Poll: Would you agree to this new law - saving humanity from certain disaster

[Jonluw]

My question is, what happens once you hit the maximum? Government-enforced abortions if there's any slip-ups? 'Euthanasia' for the third child, if things get that far? If you don't get the kid you want, are you justified in 'getting rid' of it? How about if you divorce someone and marry another?

If you have a "kid you want", I would be tempted to call you a horrible person. I can understand it in countries like China where the male fends for the family, and you need a male to take care of you when you're older, but I think this attitude needs to be combated.

I can imagine the government sponsoring abortions if there are accidents. I don't really see a problem with it.

 

[cgaWolf]

The premise that the worlds population is increasing exponentially is not quite correct. It sure may appear this way if you look at recent history & overall population; however when looking at population development of the western democracies, it doesn't hold up.

The short version of my argument goes like this: poor people have more kids then rich people. Even among emerging economies that trend can be seen; as well as when looking at different social strata in rich countries.

The demographic transition countries go through as they develop from pre-industrial to industrialized economies first drops mortality rates (better laws, science, technology & medecine), and with a certain lag the birth rate drops too (as wealth & female education increases). Due to that lag, we see a population increase - and that transition is something that's happening right now in most of what we used to call the 3rd world. India, China, lots of african nations & south america are right in the middle of it.

The answer to the problem of overpopulation is therefore not to limit how many children people are allowed to have by law (as mentioned earlier, that attempt has had "mixed" results in China - meaning that their policies have set them up to a truckload of demographic troubles down the road), but rather to increase the standard of living in emerging economies, via increases in wealth, public health & education.

The longer those countries need to get to a decent living standard for their populations, the higher the worlds total population will be when they finally do. How many people the world can actually sustain is still open to debate, i've heard numbers from 15-50 billion and anywhere in between - not sure we can actually do 50b, but 6-7b so far seems to face us with distribution & access problems, rather than actual lack of productivity problems.

But surely the reason for them being able to sustain their high density of population is through the importation of food

Nah, we just do that for convenience & economic reasons. The last decade has proven that rich countries can deal with massive increases in food price, it's the poor ones that get screwed over by this. Now, if that increase (instead of happenning due to a)speculation and b)re-allocation of resources away from food and towards (bio)-fuel) had happened because we shifted away from importing cheap foods, and made better use of our own agricultural resources, we'd still could deal with it.
While that might not apply to every country as a rule (i can certainly see the UK having problems), there's a lot of arable area & animal resources that's simply not used, for no other reason than price stability & economic convenience. We can do this atm because economic convenience & ecologic responsability is somewhat high on our list of priorities - but when people start starving, i'm pretty sure the EU policy of paying people to NOT grow food will die.

If we breed ourselves into starvation, sure, we fucked up

Nah... it just means tons of people will die, until we're few enough to not starve anymore. I certainly prefer my "lets figure out how to make everyone rich"-approach

 

[IzisviAziria]

If nature and biology cull us, that's one thing. I just don't think people should do it. If a war arises and kills a lot of people, bringing us down to a reasonable number (I doubt the population will plummet that far and if it does, ehh, we had a good run), then we'll start the cycle over again. I just hate the idea of one person looking at another person and saying "You need to die for the good of me." Or even worse, one person looking at millions of people and saying that. If we overpopulate ourselves into starvation, that will probably happen, but it would be a natural event, and humanity would perceviere.

He's not suggesting that we start killing people to solve a population crisis, he's suggesting implementing laws to keep us from overpopulating before it becomes a crisis. And humanities starvation is not a natural event. In nature, a population that grows to the point of starvation is natural. We have literally removed ourselves from natures process, if we overpopulate, it's because we fucked up. We have A) the technology to keep from having so many children, B) the knowledge that having as many kids as possible is destructive, and C) the means to feed a sustained population.

I disagree. You can't circumvent nature's laws forever. Eventually, you'll find laws that you can't break. If we breed ourselves into starvation, sure, we fucked up, but the fact that our brains evolved, means that our ability to judge our own fuckedupedness is a natural thing, and our inability to stop ourselves from careening off the cliff is certainly natural. It's horrible perhaps, but nature's a *****.

