73 replies to this topic

[gregandbeaker]

but there are many ideas that were around since the 1950s that we aren't utilizing: price incentives to make animal products a super-luxury

Not quite a "live free or die" libertarian manifesto you're pushing there. Especially the term "price incentives." Live like me or die?

[yoyo]

I don't think we have any obligation to maximize agricultural output simply because "hungry people exist". The more food we produce, the more population will grow in response. The idea of solving the problem of world hunger with additional food is like trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it.

We're already some several billion people OVER the Earth's maximum long-term sustainable population.

plenty of room up in space

and the current slowdown in growth, or even population peaks in the first world has to do with access to birth control and female empowerment, not any malthusian limit.


and buckwheat is rpetty tasty.

libertarian feuldalism, not so tasty.

[EmbraceUnity]

plenty of room up in space

I agree. Though I would argue the Earth could support hundreds of billions of people through a variety of techniques. Of course if we continue to consume animals from industrial farms, use fossil fuels, and other idiotic things, then of course we will be unsustainable at high populations.

and the current slowdown in growth, or even population peaks in the first world has to do with access to birth control and female empowerment, not any malthusian limit.

I have studied this quite a bit and have come to the conclusion that it was the reduced immediate economic incentives to have children that contributed to the low birthrates of developed countries. Child labor is illegal in the developed world. It is actually now very expensive to raise children, and the economic payback doesn't come until near the end of your life... and only if you're lucky. In the developing world, having more children just means more workers for the family farm or more kids to send to the factory. In communist countries there isn't any economic benefit to the family for having children, so the population rates of those countries are just as low as the developed countries.

This is a good thing though, obviously. I'm sure birth control and female empowerment had some effect, but it is actually child labor that is the real issue. The correlations between universal education and low birthrates has only an indirect causal link. The child labor laws and universal education laws are hand in hand, and it is usually the child labor laws that came first. Then they figured out they can't have idle kids running around all day, and a mixture of do-gooders and indoctrination-minded elites got together and created public schooling.

and buckwheat is rpetty tasty.

libertarian feuldalism, not so tasty.

definitely agreed

[mike250]

libertarian feuldalism, not so tasty.

neither is progressivism for that matter.

[Ben]

The more population we have -- the more hands, the more minds, the more wallets -- the more food we can produce. We are standing on the verge of scientific breakthroughs that would increase agricultural productivity logarithmically (ex. genetic engineering), but there are many ideas that were around since the 1950s that we aren't utilizing: price incentives to make animal products a super-luxury, irrigating the deserts, heated greenhouses everywhere (even Antarctica), fish farming, skyscraper farms, floating corn fields on seas and oceans, fungi that can grow without any sunlight at all, etc, etc, etc. I bet even an average suburban home in Brooklyn could grow enough food to feed itself if it utilized its space at maximum efficiently, much less the 99.9% of the planet that is a lot less densely populated!

This is based on the assumption that the increased population will be largely economically productive. However, if most are living in near poverty conditions (as they do today), suffering nutritional deficiencies wrought by a diet of primarily grains and legumes (and other poorly engineered foods), I doubt they will all be busy innovating. Most likely suffering in their polluted and crowded mega cities.

Ah yes, but every person has potential to add sweat into the economy (the only true value) and for every person born, there is a genetic chance that they will be innovating no matter what their background.

We need to find a way to increase the economic contribution of all all people (especially the poor as there is the largest marginal benefit there) and ways to encourage population. On a fundamental theoretical level, more people = better not worse. We just need to be managing things better through technology.

Any economists here?

[Skötkonung]

The more population we have -- the more hands, the more minds, the more wallets -- the more food we can produce. We are standing on the verge of scientific breakthroughs that would increase agricultural productivity logarithmically (ex. genetic engineering), but there are many ideas that were around since the 1950s that we aren't utilizing: price incentives to make animal products a super-luxury, irrigating the deserts, heated greenhouses everywhere (even Antarctica), fish farming, skyscraper farms, floating corn fields on seas and oceans, fungi that can grow without any sunlight at all, etc, etc, etc. I bet even an average suburban home in Brooklyn could grow enough food to feed itself if it utilized its space at maximum efficiently, much less the 99.9% of the planet that is a lot less densely populated!

