Overpopulation, serious political and economical problems

[CRGreathouse]

Amazing encoding but I'm afraid I'm too lazy to decode it. If you type this out in uncoded language, I will read it.

Max, brainstorm: I had no intention of confusing, but just the opposite: trying to learn precisely what was intended by the earlier post.

There are two things Max mentioned: people who don't have kids to get slaves, and people who believe in "going forth and multiplying. There are four natural groups for people to fall into:
1. people who don't have kids to get slaves who believe in "going forth and multiplying.
2. people who do have kids to get slaves who believe in "going forth and multiplying.
3. people who don't have kids to get slaves who don't believe in "going forth and multiplying.
4. people who do have kids to get slaves who don't believe in "going forth and multiplying.

Of these, which do you feel contain at least one person?

 

[Q_Goest]

This is huge, but it's "Everything you wanted to know about research on overpopulation and it's effects".

http://atlas.aaas.org/index.php?part=2

Thanks Evo. I read through the article and I agree overpopulation is one of, if not the biggest issue this world faces. mheslep's contention however, is one I think shouldn't be passed up.

The rate of population growth for the world is slowing. Population (not rate) is actually shrinking in many developed countries, and if not for immigration would be shrinking in many more. So the solution seems to be to encourage development.

I think that's an unusually important fact if it's true. How true it is I'm not sure, but the point seems obvious. I seriously doubt we can turn around and reduce the impact humans have on the Earth. So one solution is to reduce the population, but the question is how.

Projections show a continued rise in population to a level of somewhere between 9 billion and 15 billion, or there abouts, followed by a decline in world population. This trend is illustrated in the graph you provided in post #11 (where'd you get that one anyway?). Is the drop in fertility rate because people will die due to starvation, disease, wars and other issues? Or will population growth control itself as more countries become 'developed'? I've spent some time looking around the net for a decent answer but can't seem to find one. The Wikipedia article on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation" seems to support mheslep's contention that growth is in the undeveloped countries:

- The world population is currently growing by approximately 74 million people per year. Current United Nations predictions estimate that the world population will reach 9.2 billion around 2050, assuming a decrease in average fertility rate from 2.5 down to 2.0.[14][15]
- Almost all growth will take place in the less developed regions, where today’s 5.3 billion population of underdeveloped countries is expected to increase to 7.8 billion in 2050. By contrast, the population of the more developed regions will remain mostly unchanged, at 1.2 billion. An exception is the United States population, which is expected to increase 44% from 305 million in 2008 to 439 million in 2050.[16]

They also provide a graph showing this correlation:

Why is there a negative correlation between development and population growth as shown in this graph. Why should there be lower birth rates in richer countries when compared to poorer countries? And should we consider GDP per capita a good measure of how "developed" a country is? Or is this an issue of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence" ?

I suspect there's a good answer to what it means for a country to be developed, why those countries experience lower fertility rates and what the best solution is to getting the population growth under control. The answer may be as simple as mheslep suggests, that we need to bring the world's population up to the same standards as the 'developed' countries. But even if that were to happen, I'm not convinced that will solve the crisis. The answer I think is out there, but I don't see anyone digging the right answer out of the existing body of research.

 

[brainstorm]

All I have is field work which is based in the "dirty" process of handling reality. I have close-up mouth stenches and dislocated eyes of people wildly out of control, gunshot wounds, and the smell of blood. Not very scientific, in the mathematical and orderly sense, but it leaves an impression.

How do you attribute these visceral experiences to overpopulation or other macro-social imagery without a "(macro)sociological imagination?"

Maybe the problems you witnessed were due to some other factor(s), such as economics, infrastructure, culture, etc.

 

[brainstorm]

Max, brainstorm: I had no intention of confusing, but just the opposite: trying to learn precisely what was intended by the earlier post.

There are two things Max mentioned: people who don't have kids to get slaves, and people who believe in "going forth and multiplying. There are four natural groups for people to fall into:
1. people who don't have kids to get slaves who believe in "going forth and multiplying.
2. people who do have kids to get slaves who believe in "going forth and multiplying.
3. people who don't have kids to get slaves who don't believe in "going forth and multiplying.
4. people who do have kids to get slaves who don't believe in "going forth and multiplying.

Of these, which do you feel contain at least one person?

I logically opposed the two reasons for having kids, although you're right that people could hold both ideologies simultaneously.

My point about "going forth and multiplying," was meant to explain the ideology of having kids that you're simply giving life to new humans, preparing them best you can for adult life, and setting them free to live their own lives for themselves, by their own choice, hoping that they don't end up enslaved by someone else's authority.

Other people do have kids as slaves, though, I think. They basically use their emotional influence over their kids to manipulate things they want from the kids. I doubt many people are so loveless that they only exploit their kids for their own interest, but some may truly not care about or even perceive the interest of their children as independent human beings with a life of their own.

 

[Galteeth]

I don't feel that the answer to world overpopulation is to spread people until every liveable spot on the Earth is packed beyond the ability to sustain them.

I know some people say that sooner or later the issue will resolve itself, massive wars, famine, plagues. Is that how we want to resolve things?

We need to start educating everyone to limit the number of chidren they have.

I strongly agree with you on this. I think most of the ecological problems we have are only catastrophic in terms of continuous population growth. Rather then the goal of lowering living standards, encouraging people to reproduce responsibly seems like a much more reasonable strategy.

I have made the conscious decision not to ever have children. Besides the overpopulation issue, I carry the HLA B27 gene, which has had enormous negative consequences for me personally, and would result in a high probability of such problems for my offspring or their future offspring.

It amazes me that people, even when they learn of my genetic problem, still urge me to have children! Many of these people are the same ones who cry out for government control to reduce consumption in the name of ecology.

The one thing I wonder though: Practically, asking people to lower their standard of living seems like a tough sell. For most people, asking them not to reproduce would be an even tougher sell. Over the long run, of course (the very long run) if such a cultural idea took route, only people who could not be swayed not to reproduce would be left. But luckily we are not dealing with that large a time scale.

I have personally accepted this idea quite readily, although I never found the notion of having children appealing. I wonder if the strong inclination to reproduce (which I don't understand on a subjective personal level, beyond the sexual) is simply too strong to be educated away.

You are a mother. What do you think? Could you have been persuaded not to have children by rational sustainability arguments?

 

[russ_watters]

You are a mother. What do you think? Could you have been persuaded not to have children by rational sustainability arguments?

Yes! ...though "persuaded" is too strong of a word.

There are some dots here that haven't been adequately connected. mhslep's simple solution is also a passive one, which is why it is so powerful. It doesn't require coercion, only education.

-We know population growth is lower in developed regions than undeveloped.
-We know population growth is lower in Europe than in the US (even if you subtract-out immigration). In fact, it is negative in a lot of countries in Europe.
-We know that the US has a larger lower class, due in part to immigration continously replacing a lot of people who move up.
-We know that the first fact doesn't just apply globally, it applies in the US: the poor and less educated have more kids.

Now for the connecting of the dots. The rich/educated don't tend to think about population growth as a reason for not having kids. All they do that the poor don't is be responsible and plan. And the cause/effect relationship works both ways: having a child too young causes poverty. So the solution, with its own built-in feedback mechanism, is to encourage reproductive responsibility in children. The result will be fewer single mothers, higher high school graduation rates, which means a more educated, responsible and productive workforce. And people choosing to have kids later in life - planned - means less population growth.

I believe that girls should be given, at a very young age, implantable birth control. Right now, we play a sill game, arguing against reality and betting on the responsibility of teen-agers, all the while encouraging irresponsibility with birth control. A logical disconnect between birth control education and abstinence education can exist: they are not mutually exclusive. You get a flu shot - does that mean you don't need to wash your hands anymore? Of course not. It helps to use long-term/implantable birth control: by making the birth control implantable, you take away the immediacy of the need. Norplant lasts five years. If you implant it at age 13, you aren't saying your 13 year old should have sex, you are saying that sometime in the next 5 years, she probably will - and when she does, she'll be protected. And you can still teach abstinence in your schools till your heart's content.

 

[brainstorm]

Rather then the goal of lowering living standards, encouraging people to reproduce responsibly seems like a much more reasonable strategy.

There is another view that as material wealth increases, people become more decadent and lethargic, which is not good for their health or resource conservation. Population decline in wealthy, developed regions is being used as a basis for validating some immigration, while controlling it tightly. The result is that there is greater demand for visa permits that supply of sponsors. This in turn means that sponsors can cherry pick people on the basis of personal interests such as getting a household servant, an attractive accessory for outings, etc.

I am in favor of freeer migration, or at least more democratic control over who migrates and why. The more migration control their is, legitimated as population management, the more cherry-picking goes on - bordering on human trafficking.

The one thing I wonder though: Practically, asking people to lower their standard of living seems like a tough sell. For most people, asking them not to reproduce would be an even tougher sell. Over the long run, of course (the very long run) if such a cultural idea took route, only people who could not be swayed not to reproduce would be left. But luckily we are not dealing with that large a time scale.

You can educate people about both choices, but ultimately the choice to have children is an inalienable right. It is built into your body (most of the time) and political interventions that interfere with a fetus once conceived are ethically problematic (unless it's your body that's pregnant, in which case watch out for pressure to choose one way or the other!)

Asking people to lower their standard of living may be a tough sell, but it's nothing new. Economic rationality has always stimulated people to conserve and consume less than they might like to. People limit their consumption in myriad ways for the benefit of their health and their bottom-line. The corollary of economic resource conservation is that there existing production levels can sustain a larger number of consumers.

It's not so much that people HAVE to lower their standard of living to support more people. It's that increasing consumption is a road to obesity (bodily and in terms of lifestyle), so conservation at the level of personal consumption actually promotes the ability to consume sustainably for a greater number of people.

