lordofthedread Posted May 6, 2013 Posted May 6, 2013 Our history goes back longer than two thousand years. A lot longer. As for resources, there is a limit to what we can produce, and that number goes down as the number of people goes up. Our history goes back to approx. 6000 years on the oldest civilzations (Mesopotamians are believed to be the oldest), I am talking about actual history not the discovery of fire.... Mammals appeared on earth 200 millions years ago and the first human beings appeared a mere 2.5 millions years ago, lets agree thats nothing on a 4.54 billions years timeline.... And dont you find that stupid that we are still using fossil ressources when we all know that other means of energy are available and doable knowing that fossil ressources are destroying our environment? I really think that overpopulation wont be a problem anytime soon if we continue living as we do now at this pace, we are quite gifted in autodestruction.
El Sparrow Posted May 6, 2013 Posted May 6, 2013 Giving everyone an acre of land wouldn't help us. We're running up against a usable water shortage most of the time as it is. One of the benefits of cities is that a higher population density tends to lead to lower water usage, allowing the water to go farther than it otherwise would. Spread us out to one family per acre and most of us will die of thirst; or our crops will, and we'll die of hunger. Of course that isn't feasible, it's just to illustrate the point that there's PLENTY of space for people. On other words, there's way fewer people than there are environmental resources. Yes, absolutely. There are more resources than there are people. Unfortunately, one person uses more than one resource. I know I've used more than one chicken in my life, and more than one litre of water. Despite not driving myself, I've indirectly used many gallons of oil. It's not a 1:1 comparison, and not all of those resources replenish at a greater rate than we're using them, so anything we can do to keep our usage down is a good thing. So, while we do need to reduce crowding, we can't realistically do that by spreading outwards, hence my earlier mention of arcologies, or at least an approximation of the concept.
Captain Cobra Posted May 7, 2013 Posted May 7, 2013 How about letting social Darwinism go into effect?
Monsto Brukes Posted May 7, 2013 Posted May 7, 2013 Giving everyone an acre of land wouldn't help us. We're running up against a usable water shortage most of the time as it is. One of the benefits of cities is that a higher population density tends to lead to lower water usage, allowing the water to go farther than it otherwise would. Spread us out to one family per acre and most of us will die of thirst; or our crops will, and we'll die of hunger. Of course that isn't feasible, it's just to illustrate the point that there's PLENTY of space for people. On other words, there's way fewer people than there are environmental resources. Yes, absolutely. There are more resources than there are people. Unfortunately, one person uses more than one resource. I know I've used more than one chicken in my life, and more than one litre of water. Despite not driving myself, I've indirectly used many gallons of oil. It's not a 1:1 comparison, and not all of those resources replenish at a greater rate than we're using them, so anything we can do to keep our usage down is a good thing. So, while we do need to reduce crowding, we can't realistically do that by spreading outwards, hence my earlier mention of arcologies, or at least an approximation of the concept. So the explanation is that there is a larger volume of resources on the planet than is necessary for humans to exist with comfort. I'm not talking about 2 chickens 1 human, I'm talking about chickens feeding humans from womb to tomb. Example: buffalo were extraordinarily abundant to the denizens of the plains for millennia. 150ish yrs ago, the 'robber barons' of the american railroad and the beginning of the domination of corporations began over harvesting that easy natural resource. The downline effect of that was mining corporations wanting to rape the fuck out of the grand canyon... Teddy Roosevelt stomped that shit with I believe an executive order creating the National Parks because congress was in their pocket. If people were just people, devoid of corporations chasing $$ at any expense, then over use of natural resources wouldn't be a problem. We wouldn't still be relying on fossil fuels when solar power is quite literally thousands of times more abundant. Overcrowding, that is to say that the concentration of humans into (mega)cities is more of a problem than overpopulation (too many people, period). Simplifying (not devolving) day to day human life would have a greater effect on the overuse of resources and the expansion of threatening disease than simply reducing the number of people. Example: the wiff is a windows sysadmin for a global corporation. She has 1 work-at-home day per week. Reality is that even when she's in the orifice, the conversations she has with people would not significantly be hindered by having a vid-conference window open all the time. At that point, she could be in Ghana and it wouldn't make a difference... ok lag, but what 2 seconds? that's by today's standards. Just by using current technology, that workforce could be spread out. "Yeah right... what about water, power, the net connection etc etc" yeah that requires social solutions that are absolutely the reason this conversation started in the first place. Imagine for a moment if the US Govt had a "public option" internet where every post office had say a "super wifi" with a 10 mile radius... paid for by a levee on your monthly tesla coil power transmission. 1mbit sync... or you could pay a corporation for a better internet . . . Google Fiber, for example. Yeah I'll admit... that's the Imagination Engine in full effect. It's a feasible solution to a current problem that is unlikely to be implemented. There's many problems in current American society that can easily be solved with the kind of "whole society" approach that is politically shunned these days. Bottom line: My opinion is that overpopulation, by definition, is a misnomer. Overcrowding is the real problem and it's solvable by solutions that are not in corporate best interests. So that means that we'll never see them.
