Overpopulation

[GundamSentinel]

I'm not too fussed. Population in developed countries is levelling out. Population in developing countries might still increase, but when it can no longer be supported it will collapse (famine, disease or whatnot). It's not what anyone would want to happen, but it is inevitable. There's just a limit to how many people we can have around. If everyone would be nice and share equally it has been said the Earth could sustain 50 billion. This is sadly not the case, so we'll just have to let nature run its course.

Frankly, I'm more worried about decreasing biodiversity because of human expansion. Whole ecosystems are thrown off balance just because we want to eat everything and live everywhere.

 

[samstewiefisher]

How are communism and democracy functionally identical in their purist form??

Other than that they both aspire to an utterly egalitarian state, where political decisions are participated in by every member of the relevant society irrespective of "class"? The biggest historical differences are in execution and accountability of the authorities in charge. And, I suppose, that pesky Carter doctrine demanding war on everyone moving in on our gold mines.

Im afraid im goin to have to disagree with you there. Communism may strive for true egalitarianism but democracy doesnt. Democracy is concerned with everybody being involved and having their say, but that doesnt mean they have to get what their after. If they happen to be in the minority on a particular issue then their opinion is counted but out voted. In communism, you give what you can but are entitled to recieve what you need. I would argue that their fundamentally different doctrines.

Also,on topic, people seem to think the problems of the third world are no concern of ours in the west. Our whole way of life is based on the fact that the are millions of very poor people to sustain the way we live. We do not live in isolation. OVerpopulation is worst in these countries because we keep them poor and under educated to main the satus quo, which is us exploiting them to propogate our own personal consumption.

 

[AWAR]

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

I don't know if it is possible to move billions of people with spaceships to another planet yet.

The main reason behind overpopulation is oil. Think about it. We use oil to create everything, if it wasn't for it there's a 99,9% chance you wouldn't exist. So that means no oil = no civilisation = no overpopulation. We all know that oil is finite..

 

[Manicotti]

Im afraid im goin to have to disagree with you there. Communism may strive for true egalitarianism but democracy doesnt. Democracy is concerned with everybody being involved and having their say, but that doesnt mean they have to get what their after. If they happen to be in the minority on a particular issue then their opinion is counted but out voted.

But not discounted entirely; you're also forgetting the checks and balances in place that keep the tyranny of the majority from being a consistent threat. "Majority rules" isn't the common thread in all interpretations, though, as much as "every citizen has equal accountability before the law" and "all citizens have access to the same information" are. Check the Wikipedia page on democracy, there are half a dozen interpretations outlined before you even get to the table of contents.

In communism, you give what you can but are entitled to recieve what you need. I would argue that their fundamentally different doctrines.

That's because property is communal. There is no private property to dangle over the heads of others as a point of imaginary superiority. You know, like the rights and stuff we've had countless wars and debates in our democracies trying to make sure those get to every demographic.

 

[AWAR]

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.

Fascism much?

 

[Wicky_42]

I propose we build giant sky cities complete with fields for crops and what not. Not because it would be practical, but because it would be awesome.

And if it happens i called it.

That's totally going to be my third year architecture project. And it's going to be steampunk

I'm thinking Mortal Engines [http://www.mortalengines.co.uk/], only even MORE airborne!

Hmm, to make it feasible you'd need to be using a LOT of helium... if only hydrogen were less flammable. Hey, why not just make air heavier! Then everything would float better! *goes off to make air heavier o.0*

 

[Nova5]

So my fellow Escapists, what are your thoughts? Ideas? Possible Solutions? I personally think we should stress birth control a lot more and restrict the amount of children any family can have. It may sound very harsh, but it is completely necessary in my opinion.

That's certainly a possibility. It's also highly unlikely. Only first-world nations are likely to seriously adopt a program like this, and even then to a limited extent. Whatever steps the first-world nations may take will inevitably be undone by third-world nations (much as our attempts to 'go green' are met with significant increase in pollution by China and India).

What we need is a good ol' fashioned World War. Preferably with lots of so-called 'clean' H-bombs.

Seriously, that's about the only solution I can think of. And, hilariously, the most likely to happen, anyway.

 

[Eisenfaust]

i seem to remember someone saying that right now, we'd be massively over populated if it wasn't for WW1 and WW2... so go war, i suppose...

 

[pirateninj4]

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.

Which would in turn cause our population to continue to rise. This then poses the dilemma of other resources being depleted like natural gases, fossil fuels, water for hydro electricity, natural minerals used for smelting and production, clean drinking water, wood, synthetic materials and in some places clean air. Also, it has been shown that mass farming causes the food grown there to be deficient in nutrition, and it has a negative effect on the land around it. The soil that is overused season after season will eventually become desert without constant irrigation.

