Man holds hostages at Discovery Channel HQ to stop the human race from reproducing.

[Crackers]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_discovery_channel_gunman

While his actions are fucked up and quite hilarious, it did give rise to the question about over population. I am aware this has long been a problem in places like India, but recently I have been seeing issues around my community and alot of the nice areas of wood have been chopped down. So I wanted yalls opinion on over population and what we might do to solve it, as at this rate the human population is not going to stop increasing anytime soon. (Nuking is not a valid answer nor a humorous, original reply.)

[Disaster]

Build up instead of out.

[paladin]

Your seriously taking what this guy was saying serious? Children are parasites? Right...

[Crackers]

Thats the japanese idea, and it seems to be working for them, but we can only build so high. The question here is will technology be able to keep up with the growing population? If not, we could have serious problems down the road.

edit- This was directed at disaster.

Paladin, I am not taking the idiot seriously. I am taking the concept of over population, and debating whether or not it could be a potentially disasterous problem in the future.

[paladin]

Heres the man's manifesto (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=cache:www.savetheplanetprotest.com).

Its like an Inconvenient Truth on steroids, HGH, and anti-depressants.

[sdavis117]

Heres the man's manifesto (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=cache:www.savetheplanetprotest.com).

Its like an Inconvenient Truth on steroids, HGH, and anti-depressants.

That didn't remind me one bit of Inconvenient Truth.

[cheezdue]

We have the moon nearby so that will solve that. But being serious I do think over population is turning into a problem, eventually the planet will run out of resources.

[paladin]

Its a problem in countries that dont have the resources or structure to handle such large amounts of people. But its on a long list of things that will end the world, and quite frankly, its pretty far down there.

[Bodzilla]

you have any shares in property development paladin?

just asking.

and no population growth is not only a problem in poor countrys.
Take a look at your infrastructure.

in australia we are growing at 2% a year, 2 thirds of that is from skilled migrants, now lets think about that for a second.
2% is roughly the population of tasmania.

in order to keep up with this you need about 3 major hospitals, 12000 police a massive increase is land and houses available and all the roads bridges trains public transport to go with it.
you see where im going with this.

USA is growing (last time i checked at roughly 1.5%) so you've got a population growth of roughly 1,535,000.

do you believe that the land available and infrastructure in place is growing at a rate fast enough to cope with 1.5 million new people a year? before you even take into consideration old and failing infrastructure that needs to be replaced?

wheres your head at.

[Kornman00]

You know, they could always start building underwater housing too. Depending on far off shore you are, you shack may even survive tsunamis. Don't quote me on that though.

There is still a lot of unused/misused land around the world. I don't see overpopulation on a global scale occurring within the next 50 years in the least. Sure, major cities will continue to become crowded but who gives a shit? There are still plenty of places to move out. America doesn't have to worry about moving up (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV0fmNo7474) just yet, much less the entire world.

[paladin]

you have any shares in property development paladin?

just asking.

and no population growth is not only a problem in poor countrys.
Take a look at your infrastructure.

in australia we are growing at 2% a year, 2 thirds of that is from skilled migrants, now lets think about that for a second.
2% is roughly the population of tasmania.

in order to keep up with this you need about 3 major hospitals, 12000 police a massive increase is land and houses available and all the roads bridges trains public transport to go with it.
you see where im going with this.

USA is growing (last time i checked at roughly 1.5%) so you've got a population growth of roughly 1,535,000.

do you believe that the land available and infrastructure in place is growing at a rate fast enough to cope with 1.5 million new people a year? before you even take into consideration old and failing infrastructure that needs to be replaced?

wheres your head at.

There is more unused land in the United States that we know what to do with. As for police, house and hospitals, no one denies that more will be needed. You make it sound like thats a bad thing. Hell the construction alone would create jobs. Obama's next jobs bill should be for people to have babies. And with new construction, comes new infrastructure.

[thehoodedsmack]

If you can't support your children indefinitely, don't have them.

We have the technology and the smarts to ensure the continued survival of a small amount of humans, if governed properly. We've every resource necessary to create a heaven on earth, if we reduced the numbers inhabiting, and monitored those numbers to ensure a level birth/death ratio.

Concern 1: Sounds Like Socialism!

