Overpopulation. Do you fear it?

Heh.

That's just it. North American birthrate is so low, that the baby boomers are going to be a bit of a burden. I suspect some of them might have to sweep up at McD's....BFD.

 

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Eating fossil fuels

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html

“Somebody told me it was frightening how much topsoil we are losing each year, but I told that story around the campfire and nobody got scared” -Jack Handey

 

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I agree, but the population drop near the end of the century is speculation as well, and one the deviates from the current line. What are the arguments?

 

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On the news last night they said 'India cannot stop population growth', but I fell asleep before they expanded on it

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Now I'm trying to find it online, but I can't.. Anyone?

 

This whole thread scares me :-!

 

The BBC reported today that the UN concluded that that one billion people are malnourished ( undernourished ). This is one sixth of the world population or nearly 17% . Yes there should be much concern about world population as our planet has limited resources .

 

Technology my hairy arse, current technology means less labor (more low wage meaningless jobs for the lucky ones) and exponentially growing energy consumption (a limited thing). The more technology the sooner and bigger an energy bust. I don't even touch environmental destruction. Somebody mentioned that US can keep on growing, as it is, I feel claustrophobic in urban areas and so called "country" around them. Americans sure have a talent to build the most unlivably depressing urban (and "country" for that matter) areas.

 

India and China alone are one third of the Earths population.

 

China is doing something about it : allowing their citizens to have only one child per couple . Most of India is poor and struggling . I think birth control is the answer everywhere although the moron the Pope does not believe on birth controls . If you follow the Vatican word by word this planet will be full of babies everywhere with no piece of bread left for anyone.

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.

 

Have faith in the Lord, you heretic!

 

The soul of man

I missed this one before. Whoops.

Anyway, it seems an opportunity to consider a difficult argument. Some would argue that aid to the third world makes the situation worse. And it is actually quite possible to see how this works.

A basic question is sustenance versus development. It's not just the idea of "helping", but also one of what that "help" actually is. One of the problems with bringing large segments of the population out of poverty is that our current socioeconomic schemes require a large poverty class to exploit for the benefit of a privileged class.

If this sounds like revolutionary rhetoric, ask any capitalist why we shouldn't pay a decent, comparable wage to textile workers in Nepal. I once had a conversation about Nepalese child labor with a capitalist that included the astounding assertion that the child worker should feel lucky to have a job so he can support his family. Questions, of course, abound. Why isn't that child in school? Perhaps there is no good public school available. But why would that be? Well, public schools require taxes to operate, and how can you get enough taxes if workers are paid so little that their children should feel lucky to have a job to support the family? And so on.

The whole mess, in the end, actually recalls Oscar Wilde:

The majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism - are forced, indeed, so to spoil them. They find themselves surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. It is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by all this. The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man's intelligence; and, as I pointed out some time ago in an article on the function of criticism, it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease.

They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by amusing the poor.

But this is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible.​

I mean, I'm happy to hand over some spare change or even a couple of bills to a homeless person. It's nice to think he will eat a good meal because of that, but I'm hardly so naîve; I'm aware that, more often than not, the money will be spent on booze or drugs. Nothing about my contribution is going to change that individual's general condition for the better, except under nearly singular circumstances that I likely will never witness even if they should coincide appropriately.

Imagine a day when you look to relocate your business overseas—as many companies do—in order to find a desperate workforce that will do the job for a ridiculously low wage, and finding that there really isn't anyplace to go. Imagine a world in which there is no large workforce willing to do your bidding for a poverty wage, in some cases a fraction of a percent of what you would pay domestic employees. Imagine that the Nepalese workers who make the eighty dollar cotton shirt are paid a fair share of that price, instead of mere pennies. Imagine.

That's what is wrong with aid to the third world right now.

Give a man a fish, as the proverb goes. Teach a man to fish, but why are you teaching him? Is it so that he can survive on his own, or so that you can profit off his comparatively inexpensive labor?