The truth is that we need to change our attitudes about breeding. There needs to be sincere attempts to control how many children you are able to have and who is allowed to have them. Overpopulation is a problem that our species exclusively controls by our blatant disregard for natural selection and the balance of this ecosystem. Our blind arrogance that implies our ownership of this planet will be the death of us, unless we get serious about stopping the breeders from continuously making more people that will depend on this already fragile ecosystem.

 

[The_Healer]

We may never run out of food... but we will eventually run out of usable biomass for both buildings (As things tend to be going the biodegradable or "green" route now.), materials, and other things.. One must remember that we are essentially made from what we eat, literally. We are essentially topsoil, in the simplest sense, there is only so much "usable" material as a whole. Matter is not infinite. It exists as both intert and living things. we only have so much. And is it just food your thinking of? Think about water too... Then again, we got the ocean, and there are methods of making salt water into fresh water.

Although it would take years to exhaust those resources... but eventually, it will come to this- Whatever isnt human, is being used for food. All other animals will livestock... pets are only for the rich that can afford them, as that precious biomass is limited.

Materials are not infinite.

I was just talking about food, but you have done well to elaborate.

Yes we will eventually exhaust the natural resources of the planet, but this will take a long long time. Especially as our power generation is made more efficient and sustainable (fusion etc. - talking in the long term), leading to the cheap desalination of sea water for drinking.

And if worst comes to worst, who knows what technology the human race will have by then? We might just shoot off to the nearest habitable planet to either mine it for resources or colonise.

The truth is that we need to change our attitudes about breeding. There needs to be sincere attempts to control how many children you are able to have and who is allowed to have them. Overpopulation is a problem that our species exclusively controls by our blatant disregard for natural selection and the balance of this ecosystem. Our blind arrogance that implies our ownership of this planet will be the death of us, unless we get serious about stopping the breeders from continuously making more people that will depend on this already fragile ecosystem.

As I mentioned above, I think fossil fuels are the least of our worry in this case. This is going to be an extremely long term problem and thus I anticipate us developing energy in other ways.

As for selective breeding...

I can't really comment without my elitist and prejudiced views surfacing... but I don't care.
It makes sense to me that high IQ parents should be encouraged to have more children and low IQ parents should be 'encouraged' to have less. I'm not sure if thats what you are getting at... but that's how it spoke to me.
For all I know you might want big people to be extinct so that those remaining consume less food.

 

[direkiller]

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

 

[Catchy Slogan]

Well, the population will definitely go down when we start running out of food. Either by fighting each other, or starving to death, it will go down. It happpens all the time in eco systems, when a population goes over it's limits, something always takes it back down again. Be it war, disease, famine or due to our own pestilence, the human race will stop at some point and numbers will go down at some point, only to rise again.

 

[thahat]

legalise coloseums, only hand to hand style weaponry, or at most a bow or a spear -thrown weapons you get the jest-
criminals can enter, every time they win it takes half a year off their scentance, win 20 times they go free.
anyone can enter, criminals get prison gear -think standard stuff- private enterers can bring their own armour, and one weapon.
charge entry fees. is see this becoming the new football. seeing that footballers are highly over payed, so will people entering. 30.000x2 ( so 60k ) per time or more is a nice incentive to go risk your neck -in case of both surviving, 30k each you get the idea-
many a person will try, that, and now we have a solution for desperate foreigners XD

 

[garlicncow]

How to solve problem: (only people in Africa are exempt if they don't have aids they can have more than 1) 1 yes one child per house hold,that would literally cut the population in half. over the coarse of 100 years. Boom.

 

[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...

 

[Kikosemmek]

Every society owes itself and all others the institution of population control laws. The 1 child per family law that China is implementing is exactly what the entire world should try to do until we stabilize global population around 2 billion.

Why? Because this is a social, political, and economic panacea to all the domestic and international pressures we put on each other in response to resource stress. If you want to get an idea of how close we are to something as appalling as a water war, look at the current relationship between Egypt and the Lake Victoria countries right now. Living space, arable land, water, and natural energy deposits are all objects on which revolve international policies. The less people there are, the less stress there is on all of these resources, and more. There are already too many humans. We should see to it that we're not exacerbating the problem to the point of no return.

 

[Little Duck]

The bible says we should go forth and multiply, but we haven't so much multiplied, but rather, we appear to be cubing.

I think the only way we can control our selves is through birth control, but no one wants to say it in a democracy.

 

[DarkRawen]

Well, a good way is to get a law that says you can`t do as Nadya Suleman, (Have fourteen kids via IFV). And, as some folks already have said, lower the amount of years in a human lifes, or at least make sure it doesn`t get higher. I bet wars will also be a help in this problem and since there`s a while since the last big war one is bound to start soon. Other than that... Maybe Alex Mercer could help out?

 

[titanium turtle]

portal technology- then fire a portal at venus and one at mars to get most co2 off venus and onto mars then the temperature will be allright to terraform them both!!
fuck yeah

and if not..... turn every mountain into really tall buildings and grow artificial meat and plants in vats to feed the untold billions