It is. But it's proper socialism, distributed over not just a country, but the entire human race. With today's technology and understanding of sciences, we could almost effortlessly provide for the whole planet, if the numbers were several billion fewer.

Concern 2: B-b-but Babies!

Adopt. While there will always be a need for children, there's no need for your children. Having kids these days, while there are already so many in need of a family, is ridiculous. Not to mention it does nothing but set your child up for failure in a world where so many people are already fighting for our resources. The old adage of "90% of the wealth in 10% of the population" demonstrates this. There is not an equal chance for success in the world, and frankly, our world isn't that fantastic.

Concern 3: Genetic Mix!

Plan for it. I would never recommend this course of action without an adequate gene pool to diversify the species.

Concern 4: Who Lives? Who Dies?

The hardest part of something like this would be reducing the population down to the perfect level. I don't advocate forced killings, death panels, or widespread manufactured disease to achieve the goal. I would only hope that as a species, we would someday come to realize that without complete focus on the future, we are leading future generations into a very dark place.


This is just what I've always thought. I'd like to know what some of you have to say on the issue.

[Warsaw]

Expand into space? With our technology, it's certainly feasible. People just don't want to swallow the economics, and I can't say I blame them. However I don't believe in reducing the human population to the "perfect" manageable level is a practical or desirable solution. I believe instead we should attain that "perfeect" level by increasing the living space, not reducing the number of people. I hate to think that humanity will stay stranded on this dirt ball for its entire fleeting existence; that's just lame.

[Rob Oplawar]

@Warsaw: The economics really are impractical. Money can't just come out of nowhere; wealth, to a large extent, has to come from effort. The point is, we have the technology to put people in space, but money aside it takes a lot of work to do it. We're nowhere near the point where we have the resources to send large numbers of people off planet. We have to assume that we're going to address the issue of overpopulation long before sending people off-planet is a feasible solution.

My opinion is that the solution to overpopulation is, in part, better use of resources, but mostly, raising the level of education and standard of living across the world.
There's a definite correlation between GDP per capita, average education level, and population growth. I seem to recall reading somewhere that middle-class atheists with college degrees have on average something like 1.5 children, meaning if they accounted for the whole population, the population would shrink. I don't think people should necessarily be atheists (but I do mean to bring up the correlation between level of education and atheism), but I think that the best way to address population growth is to raise the standard of living across the world and make sure people are well educated, because statistically speaking it's safe to say that would cause a significant decrease in population growth.

e: I was about to say that the problem is not the density of people but rather the amount of land required to support those people. I was going to say there's plenty of land to go around for the 7 billion people on earth, so I did a quick back of the envelope calculation to see how much land each person would get if it were divided up equally among us all, and I was shocked to see how low it is: Globally, about 5.5 acres apiece, including completely uninhabitable land. The USA is surprisingly not far behind the global average, at 6 acres per person. In New York City, there's something like 1/100th of an acre per person. In all of China, people would get a patch of dirt about 22 feet to a side.

Consider how much of that land cannot grow crops due to altitude or latitude or temperature or slope or development or soil or lack of moisture, and there's an alarmingly small amount of land to support the population of earth. That's what I was really driving at. Even if you look at 5 acres per person as being lots of space, think about how much space it would take to grow all the food you eat and create all the energy and products you use. :S

This is a bigger problem than I thought.

[sleepy1212]

Adopt. While there will always be a need for children, there's no need for your children. Having kids these days, while there are already so many in need of a family, is ridiculous.

There's also millions of people who can't have children but want to. Also, insulting parents...seriously!? I'm always surprised that people who think this way, and people who think humans are the parasites of the earth, don't put their moneygun where their mouth is.

Expect a crash. It's a well known phenomena in nature. While a population grows due to a boon of some kind, eventually resource loss or disease will cause an exponential plummet until it stabilizes again. Right now an economic disaster seems the most likely candidate. Within the first few days of an event like that most of the victims will be dead. death rates will decrease the more time passes until the population stabilizes in relation to it's resources.

[INSANEdrive]

As I read this guys "demands", All I could think about was this...

VliQVB5T6mI

Pretty much explains the situation beautifully.