Have you also noticed that lifestyles associated with higher classes and standards of living are typically more conservative and measured in terms of consumption, with a greater emphasis on management and preservation of resources and economic saving rather than spending? This is a by-product of the invisible hand of capitalism. More wealth stimulates more savings, which stimulates more conservative lifestyles that allow for more happiness with less spending. Of course, there's this bridge people have to cross of liberal consumption and enjoying their newfound wealth when it is the result of social mobility from poverty and desperation.

Now for the connecting of the dots. The rich/educated don't tend to think about population growth as a reason for not having kids. All they do that the poor don't is be responsible and plan. And the cause/effect relationship works both ways: having a child too young causes poverty. So the solution, with its own built-in feedback mechanism, is to encourage reproductive responsibility in children. The result will be fewer single mothers, higher high school graduation rates, which means a more educated, responsible and productive workforce. And people choosing to have kids later in life - planned - means less population growth.

Another way to look at this is that having kids is a means to pass on cultural knowledge and wisdom you have acquired and developed in your life. Having kids young is logical if you're poor and unemployed or underemployed, because children are the most precious wealth of all and you already own the mine/factory to produce them. Obviously this is a materialist view of children, which decreases as people get their materialism under control. At that point, having kids becomes a means of preserving cultural wealth and extending your ability to contribute positively to the world by passing on your competencies and wisdom to younger people (such as your own children).

You can pass on culture by becoming a teacher too, but having children goes one step further in that you're giving someone the ability to identify with you as their true parent. I suppose this can also be done through adoption, but I always find it a little sad that people have to give up their kids for adoption because of social-economic circumstances. It makes me question why there wasn't a means for them to combine work with parenthood - unless of course they decided that they just really didn't want to be a parent and this would have negative effects on the child to stay with them. I'm sure people must regret it at some point when/if they do realize the value of having kids.

 

[mheslep]

Yes! ...though "persuaded" is too strong of a word.

There are some dots here that haven't been adequately connected. mhslep's simple solution is also a passive one, which is why it is so powerful. It doesn't require coercion, only education...

Yes, though I'd add wealth or some economic system that makes a modicum of wealth widely available. Probably the two - education and a minimum standard of living - most always go together. If, however, a woman happens somehow into the unlikely position of being be well educated but having no recourse other than living in a hut, cooking from wood fires and is otherwise reliant on male muscle mass for protection and means, then I expect her main role in the society is still going to be one of baby maker in chief for the tribe.

 

[russ_watters]

Without evidence, I'm not willing to accept that a society can be highly educated and still be poor. I don't think that has ever happened and the course of human development seems to imply it can't be that way.

 

[mheslep]

Without evidence, I'm not willing to accept that a society can be highly educated and still be poor. I don't think that has ever happened and the course of human development seems to imply it can't be that way.

I agree in that I can't think any such cases, but neither can I prove it can't be the case, thus I include standard of living along with education.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Is anyone reading this book? I am thinking about getting it

The Coming Population Crash: and Our Planet's Surprising Future
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0807085839/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[brainstorm]

Without evidence, I'm not willing to accept that a society can be highly educated and still be poor. I don't think that has ever happened and the course of human development seems to imply it can't be that way.

Wealth and poverty are culturally relative to a large extent. There are certain material bases for wealth, such as good nutrition, good protection from the elements, access to good health and longevity. But beyond that, wealth is largely symbolic, defined by status-attribution and class/caste hierarchies.

The division of people into classes brings with it differentiation in culture and skills such that certain people get prescribed some forms of work and others are free to do more desirable work or even simply consume a leisurely lifestyle.

Education and technological advances make it possible to accomplish more with less labor, and therefore they make it possible for larger numbers of people to enjoy more free time and consume more non-essential goods and service, but that also requires more labor, which in turn requires a larger class of workers/servants.

So, yes, education does reduce poverty but in doing so it also increases the need for a larger class of servants and workers to provide the wealth and status that is enjoyed by those with the privilege to do so. Reduction of poverty is the dream of wealth without servitude and hard labor but it is not ultimately possible unless the privileged give up the privilege of having other people perform the labor needed to supply them with the myriad goods and services that makes their wealthy lifestyle what it is.

 

[Frame Dragger]

Well, no need to worry given the way education is going. I believe it's currently around the, "You got a perty mouth boy!" level. :yech:

 

[brainstorm]

Well, no need to worry given the way education is going. I believe it's currently around the, "You got a perty mouth boy!" level. :yech:

I disagree. I think the media developments of the 20th century vastly increased basic cultural literacy, with most people gaining a wide variety of vicarious experiences through TV, radio, and print. Now, internet has added new dimensions. What you are referring to, I think, is the tendency for people to be overwhelmed by their cultural knowledge and retract into traditional expressions of culture to seek protection from the cosmopolitanism they have discovered to feel threatening. Education and culture can have peculiar effects.

 

[Frame Dragger]

I disagree. I think the media developments of the 20th century vastly increased basic cultural literacy, with most people gaining a wide variety of vicarious experiences through TV, radio, and print. Now, internet has added new dimensions. What you are referring to, I think, is the tendency for people to be overwhelmed by their cultural knowledge and retract into traditional expressions of culture to seek protection from the cosmopolitanism they have discovered to feel threatening. Education and culture can have peculiar effects.

I was being sarcastic as hell, to be fair (quoting Deliverene is a hint there). I see this as a little bit of knowledge being dangerous, and confusing. For all that people can be educated, sometimes they dont' want it. The result however, is the same: willfull ignorance and misinformation: Texas publishing creationism alongside evolution.

Hell, you have to know how and where to look online or that vast library is spread so thin that you may be fatally misinformed by the time you get to a real source. Look at PF! Look at how many cranks and genuinely confused people come through here. People are RETREATING from the world because it isn't what they thought it was, or wanted it to be. There are too many people, and the bell curve meeans that we're getting a majority in the MIDDLE.

Some people, are too stupid to learn, or want to learn. Others are too afraid of what they learn, or the need to keep an open yet skeptical mind. This is with 6 billion on the planet... how the hell are we going to teach and mange 9 billion?! Yes, more people have access to more information than ever before, and more misinformation, manipulation, and fear. Given how we behave as societies, I'm not seeing a vast improvemnt. We're literally choking ourselves to death through breeding, and we don't have the wit or will to stop it. What more needs to be said in the end?

EDIT: A question: In a world where every person didn't have the ability to "Weigh in" on saaaaay, fetal stem cell research... would the research have been crippled for so long? How much does public outrage and kneejerk reaction, prejudice and fear allow them to halt progress that has USUALLY been free of public scrutiny? What is the effect of say... Deepak Chopra vs. Stephen Hawking? People have access to both, but one is essentially hacking into their heads for cash, and the other is a hero to some, a curiosity to others, but to most is "The dude in the chair with the robot voice and the black hole book, right?"

 

[brainstorm]

I was being sarcastic as hell, to be fair (quoting Deliverene is a hint there). I see this as a little bit of knowledge being dangerous, and confusing. For all that people can be educated, sometimes they dont' want it. The result however, is the same: willfull ignorance and misinformation: Texas publishing creationism alongside evolution.

Hell, you have to know how and where to look online or that vast library is spread so thin that you may be fatally misinformed by the time you get to a real source. Look at PF! Look at how many cranks and genuinely confused people come through here. People are RETREATING from the world because it isn't what they thought it was, or wanted it to be. There are too many people, and the bell curve meeans that we're getting a majority in the MIDDLE.

Some people, are too stupid to learn, or want to learn. Others are too afraid of what they learn, or the need to keep an open yet skeptical mind. This is with 6 billion on the planet... how the hell are we going to teach and mange 9 billion?! Yes, more people have access to more information than ever before, and more misinformation, manipulation, and fear. Given how we behave as societies, I'm not seeing a vast improvemnt. We're literally choking ourselves to death through breeding, and we don't have the wit or will to stop it. What more needs to be said in the end?

EDIT: A question: In a world where every person didn't have the ability to "Weigh in" on saaaaay, fetal stem cell research... would the research have been crippled for so long? How much does public outrage and kneejerk reaction, prejudice and fear allow them to halt progress that has USUALLY been free of public scrutiny? What is the effect of say... Deepak Chopra vs. Stephen Hawking? People have access to both, but one is essentially hacking into their heads for cash, and the other is a hero to some, a curiosity to others, but to most is "The dude in the chair with the robot voice and the black hole book, right?"

Your pain and fear come across in your post. Your mind will probably never let you do it, but you should try to refocus on the micro level instead of relating everything that upsets or disappoints you to the idea of global population, which does not exist simultaneously in time or space except to the extent that they connect through translocal media and economic trade networks. If anyone is "choking through breeding," it is not the people concerned with overpopulation, who are usually choking through anxiety of imagined threats from a relatively isolated position of privilege far away from "the breeders."

Fetal stem cell research is treasured in popular media for a reason. It combines those two most sensational of topics relevant to everyone alive: birth and death. It is the myth of vampirism: eternal youth through consumption of others' blood. It is a point of battle between Christians and atheists insofar as Christians accept suffering and death as sources of spiritual liberation and atheists reject spiritual liberation as a cheap substitute for alleviation of suffering and death.

One thing you should understand is that there are people who aren't stupid, who still see the ideologies of anti-reproduction and stem-cell rejuvenation as terrors. They believe that having children and families is good and they distrust medical technologies that are related to derivation from fetal tissue. Maybe you would have more success in promoting your point of view if you stepped outside of it for a little while and looked at it through the eyes of others - and while you're at it try giving some thought to why religion and family are appealing. You might avoid getting brainwashed and even come up with some cultural reforms that support your point of view without totally alienating them in theirs.

 

[Frame Dragger]

Your pain and fear come across in your post. Your mind will probably never let you do it, but you should try to refocus on the micro level instead of relating everything that upsets or disappoints you to the idea of global population, which does not exist simultaneously in time or space except to the extent that they connect through translocal media and economic trade networks. If anyone is "choking through breeding," it is not the people concerned with overpopulation, who are usually choking through anxiety of imagined threats from a relatively isolated position of privilege far away from "the breeders."