You can disagree though, I just think the idea of something being "Unnatural" is ludicrous in the real world. I have a very broad view of nature. If Humans think that they've somehow fully escaped the laws of nature, that is hubris of the highest degree.

Have you read Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn? You sound like you have. If you haven't, I highly suggest it. I think you'd both enjoy reading it, and find a lot that you agree with in it. It's a fairly short read, but very thought-provoking.

Anyway, I'm with you that you can't circumvent nature's laws forever. What I meant was that humanity, and in particular, Western culture, has aligned itself against nature. It's actively fighting the natural process, doing its best to populate despite nature's insistence that it stop. In this way, our population growth is, to me, unnatural. Because if we hadn't been fighting against nature so hard, we certainly would not have a blossoming population crisis.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

I can't believe the number of people voting yes to this. there has to be another way. IMO some individuals should not be ALLOWED to have children whereas some don't even want kids and others want many. Why should everyone have to change. People like junkies and teenage girls should be forced to have the coil put in or something to prevent teen pregnancies and future corrupt or homeless kids. That sounds harsh but I hate to think some people have worked hard and built a life for themselves so they can have the family they want only to be told they cant have anymore kids.
My bet is that the majority of people voting on your poll don't want kids anyway or are guys and cant have an understanding of the maternal desire to have another child. <3

In the end its society. Having that many kids is just plain selfish and short sighted. I want one million pounds, for the exact same reason you want a kid. To make me happy. I want to rob someone for it. However im not allowed to be happy if it harms society, and niether should anyone else. Is you wanted an EXTRA kid really worth seeing out entire species die because we over populate? Really? It strikes me as very selfish. I mean you ALREADY have two! And you can STILL adopt! I only want two kids.

In fact this is the kind of attitude that fucked up the world today as it is. With global warming and the oil crisis "Who cares about tomorrow as long as im happy now"

 

[Ganthrinor]

Your third image is a little off, but that's just because any great conflict over resources also tends to deplete the availability of those same resources, meaning that the "Max population the world can feed" line would also decay as citizenry gets drafted/killed/imprisoned and the land itself is raped and befouled by the effects of war or famine.


Ironically better health care and safer environments is the worst thing that's happened to us as a species. Fewer people dying of illness and injury has lead to a massive population increase. The longer the trend increases only means that a scale-tipping event will only get bigger and bigger. We as a species can endeavor to control our population ourselves, or it will be curbed by something else eventually, be it disease, war, pollution, robot/alien overlords or a series of catastrophic natural disasters.

 

[Astoria]

This probably would be a smart thing to do but there would be no real way to enforce this. I think population growth is starting to slow down now (at least in developed countries) so maybe we won't reach these futures but if we do the war outcome sounds a lot more likely.

 

[Bobzer77]

Third world countries develop -> population drops

Technology improves -> population limit increases

Really people, it may be edgy to jump on the whole exterminate the human race bandwagon (and we all know how much the escapist likes it's edgy bandwagons), but please try not to be this brain dead.

 

[BonsaiK]

You all probably know that human population is increasing exponentially, as discussed in a "culling" thread a litte further down

Well, that person got it wrong too.

WARNING: Actual researched, proven facts about world population are in this post. Be warned: may be seriously lacking in cool, trendy Internet nihilism.

