Fertility Shock

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

How did you get from "we need to stop reproducing so much and allow the human population to massively decline" to "we should regress to the stone age"?

It's precisely so that future generations can continue to enjoy all of those incredible things we as a species have created, that we need to reduce the population going forward. None of them will matter much for quality of life if we reach a point in which there isn't enough space, food, water, etc to sustain a comfortable lifestyle for individuals, or when the environment has become too hostile to enjoy living in. All of these are problems which will arise in the event that we don't arrest the explosion in human population.

The simple maths of this is that the planet isn't getting any bigger, and therefore nor are the various fixed parameters in terms of what it can provide us with. In that scenario, an ever-increasing human population will eventually find itself having to divide those various pies into smaller and smaller pieces in order to survive. Food, water, land, fuel, raw materials, etc - the more these have to be divided up, the less each person gets. That should be obvious. I mean it's the same concept which leads to societies progressing from generally living in houses with private green space to generally living in high density apartment blocks - there stops being enough land for the former option to remain possible, and so the latter option is the only way forward.

Apply the same logic to resources such as food, water, electricity etc - which at the moment are not things we're capable of simply multiplying the way we're capable of multiplying our own population, without seriously f*cking up the environment in the process - and it becomes obvious why, over time, a higher human population must result in a reduced per capita quality of life.

Your logic only applies in a scenario where all countries are becoming overpopulated equally, and all resources are divided equally among all populations, and every country has the same standard of living. We know that is not the case in reality - we know that some populations have more resources than others, for example in the West we have a much higher standard of living than populations in sub-Saharan Africa where the population reproduces like rabbits and resources are scarce.

In reality, I don’t imagine those populations will listen to being told they have to reduce their numbers because they’re a disease on the planet. They reproduce in greater numbers in spite of the fact that they have less resources for exactly the same reasons as people living in poverty do in the West - to increase the chances that the next generation will lift them out of poverty by creating wealth and conquering their environment.

I don’t even have to use countries in Africa as examples of an urban/rural divided society when here in Ireland we have an obvious urban/rural divide with one third of the population living in the capital city where there are the most resources, and the most opportunities, unevenly divided and distributed of course, and that pie you mentioned earlier as though we all get an equal per capita slice? That’s not current reality, is it?

The global issue isn’t a population growth or sustainability issue, it’s a distribution of wealth and resources issue, and that’s primarily due to how our wealth and resources are managed - they aren’t distributed equally. So when that poster implies that humans are an infection on the planet, not only are they being ridiculously dramatic, but there’s no nuance in their pronouncement - the reality is that some people are an infection on the planet, and some people are the treatment for that infection. Whichever you’re regarded as is simply a matter of perspective. I doubt for a second the same poster regards themselves as an infection on the planet. If they did, and they want other people to reduce the number of children they have to reduce the population on the planet, then it stands to reason that in order to reduce the population on the planet, they could easily do so by one at least, by starting with themselves.

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

The problem is it's the wrong people that are breeding.

In Ireland and other welfare states it's the scroungers that keep popping out kids who like their parents will add nothing and take everything from the country they live in.

And in places like Africa, India and South America it's the poorest people who for some strange reason keep having kids they can't look after.

We need to tax riding.

professore wrote: »

"Toward the end of life" is 5+ years in many cases. Who is going to pay for them and provide them with care of there are no young people?

Someone who doesn't have children is more likely to have saved enough funds to pay for his or her own care.

Will people get off the world population bandwagon and go back to the issue in the documentary, I found it a bit upsetting I had my children young first one at 20 very little money etc, with the hind site of maturity I realise it was a privilege that is rapidly disappearing for a lot of people, the woman outside the creach nearly crying saying her children are in there for 50 hours a week and it is costing more than their mortgage.

The pressure to have a career, get a masters, find a long term home is forcing people to put off having children.

I wonder if it is an urban thing though because anyone I know married with children in their twenties lives more rural, have traditionally female jobs and a supportive wider family.

Feisar wrote: »

How do we get back to a resource based system though?

Probably have to wait for a 2 mile wide asteroid to belt into the planet or something like that. It won't change, there is no way back, it has gone too far.

One eyed Jack wrote: »

We’re not destroying the earth, we’re adapting it to suit ourselves.

Spoken like a true-blue christian fundie climate change denier.

Those melted polar icecaps will be great.

Who needs cities on the coastline, anyway?

Hotblack Desiato shut the **** up. You're not doing any favours for anti-overpopulation by claiming it's all due to christian religion, it has nothing to do with christian religion, you're just acting like a clown.

paleoperson wrote: »

Hotblack Desiato shut the **** up. You're not doing any favours for anti-overpopulation by claiming it's all due to christian religion, it has nothing to do with christian religion, you're just acting like a clown.

I suppose you never heard of "go forth and multiply", then.

Or the catholic church's efforts in preventing the availability of contraception in Africa

So you're ignorant as well as abusive. Nice...

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

I suppose you never heard of "go forth and multiply", then.

Or the catholic church's efforts in preventing the availability of contraception in Africa

So you're ignorant as well as abusive. Nice...

Throughout human history the mantra of any social group has been to go forth and multiply their numbers? That includes people who advocated culling populations to decrease their numbers in the hope of increasing their own number by virtue of the fact there was less of the offending social group in society. That’s hardly a new concept either.

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Throughout human history the mantra of any social group has been to go forth and multiply their numbers?

True but now on the planet as a whole we've become far too good at it. Something has to give.

That includes people who advocated culling populations to decrease their numbers in the hope of increasing their own number by virtue of the fact there was less of the offending social group in society. That’s hardly a new concept either.

Yup. plenty of that in the bible too.

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Of course it has consequences, and seeing as humans have for at least thousands of years been able to overcome and adapt their environment, I see no reason for thinking that we couldn’t possibly do the same as we have always done.

Apart from that we're looking at a rapidity and extent of change unprecendented in human history. Be grand :rolleyes:

You know, while we eventually decide how we're going to deal with the problem we've already created, maybe in the meantime we should try to stop adding to the problem as much as we are currently doing?

Palming all this off as "we are adapting the planet to suit ourselves" and "the climate has always been changing" is not only naive but dangerous. It's also the sort of weaselly language favoured by the big corporate AGW denialists.

I don’t imagine for a minute the environment will be the same in a thousand years as it is now, but I suspect that humans will still be populating the planet in even greater numbers as the developed world becomes even more technologically and economically advanced, and the developing world looks a bit like our world now.

Optimistic, to say the least.

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Optimism is what drives us forward as a species.

I would categorise ignoring the threat of climate change as blind optimism. We have only had heavy industry for the last 100 and odd years. To go back beyond that is foolish.