Fetal stem cell research is treasured in popular media for a reason. It combines those two most sensational of topics relevant to everyone alive: birth and death. It is the myth of vampirism: eternal youth through consumption of others' blood. It is a point of battle between Christians and atheists insofar as Christians accept suffering and death as sources of spiritual liberation and atheists reject spiritual liberation as a cheap substitute for alleviation of suffering and death.

One thing you should understand is that there are people who aren't stupid, who still see the ideologies of anti-reproduction and stem-cell rejuvenation as terrors. They believe that having children and families is good and they distrust medical technologies that are related to derivation from fetal tissue. Maybe you would have more success in promoting your point of view if you stepped outside of it for a little while and looked at it through the eyes of others - and while you're at it try giving some thought to why religion and family are appealing. You might avoid getting brainwashed and even come up with some cultural reforms that support your point of view without totally alienating them in theirs.

You are right about the pain and fear brainstorm, and usually I do just what you describe. Sometimes however, it's a little difficult to keep perspective in these matters, and accept the lack of control intrinsic in the human condition. I've met people who are willing to discuss these matters reasonably (you're clearly such a person), but they are few and far between.

It's difficult to be aware of both micro and macro suffering, when you genuinely feel for people, and other animals. Part of the problem is that these issues have become so polarized that many people don't even want to consider that there isn't a clear moral answer. I want to live in the privelage you describe... I don't want to lose what I have, even as I recognize that what I have is more than I need, and wasteful.

In the end, I refuse to accept that there is one right answer to this... I would rather be afraid and in pain than, as you say, be brainwashed (even by myself). After so many years of trying to communicate with people through "brute force" (not violence), subtlety, and direct honesty... it's tiring. Sometimes, I don't live up to my own standards, and being human it's very hard not to demonize faceless masses which, in the end, I'm a part of.

I used to have exactly the issues you describe: As a kid I was a devout atheist, for no reason. I still don't believe in anything, but I no longer have faith in nothing either. I'm agnostic, and skeptical, and too often I'm harsh. I don't believe that morality is absolute, but I wish to act morally. I live with contradiction and dissonance to avoid clinging to an extreme as so many do, for comfort and a sense of belonging.

Often, this allows me to be diplomatic, and see points of view that I would otherwise never consider. Sometimes, I don't bear so well with the load and I return to older patterns of behaviour... my comfort in essence... in a feeling of SOME kind of certainty. I recognize, even as I'm doing it, how pointless it is to simply lash out at people. That said, I'm only human too, and while I'm not a child or a teen, I'm not a wise old man either. I'm just trying to get by in a world that makes very little sense, filled with people who fundamentally confuse me with their hatreds and prejudice. The fact that there are so many good and interesting people (bright AND dim) who have something to offer is a comfort, and a scourge.

On a less personal and perhaps more relevant note, although I felt it worth aknowledging your insight, overpopulation truly is killing us. I don't mean to say that wer're about to run out of space to put people, or food. Hell, there is fairly decent technology being tested now which will scale with population growth to produce food, recover phosphorus from waste, etc. That said, we're wiping out species of plant animal and other so quickly we can't keep track of the loss. One of our most basic drives is survival and reproduction, and to take that from someone is monstrous. The alternative is universal public awareness of the problem... and I just cannot imagine that happening.

What I CAN imagine, is that fear you talked about being VERY real in some regions. If you need water, it doesn't matter if desalination plants exist if you depend on a river which is polluted, or divererted, or "overshared". Wars are fought over this, from the individual level onwards to nations. More people also means more hosts for lethal disease, or more people at a ground-zero for an earthquake, or volcano, or any other of a hundred natual disasters. This means that we need to respond to these people's plight, or leave them to die or be homeless, or simply suffer.

Yes, we could take a radical turn towards some kind of enlightened self-interest, but I don't think that the world is that "flat" (to quote Thomas Friedman) yet. Finally... these people want good lives, and they can say just how well people are living, and how they got that money and power. How do you tell people that their aspirations are out of reach (for most), but for no better reason than luck of the draw and expect peace?

Culture isn't universal, it's different everywhere you go. How you reform such a thing, for so many is hard to imagine. How do you steer people in the face of politicians and clever businessmen/women who use fear as a goad? How do you convince people who are your equal in their humanity that your culture is superior or necessary? How do you know that what you're doing then, isn't simple tyranny?

Finally, why is a family and religion comforting...
I see the two as very different, but connected in at least two points; a religion IS an extended family, just like being a firefighter or a soldier or a Tea-Partier or a Mason. It's a way to belong to people who (presumably) share your cultural values, and perhaps a similar upbringing. It's a way to sequester oneself from the reality that we're so spoiled for choice it can be paralytic. Family can do the same things, but it's also a continuation of one's genetic line, and an expectation of stablity in an unstable world. Both provide real comfort for people who believe in them, and frankly it's the nature of life to procreate. It's satisfying to eat, or sleep, and it's satisfying to fall in love, and form a (hopefully) lasting union with someone.

People are social animals, who want to feel connected to other people, and sharing what are perceived as core beliefs is deeply comforting. The comfort is real, but it stems from an illusion. If you have experienced enough of life, and are able to access information through libraries (brick & mortar and online) it is hard to accept those comforting illusions. People lose faith in their government, their churches/temples, and their spouses/lovers. Then you're left with a shell which is no longer a comfort, but a hinderence to clear thought. If you enter a relationship with the understanding of what you're gettng, and offering... it's better than flitting from fantasy to fantasy.

The downside is that... it all wears you down, and we all have buttons. For me, people hurting each other, and animals for the sake of survival, ideology, greed, desperation, and sometimes sociopathy... is my button. It's unfortunate that some of the most destructive people are least able to appreciate the damage they cause (W. Bush for instance), and then people who support them can be equally difficult to reach. Yes, there are great people in the world, and it's worth living for them, and for the sake of life itself. That doesn't make me immune from losing my cool out of sheer frusteration accumulated over years of seeing people DECIDE (whether they're aware or not) to coose a set view, and not leave it. I've got a friend who's dying because of his faith, and I don't mean that figuratively. I'm not going to get into details, but to attack their faith and convince them to live would be to attack a central part of who he is. It's not possible, without breaking the man... so he's going to die, slowly and painfully because he needed comfort and certainty more than he wants to open his mind to other possibilities. He's not stupid, but he's still killing himself in the end.

I understand him, and I understand why he's doing this. I know he WANTS to live, but I also know that he doesn't want to live under some circumstances; for me, that's a Persitant Vegitative State, for him, it's a transplant. I honestly understand him, and it just hurts me more. So... sometimes I don't handle it as well as I should, but I never claimed to be a saint.

 

[brainstorm]

From your post, you sound like a very deeply thoughtful person who is caught between skepticism in many things and strong conviction and uncritical assumptions in others. I think your honesty and concern are strengths no matter how much I may disagree with you on certain ideas and attitudes. I could respond in length to so many things from your post but I'm just going to choose one paragraph:

The downside is that... it all wears you down, and we all have buttons. For me, people hurting each other, and animals for the sake of survival, ideology, greed, desperation, and sometimes sociopathy... is my button. It's unfortunate that some of the most destructive people are least able to appreciate the damage they cause (W. Bush for instance), and then people who support them can be equally difficult to reach. Yes, there are great people in the world, and it's worth living for them, and for the sake of life itself. That doesn't make me immune from losing my cool out of sheer frusteration accumulated over years of seeing people DECIDE (whether they're aware or not) to coose a set view, and not leave it.

I can just tell you that overpopulation concerns were something I was not able to reflect on as a damaging ideology for a long time because I was not aware that it was an ideology at all. People who are in no direct danger still react to the imagery of overpopulation as if it were a direct threat. To me this is a type of macro-obsession where people get overwhelmed with interpreting the details of their everyday experiences, often because of the analytical complexity they interpolate into them. As a result they come to desire simplicity and peace of mind, but they can't distinguish simplicity of mind from simplicity of material/social environment and so they blame the world they perceive and the "masses" of people for their feeling of being overwhelmed by them. As you said, there are cultural and resource fixes to prevent most if not all the problems blamed on "overpopulation" but it's harder to see that there are also cognitive fixes for the problem of being overwhelmed by globalism and its discontents.

Part of your frustration, I think, is caused by your feeling that you have to carry the weight of the world in all its complexity. It may help you to realize that every individual, yourself included, is the center of a relatively limited subset of global humanity. The irony of that, however, is that the amount of information you receive at your node contains everything necessary to generate the feeling of being bombarded by the global everything that is accessible to your mind through media, analytical interpolation of personal experiences, etc. You're mind's ability to synthesize and make connections between knowledge from diverse sources is what produces the effect that you experience of "choking on population." It is not a material problem but a subjective one. It's like when people are exposed to excessive amounts of propaganda of espionage and begin to suspect everyone of being a spy. I'm not saying that you're particularly insane, because it is a common condition, but I think it is a condition of common insanity.

I think it would help you to realize your position of relative security and stability as not being directly or even indirectly threatened. How does the saying go, "nothing to fear but fear itself." Then, if you still want to study and address global, local, or glocal problems, go ahead, but try to be more critical about identifying how much of the problem is perceived by you because of media and how much is direct experience. Also try to become conscious of how your direct experiences are colored by interpolation of knowledge derived from media. Then do some thought experiments to examine how you might interpolate your everyday experiences differently if you thought about them differently because you had been exposed to different media texts or otherwise. I'm not saying that you should erase your interpolative RAM drive completely - just be more mindful of how it works and how its possible to be tricked into interpreting immediate events according to mediated frameworks. To give an extreme example, think of people who panicked during the War of the Worlds broadcast in which Martians were supposedly invading Earth. If someone had simply questioned the media with reference to direct experience, they would have questioned that anyone was invading, much less Martians. Then there are the people who see a UFO and think its secret military activity or alien beings. It's just a UFO because it's unidentified and flying; interpolating it beyond that is speculative.