According to the people who actually study this stuff, the world population is currently predicted to level out at around 9 billion people by 2050. That's hardly "exponential growth", and a number the planet can easily support. Source: http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/WorldPop2300final.pdf

Furthermore birthrate has been shown to be the only proven way to keep population down. And the main thing that controls birthrate is not telling people not to breed, but standard of living. People in poverty tend to have lots of children, because your children, when they grow older, are effectively your social security - they can earn incomes of their own, provide for the family unit, help out with mundane tasks such as farm work (which is the reason why the Chinese "One Child Policy" only worked in urban areas - rural Chinese still have shitloads of kids) or looking after the ageing parents. It's a survival strategy. On the other hand, richer people tend to want fewer (or no) children because the necessities of survival are already taken care of, they want their free time for leisure and money-making, as we all know having children is a big time-sink as well as economically draining. Therefore, countries in poverty tend to have exploding populations. Source: http://www.scalloway.org.uk/popu7.htm

Factors like war, genocides etc tend to have little to no downward influence on population growth. The reason for this is obvious - people tend to make babies before they actually go (often as a patriotic duty), and also war lowers the standard of living for the countries the war is taking place in, thus the above factors in the previous paragraph come into play, and the population start booming. Although the world as a whole is currently not in a population crisis, certain countries in the world certainly are heading in that direction. One of them is Afghanistan. Source: http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/populationgrow.htm

Therefore, the best thing we can do to stop the world's population from getting out of hand is increase standards of living globally and make sure everybody is as happy and peaceful as possible.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

SNIP

Anyway, I'm with you that you can't circumvent nature's laws forever. What I meant was that humanity, and in particular, Western culture, has aligned itself against nature. It's actively fighting the natural process, doing its best to populate despite nature's insistence that it stop. In this way, our population growth is, to me, unnatural. Because if we hadn't been fighting against nature so hard, we certainly would not have a blossoming population crisis.

I really like this. Youve summed it up really well. We managed to trick/coerce nature into letting us have more than we should from the table. What we dont realise or just dont care about is eventually theres not going to be any more on the table.

 

[RabbidKuriboh]

a good and realistic idea, but results would be too slow to reach needed levels

a culling is what's needed but probably won't because of idealists

 

[Altorin]

SNIP

Look at general popluation trend. As healthcare and contraception came about it STILL increases, even faster than before. Explain that.

Where are your numbers? I mean, it's late, I really don't want to find numbers for myself, but I'm interested. I don't think I'm wrong. The issue of overpopulation arises when healthcare improves but contraceptive use does not improve to compensate.

The basic "No Healthcare, No Contraceptives" is what humanity has been like for 10,000 years. Mothers would routinely be pregnant CONSTANTLY because they didn't know which of their kids would get eaten by a cougar or die to some horrible disease that we can cure with a shot.

That was the norm until about 150 years ago, during the industrial revolution. People weren't getting eaten by wild animals so much, but they still kept having ridiculously huge families. 10 kids in a family as normal. So fewer of those 10 kids died. Then healthcare got a bit better, doctors started curing things instead of causing more trouble, and mothers started naturally having fewer and fewer kids.. but they'd still have kids, because their husbands would want sex occasionally, the only real method of birth control was the rhythm method or pulling out, which any sex ed teacher will tell you hardly works. So kids were still being born, large families (compared to the norm today) were still the norm.

Then we slide into the past 50 years or so. Things like Vasectomies and tubal ligations become possible, condoms become an actual thing, eventually someone invents a pill, and suddenly, birthrates level off, contraceptives have caught up with healthcare in the 1st world, and we have a fairly stable population.

2nd and 3rd world countries are still suffering from things like rampant disease, and other means of death the 1st world wrote off ages ago. So birthrates are high. Deathrates are high. You have a stable population. Add Healthcare to that pot without adding contraceptives, and you have huge population booms, as large families survive to have more large families.

As for making laws about limiting family size, I'm not sure I agree with it. I'll agree that it makes sense, but babies still slip through the cracks, and when that happens, they're punished for their parents either, mistakes, or misfortunes. Look at all of the deaths of female chinese babies. That's what these sorts of laws will create.

Are they necessary? Maybe, but honestly, I don't know if I could personally support them, at least not in areas where they don't really seem to be needed. China? Yes, maybe. They're still horrible things when baby girls are being abandoned. The US? No.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Be warned: may be seriously lacking in cool, trendy Internet nihilism /mocking

SNIP real interesting material

Interesting stuff My main issue is the term "easily support" for 9 billion people. We have about 6 billion now right? A great deal are starving to death. A great deal more live in poor conditions. You seem to assume we can pull these "better conditions" from our asses. Whats going to suddenly stop these third world countries from starving in 40 years? Whats going to stop these extra 3 billion people from starving while this is happening?

