Depopulation is probably the answer. Let’s face facts however as unpleasant as they be. What are t

You could fit every single person on the planet into an area the size of Texas.

And they'd all be dead in a few weeks. Texas barely has enough water for it's 25 million, let alone 7 billion.

Most water on earth is salt water, and most of the fresh water is far from large populations. Aquifers are being used up far faster than they can be replenished. Not to mention that we are running low on rare earths needed for most of our technology, and China has most of the ones that remain.

Scores of countries are overpumping aquifers as they struggle to satisfy their growing water needs, including each of the big three grain producers—China, India, and the United States. These three, along with a number of other countries where water tables are falling, are home to more than half the world’s people.

www.eoearth.org...

Originally posted by anoncoholic
reply to post by TDawgRex

 

My altruistic outlook is bred of my Faith in God not man. Things are as they were meant to be on a learning curve that culminates in a morality of justice. War is the biggest industry because that is all we are exposed to and yet there was never a bullet made that wasn't meant to kill. We are an ingenious species and God gave us diversity to teach us acceptance (if we can't accept the variations of our own species we will never ascend into the cosmic realm of other species and my personal slant on that is that I would love for nothing more than to visit the library of all beings. The amount of wisdom to be found in an interstellar community would exceed even our wildest dreams I'm sure.

And yet man has his own ingenuity and we do perfect that which we put our collective wills to. We have perfected the art of killing - not just one at a time but now have the capability to kill all at the push of buttons.

Rose colored glasses... maybe, but also common sense that tells me that divided amongst ourselves humanity is destined to fail

I do believe in God but I also believe that he has set us upon the wind to find our own path. In our hearts and minds we know what is good and righteous, despite of the religion we are raised in. To many times, mankind has chosen to ignore those voices.

The truth is NOW and to ignore it is to put yourself and your family in perils way.

I ask, what we can do to stop it, or at a minimum, lesson the damage.

I believe that no amount of KumBaya hugging, chanting and projection is going to change things. People are people, and the conflict they themselves chose will never change.

If we as a race are to survive, at some point, there will have to be either communication or war. Either or.

I’d prefer communication, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

Originally posted by FreeFromTheHerd
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

Who will be paying for all of the new infrastructure needed to support all of these new people?

Roads, power generation, water desalinating, etc etc.

If you think its simply about space, lets take a look at Bangladesh. It's roughly the same size as Illinois, but the population is exponentially greater. Think you want that kind of living standard?

As stated in another post, if the US cut their military spending by 10% they'd have enough money to move the economy towards renewable energy and new infrastructure for these things.

You would not have that sort of living standard. India has these problems because they have not updated their infrastructure and have a massive issue with space because of overcrowding.

Most other nations would not have this problem, people are properly spread out and power can be moved from one place to another.

There's plenty of money to do this, plenty, governments just dn't want to spend money on things that help their nations.

~Tenth

reply to post by TDawgRex


If you're name was on the depopulation list, would you still support it?

reply to post by tothetenthpower


I think that if the US Government would cut 10% spending across the board you would end up seeing riots.

Can the military survive a 10% cut? Yep. But can the other programs survive such a cut...I don't think so. Such cuts would require hard decisions. Hence the riots that such a decision would produce.

But a 10% cut across the board would save billions as well...in money anyways. Money which could then be used for infrastructure and paying off the deficit.

Then maybe we could see a improvement.

reply to post by TDawgRex


You don't have to touch anything else but military spending.

You guys spend almost a trillion dollars a year in spending;

Budget breakdown for 2012Defense-related expenditure 2012 Budget request & Mandatory spending[21][22] Calculation[23][24]
DOD spending $707.5 billion Base budget + "Overseas Contingency Operations"
FBI counter-terrorism $2.7 billion At least one-third FBI budget.
International Affairs $5.6–$63.0 billion At minimum, foreign arms sales. At most, entire State budget
Energy Department, defense-related $21.8 billion
Veterans Affairs $70.0 billion
Homeland Security $46.9 billion
NASA, satellites $3.5–$8.7 billion Between 20% and 50% of NASA's total budget
Veterans pensions $54.6 billion
Other defense-related mandatory spending $8.2 billion
Interest on debt incurred in past wars $109.1–$431.5 billion Between 23% and 91% of total interest
Total Spending $1.030–$1.415 trillion

Source

Notice how the bulk of it is listed as DOD Spending "Overseas Contingency Operations"?

