Overpopulation

[KilljoyKlown]

I hate to be the isolationist here, and I can only imagine the losses. In American, the borders need to be closed and immigration reduced to 1960's levels. That's when America's population began to rapidly expand. The the process, I feel that the original intentions of the Founders has been lost.

I have to blame the Cold War and Communism. If the Red Menace didn't have the overwhelming authority in hand to hand combat, we might have been able to set our fears aside and control the numbers of people entering and staying in America.

Too many people and too few jobs might hurt the economy, but it keeps the barracks full in out all volunteer military. One thing is already certain. America will be the most powerful 3rd World Country by 2050. Dumb as door nails too boot.

Isolationist! Are you kidding me? Isolation is the absolute worst thing we could do. We just need to invest our resources a little better. Also, who cares what the intentions of the founders was 300 years ago? We live in a completely different world now and we need to express intentions to live with others and work towards a sustainable relationship with the Earth.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

I hate to be the isolationist here, and I can only imagine the losses. In American, the borders need to be closed and immigration reduced to 1960's levels. That's when America's population began to rapidly expand.

Huh??? America's greatest recent population expansion was the Baby Boom from 1946 to 1964. It was the confluence of:

• The end of the Depression, when people held off having babies because they could barely feed themselves.
• The end of WWII, when the men simply weren't home to impregnate any (American) women.
• The unexpected postwar economic boom that gave everybody a job and a spacious home of their own in the suburbs ready to be filled with children.

Sure, there was another miniature baby boomlet when the Boomers reached reproductive age.

If you're looking for an age when immigration made a significant impact on America's population, you want the post-Civil War Era up through the early 20th century. The Scots-Irish fleeing the English occupation, the subsequent famine in Ireland, the collapse of the German economy under exceptionally incompetent leadership, the Mennonites and Jews looking for religious freedom, the Slavic peoples looking for freedom from repressive religion, the Scandinavians in the northern Plains, the huge influx of Sicilians and other Italic people complete with their crime syndicates... how many Americans do you know personally who can't trace at least half of their ancestry to those immigrants?

The only immigration wave that's been in the news since the Baby Boom ended came from Mexico, and man that is so over that our heads are spinning. The Mexican economy has made an astounding recovery (either because of NAFTA or in spite of it, depending on which columnist you read) and today more Mexicans are moving back than are coming here. Mexican immigration is now negative. The only Mexicans who are crossing the border going north in any numbers are the wealthy ones who are fleeing our stupid drug war in their BMWs and can run their businesses from their mansions in San Antonio.

Beyond that, you seem to be a little weak on economics. The fertility rate of native-born Americans has fallen below replacement level, as it has in almost all of the developed world. Our Social Security system would collapse under its own weight except for the moderate influx of immigrants from other countries such as India, China, Colombia (thanks again to our idiotic drug war), El Salvador (victims of a previous generation of American meddling), various former Soviet republics and African nations, all of whom have much higher birth rates than our people and whose children will be supporting us in our old age!

The the process, I feel that the original intentions of the Founders has been lost.

You mean the small minority of the pre-revolutionary population who were male, white as the Queen's hiney, owned property and kept slaves? Those sweet guys?

More seriously... as smart as they were and as infected by the Enlightenment as they were, those sweet guys couldn't see the Industrial Revolution coming any more than my grandfather (who refused to have a free telephone installed in his pharmacy because no one would ever feel comfortable transacting business with people they couldn't see) could foresee the Electronic Revolution. When a Paradigm Shift happens, all you can do is thank the people who came before you for keeping civilization going, and then buckle down to figure out what changes the next incarnation of civilization will need, so your great-grandchildren will be as grateful to you.

Overpopulation isn't our problem because it's coming to an abrupt end in less than 100 years. Immigration isn't our problem because immigration is a byproduct of overpopulation aggravated by despotism.

Our main problem is reliance on non-renewable energy sources. Our second priority is worrying about how an economy will maintain prosperity when there is no longer a steadily increasing number of producers and consumers.