Also im not a nihilist. Im talking about predictions and ways to counter act a theory. Do refrain from mockery please im trying to have a sensible discussion.

 

[Yopaz]

I think it's a good idea. That's really all I have to say about it. We are too many, and we're growing too quickly. We need to find a way, so why not limit the amount of children? It's either that or wait for the food resources to run out and die in hunger and sickness.

 

[cgaWolf]

humanity, and in particular, Western culture, has aligned itself against nature. It's actively fighting the natural process, doing its best to populate despite nature's insistence that it stop

I find both, the premises that nature has a will, and the premise that it's opposed to humanity, absurd.

What we dont realise or just dont care about is eventually theres not going to be any more on the table

Which raises a couple of questions: how much can we actually put on the table via scienctific/technological advances (actually, a very significant question for me, as i work in alimentary technology ); and can we make everyone rich enough fast enough to ensure there's anough on the table for us all.

Increases in food production & better distribution systems (put more on the table) buy us more time to figure out the second issue (stabilizing world population via living standard).







As a complete sidenote: http://www.gapminder.org/

This aggregates data from tons and tons and tons of reports, everything from GPD/capita, life expectancy, literacy rates, birth rates, etc... from tons of nations, as far back as they can find reliable data, and allows you to plot them to X/Y graphs (linear of log), and then press "play" to see how something develops over the past 20-100 years (depending on how far back the data reaches). It's an incredibawesome tool, if you want reliable numbers to make your argument - and often leads to very surprising insights ( http://www.ted.com/speakers/hans_rosling.html go watch some of his talks).

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

SNIP

I think you are right. Look what ive found compiled by someone with the data.

The thing is it IS leveling off, but will that be too late? We can barely feed the population now, MANY are starving. Where is this food and condition improvement going to come from magically over 40 years? While still trying to feed an ever increasing population.

Which raises a couple of questions: how much can we actually put on the table via scienctific/technological advances (actually, a very significant question for me, as i work in alimentary technology ); and can we make everyone rich enough fast enough to ensure there's anough on the table for us all.

Increases in food production & better distribution systems (put more on the table) buy us more time to figure out the second issue (stabilizing world population via living standard).

He has said it better than i could, my method is a way of literally buying time until the afformentioned solution can be found.

 

[Altorin]

If nature and biology cull us, that's one thing. I just don't think people should do it. If a war arises and kills a lot of people, bringing us down to a reasonable number (I doubt the population will plummet that far and if it does, ehh, we had a good run), then we'll start the cycle over again. I just hate the idea of one person looking at another person and saying "You need to die for the good of me." Or even worse, one person looking at millions of people and saying that. If we overpopulate ourselves into starvation, that will probably happen, but it would be a natural event, and humanity would perceviere.

He's not suggesting that we start killing people to solve a population crisis, he's suggesting implementing laws to keep us from overpopulating before it becomes a crisis. And humanities starvation is not a natural event. In nature, a population that grows to the point of starvation is natural. We have literally removed ourselves from natures process, if we overpopulate, it's because we fucked up. We have A) the technology to keep from having so many children, B) the knowledge that having as many kids as possible is destructive, and C) the means to feed a sustained population.

I disagree. You can't circumvent nature's laws forever. Eventually, you'll find laws that you can't break. If we breed ourselves into starvation, sure, we fucked up, but the fact that our brains evolved, means that our ability to judge our own fuckedupedness is a natural thing, and our inability to stop ourselves from careening off the cliff is certainly natural. It's horrible perhaps, but nature's a *****.

You can disagree though, I just think the idea of something being "Unnatural" is ludicrous in the real world. I have a very broad view of nature. If Humans think that they've somehow fully escaped the laws of nature, that is hubris of the highest degree.

