Earth population 'exceeds limits'

reply to post by LactoseIntolerant


However, money is merely another resource to which we are in competition of. Well, to be more accurate, it's more like a "resource note". The more money you have, the more resources you can procure. And to a degree, we need money. The barter system can only go so far. It wouldn't have gotten us to the Moon. It wouldn't have decoded DNA. I mean.. what could YOU offer to Intel in terms of services for the processor in your PC?

The barter system is a wonderful, even somewhat necessary, secondary layer to the economy. I just don't think it can support an advanced society. You need a certain amount of liquidity in your resources - and we've known this ever since society first started. Be it seashells or minted coin, humanity in civilization has always depended upon an a monetary currency to grow it's economy.

And so long as you have an economy, people are always going to find a way to manipulate it to their own ends. Call it greed or gluttony or personal weakness... but it's an inherited behavior which served our ancestors well when we were still violently fighting over temporary resources in our hunter-gatherer past. We can identify it, and try to curb it, but I don't think we'll ever really defeat it - because it does still serve an evolutionary purpose. Those who are most well adapted to gaining, procuring, and preserving money, will have the least trouble surviving - until the environment changes substantially (societal collapse).

It's true that some are not well adapted to procuring and preserving monetary resources, but are born into privilege. However, even the poorest people in the first world are merely born into privileged lives when compared to the poorest people on the planet. Even if you live on the streets and eat out of dumpsters, at least you have the dumpsters to eat out of - you don't have to go hungry or hunt and kill for yourself. At least you have charity clinics and shelters to provide some level of basic care, you don't sit by helplessly watching your family and friends die of diseases which we in the first world find only a mere annoyance - if they have not already been eradicated.

reply to post by tinfoilman

That's why nature supplied us with another method. It's called natural selection. It's survival of the fittest and it's a method we've been turning our back on.

Natural selection has nothing to do with "Survival of the fittest". Please stop spreading this fallacious meme. Thank you.

reply to post by cmiller

Something needs to happen that decreases our numbers to a very sustainable number. Unfortunatly, being the domininant species... this would have to repeat itself numerous times over the course of mankind. Either natural or manmade, something needs to ... and will happen to controll our numbers.

If it happens, it happens. It doesn't need our help, and we don't need to do anything to curb it or promote it. The only option which could not be seen as inherently evil, is to try to fight it. Increase knowledge, expand and reinvent our infrastructure, develop more efficient technologies, and promote charity. This is what will save humanity from the horrors of resource shortages by preserving the buffer to suffering that society provides. We do not need to promote genocide, eugenics, or other such evils.

Originally posted by Lasheic
reply to post by tinfoilman

 

That's why nature supplied us with another method. It's called natural selection. It's survival of the fittest and it's a method we've been turning our back on.

Natural selection has nothing to do with "Survival of the fittest". Please stop spreading this fallacious meme. Thank you.

It is a meme, but no I will not stop spreading it.

reply to post by tinfoilman


So you willfully admit to spreading disinformation and ignorance? I'm sorry, but I thought that was a morally dishonest and academically vile action which should be avoided.

Population control is a reality, there's no way around it if this planet is to be inhabited 100 years from now.

Since there is no ability for the countries of the world to deal with this in any sort of coordinated way, the only option that some feel is achievable is for a non-governmental group to take things into their own hands. The methods used? Introduction of designer food additives; manufactured disease; poverty; drugs & alcohol; unhealthy food that is cheap; laziness & obesity; vaccines. You get the picture--make an effort with all available tools to control the population.

Are these methods acceptable? Not in my opinion. But from their perspective, who else is doing anything?

delius

Originally posted by infolurker

I say we find all these people who want to lower the population of the planet through draconian means and let THEM "show us the way" by starting with themselves and their families......

Who is saying it should be lowered by "draconian means?" Who besides people here on ATS? What scientists of any credibility at all are saying we should off people that are already alive to achieve lower population?

Most people say it should be lowered by BIRTH CONTROL. Not war. Not genocide. Not releasing bird flu. And there is good evidence that people already WANT to lower the population, sort of as a natural response to overcrowding. Everywhere women have the right to use birth control, the birthrates in that country are dropping dramatically. In some cases so much so that they are below replacement levels. (Japan, Italy) No draconian measures needed.

All it would take is a public information campaign and making birth control available everywhere, freely. And preventing religions from influencing people not to use them. I think sometimes you guys are just so bored you want something terrible to happen. It doesnt have to.

Originally posted by Lasheic

Natural selection has nothing to do with "Survival of the fittest". Please stop spreading this fallacious meme. Thank you.

Where on Earth do you get that from? Are you making up your own evolutionary theory that the rest of us have yet to see?

en.wikipedia.org...

