Overpopulation

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Anyone who is not capable of taking care of themselves ie in a old folks home should be put to the rest. I will shoot myself before I end up in one those those Hells. I understand the nurses can be nice and good but I think I might just kill myself if I end up in one those places.

 

[Dexiro]

More gay people would solve the problem! What're those religious nuts moaning about ;D

 

[terrible cheeb]

if humanity becomes so large that the planet cant support us anymore then something like a drought or famine will wipe out most the population and then it all starts again. life is in a constant balance, sorta like gaia theory.

 

[JoJo]

This may be hard to believe but the human population is already starting to level off, population growth was higher in the 1960's than it is now and most scientists estimate that by 2050 the population will have stabilised at about 9 billion people.

If for any reason this fails to occur, the only solution I see working is a one-child policy similar to that of China, if you simply denied a large section of the population the right to reproduce at-all, there would be mass unrest from those people and it would be grossly unfair on them to deny what is only natural for humans to want to do...

 

[e2density]

If science says anything it's that we are a few steps away from colonizing Mars and when that happens we all move there.

It seems a little unrealistic to move from a planet that sustains life fairly easily to a dangerous unknown wasteland with very few resources that we can find...

 

[Lord Monocle Von Banworthy]

Everybody seems to have a clear-cut solution here. I don't care if there is one, but here are some things that ain't it:

1. Expand off-planet. (Space Opera) Already brilliantly dealt with on page 1. Exponential growth is not dealt with by getting a new petri dish.

2. Voluntary birth control (via celibacy, chemicals, abortion, whatever). (Idiocracy) Anyone who self-selects for this probably has the sense of responsibility we WANT to perpetuate itself. Anyone who refuses has exactly the sense of selfishness that got us into this problem. Even if it worked perfectly a graying population isn't a pretty thing. I live in Japan and I've been to these little towns where nobody's under 60. They're dead.

3. War for a purpose. (China, I suspect) Again, if you're a crusader or a resource thief or expansionist, you're probably going to win and you're probably not the sort we want to populate the Earth. You're the sort who already has.

4. Kill off the old. (Logan's Run) I think the old have more nuclear launch codes at their disposal than you do. They're richer too, so you aren't going to manage this.

5. Recycle/become vegan/invent cold fusion/farm the oceans. (Al Gore) This will work for a while maybe but overall is that the purpose of humanity? Just cover the globe with more and more meat stacked 100 high? I think this is essentially what we're going to go with, and it is sad.

So here's one I'll throw out for you: Random culling. Giant robots or conscripted ninjas or something kill off a given percentage selected entirely at random every year. The worst of our societies won't win and the best won't.

You know what though? I bet we'll get used to it.

 

[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.

yeah because it worked really well in china

Yeah I actually thought up a rather big hole in my plan just as I was switching my computer off to head out for an exam: the result would be lots of old people outnumbering the able (in fact isn't that apparently happening already here in the U.K?).

Screw it lets just go with my second plan, it's less boring anyway!

 

[Gotham Soul]

MASS EFFECT DRIVES!

Seriously, though, what we need is a disease pandemic, or a full scale war, or a zombie apocalypse or something. Colonizing another planet would be awesome, completely ignoring the fact that it'll be full again within a hundred years.

 

[TehAudioSurfer]

Well sadly genocide and world wars are the easiest bets since It's our best trade It's just plain unnatural for humans to solve it's own problems logically and peacefully./sarcasm

OT: I'd say voluntary birth control start with the young through education, social upbringing, stigmatization via entertainment, subliminal messaging(sue me).

We're already on the ball with the stigmatization part thanks to ye olde religion but we need kids to logically stigmatize things.

 

[dochmbi]

I don't agree with your sarcasm. If you don't contribute anything to society you are nothing but a consumer, which is entirely the problem in the first place. Consuming without producing, over-consumption that's the problem with overpopulation.

It's not the fact there's a lot of people that's the problem, it's the possibility we may not be able to provide for them. Here's an analogy to illustrate my point. Imagine you ate as you normally do but you never bought or grew any food. Eventually, it's going to run out.

Now, that doesn't mean I'm going to go out killing people who are purely consumerists, but I'm not going to respect them either.

I have no choice but to believe that life has intrinsic value, because I'm not currently contributing to society in any useful way and I'm not even sure if I ever will. I would be ethically compelled to kill myself otherwise.

 

[Marowit]

Simple solution - don't have children, adopt children.

It's however, very difficult to not want your own children. Think about it though, what populations generally have the largest number of offspring - poorer populations. So if you adopt, even just one child, from a poorer region. Help them to gain education, etc, you've successfully removed one link in the chain from that cycle.

It's kind of a harsh viewpoint, I know I want to have my own kids, but it's difficult to reconcile these viewpoints.

 

[CrystalMethods]

We should have a world war, but everyone has to fight and the only weapons we're allowed to use are guns and grenades and any melee weapon. No missiles, nuclear arms, only what a person can directly effect. Call it the Necessary Massacre or something awesome like that. And everyone has to fight. Except those who are terminally ill or pregnant.But I mean there are no such things as civilians in this case.

