kind of life is that? To exist for only the sake of existing is not a very good reason to continue on, I say.

 

[Joe Deadman]

Limit each couple to one baby.
Bam, halved the population in one generation and people can still have a baby if they want.

Either that or colonise another planet.

 

[Kilaknux]

I propose a "Logans run" scenario. 30 years old? Goodbye!
In all seriousness, it seems rather difficult to come up with a workable solution that doesn't involve outright murder. Colonization of other planets isn't happenning for a long, long time yet, one family, one child carries with it an enormous amount of social problems, good luck trying to convince the average citizen to give up a lot of what they've got...
Honestly, solutions that work and make sense aren't happening. Even if we all worked together (an impossibility in and of itself) and turned vast areas into farmland and so on, we're still consuming about 1.4 earths every year.

 

[superbatranger]

Well, we can always colonize space. I hear Mars is lovely this time of year.

 

[Keepitclean]

Limit the age of the elderly. It really isn't natural that we are living to be 90 years old these days. Plus older people just put a strain on a lot of resources both physically and socially. It's just my opinion. I don't actually play on going around putting down old people.

That seems a bit opressive. I see what you mean though.

Could making euthanasia legal help? Let the old people who are bored and want to die anyway (I know of a few) do it themselves. It would also allow the terminally ill to go that way if they so choose. That would save resources.

I'm not too fond of any of these ideas by the way. I guess all we can really do is space exploration and attempt to build terra forming devices of some discription.

I don't know how humanity is gonna solve this one but we had better all start thinking.

 

[TehCookie]

We're overdue for migration- focusing too much on improving our sex stats, nowhere near enough on our space exploration stats. We should grind some high level peace treaties, and use all of the reward money to train some commercial extra-terrestrial transportation.

Here's an actual solution: educate women in third-world countries. Teach them how to use birth control, that they have a right to do what they want with their bodies, that they aren't slaves to their husbands, and that they can have a fulfilling life without having a lot of children. That would help considerably with the numbers problem.

That's too naive- it's not lack of awareness that is the problem, it's just run of the mill oppression. And rape. A whole lot of it.

They are making shots for cats and dog that sterilize them, we need to adapt that for humans and put it into tranquilizer darts.

 

[Downfall89]

Has anyone thought of the fact that in Western countries (pretty much the countries that use most of the resources) the death and birth rates are pretty much level or getting very close to it, and the poorer countries are the ones who have incredibly high populations with no resources?

 

[feather240]

We have the tools, what we lack is motivation.

Spoiler

 

[Manicotti]

- Many of the problems with the concept of overpopulation start with poor management of resources. Force the residents of 1st world countries to use less with harsher penalties or rewards for being more efficient. Ban Hummers (and similarly inefficient transportation) and create more quickly-biodegradable containers for the waste we generate. We also need to find ways to stigmatize private transportation; too much space is wasted just on roads.

- Find ways to recycle in ways that are useful to the Everyman; I'm sick of seeing grocery bags that say "Hey, now you can suffocate your local wildlife with bags made of 100% RECYCLED PLASTIC!" Let's make houses out of bottles instead of...more bottles. Sure, it'll bend the concept of capitalism right over a chair and go in dry, but you don't win a medal for dying with the most toys. You're still dead, and you're still likely to take down several other people with you. Globally, remove or reeducate the leaders of 3rd world countries to learn how to feed their goddam citizens with what everyone else doesn't use.

- Speaking of dying, let's find ways to waste less space on cemeteries. More mausoleums and crematoriums, imo, and higher costs for burial plots.

- Among the resources that need to be better managed is the territory. Fuck space, you need to get people in extremely good shape before they can handle zero-gravity, let alone whatever long-term psychological damage that may be inflicted as a result of being raised on a floating rock literally in the middle of nowhere. Not to mention that we don't really have the capacity to efficiently look into terraforming otherwise extremely toxic/barren environments in space to accommodate our lives. Our planet has a ton of room and is actually capable of sustaining life, let's try to get along on that before we throw billions of dollars and hundreds of (extremely narrowly qualified) lives away trying to pollute somewhere else, hm?

