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Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 11:48:27 AM   
SugarMyChurro


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Status: offline 		What shall we do about the overpopulation problem?

What's the “way out of the fly bottle”?

We are prepared to take your suggestions. Operators are standing by...



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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 11:54:18 AM   
celticlord2112


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quote:

ORIGINAL: SugarMyChurro

What shall we do about the overpopulation problem?

What's the “way out of the fly bottle”?

We are prepared to take your suggestions. Operators are standing by...






There is no overpopulation problem, globally speaking.  At most there are regional misalignments of populations and local food resources--which will inevitably be self-correcting.

Darwinism:  Karma without the comfort.


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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 11:55:39 AM   
LadyEllen


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From: Stourport-England
Status: offline 		I hope that someone, somewhere has a more palatable solution than either of those I see as ultimately inevitable.

E

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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 12:04:04 PM   
slaveboyforyou


Posts: 3607
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From: Arkansas, U.S.A.
Status: offline 		We are doing something about it.  We are using more and more of our good farming land for commercial development and industry.  We are being duped into this ethanol nonsense, which is dangerous.  All the land used for ethanol takes away from land used in food production.  I don't think people really realize how precarious of a position that puts us in.  One really bad drought, a world wide famine, a new crop disease, insect resistance to pesticides, etc can really tax our food reserves.  Hunger is not a good way to die, but it will definitely kill people in the millions when it happens.  There is one for you.

Another would be our overuse of antibiotics and our failure to keep large reserves of vaccines handy.  A new epidemic is going to happen eventually.  When it does, I don't expect us to be prepared for it.  Millions will probably die all over the world. 

Limited amounts of resources and increased competition for them are going to lead to more wars.  It's going to happen, and I think India and China are the next major war to look for.  They are both rapidly immerging industrial power houses, and they both have too many people to feed and take care of.  They both are nuclear powers, and they are in heavy competition for resources.  It won't surprise me if they get into a war and kill each other by the millions.  I expect we in the West to take advantage of situation like that in the future, so we can exploit it thorougly. 

Population will take care of itself, when it gets too much.  We only have so much to go around; and when there is not enough, it's survival of the fittest.  I hate to say it, but it's the truth. 

< Message edited by slaveboyforyou -- 2/16/2008 12:05:44 PM >

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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 1:33:42 PM   
LadyEllen


Posts: 10931
Joined: 6/30/2006
From: Stourport-England
Status: offline 		This is my post from the other thread, which is the one which generated this thread (I believe) - and reposted in order to try to get this thread going a bit!

Ultimately we have only a few paths down which we can go.

One is perhaps the ultimate fulfilment of radical left wing ideology; to ration resources centrally according to need, alongside strict population controls worldwide, such that we can feed and water everyone and provide a common standard of living worldwide for all which is sustainable. This though would never work in practice and would be objected to by those who run and profit from the show as it is, as well as by we in the west who would not countenance the lower standard of living which would be necessary for us.

Another is perhaps the ultimate fulfilment of radical right wing ideology; to maintain the situation we have, and develop an ideology whereby some are entitled to more whilst others must have less and others must perish. This way too, we ensure sustainability but we must engineer a system of resource management whereby those who are entitled receive what they want, those who must have less get what they need and the others get nothing. But more importantly we must produce the all important ideology which says that some humans are worth more and deserve more than others. We have a system like this to some extent already in the financial system and capitalist market economy - but the new system must go further and remove from our minds the very notion that the suffering of those deemed disposable is anything but right. Again, this would never work out because those of us who may be deemed disposable would not agree to it, especially against the background of the heritage of nearly two hundred years whereby we have struggled to assert rights and equal value for all human life.

Both of these solutions require the ending of democracy and the introduction of ruthless authoritarianism to make them work, along with the force required to make them work.

We can of course say that Option Two is already in action, but really it isnt. Parts of it are the dominant current means of resource control, but absent the necessary ideology of Uebermenschen and Untermenschen it is these parts which are leading us into a situation where there are not enough resources for the growing world population. If we continue with these parts, then population control and resource management will occur by default - through war and famine and pestilence, some will die, freeing resource for those who remain - but this is not efficient enough a mechanism to ensure that enough die to free resource for we who wish to consume at a high rate.

E

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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 1:37:08 PM   
Alumbrado


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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 1:39:40 PM   
pahunkboy


Posts: 33061
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From: Central Pennsylvania
Status: offline 		turn everyone gay   ?

