As the world grows older, the human population will of course grow bigger.
Originally posted by Idle Mind
Pronatalist:
I respect the sanctity of human life the same amount that I respect the sanctity of life of all other species. What about the wellbeing of all the species we are harming?
If you respect all other species the same, wouldn't you have to be a vegetarian? How could you hunt animals or eat meat? But then they say it is the weak animals that get caught, and that hunting strengthens the species and helps eliminate deer "overpopulation." That is, if we don't have to worry about the "individual rights" of animals. Now I don't believe in torturing animals, or making them fight just for our amusement. But animals are not the same. Animals are not created in God's image, are lesser creations than humans, some people think animals don't have souls, and usually have shorter lifespans than humans. Insects appear to be 100% instinct and no care or thought at all. We don't have the same kind of "funeral" for a loved family pet dog, as for a human. Often we just go get another dog, sometime later. Even a "pet" is not the same as a real family member.
Originally posted by Idle Mind
<font color=red>Or in the case of humans, our lifespan is getting longer, and nature's ability to resist our growing numbers, seems to be getting weaker.</font>
That is exactly the problem. Nature includes the land we use to feed ourselves, the forests we use to build our lavish hoemsteads, the animals we harvest to feed ourselves...
If nature has little ability to resist our population growth, or doesn't even "care" how populated we get, isn't that all the more reason to put gloom and doom Malthusian dogma aside, and enjoy growing more numerous? If nature won't resist our population increase, why should we either? Having more people alive, is all the more people to benefit from life. I see nothing wrong with humans taking over more habitat to provide for our own living space and to be able to enjoy our large families. If a nation produces lots of children, then of course they should build more homes and schools and roads, and whatever the people would need.
Originally posted by Idle Mind
<font color=red>Aren't pet populations also multiplying, along with humans?</font>
Why, yes they are. It's too bad you cannot see past society's bounds into the world of nature. The animals we raise to amuse ourselves are not part of the ecosystems that we are harming.
So are you worshipping nature now? Our pets aren't part of the ecosystem anymore? Because they aren't "natural" or whatever anymore and tend to act more like humans, being more socialable and dogs accepting cats and other people intruding into their terrority (visiting guests who the "pack leader," the dog's master, apparently likes) much more readily than they would in the wild? That seems a very arbitrary interpretation to me. Pets aren't all that clean, and pollute our yards with feces. But we don't care much, because nature takes care of that for us, and we clean up their wastes or it rots, and we care about our pets even, much more than their inconveniences, and we have things like vaccuum cleaners to compensate for all the shedding pet hair. I don't get your intepretation. Humans and pets
are part of the ecosystem too, but part of a modified ecosystem altered to much better support the interests of humans, and massive human populations. I don't think nature is always best left to nature. Sure, leave things to nature wherever there is no human benefit to modifying them. That's one reason I don't think all forest fires should be fought. Too much expense to controlling wilderness wildfires that aren't much threat to humans anyhow. Nature can still handle some things for cheaper.
This is also a human-dominated and human-centered world. As it should be. Just look on most any TV channel. Humans, humans, humans. Talk, talk, talk. Should we put more animals on TV, just "to make it fair?"
Originally posted by Idle Mind
<font color=red>And the very idea that other animals are somehow unfairly "displaced" by growing human populations is ludicrous, when the large human population is magically considered to be taking up "more than its fair share" of the habitat at some arbitrary point, of which there is no sensible definition.</font>
We displace animals by mining, logging, and urban development. This is true because the animals that lived on the land before we got to it, and forever changed it for our selfish benefit are not welcome on it anymore. They are pushed to the outskirts. For territorial animals this means death in a lot of cases. They are either killed by another of their kind, or by us when they "trespass" on our lands. The furthering of our species at the expense of another.
Well I don't believe humans should bother with anti-life "birth control" to deny our children life, especially for people who might have been willing to have more children, just so "animals won't be pushed to the outskirts." I don't see any animals asking humans to use "birth control." Sometimes their own kind, or other animals, would seem a much greater threat to the animals, than people. Most people tend to be rather harmless and don't bother most of the animals.