- I mentioned terraforming. Theoretically, that would be easier to do in otherwise hostile environments on earth. Cloud seeding and demolishing (or at least lowering) mountains would allow deserts to be hydrated and therefore become ariable land again. We could also use more vertical space (ie apartments and condos) and make private housing less popular/affordable. Even more currently speaking, we just need to get into some "wild" sections of the world and pave them over to house the people there. Naturally, this means there will be fewer species to inhabit those areas, but if our OWN population is at risk of populating itself to death, then I'd rather a couple genii of rhinos or birds or something bit the dust than humans.

- Expanding on terraforming: We could build cities underwater. Not necessarily at the bottom of the ocean, but somewhere in the middle - deep enough to take advantage of the massive horizontal fields of space there, but close enough to the surface to keep the costs of communication/supply chains/defense manageable, as well as allowing us to dodge the structural risks of crushing an entire population to death under all that water pressure. Hell, even terraforming islands doesn't sound like a terrible idea considering that 70% of the earth's surface is water.

- As mentioned before, population control. Necessity overrides popularity (as it inevitably does). Enforce a low household maximum (3 children or so?) with harsh penalties for those who violate it. You know, little things like denying citizenship or free education to the extras. Let the parents decide if they want to live with 5 kids, 2 of them living as second-class citizens just because they couldn't be troubled to use a condom. I also approve the concept of finding a way of temporarily sterilizing everyone who requires federal aid (welfare) to stay at or above the poverty line.

- We need to find ways to end wars more quickly. I can't even begin to guess at how many acres are wasted as demilitarized zones, still "active" with land mines and toxic fumes and such. If that means building more lethal weapons and torturing war criminals, so be it. Peace is just the PR-friendly way of saying "we've bombed the other guy into being too weak or too afraid to strike back." We haven't been able to reconcile our civilizations diplomatically for 6 thousand years, why should we keep trying when the stakes are even higher and the figureheads are even more fanatical?

That's my 2c, anyway.

 

[SnowCold]

You should compare that graph to a graph of the average yield of farming land per square meter.

Turns out, if we keep improving our farming techniques and technologies, we will never run out of food.

If this is true, I love you.

 

[VirtualInsanity91]

You know who had birth control policies?
the communists. and they killed over 100 million people
thats 100,000,000
And for those of you who dont believe the Commi's were all that bad
the NSDAP used a little thing called Eugenics to regualte who had children.
NSDAP standing for National Socialist German Workers Party. or in laymens terms NAZI's
Basically if you regualte procreation, you have to regulate who has the children. So you start labeling people as fit for procreation or unfit.
Dude if you dont believe it can happen youre wrong because its already happened.
Dont let history repeat itself.

 

[Paksenarrion]

There is a large chance humans may exceed the carrying capacity of our Earth...

So my fellow Escapists, what are your thoughts? Ideas? Possible Solutions?

How else would you increase the carrying capacity of Earth? You must construct additional pylons...or in the case of other countries, you must breed more Overlords.

 

[zombiesinc]

I agree with the Reduce Breeding idea.Seriously we breed worse then rabbits and I bet more then 40% will never give back what they take in resources :/.

I think the worst part is the fact that thousands of people give birth to children they never wanted. They got pregnant because they were too fucking lazy to use a condom or birth control. Or, too drunk. Or... too stupid. Or... you get the point.

 

[Retardinator]

I thought through this a while ago. I'll sketch out a solution later today 'cause I don't have enough time. I'll just say that China was right.

 

[DazBurger]

So my fellow Escapists, what are your thoughts? Ideas? Possible Solutions?

Go colonize space. Other planets are underrated. Isn't that kind of obvious?

In before suggestions relating to nuclear war or other forms of mass murder.

At times, people here with such "ideas" make me lose my faith in humanity. Isn't it ironic?

I know what you mean... Makes me feel like commiting genoside or something...