I have to blame the Cold War and Communism. If the Red Menace didn't have the overwhelming authority in hand to hand combat, we might have been able to set our fears aside and control the numbers of people entering and staying in America.

Good grief, you are truly blind. I'm beginning to see why our political system has become totally dysfunctional. The average American doesn't have a clue as to what's going on. He's still living in 1930.

Too many people and too few jobs might hurt the economy, but it keeps the barracks full in out all volunteer military. One thing is already certain. America will be the most powerful 3rd World Country by 2050. Dumb as door nails too boot.

Hey, my friend's son and his wife emigrated to Estonia to start a wildly successful software business. The USA is no longer the only really nice place to live. I'm not even sure I'd call it "really nice" anymore, since the Religious Redneck Retard Revival shows no signs of fading away. Some days I feel like I'm being surrounded by people with whom I really don't want to have to associate. And it ain't the immigrants!

 

[data2.0]

If we were to open up immigration that would just be more people buying goods, getting jobs, paying taxes, and what not. Immigration is very good for the economy. Isolationism is terrible especially when most of the world is just starting to really get going.

 

[kx000]

Get rid of cars every where! Build a world wide continental high speed rail way based on the world geography, end sovereignty, and all who contribute receive. If you don't do your work, then somewhere else in the world someone is shorted. Do what you love. Live were you love centered with others hopefully. We need a certain amount of everything ex. milk, pigs, radios, ice cream scoops...

We can build giants kitchens, and make chefs be all cool like, like the new fire fighters haha.
You can protect yourself, there will be an army to do nothing but protect free land. No government, just a giant list of what needs to get done. I wanna live in former northern Egypt, or Africa. Maybe Israel. Tonga.

 

[X-Man2]

Get rid of cars every where! Build a world wide continental high speed rail way based on the world geography, end sovereignty, and all who contribute receive. If you don't do your work, then somewhere else in the world someone is shorted. Do what you love. Live were you love centered with others hopefully. We need a certain amount of everything ex. milk, pigs, radios, ice cream scoops...

We can build giants kitchens, and make chefs be all cool like, like the new fire fighters haha.
You can protect yourself, there will be an army to do nothing but protect free land. No government, just a giant list of what needs to get done. I wanna live in former northern Egypt, or Africa. Maybe Israel. Tonga.

I agree with getting rid of cars.We need to rid ourselves of the automobile and go with ETT {Evacuated Tube Transport} At first ETT would be a bit slow compared to its full potential but still much faster than the car.Given some time ETT would be running full bore and you would have access to anywhere on the Earth in minutes and hours vs hours and days.Ett could replace all our trucks that criss cross our roads everyday carrying tons of cargo and food.ETT is non polluting and could be ran on renewable energy.

Next would be tackling our energy needs by going with Space based sun energy.As Fraggle as already commented on this in depth I wont repeat it.We
just need it.

 

[Pronatalist]

That is just a stupid assertion. War and killing do not constitute an effective way of controlling the population. A little basic math and some knowledge of history is helpful in figuring this out. Consider the following:

If you were to calculate the total death toll for all of the major wars, genocides, repressions and man-made famines of the 20th century (ie. the First Sino-Japanese War, Armenian Genocide, Herero War, Boer War, Massacre at Nanjing, Congo Free State; the Mexican Revolution, all of the combat deaths during WWI & WWII, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, the Great Leap Forward; the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Pol Pot, Saddam, Idi Amin, Suharto; the Soviet-Afghan War, the Shah of Iran, the Iranian Revolution, Angola, Mozambique, East Pakistan 1971, all of the Latin American "Dirty Wars" of the 60's, 70's and '80s; the Eritrean conflict, Sierra Leone, Algeria, Rwanda, Burundi, Rhodesian Bush War; all of the Israeli wars, the Falkland Islands, the Gulf War, Colombia, Panama Invasion, the drug cartels etc.), the maximum reasonable figure stands at about 250,000,000 people.