I hope you don't consider this advice insulting. I'm really not trying to say you're crazy; just that when people AREN'T crazy, they are often the most susceptible to interpolating legitimate media imagery into their immediate reality in a way that conflates direct reality with mediated reality.

 

[Frame Dragger]

From your post, you sound like a very deeply thoughtful person who is caught between skepticism in many things and strong conviction and uncritical assumptions in others. I think your honesty and concern are strengths no matter how much I may disagree with you on certain ideas and attitudes. I could respond in length to so many things from your post but I'm just going to choose one paragraph:



I can just tell you that overpopulation concerns were something I was not able to reflect on as a damaging ideology for a long time because I was not aware that it was an ideology at all. People who are in no direct danger still react to the imagery of overpopulation as if it were a direct threat. To me this is a type of macro-obsession where people get overwhelmed with interpreting the details of their everyday experiences, often because of the analytical complexity they interpolate into them. As a result they come to desire simplicity and peace of mind, but they can't distinguish simplicity of mind from simplicity of material/social environment and so they blame the world they perceive and the "masses" of people for their feeling of being overwhelmed by them. As you said, there are cultural and resource fixes to prevent most if not all the problems blamed on "overpopulation" but it's harder to see that there are also cognitive fixes for the problem of being overwhelmed by globalism and its discontents.

Part of your frustration, I think, is caused by your feeling that you have to carry the weight of the world in all its complexity. It may help you to realize that every individual, yourself included, is the center of a relatively limited subset of global humanity. The irony of that, however, is that the amount of information you receive at your node contains everything necessary to generate the feeling of being bombarded by the global everything that is accessible to your mind through media, analytical interpolation of personal experiences, etc. You're mind's ability to synthesize and make connections between knowledge from diverse sources is what produces the effect that you experience of "choking on population." It is not a material problem but a subjective one. It's like when people are exposed to excessive amounts of propaganda of espionage and begin to suspect everyone of being a spy. I'm not saying that you're particularly insane, because it is a common condition, but I think it is a condition of common insanity.

I think it would help you to realize your position of relative security and stability as not being directly or even indirectly threatened. How does the saying go, "nothing to fear but fear itself." Then, if you still want to study and address global, local, or glocal problems, go ahead, but try to be more critical about identifying how much of the problem is perceived by you because of media and how much is direct experience. Also try to become conscious of how your direct experiences are colored by interpolation of knowledge derived from media. Then do some thought experiments to examine how you might interpolate your everyday experiences differently if you thought about them differently because you had been exposed to different media texts or otherwise. I'm not saying that you should erase your interpolative RAM drive completely - just be more mindful of how it works and how its possible to be tricked into interpreting immediate events according to mediated frameworks. To give an extreme example, think of people who panicked during the War of the Worlds broadcast in which Martians were supposedly invading Earth. If someone had simply questioned the media with reference to direct experience, they would have questioned that anyone was invading, much less Martians. Then there are the people who see a UFO and think its secret military activity or alien beings. It's just a UFO because it's unidentified and flying; interpolating it beyond that is speculative.

I hope you don't consider this advice insulting. I'm really not trying to say you're crazy; just that when people AREN'T crazy, they are often the most susceptible to interpolating legitimate media imagery into their immediate reality in a way that conflates direct reality with mediated reality.

I never consider good advice, given clearly and with no malice to be insulting. I also know enough to be aware that I'm not insane, but perhaps "traumatized" would be a valid description. You're right, and I already am painfully aware that I can only control those things which do. It's been a long time since I thought that facing a (real or perceived) grim reality was anything but destructive. In short, I take "Battle not with monsters lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss the abyss gazes also into you." (Friedrich Nietzsche) VERY seriously.

As for the notion of Overpopulation as an ideology, the problem is that it's both a local reality for some, and a kind of basic panic unrelated to reality. There is little that is as difficult as separating a frightening reality from a terrifying mass-fantasy. I will say this: outside of a discussion on the matter, I don't concern myself with overpopulation, global warming/cooling/etc... or any of the other myriad issues over which my control is limited to living my life.

As for my personal position in life being threatened, you're absolutely right, but I've also traveled a great deal, and seen the other extremes. For the record, I'm not talking about a jaunt to Cancun when I was 21 (which I didn't do anyway), but Guatemala in the early 90's after (yet another) mini-pogrom. I've seen how closely people in relative comfort live to people with (real example) a woman dying on the street from syphilis (third stage), and that was not bad by some comparisons I've also seen. Unfortunately I saw much of this when I was young, and those things make an impression for a lifetime, regardless of how much reason one applies to them.

The kicker is... I have compassion. It's not just a matter of selfishly wanting what I have, but also empathy for people I've seen, slat-ribbed dogs I gave my food to, etc... and that doesn't go away. In short, this is why I tend NOT to watch news, and get my information directly... well... it's also pure crap now, and designed to induce fear. As you say however, short of a several stiff courses of ECT on "high" there is no erasing even portions of the old drive.

As for the rest, we're each burdened with what complexity we can grasp and, as you so rightly said, interpolate, interpret, predict, guess, and fear. As for fearing fear itself, that is good, but there are other things to fear: the manner of your death and those you care for, the fear in some other people which is not tempered by reason OR compassion, people who profit (in every way) from fear, the loss of freedom for yourself and others... etc.

Frankly, I've long since recognized that the media uses fear as a simple goad to stay connected to more media! That said, I'm only human, and sometimes the reality is grim too, even if it isn't apocalyptic. I'm much more sad than I am afraid, and some of that is simple: Take Haiti for instance: Why did that earthquake kill so many? There are of course, a number of reasons, but the biggest is: There are a LOT of people in a SMALL area. See earthquakes in China, or here. Yes, it's still a matter of scale, but they are real people with families and friends.

Now, does this mean I watched coverage of it? No, hell no. Does it mean that I found it impossible to shut away knowledge of what that kind of trauma does to people? No again. Consider then, how frightening it is to realize just how VERY local one's reach is, barring extreme success or donation of TIME as well as money. I'm not that selfless either, because I DO like my life.

That said... we are causing a mass extinction of other species, and while that is not unnatural, it's no less grim. We may very well manage to kill ourselves as our growing population reasonably aspires to have such luxuries as... a low infant mortality rate, some clean water, and maybe a bit less Malaria. So... skepticism, and conviction, but uncritical?... I don't think so. I do sometimes fail to meet by own expectations and make broad generalizations that are clearly untrue (people are stupid, being an example from this thread), but I'm aware of that, even as an old defensive reflex activates.

It is hard not to homogenize people who want to enforce their views of the world on you, or to demonize them. Motivations have many commonalities (M.I.C.E. for example), but they are still fundamentally individual. One cannot reason with a "mass", and of course, that is a defense in and of itself. If I "can't" than I don't "have to". I fear people like me, who grew up too quickly for no better reason than their own heads, but who lack "honesty and concern". I fear people who are so deeply ideological that they are unwilling or unable to consider other views.

Above all I fear the people who use that fear as a lever to move whole populations, and I fear myself for being someone who could do that as well. That brings me back to Nietzsche... I don't believe that you can wield fear as a tool without becoming afraid and insular, anymore than you can lie constantly and trust others. Overpopulation is very relative, but one way or another I fear the human and natural response to the reality or perception of it.

THAT said... I'm not ruled by fear, but I'm aware of the lessons of history. Nobody is easier to manipulate than someone who is terrified, and no one is more beloved than someone who delivers you from that same fear. A larger population + Information tech = Power. Power that isn't good or bad, but just is. Reasonable people respect and fear power that dwarfes them. Remember in what contexts that talk of fearing fear has been used... they are not happy ones.

In the end, it's mostly sadness for others, and empathy which I try to keep on "low", but is nonetheless, present... which I experience. The flipside of that, is anger, which I also try to control. The natural middle which the mind flees to, is generalization. Is it any wonder that people who were already primed with fear, became terrified by WoTW? I wouldn't be in the streets in that situation (big "S" Skepticism)... I wouldn't be afraid of martians, I would be TERRIFIED of the people who DID react. I think the application of that to modern situations is also applicable.

There is nothing to fear, but the people who are ruled by it, and those who rule with it. Remember what Voltaire said? "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you committ atrocities." I'm not afraid of someone with brown skin and a beard blowing me out of the sky... I'm afraid of the people who sent them, and mostly of the people on my end of things who divert resources fighting what are mostly phantoms. We're fighting terrorists by terrifying our populace unreasonably? Well, it's good for some business, but it's doing real damage to how people view the world.

So, I suspect that, as you say, we probably have deep philosophical and practical disagreements, but for what it's worth, I wish you had been there to give me this advice about 20 years ago. I'm not insulted in the slightest, and your intent is clearly beneficent. Just in case I've given you the impression that this represents the totality of who I am, let me reassure you that it is only in the fairly limited context of intellectual discussions. At any other time, I simply recognize that I'm human, with a human's scope and ability to effect events locally or globally. Mostly I concern myself with friends, family, and animals.

 

[mheslep]

Mark Steyn, author of a book on immigration and the clash of civilizations, interview http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=MjE5OTdmOTc2N2IzZWI0NmI1Y2FjZDVlNTEzYzJmYTU=" .
Some of the claims I found striking:

• Birthrate of ethnic Europeans: 1.3
• States like Germany, Japan have upside down family trees: four grandparents, two parents (children of grandparents), one child.
• Birthrate of Moslem immigrants to Europe (rough estimate): 3.5
• 40% of German female university graduates are childless.