This is based on the assumption that the increased population will be largely economically productive. However, if most are living in near poverty conditions (as they do today), suffering nutritional deficiencies wrought by a diet of primarily grains and legumes (and other poorly engineered foods), I doubt they will all be busy innovating. Most likely suffering in their polluted and crowded mega cities.

Ah yes, but every person has potential to add sweat into the economy (the only true value) and for every person born, there is a genetic chance that they will be innovating no matter what their background.

I think you are underestimating the influence of "background" on a person's achievement potential. For instance, how many top tier scientists come out of African nations? Does a lack of scientific presence by people originating from Africa imply that they have less "genetic chance" for producing innovators? Or could it be that economic, political, and nutrition strife stimy the potential of even the most determined? Try coming up with and realizing a brilliant idea when you are subsistence farming to provide for your family, suffering from kwashiorkor disease, fearing a genocide, or basically trapped in some form of indentured servitude.

More population is not the answer. Maximizing the potential of the existing population (perhaps coupled with reducing the population) is the solution. Reducing environmental impact will benefit everyone. Population is the 800lb gorilla in the room that no one wants to talk about.

Edited by Skötkonung, 26 May 2010 - 08:16 AM.

[Alex Libman]

Buckwheat and the like foodstuffs aside, I'll move the political conversation that I've drifted into here.

[Kutta]

More population is not the answer. Maximizing the potential of the existing population (perhaps coupled with reducing the population) is the solution. Reducing environmental impact will benefit everyone. Population is the 800lb gorilla in the room that no one wants to talk about.

This is a prevalent idea though as far as I am concerned wrong. Barring existential catastrophes even a mid-term advancement of technology would allow several times more people to live on Earth with a significant reduction of environmental impact. Population, if it maintains an exponential growth curve, eventually outgrows every conceivable technology; for example a 3% yearly economic growth would imply that all atoms are used up inside our light cone in 12000 years. But thinking that the current 10^10 magnitude of population represents an intrinsic problem is as incorrect as ignoring population issues altogether.

I think it's reasonable that nanotech manufacture of food will replace animal breeding and replace a great portion of agricultural activity in this century. Animal breeding is an extremely energy inefficient form of calorie and nutrient creation, and probably inethical. Agriculture uses up huge areas that could instead be used for other human purposes or could be liberated to accomodate natural biodiversities. Mature Drexlerian Nanomanufacture would allow the present number of 7 billion humans to be almost invisible to the ecosphere for the reason the accomodation, nourishment and general supply of humans would use up so little place, generate so little side products, would rely on non-invasive energy sources like solar power or fusion, and would decrease the need for raw materials by magnitudes because of efficiency of recycling and efficiency of manufacture.

As a side note, what I just above delineated could be viewed as a technogaian scenario, and a plausible one. There is a grave issue, however. While the idea of an undisturbed, unadulterated natural habitat certainly stirs up saccharine feelings of romanticism in most of us, we shall not forget that animals in the wild suffer a lot. If we are to give up breeding of cattle because of humanitarian considerations - a stance I wholeheartedly support - we would be inconsistent to ignore "natural" suffering. After all, there is no God or an antropomorphized Mother Earth that becomes resentful if we are meddling in... something, and the naturalistic fallacy is called fallacy for a reason. There is no natural order apart from the order we intend to make out of what we have.

[Skötkonung]

More population is not the answer. Maximizing the potential of the existing population (perhaps coupled with reducing the population) is the solution. Reducing environmental impact will benefit everyone. Population is the 800lb gorilla in the room that no one wants to talk about.

This is a prevalent idea though as far as I am concerned wrong. Barring existential catastrophes even a mid-term advancement of technology would allow several times more people to live on Earth with a significant reduction of environmental impact. Population, if it maintains an exponential growth curve, eventually outgrows every conceivable technology; for example a 3% yearly economic growth would imply that all atoms are used up inside our light cone in 12000 years. But thinking that the current 10^10 magnitude of population represents an intrinsic problem is as incorrect as ignoring population issues altogether.

