Population Reduction, What is the right amount of people and why?

reply to post by AQuestion

Skip the number, what is the criteria. I accept that there is a limit, how will we know when we will reach it?

Ok, fair enough, that is a good question actually, something I haven't really thought about before. My answer would be that we shouldn't ever take it far enough to know what the limit is. We will know when we start running out of space or when the Earth can't provide enough natural resources to keep up with our population growth. We simply don't want to reach that point ever, because it wont be pretty if we do. We need to set a firm limit, a limit based on good research and analysis concerning what the Earth and the Earth's ecosystem can sustain. There's a finite amount of habitable land on any continent, there's also a finite amount of water and other resources such as food and wood and other fuels. It is possible to estimate with considerable accuracy where the threshold point will be by taking into account all those factors and many more. In fact it has probably already been done, I'm not going to go looking though.

This is an extremely tricky subject though... because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if we draw a line in the sand and set a limit... ultimately it's basically impossible to dictate the breeding rates of the human species unless you attempt to exterminate or sterilize a large portion of the population. These limits and lines in the sand are pointless unless you have a way of making everyone on Earth abide by certain rules which will limit their chances of having children. So at the end of the day... what it looks like to me is a race against the clock. The only realistic and rational way our species can survive on this planet without destroying it very quickly is if we start moving onto other planets in the solar systems, and eventually other solar systems. That's the only way I see it working for us... otherwise we're simply going to suck this planet dry to the bone and destroy most of the life on it.

As many as possible under the sustainability philosophy.

Originally posted by magma
As many as possible under the sustainability philosophy.

Dear magma,

Star for you. As many as possible.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


Dear ChaoticOrder,

Back at you, fair enough. We should not test our boundaries? What is the worst that happens if we do? The world will not end in a day. If we push the population to the boundaries of the number we can feed, what happens? We will not kill the earth, we will reduce our population. People that say that they do not wish to see others go hungrey are lying, they allow them to know when we are more than capable of feeding everyone. Should the limit be our greed?

Not one person who responded to my thread has read the Rockefeller Commission report and watched the whole video that I linked to. There has not been enough time. My question is what our priorities should be and we cannot kill the earth, it will remain.

reply to post by AQuestion

We should not test our boundaries? What is the worst that happens if we do? The world will not end in a day. If we push the population to the boundaries of the number we can feed, what happens? We will not kill the earth, we will reduce our population.

No it will not "kill the Earth". The Earth will remain... but as for the life on, not much of that will remain if we harvest every last scrap to fuel our unsustainable population. I mean is it really worth it to push things to the extreme... for what reason? You ask me why not, but I ask you why? Clearly there will be a huge array of negative repercussions associated with an excessive population. In the worste case scenario we will completely devastate major ecosystems which we depend on - like large forests or plankton who provide the vast majority of our oxygen. I don't think you really realize how delicate many aspects of our ecosystem are, many parts depend on other parts and if one part collapse it causes a domino effect. If we really pushed things to the limit it could have fatal and extinction level repercussions. I don't see why anyone would ever want to risk that... merely based on some ideological fantasy of unrealistic morals and flawed ethical stances. Logic is the real truth here.

"Sustainable" means as many as we can sustain rather than as few as can be sustained

What the hell is it with this insane, reckless, idiotic and completely unnecessary compulsion to breed like cockroaches until we destroy the entire planet? We already have so many places that are almost completely unlivable due to too many people, why destroy the good places we have left?

People use massive amounts of resources, it's plain stupid to want to keep increasing our already massive and destructive population. Go live some place like India or China and see how great overpopulation is. We are lucky that we still have a fairly good resource to population ratio, but even in many parts of America quality of life is terrible due to overcrowding and competition for resources.

reply to post by AQuestion

I think you ask the wrong question.

Because it is based on a premise that is antithetical to our concepts of basic human rights.

Who are you going to give the power to kill to when the agreed limit is exceeded?

To ask the question in this way is, basically, to announce that you are member of the elites, who want to treat the planet as some kind of giant chicken farm.

"Natural" biosystems regulate themselves. Why not assume that we are capable of doing the same?

The elites came up with this "problem" in the hopes that we would give them the right to solve it as they wished.

We didn't, so they are attempting to "solve" it behind our backs.

Overpopulation is not the most pressing problem right now. Criminal insanity in high places is the most pressing problem. I suggest we stay focused on the solution to that.

I think in order to answer this question you really need to look at all the other factors. It certainly isn't about us. How many lifeforms should we displace in order to sustain ourselves? Where is the balance between what we do and what other things do? To start from where you started ... the idea of 1 square kilometre each is fine until you begin to see that you might like an ocean view rather than a mountain one yet only so many can be allotted. So people would be living in places that they didn't want to. This would breed an amount of unhappiness that in time would swell to overthrow. In any of these discussions you must consider the nature of man. It has been said by men far smarter than I that the number of people that can live on the planet and use current sunlight as a fuel is 1 billion. Anything more than that and we have to start using ancient sunlight as a fuel. Which is an entirely unsustainable model.

reply to post by AQuestion
In a better world yes we would have licences or whatnot and to pass a test to bear off spring. However these rules need to be 100% agreed upon. but this planet can support far more than it currently is. These are scary thoughts under the current Nazi leadership though :S......

