Thread: Overpopulation

This thread is here for two purposes:

1. Discuss the accuracy of the overpopulation dilemma. Is it a myth? Why? What is the real problem?

2. Discuss ethical solutions to the problem. How far is it justifiable to go in order to achieve a sustainable population?

Spoiler for my opinion:

I believe there are three pressing issues regarding population. The first is the overtaxing of land. In order to grow enough food for the world population, we must use synthetic fertilizer, the run-off of which is linked with dead-zones in the oceans and other environment problems. Even with crop rotation, there is a population boom related directly to the invention of synthetic fertilizer so we could expect if we waned off it, this boom would recede. Even if we decided to ignore the environmental repercussions, the fertilizer is largely oil based which leads us to the next problem.

Peak Oil is becoming an issue, as oil companies are becoming more and more desperate to find new sources of oil and are presenting their own environmental threat in the process. No matter what happens, it is inevitable that oil will become too scarce to use, and even if we managed to change over to a new energy source we'd also have to invent new tires, new fertilizers, new plastics, etc... in order to keep society running. Whether or not you wish to argue global warming (keep in mind you're an idiot if you do) peak oil cannot be argued. Even if we managed to find a source of oil that could last us long enough to change over to a new fuel source, we need to shrink the population anyways in order to avoid the third problem.

We do not have enough fresh drinking water for everyone. Currently 2 billion people rely on the fast-melting glaciers of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. When this source is no longer available, such massive populations will be displaced, fluctuations from the displacement will rock virtually every other society on earth. Whether or not we can change over to a new fuel source and figure out some way to grow enough food for everyone without synthetic fertilizer, it seems extreme competition for fresh water will become inevitable.

The carrying capacity of our species was artificially inflated several times. I call these inflations artificial because they are based on resources which provide temporary yet unsustainable abundance. Our farming methods deplete the capacity of the soil and our industrial society sits atop a finite resource.

So the question is what actions can we take which are ethical? Sterilization agents have been tried in the past but always seem to be motivated by a political or racial agenda, so if anyone advocates the use of sterilization I say let's start with the jews. (Not trying to be a dick, I'm just making a point). We could simply allow nature to take its course as human carrying capacity will reach equilibrium again after a few billion die off and that seems as ethical as sneaking sterilization chemicals into the water and other shit that has been put up for legislation in the past.

Another solution is education because there's a direct link between being educated and having less children, but the simple biological fact is our carrying capacity is artificially inflated and assuming we can educate the whole world into dropping the population by a 3rd in one generation is a bit overly idealistic in my opinion. So I'm not sure about that idea.

Thoughts?

I think better technology and education will reduce population growth, and like you hinted at, population growth has stabilized in all major developed nations now. In many there is even a shrinking going on. Immigration does conceal this some what, places like the US has a stable birthrate but is growing due to immigration.

I do think we have answers to all the issues you stated. For one we have things like hydroponics. Hydroponics have a higher yield of crops and doesn't use fertilizer. It does have a high setup cost but it is a definitely an option. Not only remove fertilizers but actually increases food production.

We can actually make artificial oil now, and while it isn't really worth it to burn, it can allow us to continue making plastic. We will probably just grow plants and covert them into plastics.

That still leaves energy sources that are needed but renewables are constantly getting better as well. We just need to keep improving them and soon they will take over for all our needs.

Then we get to water. Obviously there is more than enough water for everyone, the problem is that it is all salt water. We already have the technology for desalination and can remove salt water from as much water as we want or need. The problem is that it is still costly so we don't do it lightly. However if we keep improving the technology like we are, it will become cheaper and cheaper. Eventually it will be common enough that we will have all the water we could ever need.

I don't believe we have reached the carrying capacity for humans yet, and I think population will stabilize before we reach it. I am not sure how smoothly things will go when we switch to other energy sources but I think it will eventually happen.

The best thing we can do is just keep improving technology, and improve health conditions and education around the world.