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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 1:43:36 PM   
SL4V3M4YB3


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From: S.E. London U.K.
Status: offline 		Logans Run

The age limit shall be (SL4V3M4YB3 AGE)+1 year.

< Message edited by SL4V3M4YB3 -- 2/16/2008 1:45:03 PM >

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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 1:53:44 PM   
FangsNfeet


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Status: offline 		We could always stop Flu Vaccines and let's release Small Pox back into the world. After all, didn't nature have these viruses to keep down our population?

If we keep cureing and treating everything, then we'll always keep expanding populations wise. Unless ofcorse we start a random process where 2 our of every 3 people are made sterile/infertal from birth.

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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 1:55:17 PM   
CrimsonMoan


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quote:

ORIGINAL: SL4V3M4YB3

Logans Run

The age limit shall be (SL4V3M4YB3 AGE)+1 year.


The problem with the logan's run approach is that unless those approaching 31 have written down all they know then plenty of knowledge is gonna right out of the window. I agree with Celtic its not so much overpopulation as more of population density. if we would spread out more there would be less of a impact on the earth. You never seen an overpopulation in the animal kingdom unless some part of the chain has been broken I.E lack of predators or not enough predators.


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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 2:03:11 PM   
luckydog1


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Status: offline 		Lady ellen, I think you miss understand the way #2  is supposed to works.  That people who come up with good ideas or have talent rise up is an important part of what the Capitalists want.  And Capitalism doesn't work under authoritarianism.  The authorities will not tolerate not having controll over the economy.   After Hitler got power he didn't beg for contributions, He put his people on every Board of Directors, and every bussiness did exactly what he wanted or the old directors went to the Camps.   In America we are a Republic not a Democracy anyway.  The idea of Capitalism is to have diffuse sources of power, which compete.  In practice, it often falls short....

There is a big problem with # 1 because a uranium miner in Siberia isn't going to have a common standard of living with a bartender in a French mediteranin resort.  But your right it would require A high degree of authoritarianism.

Population is the big problem though, no doubt about it.  Root of just about every social ill there is.  Just to damn many people.  No easy way to quickly solve it though, unless we want to get rid of a lot people.  like 7 out of 10.   You can't square that with the idea that everyone has dignity, individual worth, and a right to live. 

I understood that the rate of growth in population has been slowing for some time, and the Demographers see a peak coming in about 30 years or so.  IIRC 11 billon or so.  Can we be eating algae, drinking bottled water, using fuel cells, living in Mega cities, and be sustainable?  We technically could, but the politics of it would be a nightmare.

In this sort of context should we even bother to fight Malria, Aids, Cancer, Nueral diseases?  Why even have Health services at all?  In the long run a Pandemic would be a blessing.  Shouldn't we encourage a system where all weak babies die, like in the old days?  

No real solution to this one from me, but muddle along and work for the best.  Maybe we will get lucky with a massive super volcano or asteroid

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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 2:09:02 PM   
Alumbrado


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quote:

I agree with Celtic its not so much overpopulation as more of population density. if we would spread out more there would be less of a impact on the earth.


That would seem to work best if we got to the point where all available land on the planet were equally inhabitable/sustainable. In the absence of that, simply reducing the number of people might be of some benefit. 

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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 2:21:09 PM   
luckydog1


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Status: offline 		Alumbrado, or just genetically engineer gills onto people, and let them live like Sea monkeys in little castles on the bottom of the Ocean.  The land dwellers could get nourishment from smog and Benzine

Heck, we could engineer people to be able to eat all kinds of things we cant eat now.  Moose are giant and live off bark and leaves.  Drink sea water.  Need to take Mercury supplements if we don't eat enough fish.  If we all glowed in the dark imagine how much energy we would save.  Maybe we could crap oil?  Heck,  make our skin Photosynthesize (the green chick in star trek was pretty hot).

Science really has all this stuff covered.

We could all be 2 feet tall, and require far less resources than we do now, if we were 2/3 the body mass we would need 2/3 less stuff right, and we could subdivide every floor in every existing building into 2 floors, doubling our density with out increaing our foot print.  Then 22 billion of us could live sustainably on earth.  And we could engineer "obedaince to the community" into people also, so complaince wouldn't be a problem anymore. 

The future's so Bright, iv'e got to wear shades....