With a total global birthrate of 340,500 daily, it would only take 734 days, 5 hours, 8 mins, 35 seconds and 4 decisecs to compensate for a century of man-made carnage. In addition to this, many of the prominent population booms that have taken place throughout history (except for maybe the industrial revolution), take place in the aftermath of major conflicts. With this said, it is not only unethical and cruel to resort to violence as population control, but impractical as well. I rest my case.

Well it would seem, that quite many people, apparently do believe that it makes a lot more sense to "Make love, not war."

 

[Syzygys]

That is just a stupid assertion. War and killing do not constitute an effective way of controlling the population..

Actually, it does. With your silly math, you made an invalid logical assertion, namely, you thought that future wars can not kill more people, than what have been killed already. That is obviously incorredct, in the next WW we could easily whipe out 3-4 billions people, and the overpopulation would be solved for a century or so...

 

[Syzygys]

I don't believe overpopulation of the Earth is likely, .

I don't know where some of you live, but not in the real world for sure. beside that we already have millions of starving, even in the USA, the real issue is not just surviving, but what kind of level one is living on.

Sure, there could be 10 billion people living in Amish style, but do we really want to?? And there can be no 10 billions people living in a Western middle class level. So it is either or...

 

[Syzygys]

Since the turn of the century, the Russian government has repeatedly stated that a declining population is the country's most acute problem.

Since we are talking about world, one country's depopulation can be easily solved with immigration. As long as overall we have plenty of supply, the Russians (or Western countries overall) don't need to worry. They just need to make their country more desirable..

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

beside that we already have millions of starving, even in the USA, the real issue is not just surviving, but what kind of level one is living on.

Most of the misery on earth is the result of despotic governments. That style of government is clearly on the way out: Every ten years there are fewer despotic countries, and a smaller portion of the world's population are living in misery. Just in the last ten years the number of people living in poverty fell below one billion, and the percentage of Africans living in poverty fell below 50%. Sure life is still awful for those people. But if continuing to reduce their numbers by supporting representative governments is the best we can do, history will probably look back on us favorably rather than chiding us for the misery we were unable to banish.

Sure, there could be 10 billion people living in Amish style, but do we really want to?? And there can be no 10 billions people living in a Western middle class level.

Balderdash. There are more than enough resources to support a global population at the Western level of prosperity. The USA, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Australia could feed everyone on earth ten huge meals a day. Energy will become a non-issue as the Electronic Age matures and most people no longer have to travel except for socializing and recreation.

Since we are talking about world, one country's depopulation can be easily solved with immigration. As long as overall we have plenty of supply, the Russians (or Western countries overall) don't need to worry. They just need to make their country more desirable..

The second derivative of population went negative around 1980. That means that the first derivative will hit zero around the end of this century. (Prosperity turns out to be the most effective contraceptive.) When the world population begins to shrink for the first time in tens of thousands of years, we'll have other problems to worry about. For example, devising an economic system that doesn't depend on a steadily increasing number of producers and consumers to keep the standard of living up.

 

[Syzygys]

Does India have a despotic government? I don't think so, and they are on the top of overpopulating Earth. Also, very poor African countries also have a high rate of birth, so misery itself doesn't stop overpopulation.

Food distribution will be always uneven, so it doesn't matter what theoretically is possible. And when we talk about resources, food is just one thing, energy and clean water are the others.

Also, just because you can put 10 people into a 2 bedroom appartment, that doesn't mean you should... We already reached peak oil, and you want to add another 30% to this population? We have been having resource wars already for the last 10 years....

There are more than enough resources to support a global population at the Western level of prosperity.

Really? It can't even support the US people alone, so I don't see how you made that jump in logic...

 

[quadraphonics]

Really? It can't even support the US people alone,

That's obviously wrong, since it already is supporting the US and many others besides.