 

[brainstorm]

Mark Steyn, author of a book on immigration and the clash of civilizations, interview http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=MjE5OTdmOTc2N2IzZWI0NmI1Y2FjZDVlNTEzYzJmYTU=" .
Some of the claims I found striking:

• Birthrate of ethnic Europeans: 1.3
• States like Germany, Japan have upside down family trees: four grandparents, two parents (children of grandparents), one child.
• Birthrate of Moslem immigrants to Europe (rough estimate): 3.5
• 40% of German female university graduates are childless.

How are Muslims not ethnic Europeans? Europe is a continent and Islam is a religion. Why wouldn't you compare Christian Europeans with Muslim Europeans, if you're making a comparison. Also, "net population growth" means immigration - emigration + birth rate. There are always people emigrating and immigrating in any region. That's why I prefer to talk about "migration" rather than "immigration" or "emigration," since those make reference to arbitrary regional boundaries instead of individuals who migrate in a variety of ways all the time.

 

[Frame Dragger]

Yeah, and Germany isn't exactly "immigrant heaven" either...

 

[mheslep]

How are Muslims not ethnic Europeans?

Immigrant Muslims are by definition not ethnic Europeans:
ethnic: pertaining to or characteristic of a people, esp. a group (ethnic group) sharing a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like.
There are some two millennia of culture caught up in the definition of ethnic European.

Europe is a continent and Islam is a religion. Why wouldn't you compare Christian Europeans with Muslim Europeans, if you're making a comparison.

Muslim <> Islam

Also, "net population growth" means immigration - emigration + birth rate. There are always people emigrating and immigrating in any region. That's why I prefer to talk about "migration" rather than "immigration" or "emigration," since those make reference to arbitrary regional boundaries instead of individuals who migrate in a variety of ways all the time.

Immigration rates and birth rates of the immigrants are not the same in any region. The point is within a couple of generations, if the current rates hold, there won't be much of an ethnic Europe left.

 

[mheslep]

Yeah, and Germany isn't exactly "immigrant heaven" either...

Meaning what? Germany doesn't have many, or German immigrants have a difficult time in the society, what?

 

[Frame Dragger]

Meaning what? Germany doesn't have many, or German immigrants have a difficult time in the society, what?

Meaning precisely what I said... I don't believe clarification will lead to anything, but a fight. A better question might be:

why does THIS:

The point is within a couple of generations, if the current rates hold, there won't be much of an ethnic Europe left.

matter? Am I to understand you have a particular vision of how European ethnicity should be defined/controled? What does ANY of this have to do with overpoplation?

Your equivocation of "muslim immigrants" with an actual RACIAL group, is silly. One is a religion, the other is not. You could be a muslim immigrant from the UK, or you could be from Iran... your statistics are not illuminating in that regard. In fact, I'm hard-pressed to see a point in your statements other than the kind of anti-islamic hysteria much of western europe (and the USA to be fair) is engaged in.

 

[brainstorm]

Immigrant Muslims are by definition not ethnic Europeans:
ethnic: pertaining to or characteristic of a people, esp. a group (ethnic group) sharing a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like.
There are some two millennia of culture caught up in the definition of ethnic European.

When it comes to discourse aimed at increasing the inertia of ethnic identity through historiography, etc., Europe is certainly full of it. I don't know why I bother to try to explain repeatedly how all these discourses of ethnic history, culture, identity, etc. all have a propaganda function of creating group solidarity and, ultimately war - because people who buy into it are constantly at war in their heads anyway.

Europe is just land. Anyone could go or leave that land in the absence of all the institutionalization and gatekeeping. Ethnicity is an individual cultural identity. Yes, people utilize their ethnic identity as a basis for bonding together with others for various reasons, but ultimately individuals think, feel, and act as individuals individually. Groupists hate that because they can't stand to take responsibility for their own choices and they're desperately afraid of being singled out from the collectivities they imagine themselves as part of all the time.

That said, Islam is no different than Christianity, Judaism, or secular nationalism in terms of cultures practiced in Europe. The difference with Islam is that it has been racialized the way Judaism was prior to WWII (and still is, actually). Christianity is under attack by secular nationalism/socialism as backward (and now pedophilic), but it is not racialized the way Muslims and Jews are. Ironically, I've read some current critique of Islam that it's not a religion because it's an entire way of life - this is ironic because it is how many people view national socialist culture. Let's just say that Europe has some problems with territorialism and conflict.

Muslim <> Islam

Immigration rates and birth rates of the immigrants are not the same in any region. The point is within a couple of generations, if the current rates hold, there won't be much of an ethnic Europe left.

Trying to stir up an ethnic war, are you? In a couple of generations, EU integration will hopefully be to the point where regional territorialism of ethnic nation-states is no longer an issue. People will hopefully be able to continue preserving ethnic and language diversity, but the will to cling to geographical territory will hopefully lesson.

As this happens, it should be easier for Muslims or any other religious/ethnic minority to integrate into the diversity. Hopefully EU social-economic politics will also find a way to be less fortress-like, which would make it easier to have better global social-economic integration that will allow people to migrate freely among all continents without fear of ethnic discrimination or culture/language loss. People tell me this is an unrealistic dream whenever I tell them about it, but in truth ethnic-nationalism and social-authoritarianism are unrealistic dreams in that they have proven unsustainable at so many levels, from individual-psychological to economics to ethnic conflicts.

There simply has to be evolution where people can preserve language, culture, and ethnic identity without separatism, economic exploitation, discrimination, war, etc.

Attempting to police reproduction on a per-ethnicity basis is only going to increase ethnic conflict and hatred and make multiethnic integration more painful.

 

[Frame Dragger]

When it comes to discourse aimed at increasing the inertia of ethnic identity through historiography, etc., Europe is certainly full of it. I don't know why I bother to try to explain repeatedly how all these discourses of ethnic history, culture, identity, etc. all have a propaganda function of creating group solidarity and, ultimately war - because people who buy into it are constantly at war in their heads anyway.

Europe is just land. Anyone could go or leave that land in the absence of all the institutionalization and gatekeeping. Ethnicity is an individual cultural identity. Yes, people utilize their ethnic identity as a basis for bonding together with others for various reasons, but ultimately individuals think, feel, and act as individuals individually. Groupists hate that because they can't stand to take responsibility for their own choices and they're desperately afraid of being singled out from the collectivities they imagine themselves as part of all the time.

That said, Islam is no different than Christianity, Judaism, or secular nationalism in terms of cultures practiced in Europe. The difference with Islam is that it has been racialized the way Judaism was prior to WWII (and still is, actually). Christianity is under attack by secular nationalism/socialism as backward (and now pedophilic), but it is not racialized the way Muslims and Jews are. Ironically, I've read some current critique of Islam that it's not a religion because it's an entire way of life - this is ironic because it is how many people view national socialist culture. Let's just say that Europe has some problems with territorialism and conflict.



Trying to stir up an ethnic war, are you? In a couple of generations, EU integration will hopefully be to the point where regional territorialism of ethnic nation-states is no longer an issue. People will hopefully be able to continue preserving ethnic and language diversity, but the will to cling to geographical territory will hopefully lesson.

As this happens, it should be easier for Muslims or any other religious/ethnic minority to integrate into the diversity. Hopefully EU social-economic politics will also find a way to be less fortress-like, which would make it easier to have better global social-economic integration that will allow people to migrate freely among all continents without fear of ethnic discrimination or culture/language loss. People tell me this is an unrealistic dream whenever I tell them about it, but in truth ethnic-nationalism and social-authoritarianism are unrealistic dreams in that they have proven unsustainable at so many levels, from individual-psychological to economics to ethnic conflicts.

There simply has to be evolution where people can preserve language, culture, and ethnic identity without separatism, economic exploitation, discrimination, war, etc.

Attempting to police reproduction on a per-ethnicity basis is only going to increase ethnic conflict and hatred and make multiethnic integration more painful.

You try to explain because you genuinely care, and realize that it's good for you as well as those you try to teach. Others can read this and draw their own conclusions as well. I must say, the notion of an "ethnic europe" is a fantasy of particularly mad-men (Hitler springs to mind), and nationalists seeking to get votes. What is Europe if not a history of genetic, cultural, etc... drift?!

Hell, if you look at Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, they all follow similar historical patterns: Conquest, Legalism, Schism, Reform. That Christianity and Islam are on different points on that progress doesn't change history. Christianity is dealing with Reform in my view, and Islam is stuck between Legalism and Schism. When people (yes, I'm looking at you mheslep) being to single out cultures and religions, and speak of ethnicity as something to be LOST... red flags go up in my mind.

EDIT: It seems clear that the cultural heritage of many civilations outlast the civilations themselves. What is Cuneform if not a perfect example? What is it that people are so afraid of LOSING, rather than GAINING?! Genetically, and culturally drift and mix is critical to maintaining a healthy population, and as you say brainstorm, it has to be our evolution.

 

[brainstorm]

EDIT: It seems clear that the cultural heritage of many civilations outlast the civilations themselves. What is Cuneform if not a perfect example? What is it that people are so afraid of LOSING, rather than GAINING?! Genetically, and culturally drift and mix is critical to maintaining a healthy population, and as you say brainstorm, it has to be our evolution.

Don't underestimate the fear of cultural and language loss. The pope celebrated the US as the culture of the hyphen, saying that ethnic conflict was reduced by people simply hyphenating one or more ethnic identities with "American" after it. In practice, however, there is a strong culture of language-diversity resistance. Many people consider English the only language of the US, which they view as an ethnic nation despite the whole free republic idea. Not that such people are winning, it's just that they resist learning multiple languages and using them for everyday life. I think there was even a court case that established a precedent that employees can be terminated for failing to switch to English when their manager tells them to. I suppose it is rude if someone asks you to switch to a language they can understand and you refuse, but I just don't see linguistic innovation going on like entire workplaces having Spanish day or something like that where everyone communicates only in Spanish for one day a week. Obviously this would slow down communication a lot for people at first, but after practicing for a while, I bet it would become a good way to combine work with language practice.

