How would you solve the issue of exponential growth within the Human population?

One more thing, "human right to breed" pfft, no that's your animal right.
If you want to live like animals then breed like them indiscriminately but a civilized being would give some thought & consideration as to what kind of world they're birthing their offspring into.

K~

I'd have to disagree with you there. The sole purpose of having children is to further humanity and our legacy. Don't think about the world they will be born in to, but the world they can leave behind.

Yes, it's a gamble. Your kid can become homeless from his own devices. A contributing member to society and middle class. Or can cure world hunger. The potential is there!

originally posted by: Passive
a reply to: mOjOm

Sources on that? Not calling you out I'd just like to read up on that. I know some rich families with a lot children and some with one or none. I don't believe having one to two is a norm as you stated.

Although I do agree with not having kids early and using protection. With potential parents schooling or busy furthering a career there is no room for parenting.

I think this is what you're looking for. Apparently they even have a term for it. Demographic-economic paradox

The term "paradox" comes from the notion that greater means would necessitate the production of more offspring as suggested by the influential Thomas Malthus.[2] Roughly speaking, nations or subpopulations with higher GDP per capita are observed to have fewer children, even though a richer population can support more children.

Lots of papers supporting this.

In a related paper, Alice Schoonbroodt and Michele Tertilt say that, “There is overwhelming empirical evidence that fertility is negatively related to income in most countries at most times.” They are right. Whether you cut the data across countries, through time, or across people at a point in time, the same fact arises: The richer you get, the fewer kids you have.

I seen a few arguments saying rich people spend more money on their kids so they have less.I find that to be 100% false though. Thanks for the insight.

originally posted by: Passive

Well your solution?

I offer no solution of my own, because I personally don't think there is one. At least, none that doesn't involve genocide and despotism.

Terence here has a good idea (that women should voluntarily to commit to having only one natural child). Unfortunately, I don't think it will work either:

I think the planet is going to have to self-correct. That is, if the people who control it's social systems don't decide to beat the planet to the punch.

a reply to: Passive
So your theory is give a billion monkeys typewriters & they'll eventually create a masterpiece.
Given the percentages for human intellect those odds are not in humanities favor.


K~

a reply to: NthOther

No point in a voluntary one child.You have one and the family down the street has ten. It would have to be mandatory, in my opinion, for this particular option to work. I'll definitely give the video a watch.

a reply to: Ultralight

Preferably one similar to earth already. However, we won't have the technology to reach it soon enough. Mars seems like our only option really

a reply to: aethertek

Nice visual, but no not my theory. All I said was the potential is there for the children to grow up and change this rock. I said my theory in an earlier post. it'll be colonization or death. I believe world wide child limits or sterilizing certain groups for certain reason would lead to human annihilation.

I know there isn't the tech or choice planet now, but would it hurt to study. Funny how the human race can find an asteroid headed for us with impact in 1000 years, but science wouldn't be concerned until its 100 years away.Figure of speech...

a reply to: Passive

it'll be colonization or death.

"I'd like to share a revelation that I had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species & I realized that your not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area & you multiply & multiply until every natural resource is consumed & the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern, do you know what it is?

A virus....."
Agent Smith

K~

originally posted by: Passive

You have one and the family down the street has ten. It would have to be mandatory, in my opinion, for this particular option to work.

That's precisely why I don't think it would work.

If you eliminate culling the population artificially (war, plague, extermination, what have you) as an option, and you eliminate egregiously curtailing what we now take for granted as "rights" as an option...

..then there really are no other options. You have to "get rid of" people or force them into a population reduction program against their will. That's not an endorsement of either, I think it's just the way it is.

We could be looking for other planets for hundreds of years before we find a suitable one, to speak nothing of figuring out how to get there. Meanwhile, it's Soylent Green for dinner.

a reply to: aethertek

Don't take you as a family man/woman.

So far from what I gathered you disagree with a right for human right to breed, sterilization until can prove decent genes, and view humanity as a virus. You said yourself why have kids in a world in this condition.
Leaves me one question for you.