Myst42 Posted May 7, 2013 Posted May 7, 2013 *give everyone a gun. I heard of this guy in the internet posting videos of how to 3D-print a gun, inviting everybody to do the same At this pace everyone will be dead in no time, that means the project is advancing Giving guns to everyone regardless of their training, personality and mental condition... great idea!, by all means keep going!
El Sparrow Posted May 7, 2013 Posted May 7, 2013 Giving everyone an acre of land wouldn't help us. We're running up against a usable water shortage most of the time as it is. One of the benefits of cities is that a higher population density tends to lead to lower water usage, allowing the water to go farther than it otherwise would. Spread us out to one family per acre and most of us will die of thirst; or our crops will, and we'll die of hunger. Of course that isn't feasible, it's just to illustrate the point that there's PLENTY of space for people. On other words, there's way fewer people than there are environmental resources. Yes, absolutely. There are more resources than there are people. Unfortunately, one person uses more than one resource. I know I've used more than one chicken in my life, and more than one litre of water. Despite not driving myself, I've indirectly used many gallons of oil. It's not a 1:1 comparison, and not all of those resources replenish at a greater rate than we're using them, so anything we can do to keep our usage down is a good thing. So, while we do need to reduce crowding, we can't realistically do that by spreading outwards, hence my earlier mention of arcologies, or at least an approximation of the concept. So the explanation is that there is a larger volume of resources on the planet than is necessary for humans to exist with comfort. I'm not talking about 2 chickens 1 human, I'm talking about chickens feeding humans from womb to tomb. Example: buffalo were extraordinarily abundant to the denizens of the plains for millennia. 150ish yrs ago, the 'robber barons' of the american railroad and the beginning of the domination of corporations began over harvesting that easy natural resource. The downline effect of that was mining corporations wanting to rape the fuck out of the grand canyon... Teddy Roosevelt stomped that shit with I believe an executive order creating the National Parks because congress was in their pocket. If people were just people, devoid of corporations chasing $$ at any expense, then over use of natural resources wouldn't be a problem. We wouldn't still be relying on fossil fuels when solar power is quite literally thousands of times more abundant. Overcrowding, that is to say that the concentration of humans into (mega)cities is more of a problem than overpopulation (too many people, period). Simplifying (not devolving) day to day human life would have a greater effect on the overuse of resources and the expansion of threatening disease than simply reducing the number of people. Example: the wiff is a windows sysadmin for a global corporation. She has 1 work-at-home day per week. Reality is that even when she's in the orifice, the conversations she has with people would not significantly be hindered by having a vid-conference window open all the time. At that point, she could be in Ghana and it wouldn't make a difference... ok lag, but what 2 seconds? that's by today's standards. Just by using current technology, that workforce could be spread out. "Yeah right... what about water, power, the net connection etc etc" yeah that requires social solutions that are absolutely the reason this conversation started in the first place. Imagine for a moment if the US Govt had a "public option" internet where every post office had say a "super wifi" with a 10 mile radius... paid for by a levee on your monthly tesla coil power transmission. 1mbit sync... or you could pay a corporation for a better internet . . . Google Fiber, for example. Yeah I'll admit... that's the Imagination Engine in full effect. It's a feasible solution to a current problem that is unlikely to be implemented. There's many problems in current American society that can easily be solved with the kind of "whole society" approach that is politically shunned these days. Bottom line: My opinion is that overpopulation, by definition, is a misnomer. Overcrowding is the real problem and it's solvable by solutions that are not in corporate best interests. So that means that we'll never see them. As a species, we're using resources faster than they're being replenished, so while it may be true that right now we have more than enough resources for us to live in comfort, this is strictly short term. Arguably, chickens are more or less unlimited, but the soil nutrients and water needed to produce feed for those chickens are not, meaning that a limit is imposed upon those chickens, and that this limit is falling. E-commuting from Ghana won't help that. Granted, there is