I think it's reasonable that nanotech manufacture of food will replace animal breeding and replace a great portion of agricultural activity in this century. Animal breeding is an extremely energy inefficient form of calorie and nutrient creation, and probably inethical. Agriculture uses up huge areas that could instead be used for other human purposes or could be liberated to accomodate natural biodiversities. Mature Drexlerian Nanomanufacture would allow the present number of 7 billion humans to be almost invisible to the ecosphere for the reason the accomodation, nourishment and general supply of humans would use up so little place, generate so little side products, would rely on non-invasive energy sources like solar power or fusion, and would decrease the need for raw materials by magnitudes because of efficiency of recycling and efficiency of manufacture.

As a side note, what I just above delineated could be viewed as a technogaian scenario, and a plausible one. There is a grave issue, however. While the idea of an undisturbed, unadulterated natural habitat certainly stirs up saccharine feelings of romanticism in most of us, we shall not forget that animals in the wild suffer a lot. If we are to give up breeding of cattle because of humanitarian considerations - a stance I wholeheartedly support - we would be inconsistent to ignore "natural" suffering. After all, there is no God or an antropomorphized Mother Earth that becomes resentful if we are meddling in... something, and the naturalistic fallacy is called fallacy for a reason. There is no natural order apart from the order we intend to make out of what we have.

People clamor for economic growth, yet they also complain about the side-effects of population growth. Unfortunately, most take the intellectually lazy path of siding with growth because it's all they know and it pays the bills. The artificial value of money causes much of this complacency.

Economic growth, as defined by a constant rise in the GNP, is largely dependent on population growth. More people are consuming more resources each year in almost every category. This growing consumption is a pyramid scheme that could collapse as the Earth's finite resources dwindle. Potentially renewable resources like water, timber and fisheries will become finite unless growth stops and demand stabilizes, but many people cling to false economic theories which claim that we'll "never run out" of resources because there will always be "substitutes." The concept of "managed growth" is like asking cancer to only grow between vital organs; fatal in the long run anyway. These growth delusions are sustained because we haven't reached a global breaking-point yet.

There is an important distinction between economic development and economic growth. Development generally refers to the process of modernizing an archaic economy, which may or may not involve increasing its scale. But growth (in already developed nations) is mostly fueled by consumption, i.e. more people consuming. When economies of scale are well established, further economic growth is mostly a result of rising demand for products and the need for more workers to produce them. The global economy allows population growth to be tapped anywhere in the world to suit these needs.

The creation of new and innovative products like computers (which some call growth) is different from the gross output of things like food, oil, timber, cars and appliances. The fact that we must constantly "create" jobs should tell us that population growth has no logical purpose. Many people find themselves with nothing to do, and make-work jobs just increase government debt. The main reason we "need" more and more jobs, goods and services is to accommodate the needs of more people. There's no intrinsic purpose to this, unless one enjoys watching the world become a more crowded, complicated and polluted place.

The cycle of growth for growth's sake must be broken before resources get too scarce to provide a safety net. The GNP cannot grow indefinitely in a finite world. This needs to be understood on a gut level by everyone before the gradual actions needed to break the cycle can take place. As long as people believe that perpetual economic growth is a means to an end there will be an underlying resistance to population stabilization. That's because population growth is a key ingredient in the expansion of many industries. For example, the building industry is dependent on a steady increase in human numbers and we call it a "leading economic indicator." Many other industries thrive on rising consumption and it's ingrained in our economic thinking.

[EmbraceUnity]

The creation of new and innovative products like computers (which some call growth) is different from the gross output of things like food, oil, timber, cars and appliances. The fact that we must constantly "create" jobs should tell us that population growth has no logical purpose. Many people find themselves with nothing to do, and make-work jobs just increase government debt. The main reason we "need" more and more jobs, goods and services is to accommodate the needs of more people.