Did you ever see those discovery channel mega structures like Tokyo Sky City or something along those lines. Or those lilypad structures the Venus project was looking into. We could have built 100s of those.

But no, We live under Elite Rule..... Incompetent elite rule. Which by the way are quite responsible for all the useless retarded people scattered around the world. If the world was run by logic and compassion long ago they wouldn't have had such a #ty hand.

We will get past all this and usher in a golden age of humanity.

reply to post by Mandrakerealmz


Dear Mandrakerealmz,

Please define this utopia, what will it look like?

Our selfishness is preventing us from realizing that we are destroying this beautiful planet and killing off the wonderful living beings that we share it with.

Money plays a big part of this, our greed and desire for more and more money is driving us towards extinction. Dozens of countries continue to pump their waste water into our Oceans, millions of square miles of forests are being destroyed to make room for more farming grounds.

So I think you're a bit out of touch. We need other species in order for us to survive.

reply to post by AQuestion
Its within reach now we are just kept as slaves and cash cows. What would it look like? Hrmmm What do we want it to be like? I quite liked the idea of the city of Atlantis as it was depicted in Stargate Atlantis the TV series. Giant mega structure like city that moves. This would have the least impact on the environment using suppressed anti-gravity technology. We could have hundreds of these if not more. It would be ideal to actually make them space capable.

Grow our own food in vertical farming buildings within the city. If 100% matter converter/3D printing technology isn't good enough to just print food with all the nutrition required. Unimaginable health and vitality for hundreds of years if not longer.
The list goes on ^.^

Point being. We could do what I just suggested. Or spend TRILLIONS of $$$$$$$$$ on war after war after war. To allow the Rothschild's and many other Elite dynastic families to profit and control the masses again.

But seriously I've had enough of that tired old pathetic game.

Renaissance 2.0 Engage XD

reply to post by AQuestion

The optimum will be set at 200 million. That should be sufficient to assure genetic variation and create enough cultural pressure to keep things interesting.

There shall be only one large urban centre per continent, each with a population of 2-5 million. Exceptions shall be Antarctica (no settlement permitted) and Australia, a waterless ecological disaster area. Australia shall not be called upon to support more than a few tens of thousands of people, most likely in the form of nomadic bands.

The remainder of humanity shall live mostly in towns of population 20-100,000. A few exceptions will be allowed: those who prefer smaller communities will be accommodated, along with rugged outdoor types, born solitaries (who would be encouraged towards the small number of occupations, mostly safety-related, that demand a lonely exile in faraway places) and, of course, the misfits and outcasts which no society, however Utopian, can help produce. Substantial entry barriers will be set for all the above categories, even the last.

Farming will be automated, restricted in both geographical extent and ecological impact. Farms would more closely resemble labs or factories than the vast wastelands of monoculture we see today. Some traditional farming, using largely pre-Agricultural Revolution methods, would be encouraged, mainly because it creates pleasant landscapes: olive groves, vineyards, terraced paddy fields, that kind of thing.

Most of the planetary landmass would revert to wilderness. Outside our scattered communities, most roads and railways will be closed. Air travel shall be restricted to essential services; commercial air traffic would be abolished except for pleasure. Most craft would be lighter-than-air vehicles, though gliders, human-powered ultralights and so on would be allowed.

Long-distance travel, when necessary, would be by sea, or along the handful of great trunk roads and maglev railways linking our far-flung centres of population. No internal-combustion engines of any kind will be permitted – except, perhaps, for such vehicles as ambulances and rescue vehicles.

A few precious architectural and cultural landmarks will be saved from the encroaching wilderness. Places like Angkor, Florence and Istanbul will become enormous museums.

Human movement through the wilderness will be allowed, even encouraged, but it will also be closely regulated. There will be strict limits on numbers in a given area, and equally strict restrictions on what people are allowed to carry with them. Essentially, all post industrial-revolution technology would be prohibited. No rifles or pistols, far less any automatic weapons; no telephones or other instruments of long-distance communication; no modern medicines or medical technology; no contraceptives, no safety matches, no compasses apart from simple (and inaccurate) magnetic ones. When you enter the wilderness, you must confront it fairly.

Exceptions would be made, but with great reluctance and the interposition of suitable bureaucratic obstacles, to allow wilderness expeditions for scientific, humanitarian and law-enforcement purposes. Wilderness areas would be subject to close but non-invasive monitoring by the authorities at all times.

Now to the most important, and possibly controversial, aspect of my Utopia:

Everybody, without exception, would be obliged to spend a year in the wilderness immediately after graduating from high school. Since abortion would be legal worldwide and genetics would have advanced to the point where most hereditary diseases and abnormalities could be literally nipped in the bud, we should not be consigning squadrons of the halt and lame to certain death by this custom. Besides, this adolescent 'year in the wilderness' would be an essential element in the ongoing global programme of population control.

