A potential and controversial solution to overpopulation.

[Beerina]

Overpopulation isn't a problem in the developed countries. And good luck reducing the anti-gay culture of 3rd world countries. Many first world countries are barely making headway in growth, and some, in Europe, are actually shrinking with a sub-2.5 birthrate.

 

[kevinquinnyo]

Overpopulation isn't a problem in the developed countries. And good luck reducing the anti-gay culture of 3rd world countries. Many first world countries are barely making headway in growth, and some, in Europe, are actually shrinking with a sub-2.5 birthrate.

I still think its dishonest to say there is a population problem at all.

We need more people in the world. We need as many as possible right now. The more creative minds we have working on the real problems, and being productive members of the world, the better.

Population control is an indirect solution to the real problems of living standards and lack of freedoms, etc.

Consider obesity. We don't call obesity, "food-overabundance," but it would certainly be an indirect solution, to obesity if some central government were to mandate slowing down the production of food. That's not something any rational person would support, I don't think, but it's the same type of solution to a different problem, as slowing down the production of human beings is to the real problem of crappy living standards.

 

[Darth Rotor]

I still think its dishonest to say there is a population problem at all.

We need more people in the world. We need as many as possible right now.

No, we don't. We need more intelligent people in the world, as soon as can be managed. Or, if you consider the objectives of the JREF, we need to attempt to skew the population we have toward more intelligent and educated.

That is far better than to simply keep breeding as a means to achieve an end.

 

[Beerina]

Intelligence doesn't matter, as the USSR proved.

What matters is freedom, and specifically, economic freedom. Which is to say, the recognition of property rights in a stable society with rule of law. People need to be secure in the product of their own efforts, be it from high taxation or de facto confiscation via over-regulation, to kickbacks to local mafia thugs or local politicians or officials.


In that environment, then we breed advancing technology and solutions to problems the most quickly.

 

[mortimer]

I am shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, that the OP has not come back to substantiate his premise. So gay.

 

[GrouchoMarxist]

I am shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, that the OP has not come back to substantiate his premise. So gay.

For a coal miner's daughter, you sure are easily shocked.

 

[mortimer]

For a coal miner's daughter, you sure are easily shocked.

None of my parents ever mined coal. I demand you retract that assertion.

 

[GrouchoMarxist]

None of my parents ever mined coal. I demand you retract that assertion.

Sorry Loretta, I thought you were proud of it.

 

[mortimer]

Sorry Loretta, I thought you were proud of it.

Ah, ICWUDT!

 

[kevinquinnyo]

Intelligence doesn't matter, as the USSR proved.

What matters is freedom, and specifically, economic freedom. Which is to say, the recognition of property rights in a stable society with rule of law. People need to be secure in the product of their own efforts, be it from high taxation or de facto confiscation via over-regulation, to kickbacks to local mafia thugs or local politicians or officials.


In that environment, then we breed advancing technology and solutions to problems the most quickly.

Couldn't agree more. And in fact, saying that overpopulation is a problem reminds me of the symptom/cause confusion of the argument against sweatshops. The sweatshop is merely a symptom of the real problem: poorly enforced or defined property rights for any number of reasons, and corruption, either governmental or otherwise, and lack of economic freedom to pursue whatever you dream up.

 

[Beerina]

I'm sure you've read Population's Effect On Technology and Productivityfrom The Ultimate Resource 2.


Simple observations lead one to the counter-intuitive conclusion that, in a free society, more people is better.

 

[DC]

Couldn't agree more. And in fact, saying that overpopulation is a problem reminds me of the symptom/cause confusion of the argument against sweatshops. The sweatshop is merely a symptom of the real problem: poorly enforced or defined property rights for any number of reasons, and corruption, either governmental or otherwise, and lack of economic freedom to pursue whatever you dream up.

? i probably misunderstand you, but do you believe this planet can hold an infinite number of human beings?

 

[GreyArea]

It's probably the single best way of combating overpopulation...

