Overpopulation is a Myth: Plenty of Food and Space Exists

a reply to: mOjOm

40 billion people is insane. I don't understand why people are so against depopulation. Do we really NEED to push earth to it's limits. We are already doing a lot of damage and pollution.

People are so unrealistic. We can't even handle 10 billion people without excessive overpollution, massive mistreatement of livestock, and trying to enforce basic human rights.

Are people in this thread so naive to think that society could deal with another 10 billion people population increase?

A lot of peolple are blaming greedy elites, yet never put blame on the masses.

a reply to: blueman12

What's scary is the exponential growth or doubling of numbers. For example, let's say you have a bottle with a single bacteria in it which will double every minute and fill the bottle when it's been 1 hour. So at 1:00 you have one invisible bacteria in what looks to be an empty bottle. At 2:00, 60 minutes later the bottle is completely full. But since we're talking about doubling times that means at 1:58 your bottle is only 25% filled. So it looks like you have a long way to go. After all, it took 58 minutes for it to get just that far. But those last 2 minutes are enough to fill it.

So consider those minutes to be generations. It takes 58 generations to get the earth 25% full and only two to completely cover the rest of it. By the time you start noticing that there may be something to worry about you may not even have the time left to halt where you're going.

The same works for your resources going in reverse. The bottle is full at the start and it seems like it's almost endless. Generation after generation keep taking double what the last one has and there is still plenty of it left. After 59 generations you still have half that bottle. But what you don't see coming is that last generation sucking up that entire other half in one cycle.

a reply to: mOjOm

That is a good example man! Iv'e also thought the same thing. Population needs to be controlled, otherwise bad situations can start happening.

It's just frustrating to see a thread titled, "Overpopulation is a myth". It's like people have never watched or read anything about animal populations. They are looking at overpopulation from a utopian perspective. As if all governments, systems of commerce, the food supply, and energy was in a limitless perfect state.

It's just pure ignorance in my opinion.

a reply to: blueman12

40 billion people is insane. I don't understand why people are so against depopulation.

Because, in the context of this website, depopulation means killing people rather than reducing the rate of population growth.

originally posted by: Phage
Because, in the context of this website, depopulation means killing people rather than reducing the rate of population growth.

Unfortunately that is one of the ugly truths which can become a reality if we don't address the issue and just ignore it. But it doesn't have to go that route and I don't think most people want it to either. But if we keep ignoring this, one way or another, that is exactly what we'll see. It will either be forced as a last desperate attempt to balance the scales in the hopes that it's not too late. Or it will be the natural balancing by nature itself because we've pushed it too far and it can no longer keep up. Neither of which will be something welcomed when it comes.

That's why it's so important that we look at the situation for what it is now. As ugly as it might be right now, it will only get worse each day we ignore it.

On the up side however, if we take an honest look at it now and without bias we might be able to avoid such a nasty option as having to wipe out large numbers of people in order to save the rest.

I mean we wipe out animal species of all kinds and we call it culling and it's done with the idea that it's to save the species from over population. Yet for some reason when it comes to us we seem to think the same rules don't apply.

I agree to a certain extent, and that is, population proper numbers are measured by -the capacity of human life to coexist with ecosystems without disrrupting their functions- which are Life Engines by consciousness production and proliferation of manifestation of Divine Intelligence/ Divine Order. By this definition we are ready to agree that most social habitational aggregates are overpopulate and overpopulate ing in their behaviour and tendencies.

That being said.

What is really incomprehensible is that all this people (humanity considered as a group with many aggregates in the middle) with all their labor capacity and with all the brilliant humans that it produces has failed to become self accountable for their responsibility of protecting natural environments and their natural diversity.

a reply to: BO XIAN

I think you may not be thinking of or aware that they have a VERY RUTHLESS BOSS who will whip them all in line as they will and have any of their underlings--by death in a flash, if that seems fitting. None of them stray very far from the goal and the chosen strategies.

Who do you think is the boss?
I have to agree with luthier on this one. I don't think there is an organized cabal planning to depopulate the planet. I really, really don't believe that is happening. I don't think "Agenda 21" is a problem or diabolical plan to wipe out most of the world. That doesn't make any sense.

I like to believe we are working toward more sustainable practices, and yes, we can do it - but meanwhile, we have to keep doing a lot of what we have been as we transition to those smarter technologies. I am dismayed that Solar and Wind have been so slow to catch global attention - but on the other hand, there are square miles of solar panels erected in various places and square miles of windmills as well.....

water can be desalinated without too much trouble, but fresh water, as Cranial Sponge said, is an imminent problem. Yes, pollution is ghastly. Slash-and-burn is also a dreadful technique (see Easter Island).

For CO2 mitigation, we need TREES. Lots and lots and lots of trees. More trees than people. Plants in the home also clean the air.

But BO, may I ask, what are your credible sources for the earnest alarm you have about this dastardly plan to kill most everyone on purpose? What would they do with all the bodies? WHY would they decimate the population who they require to buy their goods and services to make their profits.

WHY would they want there to be only a few hundred thousand humans?
(I won't say that I'd miss most of them, but I do like having serious discussions - and also laughing with others. Laughter is, I think the best thing about being human....it is the one universal trait that binds us all together in our souls. Tears as well - I wish people were more accepting of emotional health and well-being as worthy goals.

There is also some merit to the eugenics idea - I think there really are people who should not reproduce (whether due to genetic weaknesses or other circumstantial shortcomings). Unfortunately, most of them do so at an alarming rate - and it is true that women (and men) have FOREVER known how to avoid pregnancy.

Back in the 17th century, women used turtle shells, herbal abortifacients (which are making a comeback), and even condoms were around long long ago. I think birth control is an important thing.

a reply to: BO XIAN
This article is garbage. Yes we are overpopulated. If you don't understand why, you probably never will. Just like the vast majority. And THAT IS the real problem.

a reply to: richapau

Ahh so speaks' a fascist attitude that would see the majority sterilized or wiped from the face of the earth so that an Ideological selected few could inhabit a backward world of wild animal's.

Let me put it this way, Overpopulation is a political tool of the right wing, Ever since the French revolution (and Reinforced as a view of the elite by the Russian revolution) the upper echelon's of society have feared losing control over the mass population, during the first world war after the Russian revolution the great power's artificially continued the fight and prolonged the war as a method of removing vast numbers of poor working class men using the killing field's of the European theater for this very purpose, it did not work and there were cry's for Social reform in Western Europe but in the US the veteran's were literally gunned down by there former colleagues and brother's in arm's.

Now from history did you know that BEFORE the spanish and Portuguese Conquest of south america that some estimate's of food production by the indiginous culture's places there annual production rate's at about 60 per cent higher even than today, look how many area's were abandoned or decimated by the Conquistador's, how many irrigation cannal's were smashed and how much once fertile farmland returned to desert and has still not been reclaimed today.

With modern farming techniques it is very possible to produce enough food to feed and to house maybe even up to a thousand time's as many people as are alive on the earth today and still leave room for nature, even enhancing it by creating artificial areas for animal's and uncultivated flora to thrive.

What the problem is and I put it to you that this is the Factual truth, the problem is Corporate Greed and Global Poverty.

yeah those things are true assuming we live in harmony with each other and the environment. we do not.