Overpopulation -

[Backwards Harvester]

With over 7 billion people on this world, it would be obvious to say there are a lot of us here today. Some would argue there are too many of us today. It seems that the more of us there are, the less resources and the less room there are to go around at once. Personally, I think it's a problem that we should all look at. If it isn't already a problem today (and it seems it is), it could be a definite problem tomorrow. True, people die everyday, and besides death in general, there are a good deal of factors brought about by time, nature, and people onto one another (many which are subjects most people like to avoid talking or thinking about) that have kept the problem in check. And yet, in some places, it seems to be very real and growing problem that won't be going away anytime soon.
What are your thoughts on this though?

 

[exball]

I'll probably be dead by the time it impacts me as an upperclass citizen. Have fun next generation.

 

[Chikinballs]

its a natural barrier, cant break it. we will start dying off till earth can sustain us again.

 

[Backwards Harvester]

What's the barrier? The forces that help to keep population in check? Or overpopulation itself as the obstacle?

 

[BT 075]

We don't have too many people and too few resources, that's baloney. With the resources we have today we can feed everyone in need of food tomorrow. Problem is, some have too much and a lot goes to waste, whereas others have too little. We simply don't manage our resources in an efficient way.

Once a nation attains a certain standard of life, you will see the average birth rates drop naturally. Overpopulation does not bother me and I'm pretty damn sure it's an issue that will eventually solve itself. When life expectancy rises too high and birth rates too low you will see different issues arising, like we see in Japan. Ideal would be for the average birth rate to be around replacement level worldwide. I think ultimately that's where we're heading anyway. It may take a while, but we'll get there.

 

[Some JERK]

Space isn't an issue either. You could take every single person alive today and fit them all into the state of Texas quite comfortably. Earth is big. We are not.

 

[Mogambo]

We simply don't manage our resources in an efficient way.

Exactly. That's why you have morons with fountains, swimming pools and even freaking golf courses in the middle of Arizona or Nevada. We need not look that far. How much water gets wasted every year because of the American obsession with having a green lawn even in places where grass doesn't freaking grow? That's why some countries and municipalities wind up rationing water. It's equally bad in other parts of the world, where you have countries like Israel, Turkey and Ethiopia claiming greater shares of water, leaving less to flow downstream to countries that are just as badly in need of it. Indeed, we will probably see wars being fought over water rights at some point in the future as more arid countries modernize and experience a population boom (as well as having increasingly sedentary, or worse, agricultural populations; nomadic pastroalists who number in the hundreds don't eat up nearly as much water as modern nation-states).

 

[IwegalBadnik]

Technologies exist to address the problems of high populations. Those problems that cannot be solved with today's technologies can be solved with those of tomorrow.

If those in control of these technologies don't (selfishly) restrict them from usage, research and development, overpopulation can be overcome.

 

[A-Stump]

If they converted the land usage and grain conversions used in cattle farming to more sustainable food and living areas, this wouldn't even be a discussion. Cows are so damn tasty though.

 

[Billy of Hills]

We need mass sterilization in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.
People in relatively prosperous places which have the resources to feed and raise a new generation (North America, Europe, South America, Oriental Asia...) need to have more children.

 

[NeverHappened]

We need mass sterilization in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.
People in relatively prosperous places which have the resources to feed and raise a new generation (North America, Europe, South America, Oriental Asia...) need to have more children.

There is literally no other solution. Sure, people in America can brag about doing their part by having no children, but that's nothing. Heck, an American child is far more likely to come up with scientific answers to this problem than anyone growing in a nation with shit resources.

 

[Von Clausewitz]

If that Oxfan study is correct, the worlds most 62 richest people own half the worlds fortune.
Just imagine this money instead invested in agriculture, reforestation of the rainforest, the improvement and usage of renewable energies, science, education...

 

[NeverHappened]

If that Oxfan study is correct, the worlds most 62 richest people own half the worlds fortune.
Just imagine this money instead invested in agriculture, reforestation of the rainforest, the improvement and usage of renewable energies, science, education...

Restructuring the world is easy! Just start listing green things that don't address the root of the problem. Ideas just need to sound good to change the world.

Increased agriculture makes it so starving children grow up and make more starving child and far more suffer, but hey you get pat yourself for helping people in the present. More people also means more resources such as lumber and energy being required. Investing in agriculture also means less land can be used for preservation.

The real problem is that much of the world still believes birth control to be something evil. It's especially hard to convince people to stop having children when neighbor nation/tribes want to kill them off.

 

[Billy of Hills]

If that Oxfan study is correct, the worlds most 62 richest people own half the worlds fortune.
Just imagine this money instead invested in agriculture, reforestation of the rainforest, the improvement and usage of renewable energies, science, education...

What they need to invest that in is a plague which causes infertility, but which is otherwise harmless, and which targets exclusively Africans.
Assuming birthrate in Africa remains stable, the world will be 40% sub-saharan African by 2050. In other words, the world will be 40% backwards starving tribesmen with HIV.

 

[Pikimon]

If you're really interested in curbing unsustainable population growth then promoting education for young girls and sex ed are the most effective methods of doing so.

 

[QI 541]

Most of the overpopulation problems aren't coming from countries that educate girls.

 

[Billy of Hills]

If you're really interested in curbing unsustainable population growth then promoting education for young girls and sex ed are the most effective methods of doing so.

Most of the overpopulation problems aren't coming from countries that educate girls.

These overpopulation problems come from backwards African, Middle Eastern and South Asian countries that treat women as cattle.
Nothing short of forcibly imposing Western culture will convince Achmed that he shouldn't trade his daughter for a herd of plump goats.

 

[AnOminous]

Most of the overpopulation problems aren't coming from countries that educate girls.

That's because the two things are directly causally connected.

 

[Nezy999]

We don't have too many people and too few resources, that's baloney. With the resources we have today we can feed everyone in need of food tomorrow.

Humans aren't the only species on the planet though, human population growth puts other species at risk of extinction.

 

[RepQuest]

Humans aren't the only species on the planet though, human population growth puts other species at risk of extinction.

Whom do you think we'd be more concerned about: ourselves or other species purely out of altruism?