People move to cities in search of opportunity and jobs, even depopulating the countryside to move to "crowded" cities. I think it would be cool to see urban development, and people having to move back to the countryside, but now at urban densities, because there is just getting to be so many of us, and we need more space to live in. Urban sprawl is a very good thing, if it is driven by the natural increase of humanity, and not just overbuilding to drive up the costs of living and taxes.
There is also the matter of "efficiency." Humans are social creatures, and are quite capable of not only surviving but thriving at high population densities. Animals use land very inefficiently, not being able to alter the environment or themselves to support their growing numbers. Millions of people can live within the land space that would only accomodate perhaps a few thousand bears and deer.
Originally posted by Idle Mind
<font color=red>Future people would not want to have been eliminated.</font>
I'm certain they won't notice.
So what that they wouldn't notice, just because they don't exist and aren't aware yet? I would notice. They would notice after they are conceived. I am not somehow "better" than my children, just because I happened to be born first. I might not have "noticed" had I not been conceived and come into existence, but I would want to live either way, regardless. I would rather exist than never exist. If it is good for people who want to live, to continue to do so, wouldn't it also be good for such people to then come into existence if they don't exist yet? Respecting the value of people wanting to continue to live, also implies it is good for more people to be born, if at all possible. We can't just draw arbitrary lines to cut off people not yet conceived, as if their lives don't matter. If human life is sacred and to be respected, then human families should be welcome to grow and the human population size welcome to increase. Even if world population
seems large already to a few anti-family, self-appointed "expert" pessimists.
I don't think the world will "notice" the population increase of my 7 children, or whatever God might allow me to have. What's a few more children in a world of billions? Surely the world has room for a few more?
Originally posted by Idle Mind
<font color=red>Well if the human population grows, isn't that all the more people around then who benefit from it being so large?</font>
Other than size, what is the benefit of a large population?
Interesting. So should I take it that you do admit that we are probably stuck with this large human population for a while, since most people already living insist on continuing to do so? 6 billion+ reasons for world population to be at least as large as it is? You admit that a large human population size, is in the benefit of "the many?"
So you ask, "What is in it for me, to have so many people alive," other than so many people getting to live, including possibly you and me?
I'm glad you asked, because I think I have a few answers for that too. There is benefit in it for me, even when it is other people who are multiplying, and not just my own family and relatives. Rather than all the gloom and doom Malthusian pessimism, human population growth appears to accelerate technological growth. More people working (often in jobs that one way or another tend to alter the environment to support the needs of growing numbers of people), more inventors, more people thinking, more teachers. Humans are not, or should not be parasites, but like the honeybees that produce more honey than they can use, people tend to contribute more to society than they consume. Thus, population growth, and even sometimes the efficiencies of increased population density, tend to help improve the standard of living. Often the poorest regions of the world, are sparsely populated, far away from utilities like pumped and treated and safe running water, or electrical power lines. And are infested by dangerous mosquitos and hazardous bugs, snakes, spiders, etc. Cities full of people, are often safer, and children outside playing, are unlikely to be grabbed by alligators, bears, or huge pythons, because the environment has been altered to favor people. Swimming pools are a lot cleaner than whatever old algea-ridden, natural rotting, pond or lake.
Also there are the social ramifications of welcoming a large human population. While I am largely an idealist, that doesn't mean I can't also be a realist when I need to be. I want to have all the children God gives me, like my Mom said I should do when I asked her. Other people who weren't as wise, said it was my "choice" how many children I should have. But having read through the Bible, I had already come to the conclusion that it is far better to have all the children God gives me or allows me to have. I would love to have 7 or 8 children, or even 15 children would be cool, although unlikely. But what sort of world will my children grow up in? Not only is there the "demographic momentum" of a youthful world population in which the majority of people are not finished having children, and a world with now a billion teenagers soon to be reproducing, but many people besides me, also want large families for various reasons. When my children finally begin to enjoy the opportunity to have their own children, and give us the grandchildren we would expect them to have, the world would likely have at least 8 billion people by then, perhaps as many as 12 billion. I want them to live in a pro-family, pro-child world, where children would still be welcome, and the large population size, sort of "overlooked" to consider the more important human concerns, like respect for the rights of the individual, and sanctity of life still respected. Even a world of 12 billion could find ample room for even more population, if they want to. Human life should still be cherished, and baby booms welcome to freely expand with double the number of parents enjoying having children. I want my children to live in a pro-human world where they won't be expected to use anti-life "birth control" either. A world with freedom, and not the draconian government control that supposedly might be needed to bring population growth under "control" should "voluntary" "family planning" fail to do it.
