Are there any morally right ways to slow "overpopulation"?

[marvdmartian]

Take away all laws that prevent stupid people from doing stupid things, or blame someone else when they do.

When I was a kid, if you did something incredibly stupid, and it got you killed, people just shrugged, and went on with life. The gene pool was incredibly deep.

Now, when you do something stupid, and it gets you killed, your relatives can sue whoever, for not considering that you would ever be so stupid as to do whatever with their product that you did to get yourself killed.....and so didn't bother putting a warning label on their product, to remind you not to do something stupid, that would get you killed.

It's even worse if you're only hurt, or maimed. Then YOU get to sue them, and a jury of your peers (other stupid people) award you 100 zillion dollars.

And we wonder why the gene pool is so much more shallow these days.

 

[Spungo]

What you are talking about is massive reduction in the quality of our lifestyle. No amount of structure upgrades are going to get past the fact that the next best technology has only a few percent of the energy density of oil.

Don't feel bad. Not everyone has heard of these nucular devices. I hear the soviets are building one right now.

 

[Hugo Drax]

Get rid of Tax deductions for children, food stamps,welfare,wic programs.

 

[HeXen]

i have faith that mother nature will wipe out a good 1/3rd of the population for us. nature always seems to be good at balancing itself out in one way or another.

 

[Spungo]

Get rid of Tax deductions for children, food stamps,welfare,wic programs.

I'm sure that'll work. Poor people never have children when they are already poor. India? What's that? Did you mean to say Indiana?

 

[Fayd]

Wow Oil consumption shot straight up..

of course it did. from nothing to something. what an amazing discovery.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Don't feel bad. Not everyone has heard of these nucular devices. I hear the soviets are building one right now.

nuclear reactors can take some of the burden from our oil demands, but you are not going to have nuclear powered passenger jets anytime soon. I doubt we could build enough nuclear reactors to meet our current energy demand for just our transportation needs.

 

[kyrax12]

Wrong. So were done now correct?

-KeithP

huh?

Done with what?

 

[BladeVenom]

Don't feel bad. Not everyone has heard of these nucular devices. I hear the soviets are building one right now.

I think China and India are also working on Thorium reactors.

 

[Jeff7]

bringing sci-fi into the picture: virtualization. put everyone into VR, with telepresence units for tasks that require them (resource collection, manufacturing). very low carbon footprint paradise for all.

Yeah.
Most people seem resistant to that sort of thing; they're quite attached to their biological features and functions. For this, I'm talking to replace our biological "substrate" with something artificial. And better.
Commuting to work will be interesting - load your mind into a computer for transmission to your work body/bot. Of course, this opens up the ability to duplicate your mind. The new resource in demand will probably be computing capacity. Of course, there may be no rush. If you can be yourself while in a computer, and maintain backups, there's no rush to get things done before an impending biological death arrives.



At least, they would be resistant - until someone invents an Orgasmatron type of program.

 

[postmortemIA]

West does not have overpopulation problem, just India. Until we reach India's population density, we have nothing to worry about. I doubt we will in 40 yrs.

 

[hans007]

Stop the Mormons too while you are at it. Every Mormon family has like 5 kids it seems.

I'm from the Philippines and they need to stop Catholicism . Not even sure why people have kids these days or so many. Its a total luxury. We are increasingly automating the world so its basically no societal benefit unless your kid ends up inventing cold fusion of something. They should let smart people have a million kids and dumb people have 0 I suppose

 

[HardcoreRobot]

worry about your premise first

 

[dighn]

Yeah.
Most people seem resistant to that sort of thing; they're quite attached to their biological features and functions. For this, I'm talking to replace our biological "substrate" with something artificial. And better.
Commuting to work will be interesting - load your mind into a computer for transmission to your work body/bot. Of course, this opens up the ability to duplicate your mind. The new resource in demand will probably be computing capacity. Of course, there may be no rush. If you can be yourself while in a computer, and maintain backups, there's no rush to get things done before an impending biological death arrives.

At least, they would be resistant - until someone invents an Orgasmatron type of program.

