Poll: Would you support a human Genophage?

[El.Cojone.Grande]

I had an interesting conversation today about overpopulation. It's not really a point of contention that there are (or soon will be) more humans than the planet can comfortably sustain. At 8ish billion, food and resources already come at the cost of exploitation and wholesale destruction of Earth?s ecology, and soon it will reach the point where there simply isn't any more left to consume. Eventually, barring some major technological intervention (spacetravel, etc.) we're going to drive ourselves to extinction. Anyway, I was thinking that in order to reverse population growth and the strain on our resources, one hypothetical option could be a genophage type fertility control administered to the human race, as with the Krogan in Mass Effect. Something completely random and non-biased, to avoid the obvious ethical and sociological issues with having any kind of selective cull. And obviously not to the extreme as in Mass Effect, but significantly reduced fertility, say one in three. I don't mean to come off misanthropic and anti-humanist (though humanism really hasn't done the planet any favours), just speculating on a solution to a problem. Yes I am aware this is not an absolutely urgently pressing world issue quite yet, and that the technology is not even close to existent, it is merely a thought provoking topic.

So what do you think? Would you be in favour?

 

[Vuljatar]

It's not really a point of contention that there are (or soon will be) more humans than the planet can comfortably sustain.

[citation needed]

Seriously, this "overpopulation" hysteria is about as accurate and realistic as a Mayan apocalypse prediction. We've got, at a minimum, hundreds of generations before it would become a real concern--barring the very likely event of some sort of technological advancement that renders the point entirely moot. And either way, by then we'll have colonized other worlds.

 

[Colour Scientist]

Nope, not even a little bit.

Infertility is a horrible thing to have to deal with and I find it horribly unsettling that you'd willingly inflict that on one third of the population. Contraception just needs to become more widespread and globally accepted, family sizes in developed countries are already on the decline, for the most part, so if that became global the world population would gradually decrease by itself.

Honestly, you can attempt to fix problems without trying to control the population in such a direct way.

OT: Also:

Something completely random and biased

I don't think you meant the word 'biased' there.

 

[Imperius]

I would be in favour of the citizens of the world stop being shortsighted and instead of spending huge amounts of money on humanitarian efforts and wars, and instead throw that money into advancing our technology in the realm of spacetravel, and begin colonizing the solar system.

Because that we wouldnt need to worry about overpopulation as much if we had colonies to ship the excess.


Howver, if you employ something like this genophage, then you will have to target areas where birthrates are high. Third world countries especially in the Middle East.

 

[El.Cojone.Grande]

Nope, not even a little bit.

Infertility is a horrible thing to have to deal with and I find it horribly unsettling that you'd willingly inflict that on one third of the population. Contraception just needs to become more widespread and globally accepted, family sizes in developed countries are already on the decline, for the most part, so if that became global the world population would gradually decrease by itself.

Honestly, you can attempt to fix problems without trying to control the population in such a direct way.

OT: Also:

Something completely random and biased

I don't think you meant the word 'biased' there.

Typo sorry, fixed.

And yes, infertility sucks, but then so does bringing a child into a world of desperation and poverty. Even with widespread contraception, it is hardwired into us to breed. It is an instinctual throwback to the days of natural selection and darwinism, when humans were on on the same tier as other animals and had to compete to survive. Now we're on top there is no competition. The instinct to breed in such numbers is obsolete. Maybe I'm wrong, but I wouldn't trust the human population as a whole to overcome that before it starts to cause us serious problems.

 

[El.Cojone.Grande]

Howver, if you employ something like this genophage, then you will have to target areas where birthrates are high. Third world countries especially in the Middle East.

Mmm, the ethical issues of targeting individual demographics, no matter the reason tend to get a very messy. I'd argue for something completely free of human judgement

 

[El.Cojone.Grande]

It's not really a point of contention that there are (or soon will be) more humans than the planet can comfortably sustain.

[citation needed]

Seriously, this "overpopulation" hysteria is about as accurate and realistic as a Mayan apocalypse prediction. We've got, at a minimum, hundreds of generations before it would become a real concern--barring the very likely event of some sort of technological advancement that renders the point entirely moot. And either way, by then we'll have colonized other worlds.

'

Really? I suppose if your only concern is whether the earth remains fit for supporting human life then we have a fair way to go. But since we have polluted our oceans and air, overused land, killed off many natural species, and destroyed most forests, I'd say that there is at least some pressing issue. Sure there's a good chance we'll survive to colonize other worlds, but that wasn't really my main concern.

