The 5 year ban.

a reply to: kelbtalfenek

That's a good question.
Perhaps we should ask our asian friends. Didn't china or Japan have a child limit at some point?

I know it's different from what the article suggests but it is a good start and could always be an alternative. A national child limit.

Other that that, just like Steven Kotler states. It could be a grassroots type movement. People understand the policy and abide on their own accord, knowing what's at stake.
Their valuable contribution of nothing/no-one could be their contribution.

Buuuut, that's a little far fetched.

Could always be a seedy government program that uses a chemtrail type approach for all I care. Don't think it would be hard to expose a percentage of people to something that would render their reproductive system docile.
But that may be a bit to far.

Just pop some birth control, or keep the junk in the trunk for a few years, lol.
It's not rocket science.

yep, we are over populated, there is no doubt about that.
Eventually nature will take care of that if we do not.

On the other hand, we are on the verge of a world war,
and populations go up before something like this, and then drop.

Perhaps it is natures way of insuring we don't hit a critical point, or maybe that is a critical point that is caused by nature and the environment.

Honestly, I think nature will do it for us because we cannot do it ourselves.


I like the 5 year challenge though, and shall put it into practice right now...
No more children for me...

lol

originally posted by: TrueBrit
With respect, there are things we could be doing today to increase the future survivability factor of the human race, without population control even coming into it.

We could be using every available desert
We could be building houses [snipped]

You don't get it. First ask: who should build these things, who will provide the resources, who will offer the place? And then watch economy and capitalism. The short answer is: nobody will. The only ones who may try a ridiculous attempt in realizing such projects will do so by exploiting millions of people by their work force. And it will stop as soon as no profit can be made - which means they give up after the very first years. And even then the amount of randomly procreating people will always be too large to give them a decent living standard. Because that's what everyone deserves: a decent living standard as well.
So whatever you make up in your mind - it's fantasy. Fantasy in THIS WORLD which ain't gonna happend for at least the next 1000 years. It is not fantasy per se, but in this world and society it IS fantasy.

The only way everyone can have a decent living standard in today's society and world is, if we had much much less people. Nobody needs to be killed or bombed - just allow only 1 child per couple and it will slowly level out over time.

a reply to: anotherdaytoday

So what you are saying is, that you give up on what should be, and are happy with taking the hegemony?

Screw it then, let's just burn it all.

a reply to: TrueBrit

True Brit, your posts are always a breath of fresh air. From an evolutionary standpoint, over population makes no sense...it's what all species are aiming for. And you hit the nail on the head...by being imprudent, wasteful, and unequal with resources, we threaten our species' wellbeing.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: anotherdaytoday

So what you are saying is, that you give up on what should be, and are happy with taking the hegemony?

Screw it then, let's just burn it all.

Yes, give up on fantasy and look at more realistic goals. But I'll be honest... my suggestion for a 1 child/couple is also unrealistic at THIS point in time, because there are too many parties who still profit from the overpopulation.

This should happen:
1) Overpopulation must shrink into a manageable size.
2) A decent living standard for everyone must be secured.
3) Now deserts and other places can be tapped for resources and new living places.

It's a long way to go... but if we start to just tap resources right now, all the misuse will continue. Nothing will change in this world for the better. But then again, you could also claim that my suggested plan will also fail, because too many parties will prevent this happening.

If that is the case - and chance is - then really the only way is to to end it all with a "burn it all", "asteroid impact", "harvested" by the aliens. I'm serious... this world is f#cked up.
Sorry btw. if I came harsh at you, because I can see you have the right mind in realizing that it's all about the misuse. And if everything was distributed equally we would have enough resources and living standard for everyone. That is true. But the inequality of wealth and might practically makes it irreversable.

This is the classic tragedy of the commons.

It does make sense to reduce the number of children. This reduces pollution, congestation, strain on the environment, general crampedness.

BUT, the individual wins nothing by abstaining from having a child. The effect of one child on the world is almost non-existant, yet the effect on an individual when he or she has one child is life-changing. A biological imperative compels the individual to have children. Logical arguments can counter this, yet they mean nothing in the end when pitched against an actual, living human beings needs.

And so this makes it impossible to reduce population without violating human rights:

All want to reproduce. Who will get to reproduce?

We, as a people, end up in each others way. How to progress without maiming each other?

P.S: To provide a ray of hope, birth rates have been proven to drop with increased levels of education. As anyone from a western country can attest. Although this may raise other concerns, regarding our future.

I appreciate everybody's participation in this thread. You all bring up some valid points.
Though I'm not contributing much, I enjoy reading everybody's input.

/Anotherdaytoday, you're spot on with your last comment.
Saves me the effort of writing actually, haha.
Just what I was thinking, but you word it better than I could lol.

originally posted by: Darkblade71
yep, we are over populated, there is no doubt about that.
Eventually nature will take care of that if we do not.

On the other hand, we are on the verge of a world war,
and populations go up before something like this, and then drop.

Perhaps it is natures way of insuring we don't hit a critical point, or maybe that is a critical point that is caused by nature and the environment.

Honestly, I think nature will do it for us because we cannot do it ourselves.


I like the 5 year challenge though, and shall put it into practice right now...
No more children for me...

lol

Well the whole point is that we as a civilization should solve it before we break apart...

Nature is always breathing at our neck.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: markosity1973

Well, it is interesting that you mention land suitable for agriculture.

