• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Human Population control

AWPrime

Master Poster
Joined
Sep 26, 2004
Messages
2,926
Human population needs something to keep it under control.

The hard question is; what would be the best way? Or what way is prefered?
 
AWPrime said:
Human population needs something to keep it under control.

The hard question is; what would be the best way? Or what way is prefered?
I voted the Planet X option because I question the validity of the opening sentence's premise.
 
So you are saying that the human species has unlimited amount of space and resources available?
 
In a pure sense, starvation is the natural method of population control. When a population becomes larger than its environment can sustain, there isn't enough food and some of them die.

Whether or not the human species has exceeded the carrying capacity of Earth is a different matter entirely.
 
AWPrime said:
So you are saying that the human species has unlimited amount of space and resources available?
Not at all. Just that there are already many mechanisms in place to limit the population.

I think chulbert put it very well.
 
None of the above, economic dis-incentives, I think, would be the best way to discourgage people from having too many children.
 
BPSCG said:
Not at all. Just that there are already many mechanisms in place to limit the population.

I think chulbert put it very well.

You mean like the options:

Maximum amount of children per woman
Starvation
Plagues

Which are quite common used today?
 
The question is moot because it is under control already.

The two best ways to limit population growth are educating girls and getting wealthier. Because these two things are happening world wide, the UN is now predicting that Earth's population with top out around 9 billion around 2050. (I am going by memory on these figures and dates but the important thing is that world population will start declining in the second half of this century).

CBL
 
IllegalArgument said:
None of the above, economic dis-incentives, I think, would be the best way to discourgage people from having too many children.

That is allready happening.

In the form of couples setting an Maximum amount of children that they want to have, because they can't afford more.
 
Overpopulation is a MYTH. That so many people on a skeptics' forum still believe in it makes me wanna scream.......
 
Libertarian said:
Overpopulation is a MYTH. That so many people on a skeptics' forum still believe in it makes me wanna scream.......
I agree that the Earth is no where near the maximum sustainable population. However, it should be plain that there doest exist a maximum that we may one day reach. Is this what you mean?
 
chulbert said:
I agree that the Earth is no where near the maximum sustainable population. However, it should be plain that there doest exist a maximum that we may one day reach. Is this what you mean?

Thanks for asking me to clarify. I meant that overpoplulation does not exist. There are arguments that it may never exist, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to discuss them.

However, let me be specific. While "overpopulation" can be defined more than one way, I believe the somewhat intuitive definition is best: when the sheer number of people is the cause behind problems (food, crime, environmental destruction) then we have overpopulation
 
I agree with those that say that education and wealth will be more than sufficient (and are the only moral way) to "control" the human population. But I answered "natural predators" because just one of those guys took out almost a whole team of commandos including the governor of Minnesota and Apollo Creed. So they're badass.
 
Libertarian said:
Overpopulation is a MYTH. That so many people on a skeptics' forum still believe in it makes me wanna scream.......
Overpopulation can happen but hasn't happen on global scale. It has been seen on local scale. But isn't that important to this discussion.

My view of overpopulation: When the local support mechanisme falls by being overstressed by too many people, which is followed by a dramatic reduction in numbers.

As we can see around us, the number of people is limited by one cause or the other. If this wasn't the case then our species would multiply into infinity.


The important thing to this discussion is that we humans have the option of selecting what will limit our numbers.
 
manny said:
I agree with those that say that education and wealth will be more than sufficient (and are the only moral way) to "control" the human population. But I answered "natural predators" because just one of those guys took out almost a whole team of commandos including the governor of Minnesota and Apollo Creed. So they're badass.
Yeah, but a single alien took out two predators.
 
Libertarian said:
However, let me be specific. While "overpopulation" can be defined more than one way, I believe the somewhat intuitive definition is best: when the sheer number of people is the cause behind problems (food, crime, environmental destruction) then we have overpopulation
I'm glad we had this discussion. Allow me to dispense a small amount of advice and point out that few things are as intuitive as one might think, especially the definition of terms in a debate. Overpopulation has a very specific definition in terms of ecology that's different than the definition you use.
 
How about prevention? You know, educating women and widespread access to contraception and family planning?
 
Libertarian said:
Thanks for asking me to clarify. I meant that overpoplulation does not exist. There are arguments that it may never exist, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to discuss them.

However, let me be specific. While "overpopulation" can be defined more than one way, I believe the somewhat intuitive definition is best: when the sheer number of people is the cause behind problems (food, crime, environmental destruction) then we have overpopulation
I see those problems every day in the news. If you do to, then please explain why overpopulation is a myth.
 
Orwell said:
How about prevention? You know, educating women and widespread access to contraception and family planning?

That's boring. What would be much more interesting is putting a wonder drug into the water supply that turns most of the population gay, gay, gay. The remainder can produce the next generation, which will benefit from smaller class sizes in school and having a 100:1 hairstylist-to-civilian ratio. Those kids will have great hair.
 

Back
Top Bottom