Over Population
Original post
Posted by Soliloquy, 17.06.2006 - 19:39
if its a problem, how do we fix it?
i personally think that at the rate the world population is going, we would cause our own judgement day before God planned to. i mean, look at countries like China, and India. sure, their economy is going high, but at the same time, the world pollution is going high. sure china put a limit on thier child birth, and they limited a couple to only have 1 child. if they exceed that limit, they would be paying tons of taxes. India on the other hand doesnt have that limit. its population is almost 1 billion(that is 1 sixth of the world population), and its still sky rocketing.
Kenya's population growth rate is at a 4.6(or was it a 4.8?) percent. what that means is that in the next 16 years, their population would double. and then it would take them 12 years to double that. and then 7 years to double that. Kenya's growth rate is by far, the fastest in the world. and has been the fastest in over the 100 years or so?
what does over population mean to the world? well, for one, the more people there are, the more land they take up. for example, 75% of the kenyan population is living on farmlands. if that wasnt bad enough, countries have to get rid of tons and tons of forests to make room for more people to live. since the government cant keep up with such a big population, people start to take matters in their own hand. they start cutting down woods for fire, or thier stove. and if they are hungry, they start hunting, which is bringing the animal population to a down low as well. and if you look at this in an economic point of veiw, if people start living on farmlands, than the country's government would have to increase their imports just to keep up with the population's demands. and what would happen if the government cant handel that demand? you can only imagine.
just imagine what the world would be like when its population doubles to 12 billion?. people would be fighting for the necsesities needed to live. stuff like water, food, shelter, clothing. and if everyone is cramped together, there would be a huge rise in the diseases(if you know your history, look what happend to athens when they build a wall around their city.). people would be living in their own filth.
and if that wasnt bad enough, if people contine to cut down the trees, then the greenhouse gases would contine to fuck our ozone layer, which would mean that the place would get hotter, and hotter still. is that bad? yes! for starters, the ice caps from the north pole, and south pole will melt. who cares? well, north pole, sure its no actual land, but it is just a huge chunk of floating ice that is around 3 miles deep. (wait..was it 3 or 2 miles deep?) and the ice on south pole is about 3 miles deep. you melt those, and you would get a major flood. the only living lands to survive that would be mountian peeks like mount everest, or those rocky pillars in south america. how can the world population live on those tiny islands? well, they cant. first reason being that it would be so close to the sun, that it would be series of heat strokes. on top of that, man cant survive with ocean water. but then again, our ocean water has been polluted. and we have killed about i think 75% of the fish that lived near coastal areas. so really, we cant live.
and if you think that that wont happen, or its impossible to happen....well they say(discovery channel. you gotta love it!) that the jungel as thick as the amazons has been loosing trees every day. people have been clearing about 1 to 1 and a half lenghts of football fields in trees alone. and with the african and indian population sky rocketing, their forests would be chopped down soon.
a cure? a solution? what, put a manditory ban on couples world wide? that wont work becuase a lot of third world countries need more than one child in the family to either work on the famrs, in facotires, or look after diseased family members. and on top of that, those families alose loose tons of kids becuase of diseases. on top of that, even if we were to put that limit on them, it wont work. reason ebing that people just dont listen.
sow hat is the cure to stop this from happening? shut down all the factories? people are money hungry. that wont happen. im sure someone like billgates can buy a country if he pleases. so that wont work
a war? creat a holocaust to sacrifice all the people in the world? humm...that would be WAY to ethical. and that would also cuase a huge riot, and racism would be on the rise becuase people would say 'who to kill?' anarchy would break down on the streets. no, anarchy is not a good thing becuase it would be that everyman is his own government. it just wont work...
so is over population a serious delema that people should worry about? is there soemthing that can be done to stop it? what should happen? your views and opinions
| AtLossForWords Spinozistic Posts: 2087  |
Well the world is a place of limited resources, and it is even worse when a small segment of the world's population makes a disproportionate use of those limited resources. My main concern is jobs. When employment decreases really bad things start to happen, not the least of which is crime. If the population keeps growing and growing there may be more people to take advantage of goods and services, but will they necessarily have the resources to really take advantage of them. Over population is really just going to result in a 'big jail' like the film Escape from New York. I say this because I really don't think there will be enough jobs to keep people from murdering and stealing from each other. I don't think there will be enough jobs, because machines are becoming more and more efficient and proficient at what they do. Soon enough, all that companies will need to employ are Research and Development geniuses with some shipping guys for people who buy their products over the internet. Maybe its a long way off, but it could happen.