So, you're right - people should be focussed on gaining instead of losing, but the gaining should be done in practice - which would promote the maintaining (instead of losing) for others who are concerned with loss.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Please keep this thread in a productive state, thank you.

 

[Frame Dragger]

Please keep this thread in a productive state, thank you.

Ok, granted your's is a serious post, but... in bold... is that a joke re: overpopulation, or just an incredibly funny coincidence?

 

[Kerrie]

Wow, a lot of good info here, but shouldn't this be a philosophical thread?

Has there been any research done on the correlation of immunizations and population growth? Not that we want to ever consider discontinuing them, but it seems that since we have advanced medically, population has increased tremendously. So, although I agree with Russ's statement of education, it almost seems like it has contributed to the problem. Perhaps further education of course could get the rate under control. Also, since we are living longer because of medical advances, population doesn't decline as quickly as it once did (obviously).

 

[brainstorm]

Wow, a lot of good info here, but shouldn't this be a philosophical thread?

Yes, it should actually because population politics contain philosophical and ethical assumptions embedded in the science, the main one being that it is human quantity that threatens ecology and natural resources instead of quality and way of life. The tenet left undiscussed is whether people can change the way they live to prevent resource and ecological depletion instead of simply reducing population (growth).

Has there been any research done on the correlation of immunizations and population growth? Not that we want to ever consider discontinuing them, but it seems that since we have advanced medically, population has increased tremendously. So, although I agree with Russ's statement of education, it almost seems like it has contributed to the problem. Perhaps further education of course could get the rate under control. Also, since we are living longer because of medical advances, population doesn't decline as quickly as it once did (obviously).

Yes, sociology textbooks describe a demographic transition that occurs when the majority of deaths occur from childhood diseases and malnutrition to old-age diseases, heart-disease, etc.

The big problem with any kind of social engineering is preferences for some social identities over others. When population growth is problematized, it is usually blamed on certain ethnicities over others. I have also read of female foetuses being aborted where people are concerned with limiting their family size. This kind of preference causes a kind of war mentality, I think, where targeted ethnicities feel under threat and resolve to reproduce more to avert extinction as a result of pressure to reduce their numbers. Likewise there is the problem that some ethnicities have a majority or otherwise privileged position which population control would help them maintain.

It's easy for majority populations to say it is fair for everyone to limit their family size to 2 children to avert overal population growth, but doing so ensures that minorities remain minorities. So you can't really get around population control having political effects, even when your concern is only resource and ecological sustainment.

 

[John Galaor]

I can see a problem in encouraging development in poor countries that are growing very fast. The scarcity of resources. Then main resources to develop in a modern sense are the fossil fuels. Those who have fossil fuels have some possibility of developing but not the others
To develop in the modern sense is to consume a lot of energy. This energy is needed to produce more food and to transport to the places where are lying most of the population that had fled from the countryside. Then, the rate of breeding in poor countries is instinctive. In the past there were some ways of controlling excess population one was social limitations, forbidding some social categories to breed as happened in Europe. Slaves, servants, religious people and soldiers, were not allowed to breed. Then, there were frequent wars among neighbor populations, or nations, that trimmed farther the excess population.
Then, on a strict Malthusian criterion, we would not need to worry of any excess population because once the population would exceed some mark, it would pay the consequences. Then this cynical approach seems a little harsh and unkind. Mostly because such a big global turbulence could burst with such a might that can even reach us. And we will be paying the consequences of these troubles.

But even if developed countries can look as they have not population growth, they are increasing their consumption of energy. Then this is a form of growth that can have undesired consequences. I am not mentioning the global warming, for this would not be our more demanding challenge in the future.

These links with graphics you posted, do not look alarming at all.

Compared with the population curve of the Chineses, the rest look as insignificant trifles. But they are not. These curves look flat, compared with China. But if you put the most populated nations out of the graphic, you can see a lot of small countries that had been growing too fast.
The reasons to be alarmed are a few. While the planet population since year 1 CE to the year 1,800 multiplied by 4.23, the population has multiplied by seven in the last two hundred and ten years. And the population growth of the planet population was an average of 0.08 % during 1,800 years. While in the past 210 years the average growth has been 0.9%
John Galaor

 

[John Galaor]

Population research is always painful because it carries with it the implication of population controls. It's no wonder that one post has already mentioned "extermination." No one likes being targeted for "population control" in the supposed interest of everyone else.

That said, there are resource problems and social problems that emerge from infrastructure and land use patterns. It's important to distinguish between population as a cause directly, though, and culture as a mitigating factor between individuals and resources.

Whenever anyone complains about overpopulation, the first thing I ask them is if they drive. Driving creates traffic and stresses infrastructure by allowing relatively few individuals to travel per unit-width road. Also, the large cargo-capacity of many vehicles encourages people to consume more, which stimulates waste and resource depletion and waste over a wider supply-chain range.

I don't know how many more people could live sustainably if everyone or at least most people would give up their cars and bike or walk for transportation, but I imagine it would be manyfold. When the conflict is between a luxury like traffic-reduction and a human right like having children, it seems clear to me that one person's human rights shouldn't be constrained for another person to drive everywhere all the time.

There are plenty of ways to maintain luxuries like driving while reducing their everyday usage levels. Rental cars can be used and insurance companies could make it easier for people to share cars. Businesses and residences can move closer to each other. That's not an easy task, but I think it will be a slowly evolving social-geographical pattern that creates more freedom for population growth far into the future.

This is the peaceful alternative to doomsday scenarios of war and famine typical of traditional Malthusian population forecasting.

Even if we are consuming a lot of energy, the western people and western ooffshoots, the ideal of most people in the world is to achieve western people standards. This is clearly not the a possibility. For that we are too many people.

But even the problem of growth has several dimensions. It is clear that as an animal species in a limited planet, growth cannot be not forever. There would be a moment that too many people in the planet would be an absurd hypothesis.

Lets figure the following argument.
Some people had told me, 0.9% of growth a year is not that much growth. This is the growth average of planet population in the last 200 years.
Then we can do some maths to found out if this is a real problem or not.
1) It is estimated that the population of the planet in the year 1 CE was 230 million people. Now we are 7 billion. That is a multiplication by 30.43
What is the average rate between both dates?
Well, lest calculate: Log 30.43/2010=7.38(10^-4)
Then, 10^7.064(10^-4)= 1.0017 then the rate of growth was 0.17% a year

2) What would mean, that the "normal" growth of 0.9% was substained since the year 1?
Let's calculate 230 millions * 1.009^2010 = 230 millions * 66.26 millions,
that is 1.5 (10^16) persons. That is 100 persons/per sq. meter, on the solid surface of the earth, including all hot deserts, frozen deserts and mountain ranges.
--------
Then, in the long range, a growth of 0.9% a year, cannot be considered a normal growth. Then Malthus was right.
Let's asume how many people would be if a growth of 0.17% a year would be possible sustained in the long range.
Let's imaging 7 thousand years from now on at 0.17% a year
7 billion (7*10^9) * 1.0017^7000= 1.02 (10^15) We would be 6.8 persons per sq. meter. Then, even this modest growth of 0.17% a year is too much.

Lets figure, that the growth is just 0.1% a year.
7 billion *1.001^7000= 7.65 (10^12) or more than thousand times the present population.

Then, the question is not the right of individuals, the right of the whole human species. Any arbitrary family can have as many as ten children, if the other people not not have as many. Is an statistical question. The rational aim is to achieve zero growth, or even sometime into the future, a negative growth for some centuries, until is achieved the correct density of population in this planet that must be quite different. It is not the same thing the density of population in Antarctic, the Sahara, Siberia, Nepal than in Maryland, or California. To my opinion, in the near future, most developed nations are already overpopulated, even if you reduce the consumption of energy to a 10 or 5% of the present.

For the concept overpopulation can not be a single number. It must be a varied one, depending on the reserves of energy, and other resources, like rainfall, temperature, etc.
John Galaor

 

[John Galaor]

I wasn't saying that there is or isn't a correlation between global warming and global population growth. I was pointing out that when people think in macro-theories like these, their attention tends to shift away from their behavior and power as individuals in everyday life. Furthermore, they forget that in order for population control to be attempted, some individuals have to make an attempt to exercise power/control over other individuals, which brings rights into question, and is a form of repressive violence. I wonder if people realize they are arguing in the direction of repressive violence in this thread. It's easy to forget when you frame it as a macro-scale issue where the lives of individuals become little more than pixels making up a bigger picture.

The main problem is the "traditional doctrine" that the nations that have more young people to sacrifice in a war has the most probabilities of success. Some nations actually are preparing themselves for this sacrifice, and their growth is not impeded.
Now I remember the times of British Empire, it was against the law promoting birth control, of abortion. Even an alternative to heterosexual sex, like homosexuality was also punished with severe penalties.
Then, contemplating these concepts, still in vigor in many countries, mostly Islamics, we can predict that the solution to this problem would be Malthusian. It is by means of war, mostly than famine. This would push us into a global thermonuclear war, that is the most sure way for the western nation to achieve a survival ration of 25%

Them, with some degree of liberalism, liberalism on sexual customs, only a small fraction of couples would be breeding. And we would have to protect economically with money to make it workable. In all the nations that have liberal laws and women working, the growth is not a problem. The Swedish government has to introduced protections for women with children, and the he population growth rose significantly.

Then, liberal societies would not have a problem with growth. It is the nations in which the women are slaves of their husbands, that have high rates of growth.