The trouble isn't a lack of resources. The problem is that we'll cook the planet and render it uninhabitable if we utilize current technologies on such a scale.

 

[Cavalier]

There are about 105 million new people born every year right now. Holding all other things equal, if colonization were the answer and if we had the technology to colonize other planets or the ocean today, we would need to find 105 million colonists to send away each year just to remain at our current population of 7 billion.

How many rockets would it take to carry away 105 million people?

I am still not sure, despite that, that "overpopulation" is the bugaboo some claim. First the rate of increase in the population of the world is falling. The absolute number of people is still increasing, but each year it increases by a bit less, which suggests a leveling off.

Think about this: there are more geniuses alive right now than at any point in human history, all as a result of the fact that we have the largest population. More people means a larger set of people of all types, including geniuses, and they have the ability to improve the quality of life for everyone.

Consider also that the economics is very clear that the problems of famine and drought are not due to a lack of food and potable water. They are due to problems distributing food and potable water. We have food going to waste all over the globe not because it isn't available, but because Local governments, warlords and similar intermediaries in famine hit regions use food-aid as a way to make themselves richer and more powerful. Plus, many unhelpful idiots like to tell impoverished famine struck nations that it would be better to starve than to produce GM crops. Thanks, idiots! I hope there's a special circle in Hell for you!

It seems it was Paul Ehrlich in The Population Bomb who popularized the "overpopulation" hysteria , and he was predicting mass famines and food riots worldwide...except he said that would happen in the 1970s. He was, very simple, wrong. In 1970, on the first Earth Day, he predicted, "In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish."

It you took everyone in the world (about 7.045 billion) and squeezed them into Texas (about 268,820 sq miles which is 7,494,271,488,000 sq ft), then every single person on Earth would have 1,063.77 sq ft (larger than many apartments in Manhattan), which is about a 32' x 32' plot to call their own. While that is a tight fit, since the rest of the landmass of the Earth is larger than Texas, that suggests we're not even close to running out of land, even if we exclude deserts, tundra and other harsh environments.

So what's the problem?

There are definitely good and bad things about a large population, but I see no evidence that the bad things dramatically outweigh the good. For every analysis I have seen that suggests a real issue, there are more recent studies that seem to refute it. In fact, though I haven't looked in a while, the weight of the science I have seen seems to come down against it being a problem, especially in recent decades.

 

[KilljoyKlown]

Cavalier

I like the way you are thinking. I too think our current advancement is picking up speed because of the population we have. Just think how much better it could be if all 7 billion people were better educated?

 

[kx000]

That is just a stupid assertion. War and killing do not constitute an effective way of controlling the population.

Love, and faith work.

A little basic math and some knowledge of history is helpful in figuring this out. Consider the following:

If you were to calculate the total death toll for all of the major wars, genocides, repressions and man-made famines of the 20th century (ie. the First Sino-Japanese War, Armenian Genocide, Herero War, Boer War, Massacre at Nanjing, Congo Free State; the Mexican Revolution, all of the combat deaths during WWI & WWII, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, the Great Leap Forward; the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Pol Pot, Saddam, Idi Amin, Suharto; the Soviet-Afghan War, the Shah of Iran, the Iranian Revolution, Angola, Mozambique, East Pakistan 1971, all of the Latin American "Dirty Wars" of the 60's, 70's and '80s; the Eritrean conflict, Sierra Leone, Algeria, Rwanda, Burundi, Rhodesian Bush War; all of the Israeli wars, the Falkland Islands, the Gulf War, Colombia, Panama Invasion, the drug cartels etc.), the maximum reasonable figure stands at about 250,000,000 people.

With a total global birthrate of 340,500 daily, it would only take 734 days, 5 hours, 8 mins, 35 seconds and 4 decisecs to compensate for a century of man-made carnage. In addition to this, many of the prominent population booms that have taken place throughout history (except for maybe the industrial revolution), take place in the aftermath of major conflicts. With this said, it is not only unethical and cruel to resort to violence as population control, but impractical as well. I rest my case.

