World population

Ok I'm not sure if this is the correct forum, but it seemed like the relavent in correspndance with my topic.

The topic being world poulation, there are currently 6,402,388,491 people in the world give or take a few thousand, by January 1st of 2005 there will be 6,409,765,942 in the world July of 2005 there will be 6,446,131,400, now considering are limited amount of resources we wont be able to sustain 12 billion+ people, the main point of this is to find ways in which we can survive without killing mass amounts of people, so I would like your input on what as a people we could/should do.

By the way the population stats came from
www.census.gov...

hmm...well..there are many small things we could do to get started, i'm sure..

..we have to get over our youth-obsessed/fear of dying complex....we should let the ill and elderly die when they're supposed to, instead of connecting them to breathing machines and the such. the money and energy that is put into keeping so many people "alive" for an extra year is quite silly...Death is as much as a part of life as birth, and everything in between. We should honour death as sacred. If we want our population to maintain a healthy balance...we will have to accept death....our present medical systems strive to avoid death at all costs....our medical systems should be based on preventative medicine and healthy natural lifestyles...we cannot all be immortal bionic gods....

I always thought that the idea (if not one similar) from the movie starring christopher lambert called "The fortress" would be a good idea (not that I support it, I just think that it would work in the time of need) - depending on what you wanted. If you wanted to thin out the population, couples should only be allowed to have one child, any more shoud be terminated. If your idea was to keep the population steady, each adult should be allowed custody of one child (couples 2) that would be assigned to them specifically. This would ensure (more or less) that the population would stay the same. It would also make sure certain racial minorities dont take advantage of unfair benefits here in australia.

Well the UN now projects that we won't have 12 billion people on the planet at least not for the next 50 years. By 2050 the UN expects world population to be around 8.7(but I heard that they have revised it downward yet again). So it seems to me that the population problem can be tackled.

Outer space is the only answer, maybe even the Moon...

The population of the world is going to get bigger and then level off and eventually decline.

What about that bird flu.
I think it's possible dirty way to deplete the population.

As the spread of aids decreases, i think other mechanisms .. either engineered by humans or nature will evolve to stabilize the population growth.

Well why dont we do what the catholic church does and try to keep them from having sex. Hmmm maybe this is the reason they do it.

Some other ingredients for the mix:

* The major population growth is in regions that are least well resourced to contend with the population growth. The more affluent regions don't do much about that.

* Human population is unlikely to move beyond 9 billion for any reason.

* In less than 100 years one of the biggest legal challenges will be to distinguish between a human being and a machine, and to protect the legal rights of machines that are humans.

* Several million people who are living today may never die (this is not in reference to an afterlife).

Originally posted by MaskedAvatar
* The major population growth is in regions that are least well resourced to contend with the population growth. The more affluent regions don't do much about that.

Western Europes population would decrease if it weren't for immigration.

Originally posted by MaskedAvatar
* Human population is unlikely to move beyond 9 billion for any reason.

It won't be possible to properly support numbers over that, well not without starving more countless millions.

Originally posted by MaskedAvatar
* In less than 100 years one of the biggest legal challenges will be to distinguish between a human being and a machine, and to protect the legal rights of machines that are humans.

That a interesting one, i personally don't think we'll have machines of that intelligence by then.

Originally posted by MaskedAvatar
* Several million people who are living today may never die (this is not in reference to an afterlife).

Through genetic modification or cybernetic enhancment...arr the future is going to be interesting

As with all things involving humans, there are no simple answers though there are known answers that are effective.

First -- the world's population is not increasing everywhere. As was pointed out, the birthrate in Europe is on the decline, as it is in other nations. One of the simplest things that contributes to lowering the birth control is education -- education of BOTH sexes.

When only men are educated and valued, then you get a society with a lot of inequality and this tends toward a cult of the macho where there's a premium on having enough children until they have a satisfactory male heir.

We need to help boost the less fortunate countries to our level of technology and education.

Originally posted by Croat69
Well why dont we do what the catholic church does and try to keep them from having sex. Hmmm maybe this is the reason they do it.

Yes, the Catholic church does advocate abstinance for those who don't want children. That's because the Pope is against contraception of any kind. Do you think that the first or the latter part of what I just said makes the biggest difference?

I'm pleasantly surprised I've gotten so many posts,
I know it will be aehile before we have over 12billion, but the best way to deal with something is to start figuring out how to deal with it at as early a date as possible.
I do agree that we should colonize space to deal with this problem, also I think that people should only be allowed to have chid per marriage and depending on circumstances not be allowed to have children after the second marriage. True some parts of the world have decreasing birth rates, but others birth rates are on a rise, India has close to 1billion people.
I would like to hear more of everyones thoughts on the subject.

Resources is not the problem, logistics and people trying to exist in stupid places is the problem.

Pineconecowboy
we cannot all be immortal bionic gods

Yet.....Scientist predict that with in 300 years from now that or medical understanding will be much higher that humans could live forever, well relatively, getting squiched by a bus going 65 mph will still kill ya, But they predict that our understanding of it all will be far higher then today, like if you fall off you bike and a semi truck runs over your leg you would o to the hospital where they immediatly would grow you a new leg.

As for population: The US population would be at a stand still if it weren't for those damn illegals. But the high rise of population mainly comes from those extrmely poor Africans who live in garbage, but a lot of their babies die so they just have more.

I think the US (would) stays the same because everyone has access to Birth control & condoms.

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
Resources is not the problem, logistics and people trying to exist in stupid places is the problem.

Like Africa (no offense to Africans) , its difficult to grow crops there etc.... meaning in theory its population should be much lower, but due to lack of education their population both grows and dies at shocking rates. And because there is a lack of room and resources, people move to countries where there is room and resources eg America.

Something needs to be done to stabaslise the global population.

Originally posted by jetsetter
The population of the world is going to get bigger and then level off and eventually decline.

I don't see this happening at all...Espeically here in China...maybe because of their one child policy many of the majority Han ethnicity will level off and then decrease in numbers but the 55 ethnic majorities can have as many children as they want.

And around the world I think there are more and more babies being born. It was even reported that middle aged women are getting pregnant at a higher rate than ever before...I'm sure partly caused by GM foods...

I have no proof to say what you say isn't going to happen, but do you have any proof to say what you say is going to happen??? I don't know but I think half the population of the world if not seventy-five percent will be slaughtered!

In the U.S. we are declining, which is very bad for the social security scam.

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
In the U.S. we are declining, which is very bad for the social security scam.

I thought the US population was growing at a high rate due to immigration?

Originally posted by UK Wizard

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
In the U.S. we are declining, which is very bad for the social security scam.

I thought the US population was growing at a high rate due to immigration?

Yeah, he doesn't know what he's talking about.

The US population would be staying the same if it wasn't for all the immagration (illegal & legal), One of the many reasons we need tighter borders.