Edit:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_86KKtrV-M9c/SuqT2KwcwKI/AAAAAAAACQY/I5Lhe-lYZ1U/s400/save_the_earth-702858.jpg

[Bodzilla]

Expect a crash. It's a well known phenomena in nature. While a population grows due to a boon of some kind, eventually resource loss or disease will cause an exponential plummet until it stabilizes again. Right now an economic disaster seems the most likely candidate. Within the first few days of an event like that most of the victims will be dead. death rates will decrease the more time passes until the population stabilizes in relation to it's resources.
This trend is not observed within modern humans due to significant increases in medical sciences.
Swine flu for instance.

your gambling a hell of alot on something that may never happen when it comes to mass disease. and it has to be global and breach quarantine.

[sleepy1212]

This trend is not observed within modern humans due to significant increases in medical sciences.
Swine flu for instance.

your gambling a hell of alot on something that may never happen when it comes to mass disease. and it has to be global and breach quarantine.

Maybe I've read too much Dawkins. Increases in medical science represent an extended phenotype. All phenotypes can be selected against and in our case it depends on the order of magnitude. Next to a K-T style cataclysm economic collapse or maybe "peak-oil" would easily cause a crash. We've experienced crashes in the past with plagues, resource depletions, wars, etc... in some cases the magnitudes have decreased over time. In others they rose, depending on a lot of factors like technology, proximity, lethality, etc...

Viruses are a good example. Both the CDC and WHO, and other various medical organizations, know that at any time a "super virus" could come. It was this expectation that caused people to freak out over swine flu, avian flu, and west nile. It's a very real possibility.

Whenever people talk about "the crash" two expressions come to mind:
1.) The bigger they are the harder they fall.
2.) It's just a matter of time.

Nearly all species have faced a fundamental shift due to selection pressure. We've survived many in our long ancestry but always at the expense of large numbers of the species. You could speculate that it's guaranteed.

[Dwood]

While i admit wop is a problem most europeans seem to be doing a great job of stopping it themselves.

[paladin]

Didnt you hear, Russia's com sec said to smoke, drink, and fuck more. They need more babies and taxes for social programs

[Dwood]

Didnt you hear, Russia's com sec said to smoke, drink, and fuck more. They need more babies and taxes for social programs

But the world is over populating? Why would russia be paying citizens to have babies if there is overpopulation?

[thehoodedsmack]

Because Russia isn't experiencing overpopulation? The problem isn't equally distributed across the globe. Places like Russia, Japan, and Canada are facing problems with too many elderly, and not enough youth to support and sustain the current lifestyle.

Everyone adopt a Chinese kid.

[paladin]

But the world is over populating? Why would russia be paying citizens to have babies if there is overpopulation?

Theyre not paying people to have babies. They want people to smoke and drink more because the taxes go directly to social programs. They want babies becuase they have a declining birthrate and need more smokers/drinks. see:

http://blog.jacknealy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/indonesian_smoking_baby.jpg

Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4c_wI6kQyE&feature=player_embedded)


$5 a day to pay for the fags

[Bodzilla]

what the fuck does an Indonesian toddler smoking cigarettes have to do with russia trying to raise revenue through cigarettes, and what does that have to do with world population.

(also last i checked the australian government is still paying people to have kids)
Doesn't mean it's not a stupid fucking idea.

[paladin]

And you call me dense.

[Mass]

what the fuck does an Indonesian toddler smoking cigarettes have to do with russia trying to raise revenue through cigarettes, and what does that have to do with world population.

(also last i checked the australian government is still paying people to have kids)
Doesn't mean it's not a stupid fucking idea.
Bod you complete ignoramus! As you can clearly see from the following picture of a monkey playing poker, world overpopulation is currently and ever shall be an utterly ethereal issue.
1652

(However you want to frame Russia's population concerns using their tax practices, the actual issue threatening system collapse is that there are no young people to act as a youth population can be reliably predicted to act, as in "smoke, drink, and fuck")

[Bodzilla]

you got me mass you got me

[Bodzilla]

http://www.modacity.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1652&d=1283711023

also i believe that this is a terrible time to bring up the space program mass!

[CrAsHOvErRide]

In what world do we live in where people would not even fuck for money :S

[Dwood]

In what world do we live in where people would not even fuck for money :S

It's the women.

[neuro]

world war 3, gogo