Pronatalist
Registered Senior Member
What "population problem?"
Well I don't mind if hiking trails are "crowded" or if campgrounds are full of people, as I don't go to get away from people, but to go with a group and meet people.
I think you are being overly pessimistic about fish farming. I think fish might be persuaded to eat even synthetic food substitutes. Or we could eat "synthetic" fish, meat, or food. Just because a concept is in its infancy, and has not been much developed, does not prove that it does not have potential.
The "edge" of the flat earth? What "edge?" The "edge" of gloom and doom "overpopulation" propaganda? What relevance does such fantasy have to do with reality?
Infinitely crowd ourselves? Where did I say any such thing? Just because Julian Simon may claim humans are intelligent, and so can multiply forever, doesn't mean I have to make such absurd statements. Rather, I would hedge my argument with the sensible qualification that humans probably can't multiply on a single finite planet forever, but rather can do so, for "the forseeable future." Perhaps we should talk closer to what we know? Just because the world might not quite hold a billion billion people, does not mean we couldn't squeeze in 30 billion or more. If the earth could hold more than 30 billion, and yet people would perhaps likely never multiply to 30 billion, where is the "population problem?"
Why do people dismiss the desire of people who don't exist yet, to live? I have never understood that. If they are glad, after the fact, to be alive, doesn't that imply, before the fact, that it is good to conceive children? To assume otherwise, is to assume a contradiction, or to be blinded by excessive linear time thinking. God sees the future as plainly as today. We see the future only as a probability of possible outcomes, but we can do better than what you suggest. Surely it is better for my children that they exist, than to not have the opportunity to exist.
world happiness = average happiness x number of people
Surely existing > not existing
more people existing > (is better than) fewer people existing = more people benefitting from whatever or life
Now what does that have to do with anything? 10 billion wouldn't come anywhere close to populating the world to be like Calcutta. Wouldn't that take around a trillion people to so fill the land with people? If the world now has cities only occupying but 2 or 3% of the land, what effect would increasing the population to 10 billion have? Cities filling 4% of the land? Like that's a big difference we should all get upset over? Like what's the difference? How would we even know the change had occured? The terrible distress of seeing a few suburban developments go up here and there, so people can have affordable housing and not be crowded as their numbers grow? Like that is some big whoop to get all bent out of shape about?
And besides, I don't see the people in Mexico City or Calcutta lining up to commit suicide, and many of them, probably more than for us, still want big families. Mexico City or Calcutta doesn't need fewer people, but they need to have their children, and perhaps spread over more land, or for people to gain wealth so they can tear down the slums and replace them with attractive highrises, designed for spacious accomodations, even at higher population density.
People have fewer children, not so much to not add to world population, but because they are selfish and don't want to be bothered with the "burden" of children. And because society now goes out of its way to make children seem expensive, to justify their own selfishness and hedonistic pursuit of more and more material things, and act like they are important, because of what they have, their careers, and education, rather than for being human beings created in God's image.
Surely you don't think that people have children, just to insure that 2 may survive? Many families want 5 or 8 children, because they expect them all to survive, and want a big family. Some people cherish human life, and still think that creating a precious new human life is a great thing to do, even if it crowds their homes with children. 1 child is worth far more than the house, so so what if one's house is crowded with children? Big deal. They will grow up and move away, soon enough, if not too soon.
From what I read, the draw of the cities, pretty much cancels out any population growth in the countryside. But if people left the countryside for the opportunity of the city, and now (or in the future) are forced to move back to the countryside, but now at urban densities, because there is just getting to be so many, many people, then that's cool! It would be great for our human kind to be so successful as to increasingly fill the land. So many people benefit from any human population increase, who couldn't have lived otherwise, that the "ideal" sized human population, if such a thing could be defined, would be nearly as large as possible. Thus, it would be cool to see less land being underutilized, and human habitats expanding to fill more and more of the land. As I recall, Genesis 1:28, and 9:1, does seem to say to humans to "fill" the earth. Urbanizing the planet to whatever extent needed, is the obvious answer to the population concern. Since most everybody wants to live, and more and more people would be glad to live, and most everybody wants to have children, and space colonization isn't practical yet, isn't the obvious logical answer to population concerns to encourage human populations to grow denser and denser? There is yet plenty of space for expanding human populations to grow into. We can grow outward and urbanize more land. We can grow inward and infill urban areas and populate them more densely. Most cities, at least in America, have lots of space within their borders that has not been used and could be used to construct more housing. We can even grow upwards, and stack people onto multiple floors of highrises, or apartment/condo complexes. Many people prefer the convenience of such living, to the work of mowing grass. After all all these breeders are primarily populating their own homes, aren't they? They hardly need to be "educated" to the risk of "overpopulation." Or as Julian Simon puts it, parents do most all the work of raising children, but society reaps most of the benefits. (i.e. productive workers, scientists, inventors, teachers, taxpayers, customers, etc.)