Do you view your self with superior genes? If not, for lack of a better way to say, why do you allow yourself to still breathe? You disagree with the instinct to breed, but agree with the one to self preserve?

a reply to: Passive

Depends on your definition of "superior".
I'm a very healthy 52 year old male with no disease or debilitation's & I test in the 130-150 range for IQ.

While suicide has naught to do with breeding like rats, I will applaud your ability for nuance, most would not be so clever in their telling me to FOAD.

Keep going the way your species is and the calamity of correction will be far worse than even the most draconian breeding regulations.

Honestly I don't care if the human species survives or not, I have no stake in your future.

K~

PS: Bored now.

a reply to: aethertek

Congratulations on your health. Most your age do struggle with one ailment or another. As far as I've been reading your IQ is moot in determining anything of value.

I wasn't suggesting FOAD, I was simply asking if you view the world and humanity in that way why bother?

I'm not saying that birth rates aren't out of control, just that sterilization isn't the answer. I fear that would lead to a massive revolution if on a world scale.

You may have a stake in our future. If you have children or grand children you can guide them in to being better people than most in this world.

Education and shifting societal and religious norms is key. Many religions push large families. These same religions don't fear overpopulation because they believe the world will end soon. At the same time, they forbid most forms, if not all of birth control. Other groups such as the younger population and the less fortunate simply are not properly educated in pregnancy prevention and what it takes to raise a child.

We have so many cultures that push that a woman's worth is based on her role as a mother and how many kids she can have. Those attitudes need to be changed. Societal norms dictate most people behaviors with out having to create laws. We see societal shifts in other areas, why can't we push for for

We need REAL sex education in schools. The young and poor need better access to birth control. We need to dispel prevalent myths amongst you people such as a girl not being able to get pregnant on her period or that the pull out method is an effective for of birth control.



We need to decriminalize euthanasia. There are many people who are alive but given the choice would end it. We work very hard to extend the lives of those with terminal illnesses who are ready to move on. Why?

Global one child policy. I don't know how it could be enforced, but it would be the best way.one western child uses up a 1000 times the amount of resources of a child born in a 3rd world country.

a reply to: Ghost147

How would I do to solve the worlds exponential growth of population?

ask anyone with a net worth of over 10 Million dollars to stearlise them selves, their kids and their grand kids as a demonstration of their belief that depopulation is not just aimed at those at the bottom of the socio economic pile.

You solve the problem of too many babies being born through education. Education and improved living standards PLUS the emancipation of women.

In modern, democratic and liberal societies the birth rate falls, often to negative. In rigid, culturally backward and poor countries the birth rate is high. There is a correlation between high birth rates and high infant / child mortality, let's not forget that. However, family sizes are higher in poorer countries. In poorer countries women's rights are often well behind and they are unable to have a choice when it comes to children.

This is quite simplified and there are exceptions.

Instead of trying to reduce the size of the population perhaps we would be better to try and reduce the size of the people?

We don't all need to be strapping 6 footers - we could manage the world just as easily if 5 feet was considered tall and 4 feet - 4ft 6in was the norm.

I'm serious, if everyone was a foot or so shorter we would all use less resources. We'd need to eat less, and our clothes would be smaller. In past times many of our ancestors were shorter and yet we can see evidence of the world they created. Being short doesn't seem to be a drawback.

Management of resources could surely be improved. One small suggestion is encouraging people to grow their own vegetables. It's not hard to grow potatoes or tomatoes in a small garden and maybe city gardens / allotments could be encouraged.

Currently there seems to be a trend for people to crowd into cities but perhaps there could be a programme to encourage them to settle in some abandoned small towns or villages if only services to those places could be improved.

See an example here of an Italian village:

www.telegraph.co.uk...

I don't want to build over the countryside but I do think we could make better use of structures that are there already.

To go back to my original point, we need to look around at some of the creatures we share this Planet with and understand that the small ones are hugely successful.

You don't need to. Our population isn't exponentially growing anymore. 50 years ago, sure.
But within that time things have changed. The birth rates are decling worldwide. With death rates climbing worldwide eventually these two data points will meet. It's only a matter of time really.