water throughout the solar system that we can conceivably get at - we have an ice cube tray 20 AU 2.99*10^10 km 2,991,957,414,000 km HUGE wide out there in a hollow sphere, so we're not exactly short on water if we can get at it, which is feasible. Although, that said, bringing more water down here might lead to more water vapour in the atmosphere, which could be a problem. Likewise with the nutrients; we can probably find plenty of those around the solar system, but just dumping more fertiliser onto our fields will just trade one problem for another. Overuse of fertilisers has already lead to deadzones in many coastal waters, and that problem would probably only get worse if we use more. If we could find a way to recover the fertilisers polluting those deadzones, maybe we could solve both problems, but I have no idea if that's realistic. Until problems like these are solved, our access to resources will be sufficient in the short term only and overpopulation will continue to be a real issue in the long term... and speaking for myself, I'd rather see them dealt with now than at the last minute, especially if I have a chance of being there at that last minute. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that overcrowding isn't a problem, only that overpopulation is also a problem. If people were just people, and assuming they didn't all plant organic crops because natural is apparently always best, then I might agree that these problems would have been dealt with... but, as much as I wish otherwise, they aren't and they haven't. As things stand, we have three possible paths to take: 1) Find a solution, continue to grow enough food for everyone, overpopulation is less of a problem, eventually no problem when all other related problems are solved. 2) Go organic! Stop the environmental damage currently being done to our planet as a result of excess nutrient pollution, watch ~1/3 of the world die fairly soon. 3) Pretend there's no problem, make no changes, or make changes we can't sustain, watch 3/3 of the world die, though possibly beyond our lifetimes, so maybe we won't watch it. I really want to take path 1, because then overpopulation really will be a misnomer, and then we can work on our telecommutes. Personally I want to telecommute from Mars, so I'm fully in favour of spreading out a bit, just not before we can actually make it work in the long term. How about letting social Darwinism go into effect? You volunteering?
sen4mi Posted May 7, 2013 Posted May 7, 2013 I think we should keep in mind that the U.S. does not have an overpopulation problem. A lot of the country looks something like this: http://imexcursions.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/batch102008_0727_180532aa-e1332910377959.jpg There are exceptions, of course, and a bulk of the population lives near the ocean so that gets crowded. The U.S. has uneven-distribution-of-population problems. (The US has about 2.5x the population of Japan, and about 25x the land area. And Japan, remember, has a shrinking population problem.) China has an overpopulation problem, but you cannot solve that in the US (nor in Japan).
Monsto Brukes Posted May 7, 2013 Posted May 7, 2013 Giving guns to everyone regardless of their training, personality and mental condition... great idea!, by all means keep going! NRA has been working towards that goal for about 40 yrs now.
Monsto Brukes Posted May 8, 2013 Posted May 8, 2013 The problems you mention in support of the "overuse" argument is due to economic dependence on use of resources. What I'm saying is that using current tech to support a more dispersed population (telecommute is just one example) that favors locally acquired resources and a generally simpler support of life would not have resource problems. Arable land and energy are the 2 largest needs, and both of those are in great abundance if people used them for life as opposed to entities using them for profit. Arable land is constantly renewed if tended by a farmer as opposed to an economic-based entity that uses the land hyper-efficiently. You farm chickens, they shit in the dirt, the shit feeds worms, etc etc . . . Simba's circle of life. An economic entity puts more chickens in a smaller space, for the sake of efficiency, creating disease and pollution problems thanks to that concentration. spread out that 3million chickens a year from a single facility the size of a college campus to an area the size of say Iowa, and you greatly reduce the problems that all those chickens cause... the disease, the chickenshit, the water use and pollution, etc. The reality here in this thread is that we're splitting hairs. The solutions to both problems are largely the same. But, again, you're not solving any of them -- population, crowding or pollution -- in the US without a certain 536 people being willing to identify and deal with the real problems. Unable? Horseshit. Unwilling, absolutely.
