Should the Planet be depopulated

Originally posted by dionysius9
Are we SURE we need to keep spending this kind of money on wars to have a better, safer tomorrow?

Again, this kind of misses the point. We already have done a tremendous job of reducing diseases and making life better and safer for billions of people. We're already succeeded! But that, right there is the catch. We've done so good that the natural mechanisms for keeping the population at a sustainable level can't keep up anymore. So now we're on a kind of runaway train, gathering speed downhill. It's okay for now, and probably won't be a real huge problem for a few decades, but the horror will sneak up quickly.

As I've said, it's our love, not our evil, that will cause us the most trouble. When you talk about "better," do you mean that more people should have a chance to have a home and raise children? That they should all live to be over 100 years old, in good health? Because all of that just contributes to the problem.

Even if we cover the entire planet with solar collectors and use electric batteries, that still requires resources. There's no way that you can live and not make an impact on the environment. And it won't matter if we all live in spaces the sizes of closets and eat kelp sandwiches cooked on solar stoves (what a wonderful life). It still requires energy and resources, and if there are 100 billion of us, it still won't work.

We just don't need that many people. We already have massive unemployment, water shortages, and our fuel production (ethanol derived from corn) is competing with our food production. Oh, and don't forget that our intelligent machines will also eventually start competing with us for energy.

Like I said, fortunately for me, I'll be dead before I have to personally deal with it. Good luck future people. Hopefully you'll be able to figure it out without having so slaughter billions of people.

I'm not a big fan of humanity as a whole to begin with anyway so this may sound incredibly harsh. I believe there needs to be a large catastrophic event that wipes out a great deal of the population.This way the strong would have a chance to flourish and the weak would slowly wither away.Survival of the fittest should apply to humanity to.

I would like to offer some coincidental incidents that have an effect on population growth.

Aids, currently having sex with the possibility of procreation is life risking. So Aids not only lowers population it is a factor in how often people chose behavior that might lead to procreation.

Currently Homosexuality is being promoted in the media and schools, this has a direct effect on lowering fertility rates.

Some wish abortion illegal, but even the sides that use this issue for talking points pass the legislation on to the states to maintain the added drop in birth rates abortion allows.

Study shows fertility rates in men have dropped by half since 1940
www.newsmonster.co.uk...

State funded sterilizations have even created some organized groups to fight the effort. Here is one from Brazil
www.ratical.org...

Article on using economic force to get women to agree to sterilization
multinationalmonitor.org...

In some cases, women are asked to present certification of tubal ligation as a prerequisite to employment.

This only says 'some cases' but even one is a frightening use of threats of poverty to get people who are poor to agree to sterilization.

[edit on 4-11-2007 by Redge777]

Well sooner or later it will sort itself out. When the population in countries reach a certain amount and can no longer provide the starving with food aid (like those in Africa) the poeple who are starving (and I might add are a total drain on society) will finally die of starvation because they choose to squabble over things like who owns what land instead of cultivating it.

Luckily those squabbles over land cause civil war and genocide so its helping weed out those who add nothing to civilisation

How come we can't edit in this thread?

reply to post by Nohup

Even if we cover the entire planet with solar collectors and use electric batteries, that still requires resources. There's no way that you can live and not make an impact on the environment. And it won't matter if we all live in spaces the sizes of closets and eat kelp sandwiches cooked on solar stoves (what a wonderful life). It still requires energy and resources, and if there are 100 billion of us, it still won't work.

Oh come on! 100 billion?! We're a long way off from that. Nobody's suggesting we can avoid using natural resources entirely. The idea is to decrease our overall impact by... here's a shocking idea... decreasing our individual impact!!

Having less kids would help too, but if you read the thread or just look around you you'd notice that people who can afford to do so ARE having less kids. The people who are still having lots of kids:

1. Need to have lots of kids to survive their way of life.
2. Require this because they don't live in industrialized nations that suck the life out of the planet to begin with.

Meanwhile countries are still building oil and coal reactors to generate power. Why not build hydroelectric plants, wind farms, and solar farms instead?

Car companies are still looking for ways to build the biggest, fastest SUV with the most cupholders. Your average suburbanite mom doesn't need to cut back on her child spawning, she needs to realize that a sedan will haul her brat kid's soccer crap just fine and buy a car that's smart and sensible. You don't even have to buy a hybrid to get 30+ mpg these days.

The only form of "population control" we should be having is to limit the number if kids welfare will support. I'm definately not in favor of the IRS sucking an extra 20 bucks out of my paycheck to support some fat lazy *^&^% who decided to get knocked up 6 times to collect the welfare and child support checks instead of finish high school and get a job.

reply to post by mattifikation


The 6.5 billion we have right now are doing IRREPARABLE harm to our planet. There's no way around it. There's nothing wrong with less people. Get over it.

reply to post by DeadFlagBlues


Theoretically, if all resources were distributed equally and everyone was civic conscious, the planet can support 9 billion individuals quite comfortably.