Whatever are you talking about? Most all large families I have met, had good manners and very respectible children. Wouldn't growing up in a large family, better socialize children for living in a populous world?
And besides, aren't "rose colored glasses" better than mud-colored glasses?
It seems to me that when people didn't bother to count the cost of children, as late as the 1950s, most marriages lasted. Now with the arrival of "the pill," and all the immorality that all this nonsense about "safe sex" entails, we have an epidemic of divorces, STDs, broken hearts, etc. Looks to me like the world's ways aren't working?
A Christian futurist? What a novel term. Would you care to elaborate on what a "Christian futurist" might be?
Some poster said in response to some question about world population reaching baby "6 billion," that as the earth gets older, the population will get bigger. Well, duh? Many of the responses were actually quite positive. Since God gave humans dominion over nature, nature is powerless to resist our population growth. In fact, nature doesn't even care how populated we get. Nature simply works the way God designed, the earth as a temporary home to accomodate expanding human populations. Human population growth is actually a measure of time, that shows the earth to be "young" (around 6000 years old Biblically), else we should expect there to be a lot more people. Population growth was normal all through history and can be read about clear back in Genesis when Abraham and Lot's tribes separated and spread over more land, to ease conflicts over animal grazing and other resources. God's answer then to population growth was to spread out, never to reduce human birthrates. Children were believed until recently, to be blessings from God. I have concluded that the flatness of the population growth curve, before the time of Jesus's birth, is a falsification designed to explain away the millions and billions of years evolution nonsense. Human populations have been growing all through history, and even in places that aren't yet big on modern medicine and sanitation, human populations still tend to grow relentlessly. I think having dominion doesn't just mean having the ability or intelligence to shape nature, but also could easily mean for humans to grow to be among the most populous of mammals. Not only do humans have dominion over nature, but they are a dominant force of nature, as we should be and were meant to be. Our wealth we accumulate shouldn't be squandered only on accumulating stuff and hedonistic pleasures, but also to share life with all the more people, and to be invested in children, "the future."
"World population is barely large enough for you and I to have been born."
What if both the optimists and the pessimists are right? What if those who plan for success tend towards success, and those who plan for failure tend towards failure? Then what should one be? An optimist or a pessimist?
What do we learn from history?
That people are in rebellion against God, and that tends towards disaster and suffering.
"Those who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it."
Corollary: "What we learn from history is that we don't learn from history."
We can't tell if the rat experiments were rigged? Oh come on now. Why do you suppose they did those experiments? Of course it wouldn't have had anything to do with trendy "overpopulation" theories? They just thought it cool to torture some rats? Had it been humans, the smart humans would have obviously expanded their cities. But those poor rats? Let's just artificially coup them up in a box, and see what happens? Of course they knew what result they were looking for, and rigged the experiment to "prove" what they already wanted to know. And of course humans behave just like rats, since we just assume evolution to be true, with no proof?
I am one of the "working poor," and yet I have far more stuff in my home, than my parents or grandparents did, when they were my age. My Dad when I was a kid, had his floor model console TV hooked up into his stereo system, when the concept was unheard of. I play video games on my Sony Playstation 2, and of course expect to feel the boom from the falling bridge, in the floor, having it hooked up to my AV TV, hooked into my stereo with 3 way stereo speakers with 12 inch woofers. When I was growing up, it was a "luxury" to have a window air conditioner in the living room of a friend's house. We had fans. Now most everybody in my family has central air conditioning, and I have to wear long pants into most any business or store, lest they freeze with with the ridiculously cold air conditioning.
Funny how it is often the rich, the people who should be able to "afford" the largest families, who worry the most about "overpopulation." The poor see it differently. They say of the poor, that "children are their only wealth." Perhaps the poor are "richer" than the "rich" are? I observe that the more money people have, the less able they seem to be to "afford" children. That only shows that we seriously have our priorities mixed, up, or think we are smarter than God, but obviously are not.