The thing with better technology and education, I'm all for, don't get me wrong, and future projections also predict that things will get better for a lot of people, but this will also worsen the situation: the demand for water and energy will increase further. The number of cars will double to 1.7 billion in 2035. China's emissions will be greater than these of OECD in 2035. The diversity of the oil supply will decrease, MENA, an unstable region will be the main provider for oil so there's the danger for more "energy wars". We can't use any more conflict in the region. The demand for coal will increase, coal having the worst CO2 emissions. Investing in renewable energy will be necessary but this is expensive. Countries might look more in the direction of nuclear energy, but there's always the danger of accidents like Fukushima, not to mention what to do with the waste, and the danger of nuclear weapons getting into the wrong hands.

I don't think it's a myth that it's a problem, though I don't believe we are doomed. Water issues are not a problem of supply but are often a political problem or a problem of water management. With regard to energy, switching to a different energy system will be necessary. In the best case, there will be a transition period of relying more on natural gas and then we should really start to invest in the renewables more and more. The problem is that politicians with their temporary position, often invest more in short term solutions as they won't be around anymore anyway to deal with the long term consequences. The public isn't informed enough to know it's going to pieces if we don't do anything about it. So not much is happening.

Government investment sucks, and all the companies they support seem to go bankrupt. If our energy needs are going to be met, it will probably come from technology being developed in the private sectors. Everyone knows we will need to make the switch so there is a lot of pressure on people to be the ones to come up with and perfect the energy technologies that we need.

I think we will definitely get there, and we will get the energy we need. What I am uncertain about is how smoothly the transition is going to be. Are we going to seamlessly switch from oil to renewables? Or are we going to milk oil for all its worth, face a huge shortage, watch our economies get destroyed then finally get into high gear to finish perfecting and deploying mass renewable energy systems?

One could argue that we are already there, and facing some of the issues coming from the energy problems. So we might make the switch the hard way.

5,502,532,127,000,000 square feet
there are only 7 bill people /myth busted

Originally Posted by greenhavoc

5,502,532,127,000,000 square feet
there are only 7 bill people /myth busted

I hope that wasn't serious. Someone forgot oceans, inhabitable mountains, deserts, poles, etc

Not myth propaganda better.

We just don't spread out enough, how about instead of trying to think about running away and colonize other planets, we spend that money on making habitable settlements in currently uninhabitable areas on the earth. Eg. The bottom of the ocean.

Underwater cities would be pretty cool. Though due to the pressure involved it is probably easier to build a city on the moon. We need to get a space elevator up or something, so we can start getting into space for far cheaper than we can now.

And then we can just export all our production factories to the moon and make earth a place where only the rich can settle and the moon can be like the ultimate third world sweatshop country.

In all seriousness I don't think we should think of ways to further inflate our carrying capacity, but rather think of ways to reduce a population toward a more sustainable capacity. Even if we figured out how to sustain our population as it currently is, doing so will only mean it'll get even larger.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

And then we can just export all our production factories to the moon and make earth a place where only the rich can settle and the moon can be like the ultimate third world sweatshop country.

Unfortunately that seems quite probable.

Plus the thread is no about fitting people in the world but about the consumption of the world's resources.

Stick two dozen tigers in the same 10 miles and most of them will starve. The name of the game is carrying capacity of the environment, not geographical size of the environment.

Greenhavoc is an idiot, 'nuff said.

I do think we need to reduce population. I wouldn't be against only allowing certain people to breed if it could be done properly. But of course it wouldn't be, so I don't want that.
I think people with high intelligence should be allowed to breed like crazy, and the only ones allowed to donate to sperm banks.
Everyone else should be only allowed to have 1-2 children.

I also think that even if we can move to the Moon or Mars, we aren't fixing the problem of lack of foresight that is inherent in most humans.
It will inevitable cause even more problems in the future. It'd probably take us 50 years to fill up those celestial bodies and then we'd have no where to go that's reachable.