sen4mi Posted May 8, 2013 Posted May 8, 2013 The problems you mention in support of the "overuse" argument is due to economic dependence on use of resources. What I'm saying is that using current tech to support a more dispersed population (telecommute is just one example) that favors locally acquired resources and a generally simpler support of life would not have resource problems. Arable land and energy are the 2 largest needs, and both of those are in great abundance if people used them for life as opposed to entities using them for profit. Arable land is constantly renewed if tended by a farmer as opposed to an economic-based entity that uses the land hyper-efficiently. You farm chickens, they shit in the dirt, the shit feeds worms, etc etc . . . Simba's circle of life. An economic entity puts more chickens in a smaller space, for the sake of efficiency, creating disease and pollution problems thanks to that concentration. spread out that 3million chickens a year from a single facility the size of a college campus to an area the size of say Iowa, and you greatly reduce the problems that all those chickens cause... the disease, the chickenshit, the water use and pollution, etc. The reality here in this thread is that we're splitting hairs. The solutions to both problems are largely the same. But, again, you're not solving any of them -- population, crowding or pollution -- in the US without a certain 536 people being willing to identify and deal with the real problems. Unable? Horseshit. Unwilling, absolutely. It's not quite that simple, but I agree that we could do better than we are. Farming is hard work, though. And there are reasons that the amish are having genetic problems from not having big enough of a population base - I think one of them might be that lots of people do not like how much hard work you need to do, and how much endurance you need to have, to be a successful farmer.
pseudobio Posted May 8, 2013 Posted May 8, 2013 For those social darwinists suggesting we put people down like animals at the vet's office, I suggest we start with them first! As one of the disabled these social Darwinist lothe, I have proven my social darwinist survival right by surviving a stroke at birth, adapting to innovative alternate methods of accomplishing tasks, and thriving for over 50 years. Darwin proposed that it is those most able to adapt, not necessarily the strong, who survive. For some social darwinist jerk to suggest I now have no civil right to life, is not only an insult to me, but an insult to humanity as a whole. Social darwinists need to crawl back under their rocks and fade away. Expansion to other worlds is the only humane way to take care of the population issue. People who suggest killing off the undesired are simply on an egotistical power trip.
Monsto Brukes Posted May 8, 2013 Posted May 8, 2013 For those social darwinists suggesting we put people down like animals at the vet's office, I suggest we start with them first! As one of the disabled these social Darwinist lothe, I have proven my social darwinist survival right by surviving a stroke at birth, adapting to innovative alternate methods of accomplishing tasks, and thriving for over 50 years. Darwin proposed that it is those most able to adapt, not necessarily the strong, who survive. For some social darwinist jerk to suggest I now have no civil right to life, is not only an insult to me, but an insult to humanity as a whole. Social darwinists need to crawl back under their rocks and fade away. Expansion to other worlds is the only humane way to take care of the population issue. People who suggest killing off the undesired are simply on an egotistical power trip. I was going to say "HAVEN'T YOU BEEN READING THE THREAD?!" and then I remembered it's > 100posts, so the answer to that question would probably be "No." But yeah I suggested a few posts back that overcrowding is more the problem; that there is plenty of arable land and global resources (renewable and other) for the population to live comfortably if only people and facilities were a little more spread out.