Well I don't mind if hiking trails are "crowded" or if campgrounds are full of people, as I don't go to get away from people, but to go with a group and meet people.
I think you are being overly pessimistic about fish farming. I think fish might be persuaded to eat even synthetic food substitutes. Or we could eat "synthetic" fish, meat, or food. Just because a concept is in its infancy, and has not been much developed, does not prove that it does not have potential.
The "edge" of the flat earth? What "edge?" The "edge" of gloom and doom "overpopulation" propaganda? What relevance does such fantasy have to do with reality?
Infinitely crowd ourselves? Where did I say any such thing? Just because Julian Simon may claim humans are intelligent, and so can multiply forever, doesn't mean I have to make such absurd statements. Rather, I would hedge my argument with the sensible qualification that humans probably can't multiply on a single finite planet forever, but rather can do so, for "the forseeable future." Perhaps we should talk closer to what we know? Just because the world might not quite hold a billion billion people, does not mean we couldn't squeeze in 30 billion or more. If the earth could hold more than 30 billion, and yet people would perhaps likely never multiply to 30 billion, where is the "population problem?"
Why do people dismiss the desire of people who don't exist yet, to live? I have never understood that. If they are glad, after the fact, to be alive, doesn't that imply, before the fact, that it is good to conceive children? To assume otherwise, is to assume a contradiction, or to be blinded by excessive linear time thinking. God sees the future as plainly as today. We see the future only as a probability of possible outcomes, but we can do better than what you suggest. Surely it is better for my children that they exist, than to not have the opportunity to exist.
world happiness = average happiness x number of people
Surely existing > not existing
more people existing > (is better than) fewer people existing = more people benefitting from whatever or life
Now what does that have to do with anything? 10 billion wouldn't come anywhere close to populating the world to be like Calcutta. Wouldn't that take around a trillion people to so fill the land with people? If the world now has cities only occupying but 2 or 3% of the land, what effect would increasing the population to 10 billion have? Cities filling 4% of the land? Like that's a big difference we should all get upset over? Like what's the difference? How would we even know the change had occured? The terrible distress of seeing a few suburban developments go up here and there, so people can have affordable housing and not be crowded as their numbers grow? Like that is some big whoop to get all bent out of shape about?
And besides, I don't see the people in Mexico City or Calcutta lining up to commit suicide, and many of them, probably more than for us, still want big families. Mexico City or Calcutta doesn't need fewer people, but they need to have their children, and perhaps spread over more land, or for people to gain wealth so they can tear down the slums and replace them with attractive highrises, designed for spacious accomodations, even at higher population density.
People have fewer children, not so much to not add to world population, but because they are selfish and don't want to be bothered with the "burden" of children. And because society now goes out of its way to make children seem expensive, to justify their own selfishness and hedonistic pursuit of more and more material things, and act like they are important, because of what they have, their careers, and education, rather than for being human beings created in God's image.
Surely you don't think that people have children, just to insure that 2 may survive? Many families want 5 or 8 children, because they expect them all to survive, and want a big family. Some people cherish human life, and still think that creating a precious new human life is a great thing to do, even if it crowds their homes with children. 1 child is worth far more than the house, so so what if one's house is crowded with children? Big deal. They will grow up and move away, soon enough, if not too soon.
From what I read, the draw of the cities, pretty much cancels out any population growth in the countryside. But if people left the countryside for the opportunity of the city, and now (or in the future) are forced to move back to the countryside, but now at urban densities, because there is just getting to be so many, many people, then that's cool! It would be great for our human kind to be so successful as to increasingly fill the land. So many people benefit from any human population increase, who couldn't have lived otherwise, that the "ideal" sized human population, if such a thing could be defined, would be nearly as large as possible. Thus, it would be cool to see less land being underutilized, and human habitats expanding to fill more and more of the land. As I recall, Genesis 1:28, and 9:1, does seem to say to humans to "fill" the earth. Urbanizing the planet to whatever extent needed, is the obvious answer to the population concern. Since most everybody wants to live, and more and more people would be glad to live, and most everybody wants to have children, and space colonization isn't practical yet, isn't the obvious logical answer to population concerns to encourage human populations to grow denser and denser? There is yet plenty of space for expanding human populations to grow into. We can grow outward and urbanize more land. We can grow inward and infill urban areas and populate them more densely. Most cities, at least in America, have lots of space within their borders that has not been used and could be used to construct more housing. We can even grow upwards, and stack people onto multiple floors of highrises, or apartment/condo complexes. Many people prefer the convenience of such living, to the work of mowing grass. After all all these breeders are primarily populating their own homes, aren't they? They hardly need to be "educated" to the risk of "overpopulation." Or as Julian Simon puts it, parents do most all the work of raising children, but society reaps most of the benefits. (i.e. productive workers, scientists, inventors, teachers, taxpayers, customers, etc.)
