Overpopulation.

[TheScornedReflex]

Yup, to many babies being born. Not enough people dying. Running out of resources. Etc, etc.

It is fairly obvious that the world is fucked. With a ever increasing population we have an increased consumption for resource. Our ability to feed everyone is gone, (going). Therefore our future as a race is not going to be good. At all.

Would it be better to implement a birth control scheme to limit the birthrate? Should potential parents that cannot support a child, yet wish to have one, be denied the right? What about limiting the number of children parents are allowed to have?

And/or thinning the population by a few billion?

This would help ease the burden for future generations. But then morals and human rights would be breached and all sorts of crap would ensue.

Would it not be more moral to have such laws implemented now to save potential suffering on a global scale?


Or do we leave it up to them (future gens) to deal with?

Burn all the babies!!​

 

[own8ge]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgyumGSF9-4

 

[BigApplePi]

Yup, to many babies being born. Not enough people dying. Running out of resources. Etc, etc.

It is fairly obvious that the world is fucked. With a ever increasing population we have an increased consumption for resource. Our ability to feed everyone is gone, (going). Therefore our future as a race is not going to be good. At all.

Would it be better to implement a birth control scheme to limit the birthrate? Should potential parents that cannot support a child, yet wish to have one, be denied the right? What about limiting the number of children parents are allowed to have?

And/or thinning the population by a few billion?

This would help ease the burden for future generations. But then morals and human rights would be breached and all sorts of crap would ensue.

Would it not be more moral to have such laws implemented now to save potential suffering on a global scale?


Or do we leave it up to them (future gens) to deal with?

Burn all the babies!!​

Good idea.
1. Tax extra children of the rich.
2. Make poverty illegal reducing the need for children.
3. Promote homosexuality and deny them adoption.
4. Put spermicide in the water supply.
5. Prohibit Pope policies.
6. Supply free diaphrams to all teen girls.
7. Make war illegal also thus preventing baby booms.

 

[Nick]

This has been in my head since day 1 of INTP thinking.

Over population.

All signs point to it, and that we're doing it at a fast fucking rate. Sure we could implement mass production of structures and statistically equal living quarters to maximize our population threshold, but when push comes to shove, we're exactly what agent Smith said in The Matrix.

Spoiler

A Virus.

I like China's method, 1 child per couple. It would help, but unless we implement on a global scale, it's not gonna make a dent. What people don't seem to understand is, don't bring a child into the world unless you're prepared to accommodate it for at least 18 years of well-being.

Thinning the population will happenex , it's just a matter of how long we can hold out against immeasurable odds. The blatant overuse of antibiotics will breed/might breed/ rise to something we cannot create an answer to. Only those that'll survive will be by genetic luckex, as mutations has served in the past to save a random allowance of people, it will hopefully continue to do so in the future.

You see, it all boils down to this with us INTPs:

We have the innate ability to visualize and theorize these problems and understanding the full consequences that they'll create. And this... boys and girls, is horrific and why I believe we have a negative disposition most of the time. We can understand and realise a million different ways something will go wrong. Now when dealing with the human race and its soon to be collapse, most other people in this world, cannot even give thought to these problems, let alone produce long-term outcomes in their heads.

I hate to say it, but all out war, driving either a HUGE separation in classes, or if things are really bad, driving us back into a odd post-modern stone age, might be inevitable, and is why we have never met another species, this might be the breaking point which we, nor any other life form, has surpassed.

Now if any of this scares you, think of this:
All this has happened before. All this will happen again.

I leave you all with this:

Spoiler

 

[Solitaire U.]

"Would it not be more moral to have such laws implemented now to save potential suffering on a global scale?"
No.

What is it with this human condition of (prematurely) scheming up interventions to thwart perceived outcomes that are really only theories?

The dominant species will flourish. Human "overpopulation" will correct itself if and when the time comes, most likely through intervention by mosquitoes carrying blood-borne diseases. With all our technological advances, our efforts to eradicate something as seemingly simple as mosquitoes have thus far failed. Everything remains in balance.

Besides, a meteor could strike the earth tomorrow, wiping out 90% of the human population in the blink of an eye.

Personally, I've been praying for rain since '96.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCEeAn6_QJo

 

[Absurdity]

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Pentti Linkola: radical Finnish ecologist/ecofascist.