The concept of fitness is central to natural selection. However, as with Natural selection above, there is serious divergence of opinion over the precise meaning of the term, and Richard Dawkins manages in his later books to avoid it entirely. (He devotes a chapter of his The Extended Phenotype to discussing the various senses in which the term is used.) Although fitness is sometimes colloquially understood as a quality that promotes survival of a particular individual - as illustrated in the well-known phrase survival of the fittest - modern evolutionary theory defines fitness in terms of individual reproduction. The basis of this approach is: if an organism lives half as long as others of its species, but has twice as many offspring surviving to productive adulthood, its genes will become more common in the adult population of the next generation.

They are not identical concepts, but it is not true to say they have nothing to do with one another. Natural selection is what determines what is "fittest to survive."

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


I support this message. Although I would add a sidenote that it may not be a conscious choice we are making as a society. Population decline is an example of emergence within a complex system, a consequential response to modernization and urbanization. It's simply not economical to have a large family in an urban area - where 50% of our population now live. It's expensive, the children don't support the family as they do in rural farming communities, and they take too much time away from the parents who are focusing on their educations and careers. Further, there's a much lower mortality rate in modern society - meaning two children per family is more than enough to preserve one's lineage. There's not a great fear of disease, famine, or predation wiping out your smaller family.

Technically, almost all first world nations would be experiencing a negative or roughly static population growth if it were not for immigration. The reason why it's so apparent in Japan is because of their tighter immigration restrictions.

[edit on 1-4-2009 by Lasheic]

Makes me wonder what dis-ease might be coming next. It seems to me that the WHO was discussing population control in the seventies, then we suddenly had an AIDs epidemic in Manhattan and Africa...

Originally posted by Lasheic
reply to post by tinfoilman

 

So you willfully admit to spreading disinformation and ignorance? I'm sorry, but I thought that was a morally dishonest and academically vile action which should be avoided.

I'm sorry, did I say I was morally honest somewhere? Did I make that claim? Cause I don't remember making that claim. You shouldn't assume things like that.

Also, it is a meme, but that doesn't mean it doesn't contain the ability to get a point across. A meme being just a catchphrase to get everyone on the same page. Obviously the two topics often go hand in hand at times. I've always seen survival of the fittest as a type or a method by which natural selection can be achieved. Obviously there other ways natural selection can be achieved, but if I had to write out a high school text book of exactly what natural selection is every time I talked about it I'd never get anything done. Neither would you.

Unless you're saying that traits of future generations can't be influenced via a survival of the fittest type mechanism where only the fittest may have an opportunity to breed? I'd be interested to hear more about that? Cause I was under the impression that it is one factor in process of natural selection. If not maybe we should join the Wikipedia discussion on the issue and simply have survival of the fittest completely stricken from the natural selection article or at least more clearly pointed out to the lay person that they are in fact not the same thing. That seems like it would be more productive. You up for that?

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


Survival of the Fittest is not a term coined by an evolutionary biologist, but of a statistician and economist by the name of Herbert Spencer - and he used it as a way to try to compare biological evolution with his economic models.

The problem with "Survival of the Fittest" is that it's language is far too vague. Fittest doesn't tell you anything about what the factor for survival and preference towards reproduction is. It is FAR too commonly mis-associated with concepts of size, strength, intelligence, agility - but each of these traits can be deleterious in certain environments. Therefore, it has nothing to do with natural selection - which can often select less "fit" creatures for survival - such as the Tree Sloth, while removing more "fit" creatures it descended from.

So a more appropriate term to use is "Survival of the most well adapted". Albeit, that doesn't have the same catchy and empowering ring to it - which is likely why it's not as successful as a meme... despite the fact that "Survival of the most well adapted" is the most.. ahem... "fit"... to describe the term in regards to what we observe in reality.

Originally posted by delius
Population control is a reality, there's no way around it if this planet is to be inhabited 100 years from now.

Since there is no ability for the countries of the world to deal with this in any sort of coordinated way, the only option that some feel is achievable is for a non-governmental group to take things into their own hands. The methods used? Introduction of designer food additives; manufactured disease; poverty; drugs & alcohol; unhealthy food that is cheap; laziness & obesity; vaccines. You get the picture--make an effort with all available tools to control the population.

Are these methods acceptable? Not in my opinion. But from their perspective, who else is doing anything?

delius

Hey that's a good conspiracy! It also feeds into the capitalist raider philosophy of making a buck off of everything. I think many additives are the result of extra commodities laying around not making any money so why don't we figure out a way to get rid of these things and have people pay us for it.

reply to post by tinfoilman

Obviously there other ways natural selection can be achieved, but if I had to write out a high school text book of exactly what natural selection is every time I talked about it I'd never get anything done.