That's not at all required. So why look anywhere else but the military? It's that one group that is bleeding your country dry.

~Tenth

Originally posted by Visitor2012
reply to post by TDawgRex

 

If you're name was on the depopulation list, would you still support it?

Well, I'm not going to pop my dome anytime soon, but I have no children, though I have family I love.

To answer you're simplistic question....no. And I wouldn't call for yours either.

I don't support any one being euthanized.

But it still comes to the question of…Can we sustain at the current rate?

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Targeting the DoD has long been a favorite. They are the low hanging fruit after all.

But look at the rest of the programs within the US. or for that matter the rest of the world.

The PIIGS were not that big on military spending and look at where that got them.

And while I am intrigued by your arguments, I must be off to work. Gotta put food on the table after all. Be safe!

reply to post by TDawgRex


PIIGS?

I don't know what you are referring to.

And the rest of the world has similar problems. They just don't spend 10% of the their GDP on a military with no enemy to fight.

Every has problems, moving to a greener, renewable future was never going to be easy, or cheap, but somebody has got to take the lead, and since the US is desperately trying to find it's place as #1 in the world again, it would be good for it to be the leader of these new technologies and ways of living.

Think of all the manufacturing jobs it would create? Think of all the extra revenue that state, federal and local governments would rake in with the building of new infrastructure and what not?

It's very much possible, challenging, but the again, has anything good every been easy?

~Tenth

reply to post by TDawgRex


But doing the wrong thing for the right reason is still wrong. How many potential geniuses had been aborted because of financial and limited spacing concerns?

No, the answer isn't to cull the population by using a war machine industry, but in finding new industry that aids mankind rather than shackles it with dogmatic rule that someone somewhere decides who is worthy of existing.

Had we spent our money and put efforts into space-farming for example we could not only harvest solar energy much more efficiently (and develop means to transmit it via signal as in some researchers trying to develop a cell phone that charges itself off of satellites) but could be growing natural foods that grow even bigger minus our gravity. Artificial gravity is still needed otherwise stalks would be weak and would bend due to the environment it is in but the plants in my opinion would grow bigger with less gravity to overcome and more solar radiation promoting photosynthesis

We could also be deep sea farming, or even rooftop farming if we were packed wall to wall.

Necessity is the mother of invention and only by seeking solutions will we grow beyond our needs. Instead what is promoted is that there is a limit which we self impose upon ourselves and all of society suffers.

How many DU shells can an area sustain before it becomes toxic? How many nukes can we play with before we become so irradiated that our DNA is corrupted? None. That is simple logic and yet we have mega disasters as the fruits of our labors.

Too little too late as far as this current civilization is concerned because we decided long ago that we should have an economy and like everything else in abundance it becomes dirt cheap - human life as well.

I do not subscribe to our chosen path nor do I see a solution within its boundaries. Only by expanding our wealth (the population base) can we truly achieve what is currently unattainable. A stable society - and if you took all emotions bred of our con-questing globally and of many peoples taken as a single entity (humanity) then you would see that this civilization is schizophrenic and it is no wonder we are so dysfunctional.

We reap what we sow and to claim that one is more valuable over the other breeds nothing but contempt hence we have warfare and arms races.

We have evolved into a shameful race of selfish hedonistic ritualistic beings and on the many is more pain and suffering for someone somewhere. This ritual of annihilation of others ... the unwanted "useless eaters" as tptb like to label us is nothing but a game of statistics and they sanitize the immorality by pitting one against the other.

Only by accepting others can we come to accept ourselves as being worthy of survival otherwise it is the same old same old and for the profits of a few the demoralization and hardship of others is our reality..

There will never be world peace in a militarized society.

my .02

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
reply to post by TDawgRex

 

You don't have to touch anything else but military spending.