A good few years ago now, I was watching a documentary, posted by a member here on ATS, which showed that desertification, the encroachment of deserts into what had previously been farmland, can be combated, slowed, and even reversed by planting the right sorts of plants, and leaving the area to green up over a period of a little under a decade. The places featured in the documentary included a location in the Yemen, one in rural China, and some other places as well.

The technique is fascinating, essentially revolving around the ability of plants, over generations, to actually break down and become part of the soil themselves when they die, improving the soil quality no end, and increasing its moisture content by retaining as much water as possible. These things in combination mean that even without terrifying levels of irrigation and effort, the regions which are currently being encroached on by desert could be reclaimed over a relatively short period, and made green again. After that, a cycle of leaving certain areas fallow for a time to ensure they are not too damaged to ever be used for farming again, can be implemented, protecting the site for future use.

There are solutions to every great problem of our age, and all that is necessary to see them come to fruit, is the will to see it done on the part of enough people. With that will, any obstacle can be bought down. Without it, every venture for the betterment of humankind will fail.

I agree with what you say up to a point. I too have seen a Documentay on RT about desertification and the drying up of the Aral sea (Once one of the largest freshwater lakes on the planet) They had a plan in action to help reclaim land there too. BTW, if you ignore the news side of RT, they have quite a lot of docos on the various environmental disasters caused in the bad old USSR days.

However, the population is growing, as you have rightly pointed out, arable land area is shrinking and we are doing squat about it (It takes many years to return it to full productivity BTW and you would never be able to open crop i.e plant wheat because it will just go back to desert again)

So, there is a disaster point where the 2 curves meet in the upswing of food being eaten and the downward trend of land and static production gains meet, And according to those sources I posted earlier, and it is some time not long after 2020.

I'm not saying we can't avert a crisis, but I am saying that we're just sitting on our hands and doing nothing about it and one say soon it will be too late - there WILL be food shortages and the solution will take years to come online. In the meantime hunger and war will be a part of daily life for even more of the citizens of this tiny blue marble.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: ChaosruptureS420

Over population is nothing more than a bloody lie.

Misuse of resources, use of the wrong resources, misuse of available space, misuse of funds, time, and an over reliance on fossil products are what puts us in a poor position right now. If it were not for these things, there would be no problem what so ever with population.

Further to that, even if we were approaching a population crisis, the correct answer to that is expansion off world, which again, would be happening ALREADY if resources had not been misused for the last God knows how many years.

Sorry, but I disagree. The answer to a population crisis is NOT expansion off world. Expansion off world is still in the realms of science fiction, not science fact.

If you think overpopulation is a myth, go visit a high population density country and see if you feel the same way.

a reply to: Subnatural

And so this makes it impossible to reduce population without violating human rights:

Not really.

But overpopulation is not so much a global problem as a localized one. Various locations have various amounts of resources. Looking at water as one (very basic) example. The population which a given water supply can service can definitely outstrip the capacity of that water supply.

At the current time though, it is population growth (rather than size) which is more problematic in the developing world (growth rates in the developed world continue to decline). A population which grows faster than its ability to support itself is a recipe for disaster.

originally posted by: babybunnies

Sorry, but I disagree. The answer to a population crisis is NOT expansion off world. Expansion off world is still in the realms of science fiction, not science fact.

If you think overpopulation is a myth, go visit a high population density country and see if you feel the same way.

Well said

I think people confuse population density i.e there is physical space for trillions upon trillions of people on the planet with resource availability.

What urban dwellers do not understand is that the ever increasing use of land is causing the destruction of natural environments and the extinction of the wildlife that lives within it. We as humans are directly responsible for the 6th great extinction on this planet. This is something that cannot be seen from a shopping mall or the balcony if your inner city apartment. By the time it is felt in cities it will be far too late.

Our own overpopulation will strip the planet of consumable resources until we are forced to feed on eachother- assuming we manage to keep from blowing eachother up long enough for that to happen.

We're destroying the underlying systems (rainforests, oceans, etc) that we rely upon to sustain the environment we need to live in.

Not only do we have a bad overpopulation problem, a staggering number of our species is a worthless drain on society. Huge piles of redundant protoplasm. I hate what our species has become.

From the link"

I’ve written it before and I’ll write it again. Scientists studying the carrying capacity of the earth—that is how many of us can live here sustainably—have fluctuated massively. Wild-eyed optimists believe it’s close to 2 billion. Dour pessimists say 300 million. The point is that—and I’m going by the best of those figures—we need to lose 4.4 billion people and we need to lose them fast.

Catch the "sustainable" part?

Sounds like Agenda 21 Elitist Claptrap to me.

You don;t need to worry about it.
A total population collapse will be likely well underway in 30 years, for sure in 50.
You are already seeing the early signs.
It's called Malthusian mathematical model of population growth and the supply of resource availability, such as food.
An upper limit of resources and population leading inevitability to war, starvation, epidemics, shortened life spans, higher infant mortality.
For instance, if not for WWII the population of the planet would be much higher since the tens of millions of survivors would have had hundreds of millions of descendants and in another generation or two it becomes billions, in which case a population collapse would have already occurred as we are already at the upper limits of a sustainable population.
In the future, past the peak of cheap oil, arable land, and a stable climate even the population we have now is not sustainable, if it ever was...
Here is an excellent video on the subject using nothing but math an logic.
youtu.be...

a reply to: ChaosruptureS420