Originally posted by Idle Mind
<font color=red>there is great positive value in the life of each human soul</font>
Agreed. However, don't you think that it is better to provide for the ones we have on the planet now, instead of growing to a state that cannot be maintained? You seem to ignore the crash that is at the end of our cycle in the exponential growth curve. That is of course, unless we can slow our growth rate, and reach an equilibrium.
But it's not an Either/Or question. If we refuse to welcome the new arrivals to our world, we probably won't do a very good job of accomodating the people already here, either. Malthus claimed that a person must die to make way for each new birth. Why? I don't think Malthus considered all the options very well. Why must people "wait" to have babies, until some people die off? History has indeed shown that human populations can be allowed to accumulate and grow denser, and tend to prosper and have longer lifespan as they do so. Parents can't just "wait" or they grow infertile with advancing age. Their children then don't get to be born at all. Isn't it possible that humans are growing so incrediably numerous, because God gave humans dominion over nature, which apparently could even include possibly growing to be among the most populous of mammals, seeing how God commanded people to multiply and fill the earth? That there would be "billions" of people was prophecied way back in Genesis. (
Genesis 24:60 Animal biology concepts don't apply well to humans. There appears to be no "crash" at the end of the exponential population growth curve. The more populated nations get, the more babies they have. They say a baby is born every second in India. And yet isn't India modernizing and improving in its ability to support its large human population? Isn't world human lifespan longer than ever, around 66 years I hear? And the way technology is going, it appears the more "filled" the earth gets with people, the more "ready" we would become to colonize other worlds, although I think that scenario unlikely, as I don't read of it in the Bible. It may very well take a massive human population to overcome the technological hurdles to colonizing outer space. After all, don't they say "Necessity is the mother of invention?"
I believe the population pessimists have grossly misportrayed the world population situation. Not only have the neglected the intelligence of parents, and underestimated the effects of the co-called "demographic transition" in which people because too lazy, selfish, or distracted with their education and careers to have as many children as they did in the past, but they portray human population growth as too much of an uncontrollable, automatic process. It takes a lot of work for the parents in this world to add another billion people to the world population. Children take years to grow up, and there are lots of runny noses to wipe, and lots of children to tuck into bed. And people are not all that fertile and can't just pop out their babies on demand. It takes time for people to multiply. Time in which the plans and accomodations for increased billions of people can be made. Humans are unique in many ways, from other creatures, and are the only kind of creature that humans should not try to regulate the growth rate of. As God has provided all the resources we need, and there are ample ways to accomodate human population growth, such that it should not need to be restrained or limited by humans. Besides, what about the Biblical endtimes scenaro? The Bible says that humans won't be living on the earth forever as mortals, so that is all the more reason why population growth extrapolations too far out into the future, quickly become not only notoriously inaccurate, but meaningless as well, because they involve too many false assumptions and have no root in reality.
Originally posted by Idle Mind
Visit this link http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/lec16/b65lec16.htm#CARRYING CAPACITY OF THE EARTH
It will hopefully give you some persective on just what our species is accomplishing.
And you think I haven't seen such speculative and negative links before? Obviously a lot of the statistics quoted on that website, are speculative and unverifiable.
from the website link:
... In many developing countries, the populations will probably stabilize not because of a decrease in the birth rate, but a return to higher death rates, and this will reflect mainly an increase in the number of children dying from starvation-related causes. ...
Well this website claim is obviously speculation, and not very relevant to all the facts. Just the continuing pessimistic cry that past successes can only lead to eventual failure.
Obesity is a growing problem even in China. And there is this new trendy population theory, that humans can't stop multiplying because we have "too much" food, which generally is said to trigger population expansions in the animal kingdom. Wait a minute ... Are the self-appointed anti-human "experts" trying to confuse me? Too little, or too much, food? Would they please make up their minds?