And these traditional customs would not change unless occurs a dramatic upheaval in this planet. Then the future is gloomy.
John Galaor

 

[brainstorm]

Then, contemplating these concepts, still in vigor in many countries, mostly Islamics, we can predict that the solution to this problem would be Malthusian. It is by means of war, mostly than famine. This would push us into a global thermonuclear war, that is the most sure way for the western nation to achieve a survival ration of 25%

I believe that this is the implicit forecast of the "Noah's Arc" approach taken to immigration by national governments in which proportional representation in immigration quotas are established to promote maximum global diversity among the residents of any given region. Probably, if at some point those who control nuclear arsenals come to the conclusion that global population growth is unsustainable with regard to the economic cultures of resource-utilization, they will elect to reset global population with an agreed upon topography of elimination. It would be very sad if they chose to do this, because I think there are ample opportunities to transform resource-utilization in a way that makes it possible for vast increases in population to live sustainably, if nothing else through muiti-generational interstellar transit.

Still, if overpopulation discourse continues to the point where those who control nuclear arsenals get sufficiently spooked, there is indeed a good chance that they will elect to eliminate a large proportion of Earth's inhabitants. I would love to convince them that there are less harsh methods to employ that restrict resource consumption in order to allow more personal choice in family-size, but probably some failed eugenics policy of fertility-repression will be attempted before it is discovered that people have found loopholes to allow large families to escape detection. I wondered, actually, during the time when mountains were being bombed under the assumption that Bin Ladin could have built livable cave-systems inside them how many people globally could successfully live in underground dwellings. Many cities have incredibly deep underground networks for transit, etc. but who is to say that similar underground networks haven't been established as urban metropolises in various remote places unconnected with any superterrainian city? If that were the case, these cities would be insulated against nuclear attack, so how would you then use nuclear bombing to reduce world population?

This is all such unpleasant, macabre theorizing. Wouldn't it be nicer to strategize ways for MORE population to be sustained through better more efficient use of resources?

 

[CRGreathouse]

Lets figure the following argument.
Some people had told me, 0.9% of growth a year is not that much growth. This is the growth average of planet population in the last 200 years.
Then we can do some maths to found out if this is a real problem or not.

Hey, kids! Can you find the omitted variable bias in the above?

 

[John Galaor]

Reply to message #86 of Brainstorm

Some complex problems we are contemplating. I cannot answer them.

It is evident a first sight that growth, with a little of math insight, that we can not go indefinitely this way for it would cause many problems.
I had pointed some math arguments in my exposition on message # 84

On the other hand, excess population has been traditionally the mother lode of most wars, and most famine crisis. It is just a speculation of my own.

To me, a nation that keeps his population growing on high ratios during several decades is planning some war, or fearing some war. Or their leaders do not care of the future of their nations.

Then, to me, it seems very unlikely that the ratio of growth between year 1 and year 1,800 were as regular as the average value results, 0.08% a year. Average value only means an average, not the ordinary condition of growth on most nations. What I am trying to say is that, nations all over the world had been growing at rates of 0.9% a year or higher, for some time, till a new war of a famine, explodes in their faces. Then, the case of the famines is special, for it breastfeed anarchy and many small armies raise up looking for food, and assaulting farmers and agriculturist centers who have food stored.
The result of these troubles are wars that produce more famine and deaths that the famine itself. It is enough a drop as small as 20 % in food production to have a sort of civil war.

So far we had not witnessed this so far, making of Malthus a stupid prophet, because we had been consuming growing amounts of fossil fuels in the past 150 years. But even then, Most of the wars in 19 and 20 centuries I presume that were due to some form of overpopulation. I have not solid data to prove this point. It is an intuition. If we look carefully we can found the data that I am suggesting.
John Galaor

 

[John Galaor]

To dear GRGreathouse

I will be glad if you pointed yourself.
Year 1,800 estimated population of the planet 1 billion.
Year 2010 July, estimated population of the planet 7 billions.
We can calculate the estimated growth in the period by doing some calculations

RG (rate of Growth) in % per year must be...

(10^(log7/210)-1)*100 = 0.0093*100= 0.93

I don't think there is here any bias. What is your comment?
John Galaor

 

[CRGreathouse]

I don't think there is here any bias.

Really? You can't think of a MAJOR explanatory variable over that period?

 

[John Galaor]

You mean for the average rate of growth in 210 years?
Is this too short a period to measure an average growth ratio for the planet?

What is the bias you are contemplating? I cannot guess it. You must enlighten me. I am eager to learn.
John Galaor

 

[heusdens]

Digging up some info on my social-geography school lessons, we should consider the issue of demography as follows:

1. In primite societies both birth rates and death rates are high, the population is somewhat stable, does not grow a lot.

2. If a society progresses economically and scientifically, we can drop down death rates (like infant mortality, and longer aging), but birth rates are initially still high.

3. After suffcient progression, death rates still drop, but also birth rates will drop, and ultimately will stabilize around the same numbers. If you have sufficient access to healthcare and have sufficient economic means, you don't need or want many children, and population grow stabilizes, sometimes will even cause a tendency of a aging population (this seems to trouble now a lot of developed nations - there aren't enough youngsters to provide for the health and services needed by the aging population).

Our current problem is - in short - that while developing nations become developed, they will have temporarily an overshoot of population, since the death rates will drop, but the birth rates will not drop immediately, only sometime later.

This causes the excess population, developing nations have a young population, but are still poor.

I believe around 2075 or so, the population grow will come to a halt, but then we will likely have around 9 billion people. But food sources and other resources will become short.

In fact - and what I think is what is right and best policy - we should do the most to develop the underdeveloped world so that they can reach the same level of economy and prosperity and social services as the developed world is already used to, since as longer it takes to reach that level, the longer the population overshoot will take.

As advanced industrial nations, we should take responsibility, and transform our economies as quickly as possible towards renewable resources, and facilitate the developing countries in having a fair share of remaining resources and aid them in access to new technology which uses resources more efficiently and economically.

If we fail to do so, if the developing nations stay too far behind and can never catch up, we will be sitting on a time bom, since the population will grow too large, and we will meet resource scarcities.

This will lead to broad scale warfare globally over scarce resources (water, energy, minerals, etc.), mass hunger and starvation, etc.

The leading countries of the developing world, primarily the USA, is not acting responsibly in my opinion, since their keep themselves dependend on scarce resources like oil, and acted unjustfully by invading countries like Iraq and Afghanistan (which as we know now, has plenty of valid resources beneath the ground, of course that was already known, since the russians had already figured that out, but we have been lead to believe that the only reason for invading Afghanistan were the establishing of democracy - this strategy will ultimately fail, and citizins of Afghanistan will be the victim of this).

USA and other developed countries have enough scientific and technological capacities to become energy independend, using renewables only, within 20-30 years. That is, if they really want to. Warfare is much more expensive, and does not provide any real solution, in fact it's an anti-solution.

We need more land area to grow food for a growing population. But circa 1/3 of the world's usable ground is devestated by desertification. Both in China, Northern Africa, Middle east, Australia and other regions are millions of acres of potentially usuable land, but which is now devestated or threatened to become a desert.
We would need a global plan to make any possible effort to restore those areas, for instance with the implementation of large scale solar power plants that use the land for producing electricity (around 2020 this can be as cost effective as currently using oil) and potentially also for desalinating salt water (Concentrated Solar Power plants are the right kind of solar plants that can do that in a cost-effetive way) and creating drinking water, that can be used for irrigation (but would need to be some form of drip-irrigation, since the water price will be high of course and water would be needed to be used as economically as possible) and forming dester like areas into agricultural land.
Other benefits of this are that sand storms, as for instance in China, are already devastating and costs billions of dollars, so there is much money that can be restored by beating deserts and forming them into agricultural land.
The costs for doing that on a global scale might be enormous, but:
- The benefits are also enormous: a renewable energy source and transformation of deserts into farm land
- Military solutions are more expensive, and don't solve the problems, they are a problem inthemselves, they are an anti-solution.
- Investing in such large scale global projects might be very helpfull for the economy, both that of western countries and that of developing countries. It provides work for decades for millions of workers.

Just some suggestions...

 

[John Galaor]

You book is rather simple and optimistic. Let's see other things differently.

I want to answer something about primitive societies.
your point 1)
"1. In primitive societies both birth rates and death rates are high, the population is somewhat stable, does not grow a lot."

If by primitive societies you mean "hunter gatherers" I have read something different. Primitive societies do not grow fast, because to get pregnant women had to accumulate a body fat weight of 20 or 30% This fat is like a guarantee of a pregnancy to become successful. The amount of calories of 10 or 15 kg. of fat is the equivalent weight needed to feed the baby in the womb to term.
Then , about half of this fat would would be needed to breastfeed the baby.

Then, on average, a young woman of 13 would need like ten years to accumulate that much fat and get pregnant. Then, after a year or more of breast feeding a baby, the woman needs another then years to accumulate fat again.

About mortality of hunter gatherers is not very high, except for accidents with predators. Epidemics are rare among them, because they live in a low human density environment.Then to the second point, the farmer and herding economies, food is aplenty and
the fertility jumps to the sky.
Then this point 2)
"2. If a society progresses economically and scientifically, we can drop down death rates (like infant mortality, and longer aging), but birth rates are initially still high."
Initially, technical progress is very slow, and the main troubles are caused by excessive population in the same place. As the land for agriculture is limited they soon get trap with an excess of people, forcing some of them to emigrate, or they quarrel for the land in use among them (Civil wars).
In the case of herding people, the lands to graze are also limited, and the potential for the fertility to reach critical limits is also obvious. As it is obvious, the flocks cannot keep growing in numbers for a long time. There are not enough grazing
lands. Then this excess population give way to the first local wars, either between herders and farmers, like in Cain and Abel story, or in general wars with neighbors.
Between the year 1 CE and the year 1,800 the average growth per year has been a modest 0.08% That is less of 1 per a thousand people. As most of the countries were developed into farmers and herders, the availability of food was not a serious limitation for fertility. Most women, except the most destitute, would not have problems to accumulate 10 to 15 kilos of fat in 5 or 6 years. Hunter gatherers can do as well the times of abundant rains.
Then, to low rate of grown can only be explained in a Malthusian way, with wars and epidemics. In this period of time from year 1 to 1,800 the village were rather close and there were a lot cities. Then, war were determinant to lower the population when it was excessive. And the concept excessive is a relative one. In good times population is growing, them come bad times, and harvest began to fail more or less, never 100% If there is too little rain even herders suffer a punishment. If there is too much cold farming have problems and also sheep and goats and cows in winter.
Then, this problems gave rise to marauding of small bands of armed men and just common civil wars.