The only sensical solution is to expand our range and supply, and if need be limit child birth. No cars, no highways, no parking lots. No dirty air.

 

[Syzygys]

That's obviously wrong, since it already is supporting the US and many others besides.

Not all of the US's population live on Western standard's level....

The trouble isn't a lack of resources.

Sure it is the problem. We are not just running out of everything, but the developing countries are adding new, richer populations, who want to see their lifes' standard to be improved. Suddenly there is 100 million new car owners in India and China, those automobiles have to run on something....
Extra population needs more heat, land, oh yes, and clean water too... There is already water sortages in the Western USA...

 

[TAMallick]

We don't have need to control population. If it is essential, nature will do it naturally. Population is power, just we should see China and India. Most of intellectuals told us that next world leader will be China or India, I think population is the cause.

 

[quadraphonics]

Not all of the US's population live on Western standard's level....

Did you have some point in there, somewhere?

Sure it is the problem. We are not just running out of everything, but the developing countries are adding new, richer populations, who want to see their lifes' standard to be improved. Suddenly there is 100 million new car owners in India and China, those automobiles have to run on something....

And so they do. The price of oil isn't even particularly high these days.

Extra population needs more heat, land, oh yes, and clean water too...

Plenty of hot land here in the USA, and more than a little water to boot. Other places, too.

There are definitely certain, specific places on Earth that are overcrowded. But as for the Earth as a whole? Doubtful.

Anyway, you do not seem to account for the fact that the carrying capacity of the Earth is a function of technology as much as of available resources. Your views are quite simply out-dated and discredited - and have been since before you were born.

There is already water sortages in the Western USA...

Having myself lived in those exact places for many years, I am unimpressed by these "shortages." All that term means, in this context, is that water is kind of expensive and there are some rules about which days of the week each neighborhood is supposed to water their lawns. It's barely an inconvenience, and the population is still growing rapidly.

 

[Syzygys]

And so they do. The price of oil isn't even particularly high these days.

Did you have some point in there, somewhere? Cheap price doesn't mean we are not running out....

Plenty of hot land here in the USA, and more than a little water to boot.

I am sure we could drop 10-20 million extra people on the good folks of the Dakotas, but really, do we want it to be that populous?

You might want to read up on water. Just check out why the water level dropped like 6-9 feet in the last decade behind the Hoover dam....

There are definitely certain, specific places on Earth that are overcrowded. But as for the Earth as a whole? Doubtful.

So the idea would be to make EVERY place crowded? By the way, it isn't just land what is needed for the folks. Generally I would say, Europe is crowded, The USA could handle a 1-200 millions, but I wouldn't want to live here then. Asia is crowded also...

Anyway, you do not seem to account for the fact that the carrying capacity of the Earth is a function of technology as much as of available resources.

And also economy. Why should country A pay for the population problems of country B? Just because theoretically we could put 3 more billions on Earth, that doesn't mean we should, or if that will happen.

Look at this way, when a natural calamity occurs in the future, more people will die...

Your views are quite simply out-dated and discredited

Did you have a point here?

is that water is kind of expensive and there are some rules about which days of the week each neighborhood is supposed to water their lawns.

So why don't we increase the population there by 50% and see how much more expensive the water is going to cost. Maybe you will be able to afford to water your lawn twice a year.

 

[Syzygys]

For extra credit, guess what that white line means on Lake Meade?

http://infomotions.com/gallery/las-vegas/Images/Hoover_Dam_intake_tower_1.jpg


For the lazy:

http://www.psmag.com/environment/water-shortages-threaten-the-american-west-lifestyle-31150/

" Between 1920 and 2000, the seven states that share the Colorado River grew from 5.7 million to almost 50 million people. Peter Gleick, co-founder and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, says 23 million more people will be added by 2030 amid mounting evidence that our current practices in water use and management are unsustainable."

And that is only 23+ million extra people...