But resources are not distributed equally and most people only care about themselves... so...

reply to post by Beachcoma


Yeah, exactly..

The human species has proved itself to be quite the pig at the trough. If we rely on self regulation and personal responsibility like we have since modernization, we'll surely exhaust our planet.

No,

The Earth has allot land and water. It's has more then enough to support the number of people. The problem has never been the Earth but way we populate it and use it. The the population is not spread out enough. We crowd ourselves in cities and now very few people live in rule areas. Look at Texas it has allots of land, more land then cities yet so much that of land is not being used. There is miles and miles and miles of land that could be used for farming that just simply not being used.

We need find an effiecient alternative to pertrol for cars (feul cells are well on their way to do this) to reduce our carbon footprint the most. In any case the USA will not be able to hold its global superiority without alternitave fuels.

Water aquifers are drying up around the world, it takes 1000 liters of water to produce 1 kilogram of meat. And with a growing consumer class in China and India the global demand is set to skyrocket. And theirs always someone more than willing to skrew the next person out of their natural resources for higher profits.

90% of all edible fish in the oceans have been caught, yes 90%. The new mega trawlers scrape the ocean bottom destroying the sea bed with nets up to 50 km wide.

Basicly if we continue on our path of destruction we wont live out the century. And thats fact

Originally posted by ebe51
There is miles and miles and miles of land that could be used for farming that just simply not being used.

You actualy need top soil thats just right to farm (differs with what you want to farm) and their is definatly not miles and miles of it. In fact theirs not anough and dew to our human way of doing things it is geting less by the day. And farmable top soil can take up to 100 years to replenih itself natuarally if not longer

reply to post by Zwieger


Well done..

I'm glad you brought up the meat and fishing industries too. Both a major contributor to the every increasing strange on eco-stystems all around the world.

Response to the thread title:

Either that, or have the 6.5. Billion that do live here, actually contribute something of value to the whole. And Im not talking about tax, but about a majority starting to leave the tiny circle of their tiny day-to-day issues and look at the Planet, the Eco-System, the Future of Mankind. What is the percentage of people who care enough to be acting positively towards the whole?

Must disagree with the people here who hint at a scarcity of resources. The apparent "SCARCITY" is a conspiracy, an apparency, to keep the masses enslaved. Theres more than enough for anyone.

On the other hand, I dont like crowds.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
Must disagree with the people here who hint at a scarcity of resources. The apparent "SCARCITY" is a conspiracy, an apparency, to keep the masses enslaved. Theres more than enough for anyone.

O ok, I see that’s why fishing companies are illegally fishing in other countries waters and farmers are having droughts, farms having financial problems and some closing down, and forests are being destroyed for timber and gold mines having to find ever more ingenious ways of getting to gold and digging ever deeper ect ect ect.

Its all just a global conspiracy to keep prices high, and their keeping all "other" resources well hidden so that no one will notice they are their and try to exploit them. I see

Originally posted by Zwieger
Its all just a global conspiracy to keep prices high, and their keeping all "other" resources well hidden so that no one will notice they are their and try to exploit them. I see

Is, it just happens that resources are withheld to keep prices high. No sarcasm here.

Originally posted by Zwieger

Originally posted by ebe51
There is miles and miles and miles of land that could be used for farming that just simply not being used.

You actualy need top soil thats just right to farm (differs with what you want to farm) and their is definatly not miles and miles of it. In fact theirs not anough and dew to our human way of doing things it is geting less by the day. And farmable top soil can take up to 100 years to replenih itself natuarally if not longer

Top soil, not really a problem different crop use different nutrient and alternating crops can vastly extended the life of farm land.
Also I poo out top soil everyday, and compost is easy to come by. There are plenty of resources we are just mismanaging them. We don't need to kill off the population we just need to manage what resource we have better.

reply to post by Skyfloating


Yes, but economys suffer more with excesively high prices, which seems to be the case these days, with a 11% CPIX inflation rate predicted (South africa), then they would if they did not with hold any excess resources.

Originally posted by ebe51
Also I poo out top soil everyday, and compost is easy to come by. There are plenty of resources we are just mismanaging them. We don't need to kill off the population we just need to manage what resource we have better.

Theirs a huge differince between top soil and fertalizer and compost.

And yes, the mismanaging thing is exactly what the problem is, very few farms are well managed. Farm management in the first and third world are on two different levels

Heres something you can read that will explain the problem with top soil and the way we use it and so destroy it.

READ THIS

Well, the economy...

that's a little different, but economy is just something else that being mismanaged.
American's giving all there jobs to china is an example that. Why do we keep going to Wal-mart and buying china made stuff, just because it's a little cheaper?

What does should common sense tell you about buying things china....

Americans will lose there manuf. jobs, which cause people in supporting industries to lose there jobs, when means more and more people will have to start working retail jobs selling the stuff made in china make less money, which means they will be making less money and have less money to spend on stuff made in the states. What does all that equal, an overall economy going down hill.

See we mismanaged our economy and now the value of a dollar is going down everyday.