Whatever are you talking about? Most all large families I have met, had good manners and very respectible children. Wouldn't growing up in a large family, better socialize children for living in a populous world?
And besides, aren't "rose colored glasses" better than mud-colored glasses?
It seems to me that when people didn't bother to count the cost of children, as late as the 1950s, most marriages lasted. Now with the arrival of "the pill," and all the immorality that all this nonsense about "safe sex" entails, we have an epidemic of divorces, STDs, broken hearts, etc. Looks to me like the world's ways aren't working?
A Christian futurist? What a novel term. Would you care to elaborate on what a "Christian futurist" might be?
Some poster said in response to some question about world population reaching baby "6 billion," that as the earth gets older, the population will get bigger. Well, duh? Many of the responses were actually quite positive. Since God gave humans dominion over nature, nature is powerless to resist our population growth. In fact, nature doesn't even care how populated we get. Nature simply works the way God designed, the earth as a temporary home to accomodate expanding human populations. Human population growth is actually a measure of time, that shows the earth to be "young" (around 6000 years old Biblically), else we should expect there to be a lot more people. Population growth was normal all through history and can be read about clear back in Genesis when Abraham and Lot's tribes separated and spread over more land, to ease conflicts over animal grazing and other resources. God's answer then to population growth was to spread out, never to reduce human birthrates. Children were believed until recently, to be blessings from God. I have concluded that the flatness of the population growth curve, before the time of Jesus's birth, is a falsification designed to explain away the millions and billions of years evolution nonsense. Human populations have been growing all through history, and even in places that aren't yet big on modern medicine and sanitation, human populations still tend to grow relentlessly. I think having dominion doesn't just mean having the ability or intelligence to shape nature, but also could easily mean for humans to grow to be among the most populous of mammals. Not only do humans have dominion over nature, but they are a dominant force of nature, as we should be and were meant to be. Our wealth we accumulate shouldn't be squandered only on accumulating stuff and hedonistic pleasures, but also to share life with all the more people, and to be invested in children, "the future."
"World population is barely large enough for you and I to have been born."
What if both the optimists and the pessimists are right? What if those who plan for success tend towards success, and those who plan for failure tend towards failure? Then what should one be? An optimist or a pessimist?
What do we learn from history?
That people are in rebellion against God, and that tends towards disaster and suffering.
"Those who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it."
Corollary: "What we learn from history is that we don't learn from history."
We can't tell if the rat experiments were rigged? Oh come on now. Why do you suppose they did those experiments? Of course it wouldn't have had anything to do with trendy "overpopulation" theories? They just thought it cool to torture some rats? Had it been humans, the smart humans would have obviously expanded their cities. But those poor rats? Let's just artificially coup them up in a box, and see what happens? Of course they knew what result they were looking for, and rigged the experiment to "prove" what they already wanted to know. And of course humans behave just like rats, since we just assume evolution to be true, with no proof?
I am one of the "working poor," and yet I have far more stuff in my home, than my parents or grandparents did, when they were my age. My Dad when I was a kid, had his floor model console TV hooked up into his stereo system, when the concept was unheard of. I play video games on my Sony Playstation 2, and of course expect to feel the boom from the falling bridge, in the floor, having it hooked up to my AV TV, hooked into my stereo with 3 way stereo speakers with 12 inch woofers. When I was growing up, it was a "luxury" to have a window air conditioner in the living room of a friend's house. We had fans. Now most everybody in my family has central air conditioning, and I have to wear long pants into most any business or store, lest they freeze with with the ridiculously cold air conditioning.
Funny how it is often the rich, the people who should be able to "afford" the largest families, who worry the most about "overpopulation." The poor see it differently. They say of the poor, that "children are their only wealth." Perhaps the poor are "richer" than the "rich" are? I observe that the more money people have, the less able they seem to be to "afford" children. That only shows that we seriously have our priorities mixed, up, or think we are smarter than God, but obviously are not.