Have you read Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn? You sound like you have. If you haven't, I highly suggest it. I think you'd both enjoy reading it, and find a lot that you agree with in it. It's a fairly short read, but very thought-provoking.

Anyway, I'm with you that you can't circumvent nature's laws forever. What I meant was that humanity, and in particular, Western culture, has aligned itself against nature. It's actively fighting the natural process, doing its best to populate despite nature's insistence that it stop. In this way, our population growth is, to me, unnatural. Because if we hadn't been fighting against nature so hard, we certainly would not have a blossoming population crisis.

maybe it's me. Maybe I'm crazy and just not seeing a "population crisis" in the west. In the east? Yeah, fuck yeah. India? China? Lots of population based problems. Mexico? Yeah, ok, I'll give you that. The similarity in all of these places is, that until very recently (or even now) these countries weren't first world countries. Are populations in the west increasing? Maybe. Probably. There are probably numbers that prove that I'm a total jackass. I just don't see it. In the west, there is plenty of space, and there is plenty of food. I'll agree that's aberrant, we have more food then we need, but I wouldn't call it a crisis right now, that's just being alarmist.

Is the WORLD having a bit of a population crisis? Yeah, I could agree to THAT, but not the west. And the countries that are contributing greatest to this population crisis already have these laws in place.

 

[Kl4pp5tuhl]

Vasectomies for 3rd World countries. Job done.

The developed world is the point where less and less children are born, but it is 3rd world countries (plus India, China, at least to me) that already have a big population, so it is only natural that more kids are born with each year.

...

Hey, you asked for my answer, like it or not, don't care.

 

[Altorin]

I think you are right. Look what ive found compiled by someone with the data.

The thing is it IS leveling off, but will that be too late? We can barely feed the population now, MANY are starving. Where is this food and condition improvement going to come from magically over 40 years? While still trying to feed an ever increasing population.

Basically what I said in my last post, I'm basically done with this thread. You guys are interesting to debate with, but I think I've basically made all of my points.

The WORLD is in a crisis situation. I'll agree to that.

The West, and the developed world in general is NOT in a crisis situation, or their piece of the crisis is miniscule. We can contend on that, but that's my stance, and it seems the data backs me up.

The countries that are in most danger of causing this population crisis to worsen (china and india) already have population and birth limits in place (I'm not sure about India, China DEFINITELY does)

It's a shitty situation that the world is in, but putting laws in place in developed countries to limit births is silly - that's not where the population crisis is coming from. I imagine the west will get a lot hungrier then it is now before too long, but it's not going to starve to complete death, because we don't have a ridiculous population crisis on our hands.

It would be like putting a bandaid, on a geyser, just to say "Hey, at least we're doing something about it", when you're not really doing anything at all. You're probably actually making things worse by making people THINK that you've somehow solved the problem.

What do we need to do? Bring contraceptives, LOTS of them, to the developing world. Give them the knowledge and healthcare that they need to survive and not feel the need to have 10 kids so that one survives, so that when and if that country becomes developed, it won't have a problem like china's.

 

[mobsterlobster]

Why do people want kids anyway? They take up all your time and money and keep you up all night. Maybe the government needs to start brainwashing people into thinking having kids is a terrible idea, then loads of people will voluntarily make themselves sterile. Maybe.

 

[vviki]

No, actually. The government can't decide effectively how much a teacher should be payed, what children should have for lunch and what's the best way to fix the holes in the road, so NO. NO way are they deciding on how many children should someone have. Also, I'm not sure here, but my Biology teacher said that the world has much greater potential to feed, than it's currently achieved. He theorized that 36 billion people can be fed by our planet. The way I see it, even if half the food that gets thrown away everyday makes it to someone starving, almost no one will die of hunger. Think about all the kilograms of meat, vegetables, baked goods that get thrown away at the end of the work day since no one has bought them. There is no need for a regulation of population, regulation of resources is needed. This brings me to my original point, since governments can't spread existing resources to fix current problems, then they should be handed no extra responsibility.