No, it isn't. Overpopulation is already being resolved, and the successful methods have been used since before anyone even thought to research "gay genes."

Being gay doesn't imply a lack of desire or means to have children.

Exactly.

The single best way of combating overpopulation is education of women.

True. Although I've seen some articles recently by one Fred Pearce that you don't even need education. He has a book which claims that women tend not to have huge numbers of kids, even if these women have comparatively low levels of education and live in areas of high poverty. He attributes their decisions to their realization that they don't need to have many children for a few to survive.

Better healthcare and sanitation mean that most babies now live to grow up. It is no longer necessary to have five or six children to ensure the next generation—so they don’t.

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/03/the-overpopulation-myth/

Women are responding to the recent drop in death rates by lowering their birth rates. Two or three kids are now all that is needed in most places to reach the goal of having grandchildren.

I have also written about this subject a little in the middle part of this post: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=5300274#post5300274 If you are looking for statistics and sources, they are there.

Social attitudes about the role of women in society also affect birthrates. More here: http://www.grist.org/article/2010-0...ng-birthrates-then-drop-that-sexist-attitude/

No, we don't. We need more intelligent people in the world, as soon as can be managed. Or, if you consider the objectives of the JREF, we need to attempt to skew the population we have toward more intelligent and educated.

Right. I can't understand why someone would say we need "More people, please!" to brainstorm the world's problems when we don't fully use the human intellectual capacity of the 6.5 billion people we already have. We should better engage those minds to these tasks and see how far that takes us, before telling women to have more kids.

By the time we do that, there may be fewer people to reach. This challenge could actually grow easier, as the world's population declines in several decades.

What I'm saying, is that calling overpopulation a "problem" is dishonest.

I guess it depends on what you perceive as the problem. Is burdening women with a lifetime of sequential and compounded childcare a problem? Many of them seem to think it is, and choose other ways to spend their time when such opportunities are secured.

When to come to resource use, it is true that population is not the real issue. A small human population can still consume too much, or in the wrong way. Pearce stresses this point in the article I linked to above.

Population control…

…if some central government were to mandate…

Are you suggesting that birthrates are only reduced with law? Or are you suggesting that this has been the primary mechanism?

Reducing population growth is just an attempted solution to a different problem/set of problems: Low standard of living and freedom in the undeveloped world.

… is an indirect solution to the real problems of living standards and lack of freedoms, etc.

… the real problem of crappy living standards.

By freedom do you mean equal rights for women in law, equitable status for women in society (independent of motherhood), protection of reproductive rights, and access to birth control?

What matters is freedom, and specifically, economic freedom. Which is to say, the recognition of property rights in a stable society with rule of law. People need to be secure in the product of their own efforts, be it from high taxation or de facto confiscation via over-regulation, to kickbacks to local mafia thugs or local politicians or officials.

I don’t understand what you see as the mechanisms by which these factors affect family planning choices and birthrates. I could invent an interpretation, but I'd rather hear how you (and KevinQuinnyo) think this works.

 

[kevinquinnyo]

? i probably misunderstand you, but do you believe this planet can hold an infinite number of human beings?

No, not an infinite amount. At some point we will have to either terraform other planets, moons, or some other heavenly body, or stop reproducing at a rate beyond the death rate.

Right now, it's simply a non-issue in my opinion. I am optimistic that we will solve the energy problems we face now before availability of resources becomes urgent.

That part is my opinion. It's also my opinion that at some point in the future, large geographic regions, will become one continuous metropolis, where city and state lines are blurred and meaningless, perhaps coast to coast, stretching for 1000s of miles.

Find any city in the middle part of the United States, then zoom out a few notches. Then zoom out more. Notice how much land is relatively untouched and uninhabited.

There's plenty of room on the planet, the most productive machine on the planet is a human being, and we need more of them, desperately.

 

[DC]

No, not an infinite amount. At some point we will have to either terraform other planets, moons, or some other heavenly body, or stop reproducing at a rate beyond the death rate.

Right now, it's simply a non-issue in my opinion. I am optimistic that we will solve the energy problems we face now before availability of resources becomes urgent.

