Ways to deal with overpopulation

[JambalayaBob]

It's not really 7 billion. It's only about 7,000,000,000 people (i.e. seven thousand million). I still don't understand why Americans use the short scale...

But anyway. There's still more than enough food and space to go around, so I don't see what the problem is.

It's not like it's just the US that uses short scale, there are a lot of countries that use both, and it's up and away more based on language and dialect than on nationality. I'm pretty sure there's not a primarily English speaking country that doesn't use short scale.

 

[GraveeKing]

The only reason there's a problem with overpopulation is many of those people are not sufficiently putting back what they take from the economy. e.g. A lot of people in modern country's - America and Britain etc, have people given money because they're unable to find jobs.
So in short what we really need to do is get rid of those kind of people and keep only the useful ones, that way the population can continue to grow but still be self-sufficient!

We need Chlorine in the gene pool, get rid of the most lazy and useless like people who somehow manage to sit on a chair so long their skin gets stuck to it. The people who you hear do such stupid things but manage to survive it. Well maybe if they just put their hand in a microwave something tells me maybe they don't DESERVE to waste medical health-care! People who rely on the rest of the world to keep them happy at home, I know way too many people who I've seen around pubs who just sit back lounge off the unemployment benefits or handicapped funding because 'they can't get jobs'.
Not of course to say all of these people can get jobs and they're just lazy but there are plenty of people taking money from the taxpayers when they only have a slight limp in their leg! It's ridiculous! They can easily get a job but simply don't bother and it's the reason we can't afford overpopulation while idiots like that still exist.


Well I could ramble for ages but my point really is basically: Kill off everyone who is too stupid, too lazy and/or generally too useless to get a job and help the sufficiency for the rest of the population. If everyone does enough work to support at least themselves then we'll always have more room for population! Simple.

 

[JambalayaBob]

It's idiotic to try to limit the amount of kids people have. Just look at China, their population is "magically" still growing even though there are laws restricting the amount of children per person; prohibition NEVER works. The only way we're going to solve overpopulation is to spread ourselves among the stars, as people have mentioned here before. Don't give any bullshit about needing to "deal with our own problems down here first" either. Guess what? People aren't perfect, nothing is ever gonna be "ideal", so grow the fuck up and stop acting like world peace is practical.

The reality is, if we don't colonize space, we will die, end of story, bye bye humanity. Spreading ourselves as far as we can possibly reach will increase our odds immensely, and it will most certainly let ourselves spread our legacy at the very least. Plus, doesn't it feel amazing just to know that one day we will be able to look at the sky and know that there's someone looking back at us?

Also, speaking of overpopulation, this planet isn't really overpopulated yet. There are cities and countries that deal with overpopulation, but as a whole, we aren't taking up any more than 3% of the planet's land; not including the waters, just the land. We're nowhere near to the smog infested, gray and brown, overcrowded global metropolis that some of the more ***** ass tree huggers are whining about. We're definitely fucking ourselves over by destroying ecosystems in places, but it's just not that bad yet, especially with how resilient nature truly is. If you think about it, the huge ass rock that wiped out all the dinosaurs was a lot more devastating than anything humans have done so far. If the biosphere can recover from a worldwide cataclysm that absolutely decimated a sizable percentage of life on earth, then it can recover from our stupid shit.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Someone made a good point about it's not the numbers, it's where they are.

I do think we need to educate the third world, but in doing so we'd need to supply them with medicines (which could be done dirt f'ing cheap, at cost price, as that supply wouldn't affect sales in Europe/US), as they're not going to stop pumping out eight kids until they can be fairly sure that one or two of them will make to the age of 2.

Education and some medical help would cut down on the problem there.

In my local area, you're looking at around £250,000 to £400,000 for a house. The cheap, small bedsit, sorry, studio flat. I live in was recently valued at around £180,000. That's over a quarter million bucks. The prices are being kept artificially high, the only way to get people housed is to flood the market with cheaper new properties, that would involve relaxing planning laws, and placing limits on sales of the new homes, so people don't just buy them for £100k then instantly slap em on the market for £300K.

The top 400 richest people have more than the 4 billion poorest, combined. That may explain why so many people are struggling. I realise some of these people are using their money to research and develop businesses etc. but damn, once you hit $50 million, how about not bitching about a 3% tax hike?

As for the above guy, as ever it's a minority who get the attention, most people on welfare are there because they need it, and many are working, it's just that minimum wage doesn't keep you in a home, fed, and covered medically, never mind give you enough spare to cover disasters like a freezer breaking. I agree, that if you can work, you should, however, with unemployment as it is, should we spend on hunting down and demonising the sick, or should we help recently unemployed people get back into work? I'd suggest the latter is easier and more viable longterm.

