The Overpopulation Myth, The Underpopulation Crisis

Originally posted by die_another_day
It doesn't matter what we say or do, the human population will increase indefinitely.

Unless we can spread cities to the seas or something and acquire renewable resources, standards of living will decrease.

Sorry - doesn't make sense.

No other population on the planet does this or follows this trend. Not even in systems where they are unchallenged.

The population sometimes increases drastically, then falls again.

Our species has been through numerous culls, even to the point of near extinction. We are currently on the other end of this curve.

We've never been like the coyote, or the rabbit, or the seal, or the mosquito, or even algae - a population explosion in our ecosystem followed by a population reduction and stabilization.

No one has any idea what that number would be. We have NOTHING to go on from prior data.

There is nothing to indicate that we would not follow the exact same trend as every other lifeform we have on this planet.

What would make you think this? It defies logic.

reply to post by Tryptych


In cultures where women have education, access, and control of their fertility this level of management is utterly unnecessary.

Some have no children, most have between 1 and 4, and the few on the other end of the curve are balanced out by the 0-1s.

Patriarchial cultures, where women are sub'ed to male authority or have no legal or cultural protection at all, have population problems.

Simply making sure that all women have legal and cultural protection for their bodily integrity would make control of family size utterly pointless.

[edit on 2010/8/17 by Aeons]

Population Capacity is based entirely on Technology, NOT "lebensraum" aka living space.

For example, the land mass of the Earth has remained the same roughly for the last several thousand years. But the population increased by the ratio of the technological advancements.

In 1900 there was roughly 1billion humans on Earth.

With advances in farming techniques, Refrigeration(storage) techniques, transportation abilities, the population capacity quickly rose as a result.

We went from a dirty polluted world of 1billion, to a no where near as dirty and polluted world with well over 6billion in less than 100 years.

Garbage disposal and recycling techniques reduce Squalor and improve living conditions by exponential scales.

Technology is the primary factor determining population capacity.

Currently our main crisis is the distribution of wealth/resources is all messed up. The managers are the problem. Not the managed.

There is no shortage of food even today at our current technology. Food ROTS in the supermarket isles every day. They throw it away in the trash and LOCK the garbage bins so the homeless can't get a free meal.

Every fast food joint throws away food like it's nothing.

The only crisis is our bad management, as several other posters have mentioned clearly.

Originally posted by RandomPunk
I never believed in that overpopulation myth it just looks somehow unnatural and out of place btw nice thread S&F

You feel justified in your belief based on a 300 year old theory?!?!? Please......

The world is in a mess. We are barely coping with the current population levels with billions living abysmally poor lives. I mean come one wakey wakey the richest nation on earth can't even sustain a decent standard of living for its own 300 million citizens.

Good to know. But what's bad to know is that there is a force trying to kill the human race, and that force is human.. Or is it? *cough*davideicke*cough*reptilians

Originally posted by pchow33
Good to know. But what's bad to know is that there is a force trying to kill the human race, and that force is human.. Or is it? *cough*davideicke*cough*reptilians

Yeah, I saw that movie with Charlie Sheen about the aliens working to heat up the planet so it kills off all the humans so they can take over. It was pretty good.

Personally, my thought is that if we're being slowly, secretly poisoned in order to limit our population, who or whatever is doing it is doing a very lousy job of it. While there are some industrialized nations with negative population trends, that doesn't seem to be the case with the entire world.

Sure, we'll get to a point pretty soon where any kind of nasty weather trend will mean the death by starvation or thirst of millions of people. And that will be an automatic population limiter. But it would be nice if we could figure it all out first, before we get to that point. So lots of people don't end up dying like rats. I could do without that kind of population control.

Originally posted by CHA0S
reply to post by snowen20

 

Overpopulation give me a break. Lets make more jobs by developing undeveloped land and spread the hell out.

It's your type of thinking that makes me think human kind truly is some kind of virus..."spread and multiple"...go ahead and plumage and destroy the Earth...I couldn't care less anymore, dirty humans can live on a dirty planet, it suites them.