Basically I don't think we can keep using science to fix the results of our innate problems.

And that applies to many other things. Fix someone with some genetic condition, they get to breed and they increase the frequency of said genetic condition genes in the pool.
(Of course we will be able to correct all genetic conditions at the genetic level before they present themselves, but I'm 100% certain more problems will arise from that as well).
Breed rapidly, come up with agriculture to feed everyone, breed even more, come up with hydroponics....

We need to fix our minds.

Originally Posted by tommo

Greenhavoc is an idiot, 'nuff said.

I do think we need to reduce population. I wouldn't be against only allowing certain people to breed if it could be done properly. But of course it wouldn't be, so I don't want that.
I think people with high intelligence should be allowed to breed like crazy, and the only ones allowed to donate to sperm banks.
Everyone else should be only allowed to have 1-2 children.

Just as long as one of the disqualifying questions on the intelligence test is "Are you jewish?" I'm fine with that.

Seriously, if its an IQ test all you do is allow culture to shift toward more abstract thinkers. Intelligence tests in general are a terrible idea because one culture's concept of intelligence isn't the same as another. Why don't we continue to do what we've always done, and allow the most successful breeders to breed more? You know... evolution?

I also think that even if we can move to the Moon or Mars, we aren't fixing the problem of lack of foresight that is inherent in most humans.
It will inevitable cause even more problems in the future. It'd probably take us 50 years to fill up those celestial bodies and then we'd have no where to go that's reachable.

It's cool, our sun is a stargate dude.

Basically I don't think we can keep using science to fix the results of our innate problems.

And that applies to many other things. Fix someone with some genetic condition, they get to breed and they increase the frequency of said genetic condition genes in the pool.
(Of course we will be able to correct all genetic conditions at the genetic level before they present themselves, but I'm 100% certain more problems will arise from that as well).
Breed rapidly, come up with agriculture to feed everyone, breed even more, come up with hydroponics....

We need to fix our minds.

Well I do think we should switch over to hydroponics so that we aren't taxing our soil as much. Food itself isn't really the issue, the reason the carrying capacity inflated in the first place is because there was enough food to feed more people. The issue is people didn't see what it was doing to the soil, and GMOs would not fix the soil but hydroponics would leave the soil alone so it could reconstitute itself. I'd like to see anyone who doesn't opt to be a hunter-gatherer to live off hydroponically grown food, one day.

But to me the real issue is water and oil, we can change over to a different energy source besides oil but we will run out of fresh water. And if we did manage to extract fresh water from the oceans, even then we'd present a terrible threat to the ecosystem. The problem, to me, is that mankind grew to the point where now we are consuming faster than our resources can replenish themselves.

Now I personally do not see a government controlling who can breed to be any more ethical than allowing people to die off naturally when we have either an energy or water crisis. And I don't see letting people die off to be any more ethical than allowing us to continue this growth. So I am personally in kind of a pickle. It seems like every possible strategy is equally shitty. Except perhaps spreading education so people will naturally breed less rather than being forced to.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Just as long as one of the disqualifying questions on the intelligence test is "Are you jewish?" I'm fine with that.

Seriously, if its an IQ test all you do is allow culture to shift toward more abstract thinkers. Intelligence tests in general are a terrible idea because one culture's concept of intelligence isn't the same as another. Why don't we continue to do what we've always done, and allow the most successful breeders to breed more? You know... evolution?

Because it doesn't work like that. Especially not when there's so many people.
There's a reason there's so many ugly, fat, moronic people.
Plus our obsession with monogamy, so the "best" cannot breed more prolifically.
Plus our social welfare programs which encourage people who cannot afford it on their own to breed anyway.
Obviously not only the best breed, even the worst have the opportunity.
Which is what I was saying with the fixing genetic issues thing too.
We can fix them so they look normal, and have a good opportunity to continue those bad genes.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

It's cool, our sun is a stargate dude.