El Sparrow Posted May 8, 2013 Posted May 8, 2013 The problems you mention in support of the "overuse" argument is due to economic dependence on use of resources. What I'm saying is that using current tech to support a more dispersed population (telecommute is just one example) that favors locally acquired resources and a generally simpler support of life would not have resource problems. Arable land and energy are the 2 largest needs, and both of those are in great abundance if people used them for life as opposed to entities using them for profit. Arable land is constantly renewed if tended by a farmer as opposed to an economic-based entity that uses the land hyper-efficiently. You farm chickens, they shit in the dirt, the shit feeds worms, etc etc . . . Simba's circle of life. An economic entity puts more chickens in a smaller space, for the sake of efficiency, creating disease and pollution problems thanks to that concentration. spread out that 3million chickens a year from a single facility the size of a college campus to an area the size of say Iowa, and you greatly reduce the problems that all those chickens cause... the disease, the chickenshit, the water use and pollution, etc. The reality here in this thread is that we're splitting hairs. The solutions to both problems are largely the same. But, again, you're not solving any of them -- population, crowding or pollution -- in the US without a certain 536 people being willing to identify and deal with the real problems. Unable? Horseshit. Unwilling, absolutely. I think you're right that we are mostly just splitting hairs, except for the feeding people thing. The current economic model of farming is bad. It's a bad life for the animals, and it has negative repercussions on the environment. But it's also the only way we can currently feed ~7 billion people. Granted, we're practically not feeding some of those people at all, while some of us are overfed, but we do at least produce enough food to feed everyone if we get our acts together. Hyper-efficient land usage does have serious downsides, but the traditional land usage only provides enough food to feed ~4 billion people. We need to find a way to solve that problem that doesn't involve people starving, including the people who already are. Expanding those small facilities into larger spaces might help the pollution problem to some extent, but they'd also bring new problems in. If it really was expanded to the size of Iowa, for example, it would end up encroaching onto the natural habitats of other animals, which could have other effects in the long term. So far, the only solution that seems to be in reach is - and please don't lynch me for this, yes, I know Monsanto is the devil - GM crops, which need less water, less fertiliser, and less pesticide for more edible food. With GM crops, maybe we could return to less intensive farming methods with an even lower environmental impact than they used to have, while still growing enough to feed everyone. But, yeah, as long as power lays with a rich and terrifyingly ignorant few, we're probably fucked... woo. For those social darwinists suggesting we put people down like animals at the vet's office, I suggest we start with them first! As one of the disabled these social Darwinist lothe, I have proven my social darwinist survival right by surviving a stroke at birth, adapting to innovative alternate methods of accomplishing tasks, and thriving for over 50 years. Darwin proposed that it is those most able to adapt, not necessarily the strong, who survive. For some social darwinist jerk to suggest I now have no civil right to life, is not only an insult to me, but an insult to humanity as a whole. Social darwinists need to crawl back under their rocks and fade away. Expansion to other worlds is the only humane way to take care of the population issue. People who suggest killing off the undesired are simply on an egotistical power trip. Two things: 1) Stephen Hawking. Fuck yeah. 2) The major thing that social darwinists forget is that humans aren't actually apex predators, where only the fastest, most brutal, and point-teethest survive, but a social species where it's mostly those who support each other that survive. Also, I seem to remember reading Darwin opposing the concept, so it's kind of ridiculous to call themselves darwinists.
Monsto Brukes Posted May 8, 2013 Posted May 8, 2013 How many ________ does it take to change a lightbulb? Therapists: 1, but the light has to WANT to change So Cal Princesses: 5... 4 to sit around and bitch about it and 1 to call daddy. I'm not sayin, I'm just sayin.
El Sparrow Posted May 8, 2013 Posted May 8, 2013 I have no idea what a So Cal princess is... sounds like a gun with a tiara. I think I want one! :3
Monsto Brukes Posted May 9, 2013 Posted May 9, 2013 I have no idea what a So Cal princess is... sounds like a gun with a tiara. I think I want one! :3 Southern California. So Cal (LA, San Diego), No Cal (San Fran, Oakland), both unrelated to Low Cal.
Kamen Rider Kuuga Posted May 10, 2013 Posted May 10, 2013 I'm all for genetic modification of crops and animals, and fuck all those fear mongers who rail against it.
TDA Posted May 10, 2013 Posted May 10, 2013 (It's not exactly a quote someone here) Start from yourself. Leave sex in the past ....(:
kingkong Posted May 10, 2013 Posted May 10, 2013 every one think negatively when saying overpopulation and when we think about it it is negative wrong as overpopulation means new conceptions are in moving new technologie must appear and the most is when there is over population there is evolution; nature low darwin conception . If space is not a solution than "x men" are .
E.L. Palmer Posted May 12, 2013 Posted May 12, 2013 Who do yo want to kill? Maybe you people should watch a Youtube called "End Game". The Earth can hold TEN TIMES the current population with enough room to spare for the wilderness and the wildlife. The technology that can turn the Earth into a Pandora like jungle exists. But it is intentionally suppressed to keep the human race down in favor of the Aristocracy of this world who believe that they alone have the exclusive right to exist on this planet.
Scramagon Posted May 12, 2013 Posted May 12, 2013 Simple. We already have birth deficits in many industrialized countries. Just make people work long hours, make porn easily accessible, make contraception easily accessible, and make prostitutes legal and easily accessible. The long hours and easier 'options for fulfillment' will take care of the issue without any drastic measures. The only non-ethical aspect is the long hours, in this situation. But really, the hours don't need to be enforced. People will just work the long hours voluntarily to pay for the prostitutes.
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