---- Proud owner of many erased pages.
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| Valentin B Iconoclast Posts: 10084  |
Written by Guest on 21.04.2010 at 14:58 yup, i read about this problem too. infanticide unfortunately is a big problem as having a daughter is considered like having a burden since in many cultures (even in European ones, "the father of the bride pays for the wedding") you have to provide the dowry. it's not that much of a vicious circle, but it does seem that sometime in the future this thing will spiral out of control, leading (at best) to even bigger immigration to the West by Chinese and Indians. there is nothing wrong with that, after all all they're doing is searching for a better life, but if measures aren't taken to curb the enormous population rise in India and Africa. i think the aid agencies are looking at this the wrong way, i know these people have already suffered more than enough but instead of bringing food to impoverished countries i think they should first and foremost make it 100% clear that you can't have that many children or we won't be able to feed all of you, as in a few decades this over-population thing could very well spiral massively out of control and lead to civil wars or even worse famines. i'm not saying to create a famine now, but the philosophy of aid agencies should be more "if you promise to have only 1-2 kids if you don't have any yet, we'll give you the food you need" something like that should work better imo, and ensure there will be adequate food reserves for the generations to come. distributing condoms and advertising them as the only good way to have sex is a must, imo, seeing also as there's this enormous AIDS pandemic. i forgot to add, the one-child policy IS indeed effective and sounds good on paper but it seems the way it's being applied is not ethical at all and borders on "gendercide" in many cases.
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| kesh Account deleted |
kesh
Account deleted Written by Valentin B on 25.02.2011 at 23:52 I wish it could be a case of 'don't have anymore children please, if you can't feed them'. The problem with Aid itself is it undercuts any local production. As soon as a subsidized farming community, such as the EU or US, which considers farming a issue of national security, begins exporting 'Aid' (really its surplus production) a local african farmer with a cow and a couple of acres of land can't compete with industrial scale farming. He gives up, his poor quality wheat is competing in a market with cheap foreign high quality wheat. Then there comes dependence. They slowly stop producing there own food because it isn't economically viable. We then start complaining that while making cuts to our own public sectors where giving away money to "foreigners" in food aid. Its a cycle. Problem now is there isn't much 'surplus production' now that food prices are on a long cycle of climbing prices. As the strength of western currencies depreciates in future, with the rise of the BRICK's (who don't really give any Aid at all yet, as they have enough hungry folk of there own) either a) the percentage of GDP in the EU/US goes up to subsidising Aid, or b) rising countrys, in Arabia or Asia begin subsidising the own food production to go to Aid agencies. Basically, instead of been boring, what i'm saying is "don't give Aid in the first place". It undercuts and discourages, plus it helps keep up industries that would otherwise fail in the name of been "Ethical".
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| Yavanna Posts: 616  |
Written by Guest on 27.02.2011 at 16:50 oh, yes there is room for agriculture in Brazil, but that damn environmentalists want to keep it to the forest, mostly small farmers (as my family) will break up if the new environmental laws are adopted. the goverment says that if you have to keep forest, save the planet, the good air, and even if you live in a place where that have never had a forest, you will have to stop farming and PLANT trees, otherwise you will be fined and have to sell their land to pay debt. That's how things go in Brazil. Get ready people around the world You will starvate
---- Carry me to the shoreline Bury me in the sand Walk me across the water And maybe you'll understand
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| john_mcc Posts: 1039  |
Written by Zombie on 19.04.2010 at 00:56 I think that you are spot on with your first point; the link between poverty, illiteracy and a high birth rate is very well established, particularly when it comes to poverty and illiteracy affecting women. The fastest way to lower the birth rate in any country is to promote the education, employment and the economic independence of women. Your second point quoted is right wing scare tactics that has been debunked many times. Here is one of many links - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/article711186.ece. Currently 4%, Maybe 10% by the end of the century if current trends continue, and most of them secular, all assuming everything stays the same, which it won't. I remember reading back in the 90s that Egypt was adding 1.5 Million people to its population every year and being horrified, back then it had under 60 Million people, I've just checked wikipedia now and it has almost 80 Million, so a growth of about an extra million and a bit every year sounds about right. I was thinking about cities in Europe with a Million people, Glasgow + immediate suburbs is about that size, and they are huge! How on earth can a society cope with that many new people and all of the things that those people need? I would say that it is impossible, even with good government and Developed World resources which are usually lacking in the countries affected. We are currently between 6 and 7 Billion people on our planet, the only home that we can possibly have outside of Science Fiction for a long, long time to come, and you can see just how great a job we are doing of living with that. We will reach 9 Billion by 2050, it is now almost inevitable. The question is; Do we want to hit the current projection of 12 Billion by the end of the century? We will, unless many things change. The 2 most important things that I can think of for ending population growth are that poverty must be eliminated, worldwide; and women must be empowered, worldwide.