ಠ_ಠ

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Well I do think we should switch over to hydroponics so that we aren't taxing our soil as much. Food itself isn't really the issue, the reason the carrying capacity inflated in the first place is because there was enough food to feed more people. The issue is people didn't see what it was doing to the soil, and GMOs would not fix the soil but hydroponics would leave the soil alone so it could reconstitute itself. I'd like to see anyone who doesn't opt to be a hunter-gatherer to live off hydroponically grown food, one day.

Yeah, we should just because it's better for the environment. But where do they get the nutrients from that you feed the plants? I haven't actually looked in to that.
Hopefully they're not getting it soil.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Now I personally do not see a government controlling who can breed to be any more ethical than allowing people to die off naturally when we have either an energy or water crisis. And I don't see letting people die off to be any more ethical than allowing us to continue this growth. So I am personally in kind of a pickle. It seems like every possible strategy is equally shitty. Except perhaps spreading education so people will naturally breed less rather than being forced to.

Right,

We need to fix our minds.

Originally Posted by tommo

Because it doesn't work like that. Especially not when there's so many people.
There's a reason there's so many ugly, fat, moronic people.
Plus our obsession with monogamy, so the "best" cannot breed more prolifically.
Plus our social welfare programs which encourage people who cannot afford it on their own to breed anyway.
Obviously not only the best breed, even the worst have the opportunity.
Which is what I was saying with the fixing genetic issues thing too.
We can fix them so they look normal, and have a good opportunity to continue those bad genes.

Look as long as whatever parameters you want to use to weed people out of the genepool extends to the jews, I'm on board.

ಠ_ಠ

It's true dude. Srsly.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Look as long as whatever parameters you want to use to weed people out of the genepool extends to the jews, I'm on board.

Intelligent people are generally a benefit to the rest of the population. It's not as arbitrary.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

It's true dude. Srsly.

ok.... duude

I wouldn't be against only allowing certain people to breed if it could be done properly

I think people with high intelligence should be allowed to breed like crazy, and the only ones allowed to donate to sperm banks.

Basically I don't think we can keep using science to fix the results of our innate problems.

(Of course we will be able to correct all genetic conditions at the genetic level before they present themselves

We need to fix our minds.

Originally Posted by tommo

Greenhavoc is an idiot, 'nuff said.

Oh, I'm an idiot alright.

Originally Posted by greenhavoc

Oh, I'm an idiot alright.

I thought you were banned from here?

Originally Posted by mcwillis

I thought you were banned from here?

Not all bans are permanent.

You will have to do most of the work yourself and make up your mind. The Wikipedia article is a good source of information. The problem is that whenever there's a study into this there is a whole shitstorm of hysterical criticism. Many scientists say that even doing the studies is immoral, which I totally disagree with, because basically you end up saying that your moral system rests upon a denial of reality. The truth can never be a bad thing; people just need to be confident enough to deal with it. And what you end up doing by taking issue with the studies is implicitly saying that low IQ is a bad thing... so you end up being the one making the dodgy moral judgements. Another criticism that is made is that the concept of race doesn't even exist, but I don't really think that's true either, and again it's probably harmful to feel compelled to take that stance. Obviously there is an objective distinction between Asians and native Americans for instance; race can be taken to mean whatever the basis of that distinction is. Of course the categories are blurred at the edges, but that doesn't make them wrong any more than it makes the concept of colours wrong. The criticism rarely actually seems to deal with the methodology; it doesn't seem to suggest that the mean IQs of the sampled populations is wrong. To me it just seems like a lot of political waffle and spin, which shouldn't belong in science. Just look at the second paragraph of that Wikipedia article: those statements are just politically correct platitudes, and don't address whether average IQ actually does vary between races. 'You can't determine somebody's intelligence by race'; that is not an answer to the question, obviously averages aren't about individuals. 'Humans have equal ability to assimilate culture, and racism is unjustified'; again, not an answer to the question.