Overpopulation is a myth. When people say there "aren't enough resources", it really means their greedy ass wants to make more profits than most of the human population is worth. There's more than enough food on the earth for everyone, it's just not distributed properly. This goes back to the making money thing. There's more than enough room here, most of canada is empty space. There's enough resources for everyone to have a home. Goes back to the money thing. There are lots of empty apartment buildings along the spanish coastline where nobody lives because people are too poor to live there. It was built with profits earned in our own countries.

a reply to: Ghost147

Off world expansion would be my suggestion. Rather than sinking more money than currently exists in the entire bloody universe, into poorly contracted, ill thought out projects and defence initiatives, the nations of the world should be banding together to get international bases put on the moon, and develop propulsion methods for spacecraft which will allow an Earth-Mars transit within a period of no more than four weeks. Space station shipyards should be built above Earth first, and spacecraft constructed in the gravity free environment up there for this purpose.

Unmanned construction vehicles should be sent to Mars orbit to built similar stations in orbit of that planet, and these should include orbit to surface dropper-lifter craft and launching sites for the same. Colonies should be constructed on Mars after this point, once the station has been established. At that time, material resources should be requisitioned from Mars, in order to allow the building of yet more shipyards, for the purpose of creating a way station situation at Mars, so that further exploration of our Solar System, and its solid bodies can be performed, and new discoveries made, hopefully leading to a better understanding over time, of space flight mechanics, propulsion methodology, the discovery of abundant fuel sources on moons and asteroids, and the eventual creation of something like FTL, possibly by way of a space warping drive or similarly effective work around for relativistic limitations.

At this point, all human endeavour should be at least tangential to the cause of furthering expansion throughout the solar system, and indeed beyond.

Once some sort of solution to the speed of light problem has been developed, our focus should be on spreading the human race out to as many different locations as is physically practical at the time. I say this for many reasons, but chief amongst them are as follows.

First, humanity as a species thrives when it is on the raggedy edge, flying by the seat of its pants, and getting through the day with guts and determination, rather than as part of a daily grind. The concrete and asphalt coffins we all tend to live in, certainly in the west, are not conducive to maintaining a sense of wonder, strength, and sense of self. Uniformity has bred complacency in many, and this makes for a dangerous situation, since were the worst to happen, many would not survive, so programmed are they by the relative ease with which they might pass a day out, when compared with if they were on the frontier of some new planet, or for that matter pioneering on this one, in days gone by.

But also, we have the space issue, and by that I mean the volume of square miles required, to adequately and comfortably provide for the needs of the teeming multitudes of humans, currently living on the planet. At the moment, if you spread us all out all over the place, and provided solutions to the problems of extremes of temperature, and geological activity in some regions, there would be enough space for everyone to get along just fine, and this would de-stress the tensions between some of the currently warring factions of Earth quite nicely, in all probability.

However, that is not a long term effective solution, since populations grow faster, the more folk there are to reproduce, and so emerging into space and creating colonies on as many solid bodies as is possible and practical, would seem to be a good solution to that issue.

But furthermore you have the fact that a population distributed over a wider area of space, is less likely to be completely wiped out by a cosmic event, than a population centered on and around one single planet, in one single solar system. At present, a mere asteroid could wipe our entire planets population off the map. The ladies and gentlemen aboard the ISS would not survive long on their own, separated from ground control by way of ground control, and everything ON the ground being rather thoroughly dead, and that would be all she wrote, save for the few wandering probes that would still plough through space, futile communications with Earth being unheard, bearing the message of our existence to a wider galaxy that would never know anything more of us, than they could find out from those scattered mechanisms.

But pushing outward, ever outward, would mean that short of the inevitable collision between our galaxy and the next nearest one, there would be next to no way that a naturally occurring event could wipe our entire civilisation out. Being in as many places as possible, would render the human race better protected from potential extinction than ever, and I think as reasoning beings we must understand that it has only ever been our ability to prevent our extinction using logic and reason, as well as the natural gifts with which we are showered, which leave us in the position we currently enjoy. It stands to reason then, that if we continue to use the foremost of our understanding and technical ability, that we will continue to victor over entropy as a species, for an awful lot longer, than if we stagnate, locked to our home world, without any ability or space to grow.