And I would suggest that "stagnation" and "mediocrity" would be good synonyms for population "stabilization" when talking about humans. God put the natural affection in our hearts to seek humanity's multiplication and increase. I heard that some "family planner" worker spoke to some third world village, and told them that at their current rate, they would double their population in just 25 years. The people all clapped and cheered. Apparently somebody had forgot to "educate" them that population increase is supposedly a bad thing? Human population growth was generally considered to be a positive thing, until recent "family planning" dogma that accompanied a falling away from faith, and the advent of "the pill," which coincided with an epidemic of divorces and STDs as it helped pervert the purposes of sex. Up until the 1950s, people didn't even count the cost of children. They just had them. I think some of the terms used, such as "issue" and "natural increase" perhaps even imply that the rate of procreation, wasn't even thought to be something that was controllable, but more like God's will or something that just "happens."
Paul Ehrlich has suggested that we should measure the environmental impact of populations not simply as a function of the number of people but by using the equation I (environmental impact) = P x A x T, where P is the size of the Population, A is Affluence (or consumption), and T is a measure of how environmentally malign are the Technologies and the economic, social, political and political arrangements involved in servicing the consumption._ Mainly because of the high level of "T", the population growth in the United States is more serious for the environment than anywhere else in the world.
Paul Ehlich is an educated idiot. He lost a bet with Julian Simon on whether resources are getting more or less scarce, and every one of the 5 resources Paul picked, became more abundant over the time period of the bet. So he quietly paid off his bet, and continued to exploit the poor making money off selling his sensationist junk-science, anti-human books. Besides, any basic algebra student would know that multiplying 3
positive factors, results in a positive product. Or a
positive impact, which we observe today, as the environment is made more human-friendly. Also Paul's overly simplistic, anti-human equation, implies that poverty and discrimination against certain "undesirable" population aspects of the population, are virtues. In other words, racism. That not all people should be treated the same.
I can come up with better equations than that, that are probably more accurate to boot.
How about <font color=red><B>world happiness = average happiness x number of people alive</B></font>
Or, I = (P + A) / T
Surely people have noticed that improved technologies and wealth actually do a lot to reduce negative environmental impacts of large human populations, and also increase human benefit while making better use of resources. Julian Simon claims on the paperback cover of my copy of "The Ultimate Resource" (people) that pollution in the U.S. is decreasing? How can that be possible according to the gloom and doom propaganda of the population pessimists? U.S. population is among the fastest growing of developed countries, or so they claim, and we make see the U.S. grow to half a billion during our lifetimes, due largely to immigration and the high birthrates of immigrants. Plus, some of us Americans still like having large families ourselves. But I am not worried, because we have ample land, and only around half the population density of the world overall, if that even mattered. America should set a good example to the world, and proudly grow into another population billionaire if we can. Countries should be proud to welcome large and growing populations within or without their borders, so all the more people can live. Sure, the third world is getting so populated that they need to transition to the sorts of technologies that better support higher density human populations, you know things like toilets and modern plumbing, so as to not be pooping and peeing in their drinking water and contaminating their rivers. But then they would want that anyway. Not a bunch of overeducated idiots contraceptive pushers shoving condoms in their faces.
Paul is an idiot if he thinks people not having adequate technologies means they pollute less. Singapore is 40 times as densely populated as China, and is rather clean. While third world poor people huddle over smoky fires burning wood and dung, trying to stay warm or cook their food. What they need is not "family planning," but sensible things like modern gas or electric cookstoves, gas furnaces or gas logs or nuclear power plants, and microwave ovens and electric or the old karosene refrigerators to preserve food if they don't have electricity. A 55 gallon drum a karosene will keep such a refrigerator cold for an entire year.
There is nothing wrong in principle with one nation selling its agricultural and forestry products, and other nations selling their manufactured goods. However, many developing countries would like to emulate the industrialized nations and increase their standard of living. But it is not possible for all countries to exceed their carrying capacities and convert to manufacturing.
And why not? All countries could in fact have far more population than they could possibly feed with slow and inefficient agriculture too dependent on fickle weather, if a transition to synthetically produced foods ever was made to be practical. All that farmland could be freed up for city expansion and residential housing. And we can always find more room for housing, not only by urban sprawl into the countryside, but also by stacking people into highrise apartments and condos, if ever need be. Considering how inexpensive food is compared to the family budget, than it was in the past when people did most of their work just to feed their families, food seems well-established towards becoming ever more abundant, not less. Our food is increasingly mass-produced by farm machinery, and less by human labor. Farming already is so productive at producing food, it may take more hungry mouths to feed, to help keep farming profitable, lest more people give up trying to make money at farming.