American (and, generally, Western, and industrialized) prosperity depends upon not simply maintaining, but growing a poverty class to provide goods for other people's profit. If we render poverty impossible, the whole system collapses. No cheap Chinese televisions, no cheap Nepalese shirts, no cheap Honduran Disney pajamas for the kids.

And that "nightmare" is what frightens so many people about addressing so many of the challenges facing humanity.
____________________

Notes:

KUOW. "Dambisa Moyo: Dead Aid". Speakers' Forum. June 11, 2009. KUOW.org. November 1, 2009. http://kuow.org/program.php?id=17722

Wilde, Oscar. "The Soul of Man Under Socialism". 1891. Flag.Blackened.net. November 1, 2009. http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/wilde_soul.html

 

An very interesting video article from the Economist:

Global Fertility

~String

 

that's a really good link, thanks superstring!

 

Yes, rising a kid to age where he /she is productive is expensive (and growing more so with higher education also more required by the modern world.) China has cleverly avoided excess cost with the one Child policy, and is importing ever more already well educated people from the West (who will pay taxes, advance Chinese technology and skills, etc.):

"... More people head to China seeking out job opportunities as Western economies suffer hardship ...

An increasing number of foreigners are being attracted by China's prosperous economy and have come to work in the country. Figures released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security showed that 231,700 foreigners were employed in China at the end of 2010, compared with 223,000 in 2009. ..."

From: http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2011-10/17/content_13910707.htm

 

There was a book written by an English man that visited Missoula about 10 years ago maybe more . Our city council was whining about growth. He didn't paint us in a very variable light . Called us stupid country bumpkins that don't know what growth is and the meaning of open space as that was the debate of the day. He was very vulgar about his description and I wish I could remember the exact verbiage. Lot of fucks and dumb fucks in the language . The main thing I remember was He listened to there complaints and as he look out at the environment all he could think was . What sprawl ? The only thing I can see is open space . Then he goes back into slamming the stupid country bumpkins and there thought that they were going down the road of the old world . Or thought our community was a comparison of the development of the old world. The thing is people have been there . In the wilderness that is . They desegregated areas and any archeologist could tell you humans were here at on time. The environment reclaimed it so the average person can't distinguish. The animals don't know the difference . They use the land as there own . They eat the grass that grows . They rake there claws on the dirt and trees . Nature took it back . It has had some help in the last several decades also . By who you might ask ? By the people you demonize . People in the forest industry that know there industry is heavily reliant on a healthy forest. Yeah the evil woods product industry . Even those helicopter loggers know this . Yeah the ones you see on T.V. at your good old discovery channel . Integration with your environment is the adaptable way of the future .

 

We will not reach the point of severe overpopullation

 

Unlike the economic decline of the 1930s, this economic decline that has been happening over the past few decades (c. 1973-present) is caused by the world population surpassing sustainability. It was also happening back then, but that was a much lesser factor because the turn-of-the-century (beginning of the 20th) anti population growth sentiment had receded for a time.

Now the effects of the large numbers on the planet are more visible and we are more aware of the bad present outlook. That is one factor involved in the economic decline. Tiassa mentioned another cause, capitalists need a large population to exploit, encouraging more people being added, grabbing for the pie.

So, when you hear that the kids' future is not as prosperous as the parents, it is largely because of overpopulation.

 

You try telling a Indonesian Orangutan that!!!

http://earthtrends.wri.org/updates/node/158

 

The thing is it won't be happening on our doorstep.
The 'West' population is stabilising, with a large proportion of older people.

Its countries like India and Sub-Saharan Africa where the extra 2 billion will end up.

 

Didn't want to start a new thread, but I thought this was interesting:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15391515

ME:

When you were born, you were the:3,998,115,317th person alive on Earth

78,317,458,610th person to have lived since history began

Just missed the 4 billion person claim to fame.

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