[edit on 17/8/10 by CHA0S]

why not spread out? theres HUGE areas of undeveloped land that could be made habitable. why not use it? it doesnt have to mean making a mess

Very interesting perspective on the population issue.

My personal belief is the contrary as I already find it hard enough to "escape" other people if I choose to. The resources of this planet cannot SUSTAIN the amount of people on it within the current civil structure of the modern world.

Either 1 of 2 things has to happen.
(A) the entire course and structure of civilization has to significantly downgrade and simplify to sustain its population growth.
or
(B) the population needs to be culled significantly so the current modern civil structure can be sustained.

Considering its hard enough for people to give up their cell phones and internet access and blue ray DvD's I would think the latter is a more practical option.

HOWEVER, I can entertain the idea we are somehow being decieved to think the worlds population is out of control and much much higher than it REALLY is via man-made global warming myth to justify action (B).

If that is the case though why cull a population that doesn't need to be culled? Why push an agenda to kill most of the populous if you could continue the modern civil structure and sustain it all the while continue to rule it?

Maybe the population is just too much for them to control effectively.







[edit on 17-8-2010 by Sly1one]

Originally posted by Silicis n Volvo
why not spread out? theres HUGE areas of undeveloped land that could be made habitable. why not use it? it doesnt have to mean making a mess

We're already doing that. It's called "urban sprawl," and what it does is force construction of even more sewers and water pipes and electrical grids and roads and grocery stores, etc., while at the same time paving over some pretty good farmland that might actually feed more people.

You can't just drop some poor slobs down in the middle of a desert and make them live there. And cities remain the most efficient and practical ways of allowing large numbers of people to live fairly well off.

why not spread out? theres HUGE areas of undeveloped land that could be made habitable. why not use it? it doesnt have to mean making a mess

Ever hear the phrase:

Give an inch, take a mile?

Sustaining a small habbitable culture is in conflict with human psyche. We are progressive creatures that hate being stagnant. What once was 2 huts will turn into 5 huts then into hutville, then hut city, then huttropolis, and then pizz hut, and were right back to where were at now.

The paved earth.

Originally posted by Sly1one
If that is the case though why cull a population that doesn't need to be culled? Why push an agenda to kill most of the populous if you could continue the modern civil structure and sustain it all the while continue to rule it?

The idea is to slow down or stop population growth so we have a chance to do the science and figure out exactly what is the optimum population for the planet, before we surpass it. It wouldn't require any culling. It would just require people having fewer babies. Nobody gets killed, just not conceived. Natural death from old age and disease will take care of the culling, as always.

That would give us enough time to add up all the numbers, factor in the technological advances, allow for psychological and social concerns, and come up with a number (which would vary over time) that would allow people to live and work and not wreck the environment and be reasonably happy and not claustrophobic.

Unfortunately, religions and people's fears and paranoia, along with their instinct to breed as much as possible, may not allow science (and the New World Order) to do the math before people start dying in droves. Too bad, really. All those unnecessary deaths.

Originally posted by Aronolac
Impressive statistics but manipulated to produce a wrong answer - the overpopulation of the planet is the most serious problem mankind faces, and for the most part, he is totally ignorant of it.

I am in agreement with the poster who questioned the sanity of people who deny reality about population. Too many people is dangerous and it will have consequences far beyond us just talking about it. This world and its resources can support about 3 billion people easily; it can not sustain itself approaching 8 billion people.

The next few years will tell the truth about what happens to the teeming masses when they have to cope with adversities they created by over-breeding to the point of insanity. It is so sad to see no leadership stepping forward to help us come to terms with this looming disaster.

we are approaching 7 billion people not 8 billion...just over 6.8 billion to be more clear.

and according to study the world and its resources could permanently sustain (roughly) 9 to 10 billion people assuming that agriculture is perfect and running smoothly and people only settled for the minimum neccessary living coditions...life for those people would suck however but the world could sustain that life permanently.

and its estimated the our population will reach 9 to 10 billion in about 35 years...so you will probly be around then.

however like many things the earth has a natural combat for over population. when numbers get too high...more space is used for people and trees and forests become more rare...oxygen consumption is greater than production...creating less breathable air...food production reaches its limits meaning there isnt enough to go around...there is less space per person and deseases spread quicker and easier and quality of life drops.

this lowers life expectancy and begins to kill off the population slowly to bring the numbers back down into the sustainable life bracket once again.

