GhostWriter16
Deity
As far as population. We are definitely in trouble in America in other ways. But lets not get off topic.
Is overpopulation cause for concern?
- Thread starter LucyDuke
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As far as population. We are definitely in trouble in America in other ways. But lets not get off topic.
Narz
keeping it real
Population is approaching (or may have already reached) seven billion upright apes.
Couple of articles about it. One intelligent (Chicago Tribute) : http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-perspec-1028-population-20111028,0,2686991.story
and one ******** (Forbes) : http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkot...pulation-isnt-the-problem-its-too-few-babies/ (the two comments on the article are fairly intelligent though)
It's hard if these types at WSJ and Forbes really have their heads in the sand enough to believe the future's #1 problem is going to be too many sick elderly people or whether they're just pushing their agenda & marginalizing these that scare them or seem to conflict with their interests (environmentalism, rising amount of poor people [and wealth-divides], etc.).
Couple of articles about it. One intelligent (Chicago Tribute) : http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-perspec-1028-population-20111028,0,2686991.story
and one ******** (Forbes) : http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkot...pulation-isnt-the-problem-its-too-few-babies/ (the two comments on the article are fairly intelligent though)
It's hard if these types at WSJ and Forbes really have their heads in the sand enough to believe the future's #1 problem is going to be too many sick elderly people or whether they're just pushing their agenda & marginalizing these that scare them or seem to conflict with their interests (environmentalism, rising amount of poor people [and wealth-divides], etc.).
Winner
Diverse in Unity
@Narz:
The types you refer to are simply too enclosed in their bubble to understand the problem - which is that what we call the modern globalized economy is in fact a giant Ponzi scheme.
What is growth? Where does growth come from? Well, from population growth, mostly. You need more people in every subsequent generation to buy more stuff so that you can employ more people, manufacture more, sell more, and earn more. If population stabilized, maintaining the illusion of perpetual GDP growth of 3% and more would become impossible. The very core of our economic mentality is based on the idea that growth occurs every year, the more the better, and if the economy doesn't grow fast enough, it's bad. Ergo, population must grow so that our economy can grow and the economic-political elites can maintain their prestige. Who cares that we can't possibly maintain this forever? Long-term planning isn't exactly the main concern these days, in case you haven't noticed that yet. After us, the deluge. Better scare people with crap like "but if our population stops growing, there will soon be too many elderly and our economy will collapse
" Like if there was no solution to this problem other than perpetual population growth.
It's interesting to see how the present economic crisis affects the US. Even though it keeps creating new jobs, the unemployment remains high, because the working-age population is growing about as fast as the job market. It's a mad race between population growth and job opportunities. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The types you refer to are simply too enclosed in their bubble to understand the problem - which is that what we call the modern globalized economy is in fact a giant Ponzi scheme.
What is growth? Where does growth come from? Well, from population growth, mostly. You need more people in every subsequent generation to buy more stuff so that you can employ more people, manufacture more, sell more, and earn more. If population stabilized, maintaining the illusion of perpetual GDP growth of 3% and more would become impossible. The very core of our economic mentality is based on the idea that growth occurs every year, the more the better, and if the economy doesn't grow fast enough, it's bad. Ergo, population must grow so that our economy can grow and the economic-political elites can maintain their prestige. Who cares that we can't possibly maintain this forever? Long-term planning isn't exactly the main concern these days, in case you haven't noticed that yet. After us, the deluge. Better scare people with crap like "but if our population stops growing, there will soon be too many elderly and our economy will collapse
" Like if there was no solution to this problem other than perpetual population growth.It's interesting to see how the present economic crisis affects the US. Even though it keeps creating new jobs, the unemployment remains high, because the working-age population is growing about as fast as the job market. It's a mad race between population growth and job opportunities. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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@Narz:
The types you refer to are simply too enclosed in their bubble to understand the problem - which is that what we call the modern globalized economy is in fact a giant Ponzi scheme.