An individual's performance during their 'wilderness year' would greatly affect their social status in after life. By merely surviving it, one would have earned one's ticket into the global community of humanity. Exceptional performance – helping others survive, resourcefulness and courage in emergencies, exhibiting qualities of cooperation, sympathy, organizing skill, leadership or dominance – would be noticed by the monitors as well as by one's fellow-sojourners in the wild, and confer additional cachet on one's return to society.

Finally, a few miscellaneous features:

1. Religions would be treated as businesses, and taxed. Tithes, zakat, etc would cease to be tax-deductible.
   
   
2. Media advertising would be prohibited. Media would have to survive on consumer sales and subscriptions only.
   
   
3. Corporations would cease to be treated as legal individuals.
   
   
4. A new category of crime, aesthetic offences, will enter the Penal Code. Severe penalties would be applied to such offences.

Care to join me in Utopia?

reply to post by Astyanax
Why must we remain in towns all spread out using land mass the way we currently do?

Why 200 million and since our current total is in the billions how do we get to 200 million?

Or do you think managing a society with this many people is too difficult and it would be easier at 200 million?

Psssssh. Think bigger and take on the challenge! No one needs to die, No one needs to suffer.


EDIT: Is it because 200 million is easier for a technologically superior group of elites to manage :/ ? If so.... Is that your opinion? Or the opinion you allowed to be brainwashed upon you?

reply to post by Mandrakerealmz

Why must we remain in towns all spread out using land mass the way we currently do?

Because people are ugly and wilderness is beautiful.

Why 200 million and since our current total is in the billions how do we get to 200 million?

You can leave that to me.

Or do you think managing a society with this many people is too difficult and it would be easier at 200 million?

Actually, I think 200 million is quite generous. In strictly genetic terms, a population of a million or so would be more than sufficient. But I like an interesting life, so let's have a few more people. Pretty ones, for preference.

Psssssh. Think bigger and take on the challenge! No one needs to die, No one needs to suffer.

On the contrary, everybody needs to die, and suffering is an inevitable aspect of the human condition.

EDIT: Is it because 200 million is easier for a technologically superior group of elites to manage :/ ? If so.... Is that your opinion? Or the opinion you allowed to be brainwashed upon you?

You conspiracy theorists can't open your mouths without insulting someone, can you?

reply to post by Astyanax
*Mind Firmly Closed* indeed. Those opinions are very primitive :/ I smell Eugenics.... and "Leave that to me".......

You seem quite far gone brother

The first thing on the Georgia Guidestones is maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
and second thing is Guide Reproduction Wisely - Improving Fitness and Diversity.... and number 10 is Be not a cancer on the earth, leave room for nature, leave room for nature.

Many places on this planet are way overcrowded but the thing I don't understand is why anyone would want *many* children?? It's wreckless and unsustainable from all angles.

I've had my vasectomy in a most voluntary way.

I'd say it would need to be reduced to 0 because we can't be trusted to live on this planet without either destroying it or destroying ourselves.

David Suzuki once said 'You can't expect infinite growth in a finite world'.

It's not that we can't sustain ourselves, It's if the earth can sustain us.

And as for this quote

Originally posted by AQuestion

It has been said that Australia has 7.5 Billion square kilometers of space. That is enough to give every person on earth a little over a square kilometer to live on and the rest of the whole world's land to feed them.

I live down under and i can tell you a large majority of that land is unsustainable for crops, let alone humans. We live in the driest continent on the planet, not to mention the climate is volatile at best (ask any Aussie, they'll tell you) and natural disasters are a constant plague to the food bowls around the country.

I don't believe that we can sustain a much larger population, but if we were smart we could maybe, MAYBE sustain twice our current population. The trick is not not to grow out, but to grow up. The Arcologies many futurists speak of would be a great idea.

reply to post by AQuestion


Simply saying there is x acres here or there and dividing that by the number of people to say "oh look there is enough space" is sooo simplistic and as such completely misleading.

Guess what Antartica has gadzillions of acres but you would be hard pushed to grow enough food to feed a single street let along 7 billion.

The problem is you need arable land to grow crops (hence Antartica example). Once you take account of that the numbers start to shrink somewhat. You also have the problem of how that arable land is used. Very wasteful is to use to build a house !, a factory !, drown with a reservoir ! All of which we do all the time everywhere. Then there is how much land do you need to feed a person. Well the amount increases quite significantly if you are going to grow animals then eat the animals.

You also need to take account of bio diversity and disease. A healthy enviornment results in healthy crops. Monocultures are very very bad. Great for the short term "wow look at the yieldds" But ubststainable over the long term......you may have noticed.

Then there's the demand on water, fuel, minerals (for tech) etc etc.

Put all this together and you have a world that needs less people. Currently the worlds population (of which the MAJORITY are still in subsistence but changing rapidly) is consuming the worlds resources faster than they are being replaced. This is why we are currently doomed. Once China, India and Brazil come onboard the western lifestyle cruise ship then prices will rocket, self preservation kicks in and the proverbial will hit the fan.