Sure, lets just wipe out the bottom 20% poorest of people in the world. Oh, all the stores are empty, no-one's cleaning the streets or working on utilities, my mansion's getting no water or electricity, all the gas stations are abandoned and where's my cleaning staff?

I swear if everyone under 50K a year just quit work for a week, the working classes may suddenly get some appreciation instead of being seen as a leech on the teat of the rich.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well, there's plenty of nukes just sitting there doing nothing but gathering dust.

So how about we dust a few off and let a computer controlled randomizer software decide where the impacts will be located? Seems fair to me.

I'd say target most populated cities, then blame it on terrorists and global warming.... makes everyone happy.

 

[Bunnymarn]

Perhaps if the the countries with less people and more resources (ie. the Western World) really helped out struggling countries with poverty, development, etc. then this wouldn't really be a problem. But, if the problem still persisted afterwards and there was no real solution other than killing people, then I'd bring in an age limit: for example, once you reach the age of 70, you're euthanised.

 

[martin's a madman]

Well, only if you're going to volunteer to be Euthanised.

 

[TheScientificIssole]

Snip.

People who believe in suppression of opinion and not suppression of idiots shouldn't reproduce. Done.

 

[ObsessiveSketch]

Promote cannibalism. Also fixes world hunger.

 

[thirion1850]

Create a worldwide IRL COD deathmatch. Herp derp.

 

[Kurt Cristal]

Thermo-nuclear war. That is all.

This^

 

[loc978]

Simple solution: Start WWIII

Having a huge war where everyone is getting kill drops the population real fast.

So in other words...

Spoiler: Kinky sex makes the world go 'round

Spoiler: So, kill the poor

Personally, I prefer mandatory, state-sponsored abortions for women financially, physically, or mentally unable to raise a child... also, DNA testing on the fetus to find the father, and a "three strikes, you're surgically sterilized" rule for both mother and father. But then, I'm kind of an asshole.

 

[Jadak]

It's not really 7 billion. It's only about 7,000,000,000 people (i.e. seven thousand million). I still don't understand why Americans use the short scale...

I'm not following you, a billion is a thousand millions, so those two are the same thing?

What is 7 billion to you then if not the same as seven thousand million?

 

[Sansha]

No, no, and again no.
As a secular Humanist, the notion of selective breeding in humans (for example, eugenics) is disgusting and the notion that some deserve to live more than others is plain wrong.
These days a man can live for two lives, two generations - literally, the average age in the western world is somewhere between 65 and 70, which means one could live through two lifetimes and accomplish twice more than his counterpart a century ago.
.
A solution?
Colonize Mars.
.
To tell you the truth, soon the price of food will rise, the availability of food will decrease... You will see bread riots in Seattle in a decade or two. That is how regimes are toppled and people die. A grim future indeed, but a future we cannot avoid.

I agree with this, but I believe in eugenics for preventing the further 'production', for want of a better word, of inherent disorders like physical deformities and mental retardation. I don't think someone should be judged as not worthy of being born, unless their life is going to be crippled with afflictions unable to be overcome, or a condition that will be nothing but a drain on resources.

But really, I don't think it's a good idea to start this process of weeding out serious defects, because where do you draw the line? It can get away and before we know it, ugly and/or fat people won't be permitted to breed, and at worst get to the point where only the few and privileged will be deemed 'worthy' of reproducing.

I've gone off-topic. Over-population... well really, the only thing we can do is wait for it to get to a critical point, and repair itself. People will suffer and die... our future is a very dark one for sure.

 

[Wintermoot]

either occasional wars or space colonization.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Snip.

People who believe in suppression of opinion and not suppression of idiots shouldn't reproduce. Done.

I'm going to need explanation, not a vague sentence.

Bottom-line, we can't force people to not have children, that is against freewill. And again, there is no perfect and proper way to raise a child.

 

[Supertegwyn]

I like China's one child policy. That and advances in Science and Technology (capitalized because I'm boss) should save us. If not? Who knows.

 

[infohippie]

Stop encouraging people to breed in developed nations, allow population sizes to decline rather than creating all these legal incentives to pop out more kids. In developing nations, help spread education and condoms. It's all about the education and condoms. It's not your mandate to "be fruitful and multiply" whatever some ancient book says.
This may require reducing the role of capitalism in Western nations (and stopping our exporting of capitalism to the rest of the world), since capitalism requires unceasing growth in markets, and therefore ultimately in populations, in order to sustain itself. We need to create a steady-state theory of economics to replace it.