Whatever defines race, language itself has a huge role to play in our interpretation of reality. If someone speaking english creates an IQ test and it gets translated to another language, you have already created a bias in favor of the language the test was originally written up in. Culture in a broader way also has a profound effect on intelligence. For instance, an inuit might not be able to score as high in terms of abstract thinking (which is all an IQ test figures out) but I'd like to see you macguiver a knife out of a lump of shit and a wad of spit.

But that's knowledge, which is not at all the same thing as intelligence. One is entirely environmental, whilst the other has a large innate component. Anybody who happened to be brought up in inuit culture could fashion a knife out of poo, and indeed there is no reason somebody couldn't develop that skill in later life, but not every inuit (or any other group member) who was brought up in the West (or any other culture) could ever score 120 on an IQ test.

Also the thing about language and IQ tests is nonsense; the people who make these things aren't stupid enough to somehow use a process biased towards one language or another, and any such bias would be easily detectable if it existed. And often the test they use for these things will be entirely devoid of words.

Language shapes the way you think and the way you perceive reality. For instance Hopi language does not have any sort of word for empty spaces such as room or hallways, so a location of an object must be described based on its relationship with other objects around it. Sanskrit, Poly and other languages from that area do not have the same distinction between subject and object, so concepts of causality have a more transactional interpretation. Many languages do not require one to consider past, present and future, so the past is only noted as an accumulative present moment. Turkish requires that you express how you obtained whatever information you are communicating. The Pormpuraaw of Australia do not have term like left, right, forward and back, everything becomes described relative to north, south, east and west, meaning in order to communicate you must always be oriented in the real world. English speakers consider time horizontally while Mandarin speakers consider time vertically, meaning an english speaker visualizes the future in front of them and the past behind them while a mandarin speaker visualizes the future below them and the past above them. English speakers think of time in terms of 1-dimensional length, while Spanish and Greek speakers consider time in terms of 2 dimensional size, utilizing words like "a lot" and "much" rather than "long" and "short." And each group performs differently in cognitive tests. In fact they did a study where they had english speakers express themselves in different terminology, comparing duration by using "larger" instead of "longer" and mapping out events vertically. The english speakers' test results began to resemble the mandarin and greek results.

It does not matter whether or not an IQ test uses a language or not, people speaking different languages think differently and visualize differently, and it goes beyond the words they use when communicating. It defines the very structure of conceptual reality they have.

I find this language constraint on cognition to be very interesting. While its a myth that the eskimo's language have more words for snow then english, it is true that its polysynthetic nature undoubtably influences their cognitive processes. I did a bit of digging around and found the following link documenting an unusual acuaty in visual memory that eskimo village children posses over caucasion urbanites:
Visual Memory in Village Eskimo and Urban Caucasian Children
Heres an excerpt:

The Eskimo language may also increase the speakers' attentiveness to and memory for visual forms and patterns. Different languages code particular domains of experience with more precision than others. When a language represents an attribute in a single word rather than a lengthy paraphrase, the attribute may be more available as a class)fication category and may be more easily remembered (Brown 1958).

Adapted to the requirements of arctic ecology, the Eskimo language codes domain of form and location with much greater economy than the English language (Gagne 1968). Eskimo contains a system of "localizers" which enables speakers to specify the form of objects and their spatial location as an integral part of the word for the object. For example, Gagne (1968) points out that the three-word Eskimo sentence "ililavruk manna ilunga" would be translated into the twenty-word English sentence "Please put this slender thing over there crosswise on that end of that slender thing to which I am pointing" to convey the same amount of information about form and location.

Since the use of localizers is obligatory in Eskimo where it is not in English the Eskimo speaker may be more attentive to form and space distinctions. At to code a larger amount of information about form and location in fewer wore the Eskimo speaker may learn visual information more rapidly and be able store larger amounts before overloading his memory capacity.