Wrong, it is the nature of capitalism which mandates the need for continual creation of jobs. Regardless of whether fertility rates are above the replacement rate, which they aren't in the developed world and yet unemployment persists, technologies get developed which make old jobs obsolete, and thus new industries must pop up to employ the idle labor, or those laborers must struggle to obtain subsistence via some other means... in the developing world this usually means becoming a peasant farmer. There are ways to make jobs less relevant to attaining the necessities of life, and there are ways to make technology that does not damage our environment. The only reason to advocate reducing population is if you think it is utterly futile to do these things, even though they are possible and we know how.

Edited by progressive, 26 May 2010 - 11:49 PM.

[Skötkonung]

The creation of new and innovative products like computers (which some call growth) is different from the gross output of things like food, oil, timber, cars and appliances. The fact that we must constantly "create" jobs should tell us that population growth has no logical purpose. Many people find themselves with nothing to do, and make-work jobs just increase government debt. The main reason we "need" more and more jobs, goods and services is to accommodate the needs of more people.

Wrong, it is the nature of capitalism which mandates the need for continual creation of jobs. Technologies get developed which make old jobs obsolete, and thus new industries must pop up to employ the idle labor, or those laborers must struggle to obtain subsistence via some other means... in the developing world this usually means becoming a peasant farmer. There are ways to make jobs less relevant to attaining the necessities of life, and there are ways to make technology that does not damage our environment. The only reason to advocate reducing population is if you think it is utterly futile to do these things, even though they are possible and we know how.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here, or if you even understood what I wrote. When I refer to job creation, I am describing the need to create more total labor, not recycle existing labor through retraining or redeployment. Increasing the population requires greater efficiency in retraining population to prevent idle labor. Lower population means labor will always be in demand for emerging technologies.

The countries in which poverty levels are the highest are generally those that have the most rapid increases in population and the highest fertility levels. Countries that have reduced fertility and mortality by investing in universal health care, including reproductive health, as well as education and gender equality, have made economic gains. A 2001 study of 45 countries, for example, found that if they had reduced fertility by five births per 1,000 people in the 1980s, the average national incidence of poverty of 18.9 per cent in the mid-1980s would have been reduced to 12.6 per cent between 1990 and 1995.

Consider the following:
1.) Enabling people to have fewer children contributes to upward mobility and helps to stimulate development. When women can negotiate their reproductive health decisions with men, this exercise of their rights leads to an increased decision-making role within families and communities that benefits all.

2.) Because smaller families share income among fewer people, average per-capita income increases.

3.) Fewer pregnancies lead to lower maternal mortality and morbidity and often to more education and economic opportunities for women. These, in turn, can lead to higher family income.

4.) Families with lower fertility are better able to invest in the health and education of each child. Spaced births and fewer pregnancies overall improve child survival.

I do not believe that technologies currently exist that allow the human race at its current population levels to sustainably live on this planet (I'm sorry, your vegan / vegetarian diet based on annual mono-crops is not sustainable). I also do not believe that emerging "green" technologies will develop fast enough to scale with the growing global population. There will always be a technological race to provide (and provide sustainably) for humanities increasing population. So far the pace of technology has never been fast or adequate enough, nor does it appear to be getting faster.

We must replace the mindset of perpetual economic growth with a sustainable approach that defines "long-term" as 500 years down the road, rather than five or ten. If we keep blaming our difficulties on the management of growth, rather than growth itself, environmental, social and political problems may never be solved.

[EmbraceUnity]

Skötkonung

You got the causality backwards. Low fertility rates do not make us wealthier. Rather being wealthier lowers fertility rates. The United States currently has 17 percent real unemployment, and a fertility rate just under the replacement rate. So our population growth is slow and coming solely from immigration. Thus, it isn't a significant factor in the unemployment. There are numerous variables that are responsible for that unemployment, clearly, but my point is that technological unemployment can happen with a fixed population level. The jobs go away because of technology, and if nothing is there to replace it, then they become unemployed. It isn't very hard to understand.