 

[Vuljatar]

Really? I suppose if your only concern is whether the earth remains fit for supporting human life then we have a fair way to go. But since we have polluted our oceans and air, overused land, killed off many natural species, and destroyed most forests, I'd say that there is at least some pressing issue. Sure there's a good chance we'll survive to colonize other worlds, but that wasn't really my main concern.

The human race is my main concern, and to put it bluntly it should be yours too. If I had to choose between inflicting a genophage on humanity and driving 90% of the other current forms of life on the planet to extinction (though I see no reason to believe that it would ever come to that), I wouldn't think twice. My own species is my priority.

 

[Vuljatar]

I will say, though, that I'm a strong supporter of natural selection. If we did away with practices designed mainly to save idiots from themselves, well... I wouldn't mind.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Firstly, colonising other planets isn't a solution to over-population, unless you can continuously send massive amounts of people "out there".

The world's population has doubled in the last, what, 50 years? So, we colonise Mars, send our excess population there to keep Earth's stable, in 50 years time Mars has the same population as the Earth, and both places are looking to send people elsewhere.

Measures need to be put in place on the Earth to control population (or at least eventually). High population growth is generally attributed with developing naitons, once they are developed it slows down again.

...

Throwing out infertility...well, how are you going to get eveyr nation to agree to that? And eugenics is going to come up there sooner or later.

 

[Colour Scientist]

And we all know the results: the still growing population requires more resources than the enviromnent can provide, resulting in famines and plagues. The disproportion of resources per head leads to mass unemployment, tensions between different factions and ultimately civil war.

Though it might seems harsh, but the only way of slowing the population explosion down is cutting all help supplies at once and let the problem handle itself. There sure will be many dead at first, but once the number of people has reached a tolerable level, they will be able to produce enough food and medicine for everyone and keep it that way.

So, in order to prevent famines and plagues we have to cause famines and plagues. Brilliant!

Large families are generally a symptom of poverty and you seem to be suggesting that, rather than help them become a part of the developed world, we should kill off all of the poor people so we don't have to worry about it anymore.

 

[Colour Scientist]

We wouldn't kill anyone, we'd merely reestablish the natural order.

Because there are more people than the environment can handle, there are famines, plagues and war. Instead of letting nature handle itself, we provide them with additional food and medicine and cause the population to grow even further, requiering more resouces than they used to when the need for outside help came up.

It's an endless circle: the more foreign supplies they receive, the faster they're going to procreate and require even foreign supplies.

Also, as long as they receive cheap food from the West, there's no point in establishing a local agriculture, as the foreign products are subsidized and therefore cheaper than anything local farmers produce possibly could be.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the situation won't get any better unless there's an actual chance to run the countries without depending on outside help.

They're people, not cockroaches.

There's a reason laissez faire died out in the 19th century.
Most charities actually help people establish farms and schools, in order to help poorer populations become self-reliant.
Considering it's largely Western interference that caused the dire situation in many developing countries, I'd say we have a part to play in helping them.

 

[Kermi]

As someone who has no intention of having children, I in no way object to the manipulation of our fertility levels to erode our mean population.

However as someone who doesn't not want children I accept I am biased, and in no way qualified or competent to make any kind of judgement regarding the personal choices people should be free to make with respect to their impact on our planet's population.

 

[Vault101]

Oh look...one of THEASE threads...

if we are talking about doing this because its the ONLY way to keep the balance and stop us from destroying the planet..then mabye

but its hardly ethical, and Id be interested to know how ti owuld change our society

 

[Dalek Caan]

No. Who would get to judge who gets infected by this virus? I know whoever gets to judge will eventually use it against other people as a weapon and not as a tool to help the world. Soon enough someone else could get their hands on it and could release it world wide. Also no one in the world has the right to say who can and cannot have children.

 

[IamQ]

It's not really a point of contention that there are (or soon will be) more humans than the planet can comfortably sustain.

[citation needed]

Seriously, this "overpopulation" hysteria is about as accurate and realistic as a Mayan apocalypse prediction. We've got, at a minimum, hundreds of generations before it would become a real concern--barring the very likely event of some sort of technological advancement that renders the point entirely moot. And either way, by then we'll have colonized other worlds.

http://www.wwf.se/press/1139342-nu-verkonsumerar-vi-jordens-resurser-med-30-procent

Since I assume that you don't know Swedish, I'll just have you know that this article states that by 2050 we'll need two earth's to be able to sustain our lifestyle. At the present moment we over consume 30% of the earths resources.

 

[Brandon237]

If you could make every country a developed and educated one, it wouldn't be too many generations before you had government campaigns along the lines of "We need YOU to fertilise your sexual partners more frequently!"

Populations are only rising dramatically in poorer areas. Fix those up, and this will solve itself.