Discussing The Problems Of An Expotentially

Dread · November 2003

<div class="IPBDescription">increasing population</div> Your such a spoilsport *sigh* Have it your way then, rob <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'>

So, what do you think. Should human population be controlled like animal population is? How? Why? Through wars maybe? Should western countries population be controlled as well as third world countries?

Discuss.

Edit: My suggestion can be found in a locked thread below <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'> I'll jump in after someone gets this thing started properly.

Rob · November 2003

That's better. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'>

Jammer · November 2003

I'm gonna say no. Neccesity is the mother of invention. If overpopulation becomes a problem, I imagine we'd find a way to fix it without becoming a neofascist state.

Interestingly, in the 1700 a European scholar suggested that the world was going to end within 100 years because the Earth could not handle the population increase. It appears he was wrong.

Venmoch · November 2003

China used (Not sure if they still do) to run a program to reduce the amount of offspring. Basically couples could only have one child at time determined by the government. As soon as you either A.) Had a second child or B.) Got pregnant at the wrong time the state would slash your welfare.

As a system it worked quite well, ethically however may be a different story.

Melatonin · November 2003

I think people should be encouraged, but not forced, to have fewer children.

if the average were to be encouraged as 2 the population would remain relativly constant.

Humans should not reproduce indefinatly. Resources are finite. Overpopulation eventually leads to slow death by starvation for everyone.

Nemesis_Zero · November 2003

The issue of population growth is one of the most difficile and difficult in contemporary politics, and touches other issues ranging from religious convictions to international law to economic considerations to geographic and geoplotical influences. It's thus important that we go into this discussion on a premise more elaborate than "there's more and more of us".

As an introduction, I'd like to pick up on Jammers remark:

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Interestingly, in the 1700 a European scholar suggested that the world was going to end within 100 years because the Earth could not handle the population increase. It appears he was wrong.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
This is correct. The man had found out that human population appeared to grow exponentially, while even the best advances in farming technology could only create a linear increase of food production. He thus reasoned that it'd be best to castrate big parts of the population.
What he did not take into account is the big mistake of all prognoses: The future isn't the direct effect of the present. People colonized new areas. New inventions increased the production of nutrients drastically. The world changed. And we went on.
This, we should always keep in mind. It's well possible that all concerns about overpopulation will one day be regarded as a kind of inflated Y2K-scare.

Now, on to the actual points.
I assume most of you are aware of this, but it's important to keep in mind that, while human populus is increasing on average, there are big regional differences: While the most First World countries face the problem of sinking populations (which are an economical nightmare as our social systems and consumer economies are based on increasing populations), there's sometimes incredibly fast increases in population in Second - and Third World countries.
This is not so much a problem because we are "running out of space", as the clichéd saying goes, nor because we've reached the limit of nutrient production (theoretically, we could nuture the whole of the world into slight obesity with our todays agricultural potentials, and that's ignoring influences like gentech, which might offer huge increases in the future).
The issue is misplacement:
While the first world has, for example, created an agricultural economy so sophisticated that it literally can not consume everything it produces (which leads to such stupid phenomena as the EU buying multiple million tons of food from its farmers to keep them alive, just to throw the food away), the countries with immense population increases are partitially still cursed by an essentially medieval agriculture. Similiar could be said about water, or medical care: What's too much here is too little there.
Additionally, these countries are often not yet developed far (or broad) enough to supply their growing populations with occupation, which does not only mean an extreme strain on these countries social systems, but also partitially horrible living conditions for the individuals.

Why, then, is the population growth not regulated by the individuals in these countries?

This has mostly cultural and religious causes: Not only is the notion that only a large family can support you in age still as predominant there as it was here a hundred years ago, there are also certain political and religious factions that are actively trying to uphold this overcome image.
The most prominent example for this are the actions of the Catholic Church mainly on the Philipines: Not only are they trying to counteract any kind of information programme brought forth by either domestic government or international organization, it's also actively trying to fight birth prevention by destroying preservatives and spreading misinformation such as the claim that condomes were being purposefully perforated by their fabricators. This is, by the way, one of my favorite examples for why religion and politics should be seperated, but I digress.