What is growth? Where does growth come from? Well, from population growth, mostly. You need more people in every subsequent generation to buy more stuff so that you can employ more people, manufacture more, sell more, and earn more. If population stabilized, maintaining the illusion of perpetual GDP growth of 3% and more would become impossible. The very core of our economic mentality is based on the idea that growth occurs every year, the more the better, and if the economy doesn't grow fast enough, it's bad. Ergo, population must grow so that our economy can grow and the economic-political elites can maintain their prestige. Who cares that we can't possibly maintain this forever? Long-term planning isn't exactly the main concern these days, in case you haven't noticed that yet. After us, the deluge. Better scare people with crap like "but if our population stops growing, there will soon be too many elderly and our economy will collapse
And perpetual population growth cannot happen, because there are hard limits to resources. Well, you are exaggerating a little: much "GDP growth" has been achieved simply by commercializing what had before been private gift-trades. Consider the whole industry dedicated to care of the elderly, or of children. That too is an illusion of growth, just the insertion into the formal accounting system of labour which already existed but was not formally paid for.
This extension of formal economic relations to more aspects of life has been taken almost as far as it could possibly go. The last manifestation of the trend has been the spread of imaginary property. For some time I feared that there would be a drive towards the creation and commercialization of "virtual worlds" as an escape valve to this need for perpetual growth and its conflict with limited resources. Make people own and trade on imaginary property, and you can multiply the notional value of the economy with very few additional resources!
But currently I thing that what we've seen so far of trade in virtual goods shows that there are fundamental technical (impossible both to have ease of transactions - a market - and to forbid free copying) and human (only so much time to spend collecting goods, whether real of virtual) problems to that approach.
Now, are you worried that the powers that be today will try to encourage population growth in order to maintain the perpetual economic growth promise/myth which stabilizes the social structure on top of which they rest? I wouldn't worry about that: if the recent crisis is having any population effect in the developed world, it is one of reducing birth rates, as people cut on the expense of raising kids. There's the encouragements to immigration, of course, but that too will become extremely hard to carry on during a lengthy crisis.
Of course, if the Ponzi scheme by necessity stops, what happens then to society? We might have to go socialist! What do you thing about that? Warming up to some idea of socialism, are we?
The problem is not so many babies but too little care for the soil and lea to alow us to live in a sustainable way. Too much food is being wasted now a days, and too much polutions is not being treated for we to say that we have exosted the planed capacity
Winner
Diverse in Unity
I am just listening to radio where a demographer is saying that we should celebrate more people, and the real threat is population decline and increase in the median age. She calls those who warn against overpopulation "conspiracy theorists".
With idiots like these getting degrees, how can we change anything?
Of course, and I didn't say growth is entirely dependent on population growth.
I said that a world where population doesn't grow, where indeed it is decreasing, it would be much harder to achieve any kind of boom growth (over 3% GDP). Maybe there wouldn't be any growth at all in absolute numbers - but at the same time the living standard of the people would continue to increase because the same pie would be divided between fewer people.
In any case, the whole structure of our economy would have to change profoundly, and that's what the present day economic-political elites don't want to hear (or even imagine).
Fine with me, it's called a "pyramid scheme" in Czech (and in English, I believe) and it's a much better term.
With idiots like these getting degrees, how can we change anything?
Of course, and I didn't say growth is entirely dependent on population growth.
I said that a world where population doesn't grow, where indeed it is decreasing, it would be much harder to achieve any kind of boom growth (over 3% GDP). Maybe there wouldn't be any growth at all in absolute numbers - but at the same time the living standard of the people would continue to increase because the same pie would be divided between fewer people.
In any case, the whole structure of our economy would have to change profoundly, and that's what the present day economic-political elites don't want to hear (or even imagine).
Fine with me, it's called a "pyramid scheme" in Czech (and in English, I believe) and it's a much better term.
With idiots like these getting degrees, how can we change anything?
It doesn't matter what she thinks. Population growth is going to naturally decline as development increases. The European trend is a natural trend, it's not enforced by political might. It's what people are choosing to do.
What's really necessary is an economic/political model that can create decent economic growth without an increasing population. This is something that needs to actually be created, because too many people are assuming the natural trends are sufficient, even though they rely on rising population.
I am just listening to radio where a demographer is saying that we should celebrate more people, and the real threat is population decline and increase in the median age. She calls those who warn against overpopulation "conspiracy theorists".
With idiots like these getting degrees, how can we change anything?
Conspiracy is overdoing it. But population getting smaller and older is a real threat that will bite us pretty soon - in decades. It will be more hurtful than environmental problems in the short term, assuming no The Day After Tomorrow catastrophes.
