World Population: Bursting at the seams?

[RastaPope]

First, some facts on world population. In the year 1000 AD, the world's population was an estimated 400 million people. It took 750 years for that to double, but in 1850, we'd surged to 1.75 billion. In 1950 there were about 2.5 billion people on this planet. Currently there are about 6.25 billion people alive. By the year 2050, there shall be an estimated 9.3 billion people. 7 billion people in only 100 years is an incredible amount. Right now, fully half of our 6 billion are people under the age of 25. Obviously, this needs to stop.

Aids. War. Starvation. Sure, all sad and unfortunate on a personal level, but aren't these things *good* on a global level as far as population control?

Now, an estimated 5.3 million people are afflicted with Aids every year, and since 1981 there's only been about 20 million deaths.

In 1999(the last date I could find) only 8.8 million people, 24,000 a day, died of hunger or hunger related issues such as malnutrition.

Overall, through disease, war, aids, and natural deaths, about 63 million people die every year. This dent isn't anywhere near big enough to stabilize our ridiculous breeding.

What education we have isn't enough, people still fuck too much. Even if there were free contraceptives and proper education for everyone, people would still fuck too much, because most of us have no kind of restraint. Then there are the religious, like the Catholics, who will breed and breed and breed no matter what. Fools. So what's to do? Legally enforced child limit laws? Sterilization? Drop some nukes on India? Prizes for not breeding?

Personally I'm all for child limit laws for all in developed modern countries. Anyone having more than 2 children would face dire social and legal consequences not least amongst them instant sterilization. As far as underdeveloped countries, automatic sterilization after a single child. Not like they could actually feed any more than the one, anyway. Just my opinion, I'm probably wrong.

What's to do?

 

[SINthysist]

Nothing Rasta.

Technology has improved faster than population.

The more technological a society, the lower the birthrate.

 

[SINthysist]

As for your last conjecture...

Have you seen what China does with girl babies?

I rescued one.

Your turn...

 

[guser]

no......

did u know u could fit the worlds population on the isle of wight (just off the south coast of the united kingdom)......

look it up and see how small it is.......therefore no, not bursting at the seams!

a little fucked up at times tho

 

[Bob_Bytchin]

Do some reading on population growth of the different continents or seperate countries. You will find that by 2050, Europe and the USA will be far behind. Check out this graph: http://www.prb.org/images/e-02(world_pop_distr).gif

 

[SINthysist]

Assuming China and ourselves don't begin lobbing nukes...

...or mass starvation, epidemic, alien invasion, or borg assimilation.

 

[SINthysist]

But on a more somber note.

That's just a projection based upon selected data, like your daily weather forecast, or Global Warming Scenarios, SuperBowl Predictions...

 

[Worm]

If you feel that way move to China. They are the largest experiment of child limit laws. I read some projections stating that it will soon be 14 Men to every Women in the next few decades. That is a major social problem. You will have a huge society of men who can't get laid, date nor marry. Not to mention what they do to their baby girls over there.

 

[guser]

but.....

...but great if u were gay.....

 

[SINthysist]

Why do you think they are getting so militaristic?

They've been reading their history and studying their art, especially the Rape of the Sabine Women...

 

[mritsme]

what is it they do to baby girls over there?

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

The biggest growth is in Africa. It's crazy there.

They can't feed the population that they have now (due to political instability, not lack of arable land).

 

[superlittlegirl]

Third.

 

[Susano]

An important point, Lovetogiveroses. Pennsylvania, for example, has a much higher population density than India (I can't remember the exact figures, but it was significant). There are markedly fewer starving masses in Pennsylvania, though; probably because they have no problem eating grandmother, as reincarnated in the form of a hamburger.
Of course, just because we have the technology to sustain a certain density, doesn't mean it'll always be pleasant. I recall a Harlan Ellison short story set in a future where agricultural technology had grown apace with the population, but the average living space was about eight square feet to a person.

 

[SINthysist]

What happens to baby girls?

At best low-tech abortions.
Death.
Abandonment.

Then the couple tries again for a boy...

 

[RhumbRunner13]

An important point, Lovetogiveroses. Pennsylvania, for example, has a much higher population density than India (I can't remember the exact figures, but it was significant). There are markedly fewer starving masses in Pennsylvania, though; probably because they have no problem eating grandmother, as reincarnated in the form of a hamburger.
Of course, just because we have the technology to sustain a certain density, doesn't mean it'll always be pleasant. I recall a Harlan Ellison short story set in a future where agricultural technology had grown apace with the population, but the average living space was about eight square feet to a person.

One of the really annoying things that happens here at Lit. is that you make a good point and support it with a fact that someone checks out. Urban myths abound and some of us just love to blow them up!

India is about 3 times as dense as Pennsylvania!

India: Pop: 1.030 Trillion or 1030 million
Area: 2.97 million Sq/Km
Density: 343 people per Sq/Km

PA Pop:12.3 million
Area: 114,731 Sq/Km
Density: 107 people per Sq/Km.