Anyway, based on this brief summary, it becomes apparent that any overly generalized or particularized effort - such as the Chinese effort of the one child policy, which led to a decrease in population growth but led to a high imbalance between boys and girls due to the old tradition of boys being valued more (first-born girls were often literally set out in the wilderness) - will be but a crutch.
The only long lasting solution to population problems (save for the fiery end of the human race in a nuclear holocaust, of course <img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'>) is the creation of social environments that encourage people to procreate in a sensible rate (i.e. 2 children on average).
On the part of the Third World, this has to mean a general improvement of the living conditions to a point where the old idea of many children being your only age support does no longer hold true, combined with educational campaigns against such superstition as spread in the Philipines.
On the part of the First World, this has to mean the support of the Third World in this effort, which it could not possibly uphold itself, and at the same time the creation of economical and social incentives that make the upbringing of children something desireable, as opposed to the economically insensible action it is right now.
Both developments should of course be accompanied by an adjustment of the agricultural systems of the relative countries.

Dread · November 2003

Though nature is taking care of the overpopulation in many third world countries, for example AIDS spreading in africa. Now I ask: should 1st world countries try to prevent aids spreading, or is it doing a favor to third world countries by terminating the 'excess' humans?

Sirus · November 2003

I suggest you guys look up some information on Sky City and Taiwan 101. Asian countries like Japan and China are having massive overpopulation problems in their large cities.

At least for now, with the possible creation of these vertical cities maybe we will see less of a problem with overpopulation as cities grow upwards instead of horizontally.

Anyways, it's rather interesting to see the development of Sky City, supposedly this one building will house over 30-50 square miles of population in Japan.

Quantum_Duck · November 2003

If you look at the population of pretty much anything over a long time, you will find an interesting trend. Population tends to remain in a fairly constant up and down cycle without deviating a great deal from an average until something changes. In the case of animals, perhaps a new type of prey migrates into the area. In the case of humans, some new technology provides more food for less work. When this happens, the population begins to follow an exponential growth curve, generally worrying people. Then, when it goes just above the point of sustainability, there is a small crash where the population drops a bit, and then levels off back into the fairly constant cycle at the new higher level.

Just based on history and statistics, I'm not particularly worried about population growth. All our new technology bumped us into the exponential curve mode. Once we stop finding new ways to fit more people in an area, the number of people will start to level off. Many parts of the developed world already have negative population growth if you don't include immigration.

Hawkeye · November 2003

You can actually map out areas around major cities and see how much farming land it would take to support that city. As the cities grow, you better believe the area isn't confined to the limits of the city. The "food boundary" extends many miles beyond the city. The moment the food boundary cannot grow any further because it is constrained by other food boundaries from other cities is the time when it must import to sustain itself. Britain already does this, seeing how London is a very large city, and Britain is not big enough to sustain it.

So what happens then? Well, the only difference is that the food boundary extends across to other places to take their resources. The food boundary grows further. It is estimated that by the year 2050, the population will reach 23 billion (which is estimated to be the world's "maximum" population it can hold). The world holds 6 billion now, but 50 years isn't such a long time.

23 billion is the number figured to sustain the world's population after you consider the smallest portion of food which can support a human being. We're not talking about steak dinners anymore.

This will become a serious problem by 2050. Only the wealthy will eat and the poor will starve to death. This will be the "population control" of the future unless the population is reduced somehow before then.

Jammer · November 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Venmoch @ Nov 24 2003, 06:16 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> As a system it worked quite well, ethically however may be a different story.  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
No, not really. :-/

With the 2 child limit, many families seek only to have male children, so as to continue the family name. Girls are unwanted children. As a result, parents will kill or abandon girl children after birth. Thousands of Chinese girls are in orphanages because parents can only afford to have male children socially.

zooby · November 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Jammer @ Nov 24 2003, 04:40 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> With the 2 child limit, many families seek only to have male children, so as to continue the family name. Girls are unwanted children. As a result, parents will kill or abandon girl children after birth. Thousands of Chinese girls are in orphanages because parents can only afford to have male children socially.  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
Well the problem will eventually solve the problem itself in China, as the population will drastically fall when the males reach marrying age. We could outlaw last names, and have them randomly assigned <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'> to bypass that

Urza · November 2003

I think the core of the problem of overpopulation lies in the status of women. Woman do not have anticonception medicine, nor do they have control over whether it is used. Furthermore, the pope is still saying the using condoms is a pretty naughty thing to do. As everyone can see, the birthrate dropped dramatically in countries where women became relatively equal in status to men (Well, there were other causes too).

Discussing The Problems Of An Expotentially

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