The relationship between jobs and the population is more of a proportionate one. If productivity rates are extremely high, like in the US, then not very many workers are needed for any individual product. You are right that new wants are usually invented and these tend to take up the surplus labor, but not always.

Population levels in the developed world are not really an issue, so any discussion of fertility rates should really focus on the developing world. Given the proper view of the relationship between development and fertility rates, the ideal way to reduce population growth is to make the whole world developed. That isn't to say there aren't lots of reforms that we require in the developed world, but this is the best way broadly speaking. Population control measures are coercive and don't seem very possible in places like Africa anyway.

Edited by progressive, 27 May 2010 - 02:09 AM.

[Skötkonung]

You got the causality backwards. Low fertility rates do not make us wealthier. Rather being wealthier lowers fertility rates.

So you think China's one-child policy is a result of their economic success and not a contributor to it? Because last I checked, the purpose of the one-child policy was economic: to reduce the demand of natural resources, maintaining a steady labor rate, reducing unemployment caused from surplus labor, and reducing the rate of exploitation.

Pubmed: Studying Marxist theory on population and initiating a new situation in demographic research

Pubmed: Comrade Mao Ze-dong's contribution to Marxist theory on population--in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the birth of the Chinese Communist Party

Political ideologies aside, population control has been unarguable advantageous for the Chinese economy. To an extent, reducing population enhances development and development reduces population.

Given the proper view of the relationship between development and fertility rates, the ideal way to reduce population growth is to make the whole world developed. That isn't to say there aren't lots of reforms that we require in the developed world, but this is the best way broadly speaking. Population control measures are coercive and don't seem very possible in places like Africa anyway.

Something must be getting lost in our semantics. This is what I've been saying all along. We need to focus on development, not growth.

[EmbraceUnity]

China is an exception, and I mentioned communist countries in an earlier post as an exception to the normal rules. Communism usually results in low fertility rates, and did in the entire soviet bloc, despite a strong effort to promote fertility, such as their Hero Mother medals. So I'd be interested to know why China's demographics are the way they are

I will say their one child policy is already turning out to be quite harmful and will only get worse as the generations that were born under the policy replace the previous ones. The reason is because they will have an abnormally large proportion of old people who will be a burden on the rest of the population, and they will have a shortage of women because of the preference for boys on the part of parents. These will lead to heavy social and economic costs.

We may be arguing for the same thing, which is a sustainable and prosperous civilization, but population control is not the way to achieve this. Development alone would get the population levels down because it is the development which causes the rate of fertility to decline.

[Kutta]

Economic growth, as defined by a constant rise in the GNP, is largely dependent on population growth.

I cannot see how it is like that. An absolute growth of GNP can occur with or without growth of population, and also, "economic growth" as it is most often used by economists, journalists and politicians is understood as per capita figures. Global GDP has risen magnitudes more than global population in the 20th century and in the history of humanity as well. Also, in the 20th century the greatest average yearly economic growth was actually sustained by countries whose population grew only modestly compared to others.

There is an important distinction between economic development and economic growth. Development generally refers to the process of modernizing an archaic economy, which may or may not involve increasing its scale. But growth (in already developed nations) is mostly fueled by consumption, i.e. more people consuming. When economies of scale are well established, further economic growth is mostly a result of rising demand for products and the need for more workers to produce them. The global economy allows population growth to be tapped anywhere in the world to suit these needs.

The creation of new and innovative products like computers (which some call growth) is different from the gross output of things like food, oil, timber, cars and appliances. The fact that we must constantly "create" jobs should tell us that population growth has no logical purpose. Many people find themselves with nothing to do, and make-work jobs just increase government debt. The main reason we "need" more and more jobs, goods and services is to accommodate the needs of more people. There's no intrinsic purpose to this, unless one enjoys watching the world become a more crowded, complicated and polluted place.

The cycle of growth for growth's sake must be broken before resources get too scarce to provide a safety net. The GNP cannot grow indefinitely in a finite world. This needs to be understood on a gut level by everyone before the gradual actions needed to break the cycle can take place. As long as people believe that perpetual economic growth is a means to an end there will be an underlying resistance to population stabilization. That's because population growth is a key ingredient in the expansion of many industries. For example, the building industry is dependent on a steady increase in human numbers and we call it a "leading economic indicator." Many other industries thrive on rising consumption and it's ingrained in our economic thinking.