He advocates eugenics, genocide, and abortion as possible means to combat overpopulation. He describes the Stalinist and Nazi massacres, as "massive thinning operations," but which have "not overturned our ethical norms". He has suggested that big cities should be attacked by "some trans-national body like the UN", with nuclear weapons or with "bacteriological and chemical attacks." Linkola has described humans as a cancer of the earth, and he desires that the human population "be reduced to about ten percent of what it is now."

A quote by Linkola:

What to do, when a ship carrying a hundred passengers suddenly capsizes and there is only one lifeboat? When the lifeboat is full, those who hate life will try to load it with more people and sink the lot. Those who love and respect life will take the ship's axe and sever the extra hands that cling to the sides.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

I thought the world, in a geographical sense, was still largely unpopulated? And I'm definitely sure the ability to feed everyone is not gone in this post-industrial age, there just is no incentive and too much greed/waste.

Still population density is a very real concern especially in China and India; laws would help to combat the issue, but they can't be effective without a a change in societal habits. If other nations aren't doing their part, then eventually the efforts of some nations would be negated in the long run.



I would be supportive of direct and indirect policies such as two-child laws, parenting assessments, restrictions on degree of education or location, and time restrictions(e.g. a child after/every X amount of years). Forced sterilization, mandatory abortions, and arbitrary euthanization are crossing the line though.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

It seems as so these overpopulation proponents have never studied ECONOMICS...

 

[Proletar]

Or agriculture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI

 

[Nezaros]

Soylent Green.

 

[TheScornedReflex]

It seems as so these overpopulation proponents have never studied ECONOMICS...

Nope. Not in the least.

 

[Lot]

There is an interesting ted talk about this. http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies.html

But seriously if anyone tries to take my reproduction rights away I will kill them. If I find out that my water has been poisoned, I will kill anyone even remotely responsible. If they put shit in my food, dead. So you better hope me and people like me don't find out.

 

[snafupants]

In a half century, it will be seen for the problem it is. I've heard without nitrogen fertilizers, only around one billion people could be fed. That's pretty scary considering the current world population of approximately seven billion. I also worry about the increased pollution (greenhouse effect) and massive disease outbreak a la 1918 influenza outbreak, which killed ~5% of the world population. And this was before today's travel. Things will be rough this century. Unemployment is only going to increase as companies streamline, outsource and sidestep stateside minimum wage requirements. Even today, some areas (Iran, Pakistan, etc.) are powder kegs and billions of people are starving. More people are in slavery today than ever before in history. The prognosis isn't uplifting. I would suggest an international anti-pollution coalition (pardon the pun) and an anti-dysgenics program. I would also distribute condoms to Africans. Moreover, there are worse ideas than terraforming Mars, which (at any rate) I don't expect to happen soon. This planet is on borrowed time.

 

[snafupants]

But seriously if anyone tries to take my reproduction rights away I will kill them. If I find out that my water has been poisoned, I will kill anyone even remotely responsible. If they put shit in my food, dead. So you better hope me and people like me don't find out.

I might still do it because the planet is toast otherwise.

 

[snafupants]

It seems as so these overpopulation proponents have never studied ECONOMICS...

That's somewhat defensible. The book The Crash Course makes an interesting (and timely) point - that when survival resources are finite, which they are, a family can increase prosperity or increase its size (growth) but not both. Meaning if you can only kill two deer per day on average (let's call that the finite amount) and want to increase family size, you either need to give everyone less food (growth: four family members to five family members = less food for everyone i.e., less prosperity)* or decide not to increase family size and give everyone more food (prosperity: four family members = more food i.e., less growth haha no growth at all). You can't have both growth and prosperity with limited resources. I mean, you can to a point, but the world's population has crossed it. But in essence, one cuts into the other. Like if you had one pie and fifty more guests than expected, every one eats less provided the pieces are equally distributed. If instead of four guests you have two guests, that's twice the prosperity for each guest. Your pants might show growth, however. *I guess this scenario presupposes equality and fair distribution. It's possible the dad would eat the same amount and the kids would starve haha. Well, even so, that's less prosperity.

 

[GodOfOrder]

I have never understood why people care about this malthusian proposition. Once we reach that projected population cap, or exceed it, people will begin to die. The system will auto-correct because things that are unsustainable inevitably collapse.

After this occurs we will be brought back to a sustainable level, and all will be fine as we rebuild and get ready to do it again. Just like after the black death. Nature fixes itself.

Ignoring all of this, with advances in technology we keep raising the bar of projected unsustainability so why does it even matter?