 

[soundoflights]

We need to focus on transferred consciousness, the amount of humans isn't the problem it's the amount of energy a human needs to survive. If we can develop further technologically then human reproduction and death will become nonexistent. Instead of focusing on how to maintain our organic forms or how to ration our depleting natural resources we need to focus on understanding our minds so we can duplicate and transfer their information into a mechanical form. If we can get to that point human self evolution will jump ahead by leaps and bounds.

someone likes Ghost in the shell

anyway farming technology is increasing alot we are not close to the breaking point of the world in terms of food. If we dont find a practical substitute for oil in about 30 years and for coal in about 200 years we may have some problems however

Hmmmm I have never seen Ghost in the Shell I should probably watch it sounds right up my alley.

 

[joshthor]

Yes, a damn good one, Quite simply, in countries without any population control use a chemical or biological agent to sterilize 60-70% or so of the population, in ones with control only sterilize 20-30% and encourage education.
Right now, due to religious. monetary, political reasons people will not stop having babies in areas that cannot take that many people. Simple, brutal, effective.

that is 110% sociopathic. it goes completely against human nature. your acting like only religious people want to have kids. its part of human life. we have a instictual primative urge to have kids, to reproduce.



btw: it sounds alot like the gynophage in mass effect.

Well, I understood from his comment that he meant people having large number of kids. One thing is having 1 or 2 kids, another is having 10 or 20 (or like Leontina Albina from Chile who had 64 kids during her entire life).

Religious people are against birth control. Yes we have the urge to reproduce but unless you are capable to support a large number of children you would be reckless and irresponsible to make a large number of kids in the 21st century.

one: i dont know anyone who is against birth control, religious or not.
two: i am religious, and i sure as hell would use birth control
three: i go to church every week and i have never heard once not to use birth control. (also, my dad is an elder at said church and he said to use protection)

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.

Life expactancy increase at this stage doesnt have any longer major impact on popultaion increase as it does not increase the fertile period for woman. What does have impact medical wise is the reduction of children mortality rate. The main and primary mechanism of nature to control population is getting rid of as many newborn as posible with diseases, predators, sibblings competition. So nature actually dont aim first the old, but first the young.

In nature no known species as a child mortality lower then 50%, in the human race, no country as it higher then 20%.

But let's not aim child and elder, thats what the nazis also tried to do. The solution is really birth control and its working in most countries, world population growth is slowing down on the poast 15 years. Msain problem now is going to be the aged populations, with many people retired while a smaller slice of population is active to maintain their pensions. That will maker for some rough decades and are one of the major risks to industrialized countries economies (probably the main reason for greek bankrupcy since their retiring age was just 45 years). But we can get over it.

[/quote]

 

[Hashime]

Mass Killings do not solve the problem or over population. Without education, population reduction will be only temporary. We need to reduce the population, like I stipulated earlier through a humane method like random sterilization to different percentages on the populations of all countries (based on growth and carrying capacity), but also educate the children that are born about birth control and population growth.

 

[benoitowns]

We have sent a man to the moon. And eventually, we can send a man with AIDS to the moon. *applause*
And maybe, someday, we can send everyone with AIDS to the moon.
Sarah Silverman

 

[The Rockerfly]

Market birth control more effectively or strike fear. Try and make people fear unprotected sex so they fear to reproduce and make birth control much cheaper and market it to properly and not have condom adverts banned or any of that rubbish to "protect minors"

It might work for a while and the population should stabilise or decrease

 

[thahat]

We need to focus on transferred consciousness, the amount of humans isn't the problem it's the amount of energy a human needs to survive. If we can develop further technologically then human reproduction and death will become nonexistent. Instead of focusing on how to maintain our organic forms or how to ration our depleting natural resources we need to focus on understanding our minds so we can duplicate and transfer their information into a mechanical form. If we can get to that point human self evolution will jump ahead by leaps and bounds.

someone likes Ghost in the shell

anyway farming technology is increasing alot we are not close to the breaking point of the world in terms of food. If we dont find a practical substitute for oil in about 30 years and for coal in about 200 years we may have some problems however

fusion power should be here in about 10. but that will make an all out war- whoever owns the reactor, can decide who gets it, at what price. so everyone will want to own it...

I dont think you understand the difference between scientific discovery(fusion that has a net positive energy gain) and practical commercial distribution of that discovery(a working power plant).

for instance yea hydrogen cars work but the distribution system(nozzle for pumping,trucks for transporting,tanks for storing,ecd.) will take several billion dollars and years to put in place. After that you still need the hydrogen car equivalent to the model T and a solution to current pumping systems taking hours to pump hydrogen gas.

oh i do understand. i was talking about the working, functioning powerplant. to make immense amounts of power out of just simple water. takes about an entire contincents worth of power generation to get started, but as soon as it does im talking pretymuch self sufficient. well exept for the need for a spot of water.

 

[ShaqLevick]

Trust me when we reach the breaking point humanities insecurity and unreasonable nature will take care of this problem. There will be a great deal of death and destruction, but humanity will prevail, and will emerge from the rubble to rebuild. It boggles my mind to think that people are so ignorant of the past that they feel 100 years of human history is a basis for the "norm", we are no more entitled to abuse this planet as it is to abuse us as long as we live in symbiosis. The only solutions to this problem are engineering renewable food sources (although that's just a band-aid), and most importantly to leave this planet and colonize new lands. I would strongly suggest we stop worrying about the blight of our fellow man at the present and start to consider if there will be a future for our race at all. Consider whether our race could actually survive another dark age.

 

[Withall]

Easiest solution: nuke ALL Major Cities (1 million + people), and nuke the major breadbaskets of the world. That is, sadly, the easiest and least "blameable" solution. Too bad it fucks up ethics really really quickly.