You seem to be not aware that there are hardly any economic areas that are excluded from innovation in the middle to long run. There are no "established scales of economy" in any place. You need not rely on timber to build, you need not rely on agriculture, fishing and breeding to make food, you need not rely on oil make electricity and animate vehicles. You are right that absolute limits to growth are unavoidable but you seem to be deeply mistaken about the general location of those limits. "Reduce population vs. get crowded/polluted" is at the very moment a false dillemma; it is possible to increase population, increase well-being, decrease pollution, decrease crowdedness and decrease environmental impact simultaneously, and by great margins.

Development and growth are often compared, contrasted and criticized on various grounds. What you seem to espouse is that growth is not a proper indicator of axiological or social good because a growing population and a deterioriating standard of living can coexist. Also - correct me if I'm mischaracterizing you - my impression is that you think that quality of life is lot more complex than most measured standards of living, especially GDP/GNP/GNI. I'm inclined to agree. I for one would like to see an economy that is less reliant on exploiting loopholes of evolved human psychology and produces a stabler and more pronounced pattern of general well-being and happiness. Therefore, our disagreement seems to be factual rather than moral in nature.

So

I do not believe that technologies currently exist that allow the human race at its current population levels to sustainably live on this planet (I'm sorry, your vegan / vegetarian diet based on annual mono-crops is not sustainable). I also do not believe that emerging "green" technologies will develop fast enough to scale with the growing global population.

I'd like to see arguments why this is the case. Current projections of population growth estimate the all-time peak population to be around 9-11 billion people in 2050. In simple terms global population growth will stop there, if there are no disruptive, unforseen changes. I can hardly see how that level is critical such that supply of basic goods become unrealizable, supposing that absolutely NO technological advancement takes place until then; current theoretical food producing capabilites are sufficient to feed a lot more people than that. Also, not even crowdedness and pollution shall increase from 7 billion people to 11 billion people dramatically. To say that an 50% total increase in population in 40 years cannot be countered with technology is an extraordinary stance that would require extraordinary evidence. Just by extrapolating from the last 20 years, global pollution levels should actually fall somewhat in the coming decades as emerging countries further modernize their "dirty" industrial capacities.

And this is the scenario when nanotechnology and biotechnology are ignored altogether - a grave mistake. If I take those two into account, the situation becomes much more optimistic (again, barring of existential catastrophe). I'd like to hear reasons why you ignore them.

[JLL]

I will say their one child policy is already turning out to be quite harmful and will only get worse as the generations that were born under the policy replace the previous ones. The reason is because they will have an abnormally large proportion of old people who will be a burden on the rest of the population, and they will have a shortage of women because of the preference for boys on the part of parents. These will lead to heavy social and economic costs.

I have to agree with this. I can see how "let's have less babies so there's more food to go around for the rest of us" looks smart in the short term, but in the long run, there are lots of problems.

[Kutta]

Umm, the first paragraph of the second quote in my last post is actually my reply to the first quote, I just screwed up formatting.

[Luna]

3 Questions!

I thought they guys here argued that rice isn't so healthy either?

Is there a difference between brown rice and white rice in how healthy they are?

How do you make bread out of rice?

Bad things about rice are:
It has a high glycemic index if you have insulin resistance issues.
It also has enzymes that survive cooking and inhibit protein digestion.

Hi Rwac! isn't' the fact that it can inhibit protein digestion a good thing? We are always told protein is the worse of the three (carbs/fat/protein)

[rwac]

Hi Rwac! isn't' the fact that it can inhibit protein digestion a good thing? We are always told protein is the worse of the three (carbs/fat/protein)

Nooooo. Protein is essential. Excess protein *may* be bad for life extension purposes,
Not digesting protein is a bad idea, and can lead to allergies.