About your third point.
"3. After suffcient progression, death rates still drop, but also birth rates will drop, and ultimately will stabilize around the same numbers. If you have sufficient access to healthcare and have sufficient economic means, you don't need or want many children, and population grow stabilizes, sometimes will even cause a tendency of a aging population (this seems to trouble now a lot of developed nations - there aren't enough youngsters to provide for the health and services needed by the aging population).

Even the present situation, I mean the XX century social situation, is quite different just to a point. We would have been able to feed a population that had multiplied by seven in just 210 years. This had been possible, not only because we had had very lethal wars, but because we had been burning fossil fuels at a much higher rate than the population was growing.
While the rate of growth in the most developed nations was close to 1% a year, our growth of fuel consumptions was on average 2.5%

While some poor nations, had been growing both, the population and the consumption of fuel, about the same rate. Quite often, the population was growing faster than the consumption of energy. Then, it is in those nations that the most pressure for wars would occur.
Then, the explanation of medical care of children and vaccination is not the main variable for the growth in underdeveloped countries.

About the western nations, tanks to democracy the women wanted to enter into the work force to feel independent of their fathers or husbands. Then to have many children was against this ideal of independence. That is my explanation of the western nations to have less growth. Then the most we work to have a home and a car, and some conspicuous consumption, the lest time we haver to invest in children.

About the problem of an aging population, we have the option of start to care less of them. Then main problem with aging population is conventional wars. We would not have enough people to make a conventional war. We will be forced to use massive means of destruction to save our asses.

As for an economy of frugality with energy, we are doomed to fail. It is very difficult to reverse our means of live, unless dramatic circumstances would force us. Then, when this would happen it will be to late to react and solve the problem.
Then, there is only a few opportunities we have to solve this crisis, of exhaustion of fossil fuels. The fusion of hydrogen and more or less conventional atomic energy. Advanced atomic power plants that would not produce to much radioactive wastes can be possible.

And just for a crisis, we can do something with alternative solar and wind energies. But the main problem is that anything technological it is being done with a lot energy. Anything is done with energy, watering, fertilizing, fighting plagues, building new dams; etc. The food we have in our table is there thanks to a lot of energy spent to put it there. Our clothes, our shoes, our machines, cars, refrigerators, cans of beer, etc. All is made with a lot of artificial energy.

Take out all this energy of the equation and we all are doomed to extermination.
John Galaor
.

 

[brainstorm]

To me, a nation that keeps his population growing on high ratios during several decades is planning some war, or fearing some war. Or their leaders do not care of the future of their nations.

What if the nation was a republic that required the power and choice of how much to reproduce was an inalienable right of the people at the individual level? In that case, people might just be having kids to make big happy families without planning war or fearing it. They might just have faith that things will work out, either because of belief in God or just general faith in technological and economic progress to sustain more people.

 

[heusdens]

What if the nation was a republic that required the power and choice of how much to reproduce was an inalienable right of the people at the individual level? In that case, people might just be having kids to make big happy families without planning war or fearing it. They might just have faith that things will work out, either because of belief in God or just general faith in technological and economic progress to sustain more people.

Big families were not as much a blessing but more of a necessity, since the infant mortality rate was high, and having many children was a way of securing your old day, when there were no pension plans.

Countries which have low infant mortaility and provide pension plans, do not have high birth rates. They are in fact tending towards the opposite, a too aging population.

But then, as the situation in developing countries is reversed, we could be better off importing more young immigrants from those countries. Which would be beneficial for both.

 

[heusdens]

You book is rather simple and optimistic. Let's see other things differently.

I want to answer something about primitive societies.
your point 1)
"1. In primitive societies both birth rates and death rates are high, the population is somewhat stable, does not grow a lot."

If by primitive societies you mean "hunter gatherers" I have read something different. Primitive societies do not grow fast, because to get pregnant women had to accumulate a body fat weight of 20 or 30% This fat is like a guarantee of a pregnancy to become successful. The amount of calories of 10 or 15 kg. of fat is the equivalent weight needed to feed the baby in the womb to term.
Then , about half of this fat would would be needed to breastfeed the baby.

Then, on average, a young woman of 13 would need like ten years to accumulate that much fat and get pregnant. Then, after a year or more of breast feeding a baby, the woman needs another then years to accumulate fat again.

About mortality of hunter gatherers is not very high, except for accidents with predators. Epidemics are rare among them, because they live in a low human density environment.

You are right on this, the birth rates were not high, neither the death rates, although both were volative but on average the population was not much growing. Only after agricultural techniques were used, and there were surplus food, could the population grow.

 

[John Galaor]

In older farming and herding societies, the patriarch of big families had many children to work in the same way as you got slaves, to work on the land, or to tend the flocks. Even children were needed to fight against neighbors who cross borders with flocks to graze into your own lands. Then, all their daughters and daughters in law were enough to take care of him in old age. These societies were stable just to a point, for the marriage rights were restricted to the older son, who inherited all the power. Then sometimes, a second son could also marry as a special privilege but the wealth was all kept under the chief of the family and under the future ruler, the older brother.

But "indefinite growth of human population" looks to me absurd and proper of people that do not understand maths, nor the very limits of technology. Techology is not magic, even if we do not understand it.
John Galaor
.

 

[John Galaor]

The main problem is the "traditional doctrine" that the nations that have more young people to sacrifice in a war has the most probabilities of success. Some nations actually are preparing themselves for this sacrifice, and their growth is not impeded.
Now I remember the times of British Empire, it was against the law promoting birth control, or abortion. Even an alternative to heterosexual sex, like homosexuality was also punished with severe penalties.
Then, contemplating these concepts, still in vigor in many countries, mostly Islamics, we can predict that the solution to this problem would be involuntary, that is Malthusian. It will be solved by means of war and and famine. The present excess of population would push us into a global thermonuclear war.

Them, with some degree of liberalism, liberalism on sexual customs, only a small fraction of couples would do the breeding. And we would have to protect them economically with money to make it workable.
In all the nations that have liberal laws and women working, the growth is not a problem. But even, the Swedish government in some moment was worried by a negative growth, then it introduced protections for women with children and cheap day-care centers, then the Swedish population grew significantly again.

Then, liberal societies would not have a problem with population growth. It is the nations in which the women are slaves of their husbands, that have the most higher rates of growth.

And these traditional customs would not change unless occurs a dramatic upheaval in this planet. Then the future is gloomy.
John Galaor

 

[John Galaor]

To huesdens
<<You are right on this, the birth rates were not high, neither the death rates, although both were volative but on average the population was not much growing. Only after agricultural techniques were used, and there were surplus food, could the population grow. >>

The main question is that with enough food stored, humans can grow much faster than the capacity of the land to sustain the increased in people. Any change for the worse in weather partners, or even the freedom of the new excess of people to breed more people is the perfect recipe for a serious problem.
For we are talking here of an "exponential growth". Then, since many thousand years ago, society had built dams against excessive breeding by barring marriage and sexual freedom to certain social categories like slaves, servants, soldiers, monks, nuns, and poor people in general. This held the growth rates much lower than there were not compulsory limits.

I think that many of the wars in the past, even those of 19 and 20 centuries, were caused by excessive population.

Other troubles, like cyclical economic crisis, are also caused by excessive growth of financial money. Economy cannot have an "exponential growth" for many years. This provokes a partial collapse of the economy.
So far, industrialization has been possible, because we had been consuming increasing amounts of fossil fuels by the year. But then, fossil fuels have announced their own near exhaustion.

All the problems of existence are related to limits.
It seems to me infantile to dream of an uninterrupted prosperity of this planet, perpetually growing, or even aiming to send billions of people to populate distant planets in the Galaxy.
Thirty years ago I was talking about this matter of overpopulation, when a moron told me: "I do not see any problem of excessive population! We still got the Moon and the planets to colonize!" This guy was a genius in Maths. He deserved an A in a Maths exam.
John Galaor
.

 

[ThomasEdison]

I don't buy into the assumption that war, famine or disease have anything but a very minor effect on human population growth. I certainly do not see any of these factors being at all significant towards the future. A World War lasting several years might decimate millions; but the worlds population increase will remain in the millions per month even during wartime.



I agree with some of the posters in this thread that outer space is a terrible idea for quelling Earth's population and completely unfeasable. To be clear: space is not an option, at all.


I also disagree with people who think that the choice to not procreate is any factor as well. It's too complex an issue. Nothing short of draconian measures will change people's choice and that is last century's way of business.
Hoping people will make the correct choice because they are benign or civilized(urban) is simply wishful thinking.

There is also an assumption that as the world becomes more industrialized families will have less children. To a point this may be true however human lifespans are long and the lag time between cultures becoming metropolitan could take several generations and by then we will be swimming in people at a cost to the greater environment (that can not recover in time.)

What I do expect is a future much more crowded, and a continuation of mass extinctions of animal and plant and sealife species. I expect more urbanization but without any cultural shift towards less children. Internationally there will be land grabs and minor turf disputes over fresh water and energy but no significant wars (no death toll numbers in the billions I mean.)


My prediction is that "we made our bed and we have to lie in it now." There will be no catastrophic change to the paradigm of a crowded Earth (like a huge war or plague) and there will be no proactive solution either. The worst cost will be to species diversity, then a long time after that, a cost to the human lifestyle (less space, less choice in food, less energy usage, less material objects, less of everything except childbirth.)

I think that overpopulation is a problem without a solution.
Some problems are unsolvable.
I can't think of a single factor that could ever interfere with a couple's decision to have more children than they (or society) could support.