Biological features and functions can be simulated and even improved upon, ala the Matrix, but with physical bodies eliminated (e.g. a destructive mind scanning process (I've convinced myself that such a process when done right is a transfer, not a copy)). So much of our economy is virtual already (software, entertainment, services etc.); there actually aren't many things that must be done with physical resources. Not only can a virtualized civilization thrive, but it can surpass a physical one due to vastly increased efficiencies. You just need to gather energy/resources, manufacture and maintain computing/robotics facilities, maintain defenses etc. in the real world. Of course there are lots of potential issues, like loss of control because the ones in control of the hardware control everything, and also perhaps a certain degree of increased fragility (bugs/viruses, hardware faults etc.).

 

[StrangerGuy]

Give out incentives for people willing to sterilize themselves?

As long as mainstream "human rights" defend the right of personal irresponsibility towards future newborns and greater good this will never get solved, though.

 

[mmntech]

Stop the Mormons too while you are at it. Every Mormon family has like 5 kids it seems.

I'm from the Philippines and they need to stop Catholicism . Not even sure why people have kids these days or so many. Its a total luxury. We are increasingly automating the world so its basically no societal benefit unless your kid ends up inventing cold fusion of something. They should let smart people have a million kids and dumb people have 0 I suppose

Catholicism convinced millions of followers that every potential life was sacred even if it led to gross suffering. More heads in the pews and more tithes in the coffers. Two of the worst sinners in this regard being Pope Ratzinger and Pope Wojtyła (I refuse to call them by their titles, for they did not earn them or deserve them), for refusing to allow condom use to prevent HIV/AIDS in Africa. Religion seems to be a driving force behind much of it. Especially in cultures that teach a woman's only purpose in life is to serve her husband's every need, especially sexual. Religion continues to encourage such antiquated behaviour.

The most humane way to deal with overpopulation is to expand women's rights. Big families ended in the west when women went to work and began building careers and lives of their own. The next step is to make contraception widely available and affordable across the developing world. Then the hard part is convincing people to use them. The more rights you give women though, the more they'll opt to have smaller families. It seems to level out at the replacement rate.

 

[wirednuts]

Give out incentives for people willing to sterilize themselves?

As long as mainstream "human rights" defend the right of personal irresponsibility towards future newborns and greater good this will never get solved, though.

i think it has more to do with the top 1% who run this country really dont want birth control. they want as many slaves as possible, especially in case of war with other countries.

 

[Crono]

It might have already been said, but reduce economic inequality and create infrastructure (like cheap/free mass transit systems) and large projects that support growth in the suburbs and rural areas. The "overpopulation" problem exists because people flock to cities for employment and resources, and because land is developed by wealthy individuals, corporations, and governments who aren't always willing to share it.

I've said it in other threads before: there is no true overpopulation problem, not on a global scale. There are more than enough resources on this planet to support tens of billions more people without further harming the environment, but not if we let ourselves indulge in decadent lifestyles and all try to horde as much land and goods as possible. Technology can solve a lot of the problems when it comes to things like insufficient crop yields, pollution, nonavailability of drinking water, poor sanitation, or the spread of diseases - but doing nothing about tens of millions of people cramming into large cities all over the globe and encouraging wasteful and greedy practices makes it an uphill battle.

Anyone who says there is a global population problem is either: A) ignorant or b) trying to institute laws or policies for their own purposes and to manipulate the masses.

 

[Kanalua]

More development and better efficiency in production of food.

Every time we drive down to my wife's parent's place (Navajo reservation) I always snicker at those who say the world is too overcrowded...

 

[l0cke]

Take the warning labels off everything and rework the system to people can't sue after they get injured.

 

[SparkyJJO]

After reading this thread I really, really hope that the vast majority of people in here aren't being serious D:

 

[Leros]

I personally think we're a long way from overpopulation. There is so much unexploited space/resources.

I'm thinking
- vertical farming, hydroponics, etc
- more vertical cities
- cities on/in the ocean

 

[Spungo]

I think China and India are also working on Thorium reactors.

Makes sense. India is so population dense that running the country on oil or coal would probably make so much pollution that nobody would see the sun. It's like California multiplied by 10.

 

[kaerflog]

Go study Australia.
Don't know what they are teaching people over there but they aren't willing to have kids.
They have less than ~23 millions people.
Less than Texas, more than Florida.
Seeing at how the minorities are growing fast in Florida, it will probably bypass Australia in a few years.

 

[moonbogg]

Skipped the borring pages so you guys could read my amazing post a little sooner. Depopulation won't happen unless nature does it with disease or some other method, so get over it. We need to develop new technologies to cope with having more people. BOOM TRUTH.