That part is my opinion. It's also my opinion that at some point in the future, large geographic regions, will become one continuous metropolis, where city and state lines are blurred and meaningless, perhaps coast to coast, stretching for 1000s of miles.

Find any city in the middle part of the United States, then zoom out a few notches. Then zoom out more. Notice how much land is relatively untouched and uninhabited.

There's plenty of room on the planet, the most productive machine on the planet is a human being, and we need more of them, desperately.

i think it is an issue right now, because we are a rapidly growing species and the already existing increase their standard of living in large groups, like China or India or even our own improvements. We always use more and more resources and release more pollution to the air.
a lot of the untouched regions of this planet are extremely important as so called lungs for the planet, to clean the air also we do need biodiversity which requires us to have a lot untouched regions.

i am not convinced yet that we are able to face the problems we have in reasoned time with the existing population, not to speak of a fast increasing resource uses by growing population and increasing use of resources per capita.

if we continue with the way we took, we will need terraforming on this planet.

 

[kevinquinnyo]

[...]


By freedom do you mean equal rights for women in law, equitable status for women in society (independent of motherhood), protection of reproductive rights, and access to birth control?

Yes and no. Those would be but a few things bundled into what I call freedom. There are a few things that need to change in the developing/underdeveloped world, that would lead to the freedoms and social justice you refer to.

1) Well-defined and enforceable property rights.

2) A higher degree of voluntarism/freedom of markets. (Don't argue with me about how free a market should be, people here love to scream about how evil the market is) This means that people are free to exchange with each other in a voluntary way, and pursue entrepreneurial activity without corruption or oppression.

Once those two basic concepts are in place, foreign investment rises, capital begins to circulate, basic infrastructure can be created, productivity increases, industry grows, and people's lives get better.

So when you talk about a country that has an "overpopulation problem," what you're really saying is that the place where the kids are born sucks, not that there isn't any room for them.

Does that answer your question?

 

[kevinquinnyo]

i think it is an issue right now, because we are a rapidly growing species and the already existing increase their standard of living in large groups, like China or India or even our own improvements. We always use more and more resources and release more pollution to the air.
a lot of the untouched regions of this planet are extremely important as so called lungs for the planet, to clean the air also we do need biodiversity which requires us to have a lot untouched regions.

i am not convinced yet that we are able to face the problems we have in reasoned time with the existing population, not to speak of a fast increasing resource uses by growing population and increasing use of resources per capita.

if we continue with the way we took, we will need terraforming on this planet.

So here are the problems you listed:

1) Pollution - i assume this is solvable

2) Resource availability - i assume this is solvable

3) Biodiversity/need for x% untouched land: I assume this is also solvable, although I'm not entirely sure how much land we need to be untouched by man.

But notice how none of those problems are "overpopulation." Those are separate problems, each with either separate or possibly related solutions.

edit: And would you agree that slowing population growth is merely an attempted solution to the problems you listed, and not actually a problem?

 

[kevinquinnyo]

Well are you sayin' I'm innocent?
In fact the reverse
But if you're headin' to the grave
You don't blame the hearse

-White Stripes

(only somewhat relevant, but I love the line)

 

[SezMe]

So here are the problems you listed:

1) Pollution - i assume this is solvable

2) Resource availability - i assume this is solvable

What if your assumptions are wrong?

 

[DC]

So here are the problems you listed:

1) Pollution - i assume this is solvable

2) Resource availability - i assume this is solvable

3) Biodiversity/need for x% untouched land: I assume this is also solvable, although I'm not entirely sure how much land we need to be untouched by man.

But notice how none of those problems are "overpopulation." Those are separate problems, each with either separate or possibly related solutions.

edit: And would you agree that slowing population growth is merely an attempted solution to the problems you listed, and not actually a problem?

do to the resource use per capita it is indeed a population problem.

you can make a choice, less people with higher standards of living or more people with lesser standard of living.
both seem not possible so far. so the problem is either your way of licing or to much population.