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| Zombie Thrash'tillDeath Posts: 1627  |
Written by john_mcc on 01.03.2011 at 02:39 +1 
----  None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free Johann Wolfgang van Goethe 1749-1832
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| ForeverDarkWoods Posts: 1001  |
Written by Zombie on 01.03.2011 at 17:14 For that to happen though, capitalism must be eliminated worldwide, imperialism must be eliminated worldwide, plutocracy must be eliminated worldwide, fascism must be eliminated worldwide and the conservative way of thinking would have to be purged from the minds of the general public. The entire system the world runs on would have to be rethought. Why are poor countries poor, when there in many cases exist great natural assets in these countries that are being utilized (a lot of really poor African countries have great natural assets, such as Morocco which has the waters outside the coast being the most rich in fish in the entire world), while in a lot of the rich countries in Europe natural assets are scarce (In Sweden we have iron, wood, uranium that we aren't mining and maybe some rare Earth metals that we aren't mining)? Short answer: Natural resources that aren't owned by people who are in any way connected to the people of the country, will not come to the good of the people there. It doesn't matter if I have oil in my backyard if that oil belongs to some rich person in another country (the best I can hope to gain from such a situation is getting a job with this guy and helping him make money from the oil on my back turf). This is a recurring trend in the 3rd world and it is a symptom of the phenomenon referred to as imperialism.
---- Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction! - George W. Bush, ex-president of the United States of America
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| Zombie Thrash'tillDeath Posts: 1627 |
Written by ForeverDarkWoods on 01.03.2011 at 19:48 Because their leaders are dicks  !Egypt is filthy rich in natural resources, we have uranium, phosphates, natural gas, oil, iron, fucking GOLD MINES, granite another stone quarrys, we have Agriculture; Cotton, wheat, fruits, sugar-cane, ... we also have a steady income from ships passing by the Suez Canal, which makes up to 40% of the world's naval trade passes through the suez canal and pays taxes and fees to pass by, Egypt is one of the main touristic destinations in the world with almost all kinds of tourism; sea-sky-sand tourism, historical tourism, health tourism, and adventure tourism, we also have lots of fucking fish as we oversee two seas and a huge lake, all of that and guess what ? 49% of the Egyptian population (about 42 millions) live on LESS than 2 dollars per day. now, i wonder where all this money goes to ?
---- None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free Johann Wolfgang van Goethe 1749-1832
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| Njord njord Posts: 1129  |
I think over population is the biggest concern that our and the future generations will have to solve. Perhaps in the XIX century, when the population doubled due to the industrial revolution, they had the same concern, but then the available information of the world was very poor comparing to all the statistics and studies we have at our disposal right now, so they didn't lost too much time thinking about it (there are few exceptions). Right now, we have all the big picture to see and to solve. All we know this isn't an easy task. In my opinion the first thing to do is to build a sustainable habitat for the next generations: Pollution, poverty and illiteracy must end or, at least, be controlled. If we can reach this first step, I would say that 90% of the work is done, just because the next one is almost an utopia: distribution of all the available supplies (food, house, technology, etc) evenly. This is an utopia not because of the question of "what is even?" but mainly because almost of the human progress was reached by dominant forces, which means that since the beginning, there was the rich and the poor, the chief and the employee, the master and the slave. To end this paradigm is to end the way we grown to what we are now. That's why I call it an utopia. Anyway, if we can take some little steps like raising the sucess of birth control policy, use all the ways we have to inform about family planning in critical areas and do our individual part (recycle, plant a tree, teach who doesn't care, etc) it's a good sign. Not enough for our future, but better than nothing.
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| ForeverDarkWoods Posts: 1001 |
Written by Zombie on 01.03.2011 at 23:08 The bigger parts go to rich businessmen in the west. The leaders are little dogs who're given the scraps from the table if they do as they're told. For a lot of countries, the reality is they could have basically any leader and the guy would still be useless since the state has no real power over the nation's economy (everything is owned by private interests, most of which are foreign). How much of the resources/industries in Egypt are owned by foreign (or even local) private interests?
---- Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction! - George W. Bush, ex-president of the United States of America
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| Valentin B Iconoclast Posts: 10084 |
As with many many other social problems, Education is key... if people aren't informed about stuff, for example how a condom saves your life or how in many areas in Africa if you have more than 3 kids you're basically condemning them to a life of misery before they're even born, and should be treated as an act of cruelty. the goddamned condom solves both of these problems and doesn't even affect sex-life that much. if i were in charge i would start hauling some ass and tell people in Africa and India just what the fuck is going on, but i guess capital bullshit business interest isn't sufficiently high in this field just yet.
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| Zombie Thrash'tillDeath Posts: 1627 |
Written by ForeverDarkWoods on 01.03.2011 at 23:36 Almost Everything, since Gamal Mubarak (ex-president's son and heir to the "throne") thought that capitalism and privatization is a good idea and we should get over our communist ideas in economy, and he sold EVERYTHING to the private sector and foreigners, foreigners own more than land and companies than Egyptians !!
---- None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free Johann Wolfgang van Goethe 1749-1832
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| Ernis 狼獾 Posts: 6807  |
Written by Zombie on 02.03.2011 at 01:38 That's what they did here... I mean... the ex-commies who were so glad that the USSR finally collapsed so that they were finally able to legally access the treasure vaults and then sell the country with its entire population and stuff their pockets with money... And tell us it's called the "thin state"... it's capitalism... it's freedom and flowers... Yeah, right... thin state means a state where there's "jungle law"... eat or be eaten...those who are cruel and vicious enough to eat, will eat... those who are too slow or lack contacts... are eaten. And at least in Estonia we cannot speak about any over population. Estonian population is dropping. Not just because people don't get any kids and thus there's more deaths than births but also because lots of people emigrate and nobody wants to immigrate... ok, some do escape to Estonia but usually from worse places... for instance places which are being occupied and under attack...
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| ForeverDarkWoods Posts: 1001 |
Written by Zombie on 02.03.2011 at 01:38 Yeah, it's a recurring trend. The guy was a puppet taking orders from the people who now own your stuff in exchange for some scraps from the table (still enough for him to live a life in luxury). This is the major problem when fighting poverty in a lot of nations. If the resources are owned by people with no connection to the peopl of the country and with no personal interest whatsoever in fighting poverty. In fact they have everything to gain through encouraging poverty among the general public as it creates an increased dependance, a market of cheap labour and workplaces guaranteed to be union-free. These puppet regimes throw in their lot with the capitalist industrial powers and go to war against any development that would be progressive for the general public. It is only upon realizing that 1. Poverty is the major cause of overpopulation in the third world. 2. Poverty is the major cause of the influence of backwards ideologies in lots of places in the third world. 3. Poverty is the major cause of the lack of good education in these regions, which contributes to these problems. 4. Poverty in the third world is mostly a direct result of the actions of mostly western (sometimes also Chinese/Russian) capitalists active in the region. This phenomenon is referred to as imperialism. that one can begin fighting a lot of the world's problems, including over-population. So, why do these problems exist? Well, the answer is because a lot of the world's most powerful people do not want them to be solved. And why should they, they have absolutely nothing to gain from it, and any suggestion for a real solution would most likely be demonized.
---- Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction! - George W. Bush, ex-president of the United States of America
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| john_mcc Posts: 1039 |
This is a really good film about how Indonesia got (and is still getting) screwed over by The West. The guy who made it is an award winning journalist. Make sure that there is nothing too breakable nearby before watching it. http://www.johnpilger.com/videos/the-new-rulers-of-the-world
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| kesh Account deleted |
kesh
Account deleted Written by Yavanna on 28.02.2011 at 15:17 Brazil seems to be where everybody is looking now as an economically viable region for massive food production. It has the water. It has a relatively good patented, ownership institution, accountable constitution, so your money invested wont disappear on some political bureaucratic whim, it has the farming expertise. The huge masses of land that are been plied with lime fertiliser points to where the main investments in world food production are going. As for this 'blame the West' edge thats going on. I'm not even going there. Only insofar as the Death rate as opposed to the Birth rate, has suddenly over the last century dropped off a cliff with the technological innovations of Penicillin, DDT and clean water been now cheaper commodities. Chemical and contraception are an expenditure many cannot gain or afford, even alien to them, and immoral. Death rate can be controlled by a few technicians working under a benevolent government or Aid agency. Birth rate is a much more menacing issue of control. I use the word control, because to a certain extent, for any who've read Huxleys logical conclusion to the issue of The Age of Overpopulation in his Brave New World, that may very well happen. Unless the powers that be blow us all up before then. To control birth rates you need everyone as a whole working towards, under there own free will, or been forced like in China to adapt it, as they had too (becoming less enforced now among the upper middle classes as famine there is not an immediate reality). There are nowhere any religious traditions or social conventions employed throughout the world that call in favour of unrestricted death, whereas everywhere there are for unrestricted reproduction. So yearly populations increases are increasing, not enough dying, as with the principles of derivatives, interest builds interest. Underdeveloped nations feeling this human growth more readily can't cope, can't be satified, people have become more poorly fed. With fewer available goods per person. Any attempt to improve the situation is stopped because of the pressure of population increases themselves. When things become difficult, governments, central planning take more control. Power, whether wanted or not gets thrust into a smaller group of people, and power is corruptive, imposing greater restrictions and frightening any chance of investment or specialized outside expertise (which in time brings internal expertise). Already densely populated industrialized nations, which instead of applying the old ways of the fear of punishment, the dept you must pay back to society, has slowly evolved (without a population explosion) to be replaced by little rewards and a certain amount of liberal mind control, are worried about a flood of immigration. They buy most of there food abroad. Also, all the little human decencies (rewards) will become harder to provide, a return to Dickensian; if in 80 years time, population is becoming critical enough, Russia's ban on selling Wheat abroad will become a common occurence across most countries. Not just in food. Trade wars i.e., a return to socialism. Socialism was needed after the Depression, it fell to pieces sadly in the 1970's through stagflation and cannot be replaced with a New new Deal now that we no longer live as a world by the gold standard. Goods available per person world wide will drop of a cliff. They'll be more autocracies, dictatorships. Less freedom. Or the more menacing subversive use of science and technology been much more widely used to control, through whatever means possible. Or, on a lighter note, as we see today, world GDP is growing, technologies always improving; genome sequencing of the major food groups has really only just finished - the potential of genetically modified foods to fill the gap in falling yield growth, social needs and models changing, becoming more effective, world population might eventually find a Death/Birth balance. But on this subject of Over Population, looking back on human history, im pessimistic. 
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| crayzrocker Posts: 3 |
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| RockeRoy Posts: 641  |
If we had mating season like moast animals, we wouldn't have this problem, but we love the pleasure to much:)
---- You found god? If nobody claims him in thirty days, he's yours Walk with me in hell
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| Yavanna Posts: 616 |
Written by RockeRoy on 24.08.2011 at 12:34 I don't think that this is the problem, there are contraceptive methods, why people don't use them?  This world is full of people, and even so, people don't stop having children
---- Carry me to the shoreline Bury me in the sand Walk me across the water And maybe you'll understand
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| RockeRoy Posts: 641 |
Written by Yavanna on 24.08.2011 at 14:11 It was kind of a joke, but if we had mating seasons it would help i guess. It's a good question why people don't use prevention, maybe they want alot of kids? in Norway we have christians who call themself "Smith's Friends" and they are not alowed to use prevention of any kind. and all of those familys drives mini-busses and have around 10 children.
---- You found god? If nobody claims him in thirty days, he's yours Walk with me in hell
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| Yavanna Posts: 616 |
Written by RockeRoy on 24.08.2011 at 14:22 Well, in Brazil, some people want a lot of children (the very poor people) to get governamental help, there are 16 years old girls that already have 2 children or more... It's a shame, maybe they should make a tubal ligation on these people... The average people have 1-3 children, and that's ok
---- Carry me to the shoreline Bury me in the sand Walk me across the water And maybe you'll understand
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| Twilight IntepridTraveler Posts: 1178  |
Over population is indeed a big problem, but not a single western country recognizes it. The best solution is even more controversial, which is birth-control. Just like it happens in China right now. But not a single politician who would dare to utter the word 'birth-control'. They are afraid of what people would say about it. But in the end it really is the only (and most humane) solution.
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| Glaucus Posts: 92  |
Overpopulation will become a problem sometime in the 'near' future. I remember being part of a class that made a project out of roughly estimating when 'shit hits the fan'. Or, when the cultivated and 'farmable' land available on the Earth will not be sufficient to supply a growing population... I don't remember the exact numbers, but at around 25 billion people we would have shortages of basic resources like food and oil and water and all that, and we're probably going to reach that mark sometime in the 2050's. Give or take a few years. A doomsday prediction, I know, and I hate them, I'm just saying that's what we figured it to be in that class. Haha. Anyway, the best and most impossible way to at least stem the population would be colonization of the solar system. Though, that 'solution' would be completely far fetched since no one would want to go into space to live on a rock with no breathable air, but, I am just saying that it should be a direction that should be taken more seriously. I was quite upset when President Obama cancelled NASA's Constellation Project, which called for another Moon mission by 2020 to make a permanent establishment there, and a manned mission to Mars by... 2030, or something like that. I dunno, I figure it best to get people off Earth so we can increase out chances of survival if something awful happens to Earth. Yep yep.