[chris w]

Bullkaka. There's no known limit to the number of people this planet can support, but it's definitely in the hundreds of billions and we're only 1-2 generations away from a massive space revolution that will remove those limits as well.

20 to 50 years at worst to a massive space revolution? I'd be a bit more sceptical, what are your reasons here ? Export this to Trans And AnCap thread if you like. Remember The Government is still plotting to keep us all in the caves . The first sentence seems to be contradictory ( in terms of economic pressures ) with the second - if there's still a lot of place to make use of here on Earth, then there's no strong enough incentive to work hard towards the colonization of space, I'd think.

Edited by chris w, 27 May 2010 - 03:48 PM.

[adamh]

Overpopulation is a major problem. The people who deny this always make up some rosy scenario in which fusion power is invented, hydroponics becomes cheap and we all live happily ever after. I think the fairy godmother comes in at some point. The reality is we can not support our present population without drastically lowering the quality of life for all but the rich. Air, water and soil pollution is rising every year at the same time arable land is decreasing.

Letting women decide how many kids to have is a big mistake. They all want to pump out the brats to no end. China is doing well because they put a stop to that. The old people can be taken care of with their new prosperity. Let the men make the decisions and things will be fine.

Sending aid to third world countries is a mistake unless they agree to population control. It may make people feel good to save all the children but they grow up and pump out brats of their own. Who is going to feed them? The do gooders have done their part by sending vaccines, don't ask them to feed all the brats they saved, or the brat's brats. So next we have massive starvation and photos of darling children with pleas for donations. If they are saved, in 20 years the problem is ten times as great. Then they all die off.

[chris w]

Letting women decide how many kids to have is a big mistake. They all want to pump out the brats to no end. Let the men make the decisions and things will be fine.

That is an empirically based observation ?

[adamh]

Letting women decide how many kids to have is a big mistake. They all want to pump out the brats to no end. Let the men make the decisions and things will be fine.

That is an empirically based observation ?

All the women I've met want kids. The term "biological clock" refers to women's desire to crank out rug rats and the fear they won't be able to have as many as they want. Make people prove they are good parents and can take care of kids before they get a license to have them.

[Skötkonung]

Overpopulation is a major problem. The people who deny this always make up some rosy scenario in which fusion power is invented, hydroponics becomes cheap and we all live happily ever after. I think the fairy godmother comes in at some point. The reality is we can not support our present population without drastically lowering the quality of life for all but the rich. Air, water and soil pollution is rising every year at the same time arable land is decreasing.

Letting women decide how many kids to have is a big mistake. They all want to pump out the brats to no end. China is doing well because they put a stop to that. The old people can be taken care of with their new prosperity. Let the men make the decisions and things will be fine.

Sending aid to third world countries is a mistake unless they agree to population control. It may make people feel good to save all the children but they grow up and pump out brats of their own. Who is going to feed them? The do gooders have done their part by sending vaccines, don't ask them to feed all the brats they saved, or the brat's brats. So next we have massive starvation and photos of darling children with pleas for donations. If they are saved, in 20 years the problem is ten times as great. Then they all die off.

Exactly! This is what pro-population people keep touting on this forum: solutions using unrealistic developments in technology. And even if such technology is developed, as can be seen with the third world nations, it probably won't be deployed widely enough to reduce environmental impact / be sustainable. Limiting population whether through economic development or public policy is required.

[Skötkonung]

I will say their one child policy is already turning out to be quite harmful and will only get worse as the generations that were born under the policy replace the previous ones. The reason is because they will have an abnormally large proportion of old people who will be a burden on the rest of the population, and they will have a shortage of women because of the preference for boys on the part of parents. These will lead to heavy social and economic costs.

I have to agree with this. I can see how "let's have less babies so there's more food to go around for the rest of us" looks smart in the short term, but in the long run, there are lots of problems.

1. There are some potential negatives to the Chinese deployment of the one-child policy (cultural bias towards males comes to mind), but none of these have caused havoc yet on their economic growth. However, shortages of resources / pollution / surplus labor has harmed their economy.
2. You're critiquing the entire concept of limiting population based on the Chinese deployment of the one-child policy (hmm.. generalization?)