As demonstrated in my post above, the meme is inaccurate and insufficient to describe natural selection. You don't have to write out an entire textbook on evolutionary biology, but simply using the correct terms will do. Not doing so will simply perpetuate misconceptions which misrepresent what the science actually says - and that is promoting ignorance. It's also what anti-intellectuals and religious fundamentalists pick up on to try to "poke holes" in evolutionary theory - and they don't even understand that they're arguing against a false premise in the first place because people who think they understand evolution are unknowingly parroting a common meme rather than accurate terms.

Originally posted by Lasheic

I support this message. Although I would add a sidenote that it may not be a conscious choice we are making as a society. Population decline is an example of emergence within a complex system, a consequential response to modernization and urbanization.

I agree that it is not a completely conscious decision, however, when you introduce economics into the picture, you are sort of suggesting it is conscious. There is more to it than modern society.

I suspect it is more in line with what Edward O Wilson attributes it to. Though I have not read him elaborating on it as fully as he could. Women have a different reproductive strategy than men do. Men favor a high volume low care approach, women favor a low volume high investment strategy. Obviously, as with any other human trait, not every women wants low volume and not every male wants high volume. Not only are children more of a burden to mothers than to fathers in terms of time and energy, they are also more dangerous to bear. A lot went into women wanting to limit the amount of children they had. A woman in the past who was a prolific breeder risked death with every child. If the mother died in the past, the young children were in big trouble. Children without a mother in the past often did not survive. And all her individual genes would be lost by trying to be too reproductively greedy. Granted, times have changed, but they have not undone millions of years of selection for conservative mothers.

Thats why just having birth control is not enough, women have to be allowed the freedom to follow their own natural urges to use it and limit family size. (hence limiting religions ability to restrict their choice to utilize it would be essential)

Originally posted by AmethystWolf
Makes me wonder what dis-ease might be coming next. It seems to me that the WHO was discussing population control in the seventies, then we suddenly had an AIDs epidemic in Manhattan and Africa...

There might be some truth to that. As we get more and more crowded we are setting ourselves up for a plague of monumental proportions that will easily take out millions of people in short order. Man made or natural, a virus will come about that will thrive on a huge population of humans in a concentrated area. It will be devastating.

In 2000, 2.9 billion people live in urban areas, comprising 47 per cent of the world population.

World Population Growth Will Occur in Urban Areas Of World, United Nations Report States

If a virulent virus hit the major population centers of the world we could easy see a billion dead within a few years. Disease spreads when animals or plants are over crowded and under nourished or otherwise physically weakened, it is a natural population control.

reply to post by Lasheic


It would never have occurred to me that "fit" had anything to do with greater size strength or intelligence. Fit as I understand it just means that those who have this trait reproduce in greater numbers than those who lack this trait. And reproduce isnt the whole of it either, to be fit, you not only need to have more children, but those children need to live long enough to reproduce themselves.

I still think it is a mistake to toss the term "survival of the fittest" out the window. I think it would be better to explain that "fitness" is sometimes counter intuitive.

Edit to add;

originally posted by Lasheic
So a more appropriate term to use is "Survival of the most well adapted". Albeit, that doesn't have the same catchy and empowering ring to it - which is likely why it's not as successful as a meme... despite the fact that "Survival of the most well adapted" is the most.. ahem... "fit"... to describe the term in regards to what we observe in reality.

I can see how this may be preferable. But it is not without problems itself. There is another misconception that things are deliberately moving towards "adaption" when in fact often the trait arises as a mutation and then the environment changes and what was previously "adaptive" is now "maladaptive" and the mutation proves to more adaptive. Obviously, (or it should be obvious) this lucky mutation isnt always in the population when an environmental change occurs. And most species just go extinct. I think a lot of people assume that if the environment should change drastically we would just "adapt" to that change when in fact, most species dont get that lucky mutation that allows "adaptation." I think adaptation itself is misleading to some degree. Perhaps "survival of the lucky bastard that just happens to have what it takes when the conditions change" would be the most accurate, but it definitely lacks the ring that "survival of the fittest" has.

[edit on 1-4-2009 by Illusionsaregrander]

I'll readily admit that I am clueless when it comes to how things work outside of the United States and Canada, but in my opinion one big problem in the USA is the amount of crap around here. As much as I appreciate the convenience of being able to walk into the local supermarket whenever I want and be able to purchase the things I need without a worry, I have found myself increasingly disgusted by the sheer amount of junk and waste that our stores have sitting around. I mean, you walk down an aisle and there's so much worthless crap on sale. Why do we need this stuff? The resources used to manufacture and transport things like that could be much more beneficial elsewhere. I really wonder how many of those items will eventually be tossed into some container and shipped off to collect dust or occupy a landfill.