---- "Pretty easy work, for a God." - Freya ~ Valkyrie Profile
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| Twilight IntepridTraveler Posts: 1178 |
Although I like to fantasize about colonization of other planets and space exploration, I don't really support the idea of humanity spreading to other planets in this solar system in order to survive. Especially not in the near future (say, the coming one - two hundred years). Humanity doesn't deserve that. Especially not if the main reason for colonizing other planets is 'over population', that just doesn't sound right. To be frank, I think humanity first needs to solve their problems on earth and what really bothers me is that the western capitalist civilization as it is now will continue to spread its poison, even when we managed to colonize other planets. So let's first get rid of things like that. We really got plenty of time before this planet's dead. But I really wouldn't care that much if we won't be able to make it, as a species. If humanity is wiped out by a growing sun or a huge meteor, then that's the end, so be it.
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| Glaucus Posts: 92 |
Sounds pretty bleak. If anything, I am an eternal optimist, and as long as there is a will to survive then any species deserves a chance to do what they will to do so. Of course... Within reason. Irresponsible use of resources that lead to environmental dangers is something that mankind definitely need to put a check on, who knows when that will happen (though, I think that we collectively have been more conscious of it, some of us). But, now that I consider it, spreading to other planets for the sole reason of overpopulation does seem rather hollow, I agree. Colonization off of Earth should be an organized enterprise, to further our knowledge of technology and universe that we live in, not a last ditched gamble at survival. With that set... I really wouldn't know what to do to abate an overpopulation crisis. As is, we can not order people to stop reproducing, that brings a ton of red flags up in my mind, ranging from religious, moral, and instinctual problems. Yet, to be a 'responsible species', perhaps it would be best to ignore those things for the greater good, who knows. Thinking about this topic makes me consider how animal populations are controlled... To be very, very simplistic about it, animals generally hunt one another, and those that are lucky enough to survive being food succumb to the elements, or die of old age. One thing about humanity is that we just live longer than any other mammal, and we adapt to an environment, or change it, in order to survive. We could not very well begin to simply kill each other off, there are a number of wars taking place around the world and the casualties there, though awful, are so miniscule when compared to the total human population that warring against one another would not put a dent in overpopulation. And, though I regret to mention it, the Holocaust took millions of lives, and World War II, millions more. Easily the most deadly war in human history, but what are a few million when compared to a billion? If anything, I think the only thing that could be done, seeing as humanity will always expand, is to create more food with less land, and to develop more advanced infrastructure for cities. Taller and wider buildings, or even cities beneath the planet's crust. Far fetched... I think the main point to my thoughts is that greater technology may be the only thing that can alleviate the problems that overpopulation cause.
---- "Pretty easy work, for a God." - Freya ~ Valkyrie Profile
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| Twilight IntepridTraveler Posts: 1178 |
Haha, pretty far fetched indeed.  Nah, I still think the most simple solution to over population is birth control. You don't need to kill each other off, and you also wouldn't need to forbid people from getting children. Both of these things are too absolute and are not in any kind of way constructive. If two people make one child, that would even decrease the world population in a time span of a few hundred years. I can't think of a better option.  Only thing is, many people would probably feel offended by this idea. Especially religious people who feel that they should multiply as much as they can. But it is the most practical of all solutions and sooner or later everyone will probably admit this. Because no one wants to live on an overcrowded planet. And don't get me wrong. I'm not really having bleak visions about the future of humanity, I'm merely trying to be realistic. And humanity as a whole still has to learn a lot. A LOT when it comes to respect, freedom, compassion and human rights. I would never allow a civilization with so many flaws to travel into space and colonize everything on its path. As I'm seeing it, it would look too much like some kind of overgrown capitalistic enterprise that would want to sell its brand everywhere (Like what happens today with many multinationals).
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| Ragana Rawrcat Posts: 4919  |
Written by Twilight on 26.08.2011 at 21:25 it's not an overcrowded planet, those are overcrowded regions. there are hardly 2 million people living in Latvia and we're nowhere close to run out of water or land.
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