POPULATION POLICIES
U.N. Conference on Population (Cairo, 1994)
The United Nations has for over forty years been coordinating efforts to bring global population growth under control.
Not a proper function of government or of the United Nations. Denying the right to procreate is but one small step from denying the right to live. Without the right to life, there can be no "rights" at all.
At the U.N. Conference on Population in Cairo in 1994, 179 nations endorsed a new "Programme of Action" that called on governments to provide universal access to reproductive health care by 2015 as a global human rights imperative. Instead of focusing just on controlling population growth (an approach which was not very effective) this program tries to identify and deal with the many interrelated social problems that contribute to population growth and poverty. The conference recognized that meeting individual reproductive health needs would enable couples to choose the number and spacing of their children, and that this would lead to smaller families and stabilization of the human population.
In other words, they aren't content with merely "controlling" population, but they want to indoctrinate their anti-human propaganda into medical science which was to "do no harm" and was supposed to be prolife, and pervasively corrupt religion and society with an anti-human demonic "gospel" based on unproven, dogmatic "environmental" assumptions.
One has to wonder if all the "problems" were someday solved, no poverty, no pollution, etc., if they would still concoct some reasons to be anti-population -- perhaps to control and enslave the masses?
The goal of the Cairo agreement is to stabilize human population at 7.8 billion by 2050.
Woahh! Back the horse up! Why 7.8 billion? What happened to 8+ billion? Why not 12, 14, 30, or 200 billion? How does the "United" Nations know just how many people the world could potentially hold if need be? What about the desires of billions of parents to have children? Doesn't that count for anything as to what the "ideal" world population size should be? Surely this calls for another study or something, before we talk policy? And what about all the pronatalist third world countries that don't want abortion, nor their populations being "controlled?" 7.8 billion isn't much "growing room" to even allow for some reasonable "demograghic transition," if that crazy theory even really works? I kind of figure it could sometimes be the rich, who might feel they could afford large and "unplanned" families. I think I heard of that being behind some conspiracy theory in which oppressive tax rates are pushed for a form of "population control," lest too many families feel they can "afford" to have lots of children?
There are five basic components:
Provide universal access to family-planning and reproductive health programs and to information and education regarding these programs. An estimated 125 million women desire family-planning services but do not have access to them.
While I suspect this number is largely made up, as I don't think they even polled 125 million women on anything, it does raise an interesting question. Does that mean 1 or 2 billion women don't want access to "family-planning?" 125 million is but 2% of the huge world population. The official statistics claim that half the people of the world still do not practice "birth control." I read that people in the third world often refuse to use contraceptives because they want children and want to get pregnant. I hear of third world medical clinics having more contraceptive than they know what to do with, but not even being supplied with basic medical items, like clean needles. What's up with that? An obvious anti-human agenda?
Recognize that environmental protection and economic development are not necessarily antagonistic, but that economic development is essential for environmental protection. Promote free trade, private investment and development assistance.
Oh, nice of them to finally admit that. So why have "environmentalists" pitched the environment, in such an antagonistic way, disregarding human concerns, like some sort of dogmatic religion, with little basis in science?
Make women equal participants in all aspects of society - by increasing women's health, education, and employment.
Increase access to education. Inadequate education is an undeniable determinant of high birth rates and prevents individuals from reaching their full potential. The goal is universal primary education by 2015. Provide information and services for adolescents to prevent unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortion, and the spread of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases.
Ensure that men fulfill their responsibility to ensure healthy pregnancies, proper child care, promotion of women's worth and dignity, prevention of unwanted pregnancies, and prevention of the spread of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases
Sounds like a bunch of feminist, anti-men propaganda. So men don't care about healthy pregnancies? Huh? What if highly educated people choose to have large families? What then? More re-"education"? Sure, more good education should be helpful to people. But "education" can be more family-friendly, and not be seen as an alternative or busywork to keep people from reproducing.
They say that children are the poor's "only wealth," perhaps a prime reason why poor people are more prone to have large families. Because they want something valuable as "The rich get richer and the poor get babies." Well people should of course have more wealth than just their children. But that isn't hardly a reason to be blessed with fewer children, but increases parents' abilities to provide for their growing families.