We all know that. That is the one thing, however, that they never will touch.

That's the problem with pacifism, which Gandhi and MLK both ultimately demonstrated beautifully. You can stop a pacifist very easily, by shooting him; but if you're a pacifist yourself, you can't stop a warmonger, because your own morality won't let you.

reply to post by benrl


Not being funny but dont you think population growth is out of control.... not under??

Just going by what i see on this small island i live..... it may be fine on a huge island like Australia, USA, Africa etc etc but on England, it is spiralling overboard!!

You should change the title of the thread.

I'm not sure there is a "fact" in the entire OP.

Funny how all the "depopulation is the answer" peeps never volunteer to go first.

reply to post by TruthxIsxInxThexMist


you know, a concrete basin that displaces enough water will float so it isn't beyond us to build floating cities that are anchored off coastlines and connected with bridges for traffic to and from.

The problem is that it isn't in the will of the people to expand but to restrict. It would cost $ that those who have won't part with and yet how much would an artificial island be worth in terms of housing alone?

meh, perhaps I am deluded into thinking people would even endorse the effort when it means even more growth. Jobs are scarce and new industry isn't being promoted... but the war machine proliferates globally. In our couple of hundred years of industrial growth we really haven't promoted anything but weaponry which is what all new technologies are developed into first.

I guess I am more a futurist than a realist because it is always about money and we all know those on top (capitalism at its finest) are in control and the money is what is ruling all actions. After all, we do have the best justice system that money can buy, the best government that money can buy, and the best military that money can buy.

We sell ourselves short as a species though when a life is only as valuable as the cost of a bullet.

Originally posted by TDawgRex
It has been said plenty of times that the earth can only provide so much resources.

The arable land upon which to grow crops has been compromised

The problem here is that Nuclear power produces waste that cannot be neutralized anytime soon

Welcome to the world of science where we've established that nature's physical laws are geared toward equilibrium. The only uncomfortable facts about this is that they exist, and they exist to govern all situations, including this, without the requirement for intervention by humanity's god-complex.

I have an unpleasant "fact" for you:

Hard data is still being collected, but experts at the Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit in Chicago this week said an estimated 30 percent to 50 percent of the food produced in the world goes uneaten.

"It's not a situation where you have to massively ramp up production," Woodall told the Reuters Summit. "Even in 2008, when there were hunger riots around the world, there was enough food to feed people, it was just too expensive."

from an article earlier this year

Ehm. No. Solution is - lowering personal consumption and going to Mars. War - not only "what is it good for", it will 100% involve chemical/biological and nuclear weapons and it will make large areas uninhabitable. for centuries and even thousands of years.

So some of you think that the human population should just keep on growing.

WHY?????

For those of us now existing, how exactly do even more people provide some advantage?

And there are those of you who think that because all 7 billion could be fitted into some sort of sardine can, that that proves we are not overpopulated....Shame on you. Use you brain. Ask yourself it you would like to live like that - if that is what you are implying.

And there are those who keep saying this Should be done, that should be done etc. But you have no idea of how these things can be brought about.

And you keep harping on Food, water & power. Which so obviously is a real problem, even today.
But
NO ONE, NOT ONE OF YOU even mentioned garbage disposal, and sewage disposal. This is a HUGE Problem TODAY!!!!! Fecal matter takes a certain amount of time to degrade.
In the meantime,
ALL of Earth's water is polluted with human and animal fecal bacteria.

I'm dead-set against war. It causes suffering and makes existing problems worse. No one has to be eliminated; they just have to stop reproducing at rates faster than natural death occurs.
I'm all for mandatory sterilization of the poor and the masses in 3rd world countries who are today wallowing in their own excrement as we speak. In the short term chemical birth control seems to be a must, as the sterilizing process takes time and there are not enough people to do it.

As to potential geniuses being among the aborted - that is just more fallaceous thinking.
I think some of you must live in a bubble. Come out and take a look at the Real world.

So some of you think that the human population should just keep on growing. WHY?????

Because growth is their religion. Also, caring, thinking and responsibility are too much to ask of some people, because they don't want any responsibility for anything.