Imagine if we could cut back on all of the waste. Get rid of those moronic magazines in the checkout lanes, cut back on the 50 different kinds of condoms and air fresheners and bubblegum and blank DVDs and shampoo and cell phones and so on. Ugh!!! Waste waste waste!

And then there's the whole issue of pollution, landfills, toxic waste dumps, radioactive land, etc.

I don't think the problem is overpopulation. I think the problem is that a small portion of the human population has no regard for how their lives impact the health of the planet. Yes, there are a lot of humans, and yes we're slowly needing to occupy more surface area, but at the same time ignorance and neglect are shrinking the land on which we can live.

Originally posted by Lasheic
reply to post by tinfoilman

 

Obviously there other ways natural selection can be achieved, but if I had to write out a high school text book of exactly what natural selection is every time I talked about it I'd never get anything done.

As demonstrated in my post above, the meme is inaccurate and insufficient to describe natural selection. You don't have to write out an entire textbook on evolutionary biology, but simply using the correct terms will do. Not doing so will simply perpetuate misconceptions which misrepresent what the science actually says - and that is promoting ignorance. It's also what anti-intellectuals and religious fundamentalists pick up on to try to "poke holes" in evolutionary theory - and they don't even understand that they're arguing against a false premise in the first place because people who think they understand evolution are unknowingly parroting a common meme rather than accurate terms.

Ah, sort of like how where many places are predicted to actually become even colder due to the effects of "Global Warming" when in fact a better term to describe the situation is Global Climate Change? Are all the people that use the term Global "Warming" also vile and evil? Should they be cooked in a furnace to solve our population problem perhaps?

Like I said I offered you a productive way to slow the spreading of the bad meme. Looking at the Wikipedia entries for natural selection and survival of the fittest it occurred to me that the points you're making aren't entirely clear to a person with little knowledge of evolution over there and the point you're making should probably be pointed out in bold font or something which as far I can tell it is not. After all it says "Survival is only one component of selection." Which is what I just said. You're saying that's wrong. So, hmmm. We probably should suggest they change that.

That's where a lot of school kids get their information from. If you want to stop spreading the meme perhaps we could work together to join the Wikipedia discussion to make it a point that your point obviously needs to be spelled out more clearly. After all, if it didn't we wouldn't have so many people spreading the false meme now would we?

Well, you never answered me on that which tells me you're less concerned about the meme, and more concerned about flaming some random guy on a message board which will help absolutely nobody. Congratulations because I already know what you meant.

[edit on 1-4-2009 by tinfoilman]

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


Oh, yes, there is more to it than what I described. Population rates can rightly be considered a complex system interacting with other complex systems - such as government, economics, climate, etc. I doubt anyone has a fully comprehensive understanding of it, even if we can spot trends and factors which can influence it. For example, what you listed is exactly right. However, I think it's a bit incomplete. This predisposition for females to have smaller families predates modern society, and is likely a result of high mortality rates in females during childbirth. However, in society, this can also be coupled with the women's liberation movement. By recognizing the equality of women, we've empowered them in relationships. Sex and procreation isn't a domination act (generally) anymore, it's a negotiation between partners. I'm sure many a married man here can attest to their wives rejection. In many cultures, this is dissuaded or unheard of. In many cultures, women are commanded to submit to their husbands desires. This tilts the favor of breeding towards the male's disposition for large families. However in most industrialized nations in which women's rights have been recognized, forcing your wife to have sex with you against her will can get you charged with rape.

And even then, that's just a single factor in a much grander whole.

It would never have occurred to me that "fit" had anything to do with greater size strength or intelligence. Fit as I understand it just means that those who have this trait reproduce in greater numbers than those who lack this trait.

But the problem is that we're not in an evolutionary or even science oriented forum. Indeed, pseudoscience tends to reign here. So you have take into account that not everybody thinks of "fitness" in those terms. It's better to use a more accurate term when in these surroundings, because not everyone is going to know enough about evolution to overlook the inaccuracy of the statement or view "fitness" in the same light as you do.

It's like the inside joke at Nasa about a monster on Mars that gobbles up probes and rovers. Most people would understand that this is just a bit of humor born of frustration, but some who don't know very much about astronomy (or have their minds WAAAY too far open, to the point where their brains are falling out) take this to mean some actual creature or ET life is destroying our probes to keep us from finding certain things on the planet.

The common misconception over the term "Theory" as it pertains to accademic use vs. colloquial use is another prime example.

Edit: Sorry, you already mentioned women's liberation role as a population check in the closing line to your statements. Just consider the above agreement and expounding upon the idea.

[edit on 1-4-2009 by Lasheic]

[edit on 1-4-2009 by Lasheic]