Over 300 million in the United States
Over 400 million in Europe
Over 1 billion in China

Yep..I'd say our planet is unpopulated Give me a break. We're going to suffer the consequences very soon due to the OVERPOPULATION of Earth. Our species is taking over and remains to be the most destructive force on this planet.

Its not over-population that's the problem its the quality of the humans being produced. Too many fools, idiots and criminals born to worthless criminal parents with no understanding of how to teach their spawn a better way. They carry on ghettoising large parts of the western world, spreading their repugnent views on woman and destroying lives. They are the real cancer destroying everything we built, they are everywhere and show no sign of becoming educated anytime soon...

We need another mass cull to get rid of the dross that holds us all back...

Originally posted by LiveForever8

The reality is that governments are actually pleading for (and offering incentives too) families who have more than one or two children.

Thanks to everyone who has posted so far

really? the last time i checked it was illegal in china to have more than 1 child.

Originally posted by strangleholder1
We need another mass cull to get rid of the dross that holds us all back...

Be careful what you wish for. The methods by which that may happen could be indiscriminate and unable to separate the wheat from the chaff.

reply to post by snowen20


anybody who believes we have plenty of resources left and not overpopulated must be smoking some laced marijuana. mother natures is finding means necessary to shrink down the population.

reply to post by CHA0S


Everything man does is destructive. Even to plant a tree is destructive to whatever would otherwise naturally occur. Because man is not natural, anything he does is not natural.

We've reached a point where if we really had to, we can create something to replace what is lost. Cloned or otherwise.

Did you know, for example, that the wild horses of America are not a natural creature? We put them there. They were not there before Columbus. They have since replaced what buffalo and other species once did.

We cannot go extinct. because you should dang well know somewhere out there is a base deep underground for such a purpose. And with many nations now talking about a moon "arc", humanity is about to become immortal to everything except a super nova.

It is possible to provoke our own demise. But hardly our own extinction.


Sustainability is also a big word these days. As an architect in training I've been studying it. I can tell you this. Sustainable does not mean a balance for nature or anything else. It means what I said earlier. a zero effect to the environment. Consume land and find a way to make what is made just as viable as what was consumed. If you chop down 10 trees for a house, make sure the house had a green roof producing what the 10 trees lost was. It does not mean balancing with nature. It means controlling nature in the house so it puts out no waste.

I do not prefer the slow and steady path. The slow and steady path is what animals take. What makes humanity unique is its ability to exponentially grow and develop and innovate. That's pretty much it. Our curve is exponential and animals are linear.

I prefer exponential growth over linear. Because taking the linear path means stagnation. Stagnation creates waste and problems. Exponential growth ensures advancement to a point that we can build arcologies.

Nature has one rule for those who wish to slow down. Speed up or go extinct.


In truth, to be intelligent is to deviate from the natural. And therefore, to be intelligent is to be destructive to nature.

[edit on 17-8-2010 by Gorman91]

Originally posted by strangleholder1
Its not over-population that's the problem its the quality of the humans being produced. Too many fools, idiots and criminals born to worthless criminal parents with no understanding of how to teach their spawn a better way.

I was thinking about this the other day. I'm not a religious person, but I wonder if there are only a certain number of "souls" available for people, and whether or not there are some people wandering around on the planet who just don't have one. They're just eating, crapping, breeding animals who just happen to know how to talk, with no sense of a world larger than themselves. No souls.

Now there's something nobody can prove.

reply to post by Silicis n Volvo


Well, although I did say 'governments' I thought it would be pretty obvious I didn't mean China.

Russia, France, Germany to name some