An after dinner drink gone bad - because of over-population!

Everything in moderation. Extremists and panic prone populations are a bad combination. I believe that lower population levels would make resources go farther, last longer. Industrialized nations are declining in population. Agricultural nation have more children to share labor to help the family survive. Packing people into cities is a bad idea. Just look at crime rates. The old story about too many rats in a cage.

reply to post by SaturnFX

They may be poor (many have been historically), but to actually call them starving is another issue.

Starvation can be a slow and silent death.

I'm sure it happens, and it's terrible and unnecessary.

I'm not convinced that simply because people earn little money in China and India they are facing famines or starving.

I may be wrong, but I'd have to see some real evidence, and not just a tragic street person starving to death (which happens here too, I'm sure), but real famines.

During the Cultural Revolution in China they say millions starved.
Nowadays I'm not convinced at all.

It's difficult for me to imagine, because the Chinese are very economically active in SA and other African countries, and there's quite a bit of exchange between China, India and SA (BRICS countries) and I've never heard of people starving in those countries.

Zimbabwe on the other hand ... well most of them fled here.

Apparently most of the world lives on a dollar or less a day (at least officially or individually, just another often repeated factoid with little meaning in regard to actual subsistence).
They're not all starving.

Perhaps somebody from China or India could cast more light on the issue?

Originally posted by halfoldman
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

They may be poor (many have been historically), but to actually call them starving is another issue.

Starvation can be a slow and silent death.

I'm sure it happens, and it's terrible and unnecessary.

I'm not convinced that simply because people earn little money in China and India they are facing famines or starving.

Starvation in India
China isn't as bad anymore..they have done well actually and cleaned up their act in the last 30 years with a cross between large social programs and a bit of slave labor shoring up mass employment.

reply to post by SaturnFX

Interestingly a Wiki article (for what it's worth) mentions the malnutrition deaths, but a social activist does not seem to include this as famine or mass starvation in the sense that India has had before independence.
There were fears that full scale famines similar to the horn of Africa might return, but so far there's no indication that they have:

Deaths from malnutrition on a large scale have continued across India into modern times. In Maharashtra alone, for example, there were around 45,000 childhood deaths due to mild or severe malnutrition in 2009, according to the Times of India.[128] Another Times of India report in 2010 has stated that 50% of childhood deaths in India are attributable to malnutrition.[129] Growing export prices, the melting of the Himalayan glaciers due to global warming, changes in rainfall and temperatures are issues affecting India. If agricultural production does not remain above the population growth rate, there are indications that a return to the pre-independence famine days is a likelihood. People from various walks of life, such as social activist Vandana Shiva and researcher Dan Banik, agree that famines and the resulting large scale loss of life from starvation have been eliminated after Indian independence in 1947.[fn 12] However, Shiva warned in 2002 that famines are making a comeback and government inaction would mean they would reach the scale seen in the Horn of Africa in three or four years.[130]

en.wikipedia.org...

Perhaps the difference (or lack there-of) between starvation and malnourishment could make for an interesting thread.
I suppose in some countries very fat people can be malnourished on empty calories, but they're not starving.
I'd be really interested to know however if people from India see their country as in the grips of famine and starvation.

We don't see ourselves as a country with starvation, but it would be something to look into, because food security is low for the poor majority, and I'm sure malnutrition is pretty widespread.
It's a politically orchestrated problem though, whether deliberately or through sheer mismanagement and wastefulness.

Originally posted by g146541
reply to post by halfoldman

 

Only an idiot believes the "overpopulation" myth.
Above all, the fact is, math don't lie!
Doing the math would give every man woman and child a 1/4 acre and every man woman and child would fit into the landspace of Australia.
I think the real problem is rich folk with too much "stuff" and mismanagement.
Really, who needs anything over a hundred acres???

1/4 Acre?! My family ranch has 7500 acres for cattle grazing and we can hardly supply 1 small high school, 6 restaurants and a small number of personal accounts every year with beef!

Oh man that went bad quick....for some people the answers seem so easy....friendships are important to keep at it...good luck

reply to post by halfoldman

Next she said that if she was a young person she would never "breed", because the world is simply overpopulated. Then I told her that as a gay person the most common argument thrown at me is that we cannot "breed", but if I could I'd actually love to.

You'd love to breed, but something about your psychological/biological makeup is telling you not to mate with the opposite sex. Could this be some sort of natural indicator that the world indeed has enough people?

After all, the whole point of reproduction is to ensure the survival of the species. Nature doesn't care about the joys of parenthood - such feelings are just nature's 'parlor tricks' to keep us in the game.

reply to post by garrett5462


I guess your situation would be covered under mimanagement then.
There is a family of 4 in Los Angeles that has 1/10th an acre and feeds themselves and supplies local restaurants as well.
In the concrete jungle, not on the plains.

reply to post by DeReK DaRkLy

A good question.

I don't want to deviate into gay issues here, but I think nobody can really deny that exclusively gay people have been described since ancient times (although in the culture wars nowadays the more negative descriptions of homosexuality in general are focused upon).
So as far as I see my sexual identity, I think it is nothing new, nor a sign of modern over-population.

I see gay people helping to raise kids and contributing to families, especially as economics mean more people have to live together.
I see no reason how accepting a gay family member is anti-family or procreation.

Straight infertile couples should be a better example for study.
Why are they infertile, and does it increase?

Culturally we could also look at celibacy, popes, nuns and monks.
We should look at Western systems that preach virginity to young adults when other cultures are already married and procreating.
We should look at the Malthusian couple, and why Western people limit their off-spring based on economics.

Once again it's simplistic to look at a gay minority and blame them for a lack of procreation in some cultures.

Sure one could pressure and force everybody to procreate.
But isn't that fascism?