I don't really think the fact that an ageing population will come with its own set of challenges negates overpopulation being a concern as well. The focus should be on sustainable population. If you take it to the extreme, stopping having babies completely, whilst being a solution to overpopulation, would not fit in with sustainable population anymore than ramping up the birth rate would. Solving both problems is hard, but we shouldn't just look at a problem of ageing as meaning that overpopulation isn't a concern, because they aren't mutually exclusive dilemmas at all.
katipunero
Prince
overpopulation, as the prefix suggests, is a cause for concern.
wolfigor
Emperor
Yes, that's most likely true given past trends, however what will be the planet's total population and their consumptions of resources when the population growth will decline globally?
Once 3rd world countries will reach a western-like prosperity they will have population growth rate comparable to Europe, but in the meantime the quality of the environment will be severely compromised.
I completely agree with you on this.
There is no doubt that population cannot growth forever and that we may already have reached a point in which we are too many for the resources and the envirovment of our planet.
kochman
Deity
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There are some really disturbing posts in this thread... a specific one is that poster who suggested we try to limit our population to 1 billion people.
Why? We have 7B now, and things are fine...
How do you suggest we get down to 1B? Voluntarily?
It makes no sense really.
Why? We have 7B now, and things are fine...
How do you suggest we get down to 1B? Voluntarily?
It makes no sense really.
Assuming we live on the same planet, we must be speaking different languages.
kochman
Deity
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Our problems today are not related to overpopulation, they are generally related to human nature...
War, etc were still existing when we only had 1B...
Winner
Diverse in Unity
Seriously?
Overpopulation is the main reason sub-Saharan Africa is a cesspit, overpopulation is what makes vast majority of Indian people miserable, overpopulation is the reason why the environment is being ruined, overpopulation is the reason why resources that could have lasted for centuries are being exhausted today, overpopulation is the reason why we're unable to effectively deal with diseases, poverty, lack of education, social inequality, etc. etc. etc. etc.
See the article in my other thread (7 billionth nail...).
kochman
Deity
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No, it absolutely isn't due to overpopulation. It is way more complicated than that! Good grief.
Sub-Sahara Africa has always been a cesspit... even when there was way less people on the planet.
India & China have too many people... hmmm... this chart would make your case really difficult to support, and make it seem more like an emotional reaction...
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934666.html
The gist of the chart... in my opinion, there are places with very high population density that are doing way better than places with lower density, and vice versa... Meaning, population alone is not the indicator you seem to think it is.
Netherlands and S. Korea are bother denser than India and China (of course, large swathes of China are not really habitable)...
Overpopulation isn't why the "environment is being ruined"... it's unclean practices that do this, such as seen in the USA, but moreso in China, India, etc.
What resourcess that could have lasted for centuries are exhausted today? Oil? Seems there is more found every day, and it's dirty anyhow, we need to and will find another source.
Overpopulation is not the problem with disease, not being hygenic is...
Are you suggesting if there were 4B people on the planet that there would be less poverty? Please support this suggestion...
I support the idea that you are wrong with pointing out how wealth has increased as population has increased, through history.
Overpopulation is now the reason for under-education? Really? I gaurantee the world is more educated, as a whole on average, that it was when there was only 1B or 1/2B people on the planet.
Overpopulation has led to social inequality? Where? It seems to me the world has, in general, been making progress regarding social inequality over the centuries... and that, like many of the issues you mention, human nature is more responsible than the number of humans walking around.
They are not mutually exclusive if you think 9 billion is already too big a number, which is perfectly fine. However, population getting smaller is not compatible with the idea that we have unlimited, exponential growth. If you believe we do have enough resources to support 9 billion people (by, say, finding a magical cheap energy, or by changing Americans' driving habits), then the population growth is already sustainable. We don't have to do anything more than getting the Africans richer.
Nigeria and maybe a couple of other small countries are overpopulated. Africa as a whole has less than half the population density of Europe. Sub-Saharan Africa is a cesspit because its rulers routinely screw over the people, not because it's overcrowded.
in ten years the world's average wealth has increased over ten thousand dollars, that's not that bad...
Global TFR replacement is around 2.3 while global TFR is around 2.4 and is steadily decreasing so population increase will be due to people living longer in not too long.
Global TFR replacement is around 2.3 while global TFR is around 2.4 and is steadily decreasing so population increase will be due to people living longer in not too long.