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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 2:21:37 PM   
TheHeretic


Posts: 19100
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From: California, USA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: SugarMyChurro

What shall we do about the overpopulation problem?




        Really big, bloody, wars are another part of the equation.  Whether is was a foreseen consequence or not, China has a serious male/female population imbalance.  Starvation and disease aren't good for clearing out healthy young men.

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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 2:24:03 PM   
LadyEllen


Posts: 10931
Joined: 6/30/2006
From: Stourport-England
Status: offline 		Hi Luckydog

I disagree with your assessment of the unworkable nature of solution two in that capitalism cannot work in an authoritarian environment - although I didnt go into details of course. All that would be required would be two changes to our current socio-economic / political environment;

1) to develop an ideology which was based on the inequality of human beings in terms of their value to the system - this is already in place in a way in terms of whether we are employable or not and if we are then what our time is worth relative to others' - but the new ideology must include value judgements whereby some are esteemed inherently valuable and hence worth the resources they want, and others are judged inherently worthless and hence not entitled to any resources, and for this tp be not just OK, but right.
2) to have in place a one-party state which follows a capitalist agenda according to the above ideology. The businesses would continue as usual, the people would still work as usual, taxes would be paid as usual and the government would spend and provide public services as usual (with some notable exceptions and added features compared to today).

There is still scope within such a system for those who have talent to rise through the ranks and have their "entitlement status" improved - much as is the case today with promotions and salary increases. And this would continue because it would be in the interests of the system for it to occur.

The weakness of this system however is in the judgment of those worthy of life and unworthy of life, at whatever stage this judgment would be made and in whichever way it would be made. Who is to say that the high school dropout at age 17 - who may be judged disposable thereby in the new system - would not be the inventor of some marvellous new technology at age 27? A strategy of euthanasia is a dangerous one in the removal of the inherent possibilities each of us might bring to the whole, but it is not a precluding factor which makes the whole unviable.

E

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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 2:27:29 PM   
LadyEllen


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From: Stourport-England
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quote:

ORIGINAL: luckydog1


We could all be 2 feet tall, and require far less resources than we do now, if we were 2/3 the body mass we would need 2/3 less stuff right, and we could subdivide every floor in every existing building into 2 floors, doubling our density with out increaing our foot print.  Then 22 billion of us could live sustainably on earth. 


we'd save space, but as far as I thought, smaller animals need to eat more to maintain their body's temperature and system - so the extra space would have to be used to grow food.....

we could always keep the big people and eat them I suppose - two problems solved in one go

E

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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 2:32:31 PM   
luckydog1


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Status: offline 		I have long been a proponent of rendering fat people into bio diesel.  Or should that be on the contraversial thread?

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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 2:39:18 PM   
LadyEllen


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From: Stourport-England
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quote:

ORIGINAL: luckydog1

I have long been a proponent of rendering fat people into bio diesel.  Or should that be on the contraversial thread?


ah - but this the difficult thing isnt it? On what grounds to make the cut?

whether someone is overweight or not, I fancy isnt a useful ground to decide who gets to live and get resources, and who gets to catch the cattle truck to Camp 51

a rich capitalist businessman who is overweight is not going to C51 because of who he is. an overweight physics professor isnt going to C51 because of what he knows.

E

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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 2:41:39 PM   
TheHeretic


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From: California, USA
Status: offline 		      But wouldn't eating the obese tend to raise the cholesterol of the rest of the population?  Now a nice jogger...

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RE: Overpopulation - 2/16/2008 2:42:01 PM   
luckydog1


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Status: offline 		I do think your right about smaller needing more.  But that is a % of body weight.  less actuall consumption.  Probably more accurate to say if we were 2/3 of mass we would use half as much stuff. 

But consider my plan 2 foot tall green people with gills that pull 15% of thier nutrients from the Smog, and another 40% from Photosynthesis.  Drink sea water.  Glow in the dark well enough to read, and they can turn it off and on.  Thin Blubber layer to keep extra warm with out looking fat.  Or desert models with extra water retention capabilities.  Genetically engineered to perfect loyalty and obediance to the rules, which allow for hyper efficient production and consumption.  Easily could get 22 billion of them living on a planet with no problem.  And that is just land dwellers.   I am sure we got a billion of em living comfortably on the bottom of the sea.  And with genetically engineered loyalty, they will certainly be comfortable.

Science has it all taken care of.

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