[EmbraceUnity]

1. There are some potential negatives to the Chinese deployment of the one-child policy (cultural bias towards males comes to mind), but none of these have caused havoc yet on their economic growth. However, shortages of resources / pollution / surplus labor has harmed their economy.
2. You're critiquing the entire concept of limiting population based on the Chinese deployment of the one-child policy (hmm.. generalization?)

1) Also the fact that the population will be top-heavy in the sense that the proportion of old people will create a burden on their society. They will need to eat up tons of their wealth and perhaps even go into debt simply to pay all the pensions. Not to mention the coercive nature of the policy, and the tyrannical nature of any state authoritarian enough to enact such policies.

2) Can you give me an example of population control that has worked? If not, skepticism is warranted on that basis alone.

The only times that a reduction in fertility rates has occurred without tons of suffering is through normal economic development. Again, I'm not making excuses for any of the problems of development as it is currently practiced.

[Skötkonung]

1. There are some potential negatives to the Chinese deployment of the one-child policy (cultural bias towards males comes to mind), but none of these have caused havoc yet on their economic growth. However, shortages of resources / pollution / surplus labor has harmed their economy.
2. You're critiquing the entire concept of limiting population based on the Chinese deployment of the one-child policy (hmm.. generalization?)

1) Also the fact that the population will be top-heavy in the sense that the proportion of old people will create a burden on their society. They will need to eat up tons of their wealth and perhaps even go into debt simply to pay all the pensions. Not to mention the coercive nature of the policy, and the tyrannical nature of any state authoritarian enough to enact such policies.

2) Can you give me an example of population control that has worked? If not, skepticism is warranted on that basis alone.

The only times that a reduction in fertility rates has occurred without tons of suffering is through normal economic development. Again, I'm not making excuses for any of the problems of development as it is currently practiced.

1. Top heavy population will only exist so long as population is decreasing. Once a desirable population has been reached, it will no longer be an issue. Your whole pension argument is specious in that it hasn't happened yet.

The irony here is that you prescribe a dietary regimen (vegetarianism) that seeks to limit my access to meat. Tyrannical? If you cared about animal welfare, you would recognize that sometimes self imposed limits are required to reduce environmental impact.

2. Up until recently, there has never been the necessary social infrastructure to institute a population limiting regimen across the breadth of an entire nation (1 billion people). A lack of evidence doesn't mean such endeavors are doomed, it just means it is a social experiment -- one that is apparently working quite well.

Edited by Skötkonung, 27 May 2010 - 06:25 PM.

[sthira]

Limiting population whether through economic development or public policy is required.

And if we don't do it, nature will.

[adamh]

Limiting population whether through economic development or public policy is required.

And if we don't do it, nature will.

That's right! People talk as if this was all a philosophical question along the lines of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. There is starvation going on in many parts of the world now and those who aren't starving are often living in filth, do not have enough clean water and or have to work up to 12 hours a day to survive. This is living?

The areas with the most problems have the greatest population densities, such as sub saharan africa. Other places with high density population have addressed those problems such as china. India too is over populated but has done something. Most of africa has done little more than look for handouts.

The liberal cry of "save the children" is a siren song leading to disaster. We need less children, not more. The decision is to either limit children by policy or let them die off from overpopulation. There is no third possibility. What actual good has sending all those vaccines to africa done? They are worse off than before. The do gooders ignore reality and focus on the good feelings they get and praise they get from other like minded fools.

We are like an island with enough food for 1000 people but we have 2000. Either all will die or 1000 die and the others live. Luckily for us we have enough time to lower population or at least limit growth. Limiting growth may not be enough but we must do that. Or let nature do it.

[rwac]

There is starvation going on in many parts of the world now and those who aren't starving are often living in filth, do not have enough clean water and or have to work up to 12 hours a day to survive. This is living?

This is a political issue. There's enough food to feed everyone. The lack of water is due to a lack of infrastructure, not a shortage of water.

Food is used as a weapon to subjugate people in some countries, increasing production will do nothing in that case.