Isn't that ANNOYING as shit!

Rhumb

 

[Susano]

Ow. Thank you.
*writes 100 times on blackboard "I will not quote unsourced figures. I will not quote unsourced figures"

 

[KillerMuffin]

Don't pay much attention do you.

Industrialized nations are moving from no population growth, where the United States is sitting at now, to a population decline.

Limiting births to 2 children will not regenerate the population. Socioligists estimate that it takes 2.1 children per couple to maintain population numbers. The US barely makes that. Italy has 1.7 children as its average.

Before anyone asks, this is statistics, not biology. In statistics you can take ten couples and 21 children and end up with 2.1 children per couple. Duh. Obviously someone has three children, but you can't break it down like that when you're talking about millions of people.

I'm not a New Malthusian. I'm with the anti-malthusians who believe that as the nation industrializes the less children are born per couple because children become liabilities, not assets, and they're just too expensive in terms of time and money to have a whole bunch of 'em. The total population will hit about 9 to 10 million and then start to decline.

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

At least India can feed it's people, thanks in large part to innovations in genetically modified rice. Africa can't feed itself and it's population density today is much lower than Penna.

It's not so much a question of arable land, knowledge by more politics and culture that cause the problems with food there. Africa contains many of the poorest countries on earth, they can't feed themselves, yet they somehow manage to find the resources to have almost continuous civil or tribal wars. AIDS is rampant. Yet, their population keeps increasing. Why does this happen?

 

[Susano]

Probably 'cause everyone wants to have enough children to avenge them when they get bumped off by the neighbors. I don't know, of course. It would be interesting to see the growth statistics from some of the African countries without appreciable tribal infighting.

 

[Guest]

Eco-system
The resource is limited. We need to terminate about four billion people. Lottery time!

But, then, 50 billion years from now, the earth will be engulfed by the sun, so what's the point? Whatever will be will be.

Make organic vegitable cheaper.

Eat mad cow. (This means give oral pleasure to KillerMuffie)

 

[Guest]

In theory, creating a child limit law sounds like a logical step to take towards solving over-population. But it also sounds a bit brutal. We're talking about a problem that supercedes over-population. Over-population is the symptom; passing a law to restrict reproduction would serve only as a temporary fix.

I have to ask "Why does this problem exist?" if I'm truly interested in achieving a working, more long-lasting solution. Over-population (more likely than not) occurs because there are many, many people who do not understand the necessity of reproductive restraint.

It doesn't seem logical to educate people about this issue by passing a law that forbids them from doing it; to me, it is a fairly extreme way to go. Do we imagine that people just won't "get it"? Seems to me that the solution to the problem really depends upon the information and education available to the people.

Now this is the part where the cynic in me speaks up: Even if everyone did fully understand the concept of responsible breeding, what is to say that they would give a rat's ass? Can we bank on it? Probably not... so I ask again, "Why does this problem (apathy) exist?" People wouldn't care about the issue because they need to be educated about so much more than just this one topic. (no shit, right?) I think a good place to start would be educating others about the value of, well, human value. Individual human value.

What do you think?

--tomgirly

 

[tomgirly]

oops...

...the above post was mine. (It was my very first post-- I can screw up this one time, right?)

-- tomgirly

 

[IA951]

Rasta...excellent topic for a thread.
I have always liked you, always enjoyed your posts.

I agree with you that something needs to be done.
Steps need to be taken, measures need to be enacted.

I like the idea of child limts.
That's somewhere to start.
I have been thinking something along the lines of compulsory sterilization.

Heres an idea...those who are going to be pretty useless as parents anyway, drunks and junkies, mental defectives sterilize them.
You need an incentive though.....one-time payment.
Not sure what it would be based it.
Again somewhere to start.

 

[superlittlegirl]

Response IA951

Hmm, because I have attention deficit disorder, mild bouts of depression and the occasional manifestation of obsessive-compulsive disorder-like behaviors, I would be considered mentally defective. I would probably be sterilized according to your plan.

But...

I also have a level of intelligence that is regarded (by standardized tests and real-life application) as being exceptionally high. And, I'm cute, to boot.

So do you sterilize me or do you let me breed? The argument is equally strong (in the world of your suggestion) for either course of action. Which do you choose? And how do you justify that choice? Do you stop my mental defects from being passed along to the future generation, or do you add my high quality DNA to the gene pool?

I'd like to think, actually, that the answer would be neither. I'd like the choice of whether or not I decide to breed to be, ultimately, in my hands.

--Freya

Rasta...excellent topic for a thread.
I have always liked you, always enjoyed your posts.

I agree with you that something needs to be done.
Steps need to be taken, measures need to be enacted.

I like the idea of child limts.
That's somewhere to start.
I have been thinking something along the lines of compulsory sterilization.

Heres an idea...those who are going to be pretty useless as parents anyway, drunks and junkies, mental defectives sterilize them.
You need an incentive though.....one-time payment.
Not sure what it would be based it.
Again somewhere to start.