Would you support some sort of global initiative to slow population growth

[Zorba]

Yes, however I must qualify that:

I support higher education and prosperity programs worldwide. By doing so, the birth rate will slow all by itself.

History and statistics prove this without a shadow of a doubt. When a country reaches a certain level of prosperity and education, birth rates drop.

Lifting everyone up helps us all. Keeping countries and continents in third world status to exploit their resources has negative long term effects. Doing the opposite has positive long term effects.

This would be great, if we had infinite resources.

Especially with the boom in AI, I think we need to pay people to be sterilized and think strongly about 1 child policies. Abortion and euthanasia should be completely legal.

 

[Thebobo]

Natural disasters that would cause the death of enough humans to make a difference in the overall population picture are too infrequent to be terribly relevant to this discussion. If a large number of humans die in a short period of time, it will most likely be directly caused by human behavior. Nuclear war being the most plausible example.

I'm not optimistic about any global population control happening especially in our lifetimes. Is any county or politician making this an issue? Nope. China recently relaxed their 1 child law. India lol. So I believe there is a greater chance there will be a natural catastrophe to eliminate some or all of the population before the human race gets together and freezes or slows down population growth.

btw there was a lot of talk about population control the 70s but it fizzled away not one politician mentioned it, its all about growth $$. Maybe if we didn't have capitalism? not saying I want that.

 

[1prophet]

Birth Control and Abortion Access, yes. Laws limiting children, no.

How about laws limiting people to children they can pay for on their own, unless you have no problem creating more religious right Trump type supporters on the taxpayers dime.

 

[Amused]

This would be great, if we had infinite resources.

Especially with the boom in AI, I think we need to pay people to be sterilized and think strongly about 1 child policies. Abortion and euthanasia should be completely legal.

Now that clean energy is taking off, infinite resources not needed. The world already produces more than enough food to feed everyone.

No need for draconian measures. Lift people out of poverty and spread educated prosperity. It's the ONLY guaranteed population control.

 

[ch33zw1z]

How about laws limiting people to children they can pay for on their own, unless you have no problem creating more religious right Trump type supporters on the taxpayers dime.

So how do you plan to implement this?

 

[Victorian Gray]

So how do you plan to implement this?

When he becomes emperor of the world he'll issue a decree.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I would not support population control, per se. That is the government telling you how many children you can have. I would consider reducing or eliminating all or most of the deductions and tax credits for more than one or two children.

 

[ivwshane]

I would not support population control, per se. That is the government telling you how many children you can have. I would consider reducing or eliminating all or most of the deductions and tax credits for more than one or two children.

I too, prefer to live in a dog eat dog world where desperate people do desperate things. I find that throughout history when societies don't take care of their most vulnerable that a period of enlightenment is the result.

/s

 

[Zorba]

Now that clean energy is taking off, infinite resources not needed. The world already produces more than enough food to feed everyone.

No need for draconian measures. Lift people out of poverty and spread educated prosperity. It's the ONLY guaranteed population control.

Energy and food are only two of a vast amount off resources a modern society needs. Water, land, metals, wood, etc. Modern jet engine and gas turbines require some of the rarest materials on Earth, you can't just will more of them into being.

Even common materials like iron are being used up at an alarming rate. To keep food production high we've used thousands of years of stored underground water in a decade. The problem is people think materials are infinite, when they are not. At the current rate many materials will be effectively gone in less than 100 years.

 

[Indus]

Just castrate Trump voters. Problem solved!

 

[blankslate]

50% of males chosen at random rich or poor, genius or ignorant should become impotent...

Fair... equitable... balanced as all things should be...


____________

 

[pcgeek11]

Just castrate Trump voters. Problem solved!

You are funny, but looks aren't everything.

 

[Paratus]

Energy and food are only two of a vast amount off resources a modern society needs. Water, land, metals, wood, etc. Modern jet engine and gas turbines require some of the rarest materials on Earth, you can't just will more of them into being.

Even common materials like iron are being used up at an alarming rate. To keep food production high we've used thousands of years of stored underground water in a decade. The problem is people think materials are infinite, when they are not. At the current rate many materials will be effectively gone in less than 100 years.

With energy, water can be pulled from the air or desalinated from the sea water. Giving everyone a 1st world quality of living reduces water use due to population reduction.

I mean we keep 6 people alive on solar power and recycled piss at work. Two things that will not run out while people are around.

As I’ve already linked to in this thread there are plenty of materials still in the ground and the ones we’ve ‘used’ are still there to be used again. It’s a matter of cost and demand. The technology to recycle virtually any material already exists.

Wood and food are renewable resources and as @Amused mentioned we already make enough food for the world. It’s mostly a distribution problem.

So I don’t find your argument compelling about why we can’t improve the quality of living for the rest of the world. The problems are mostly political and not technical.

 

[Zorba]

With energy, water can be pulled from the air or desalinated from the sea water. Giving everyone a 1st world quality of living reduces water use due to population reduction.

I mean we keep 6 people alive on solar power and recycled piss at work. Two things that will not run out while people are around.

As I’ve already linked to in this thread there are plenty of materials still in the ground and the ones we’ve ‘used’ are still there to be used again. It’s a matter of cost and demand. The technology to recycle virtually any material already exists.

Wood and food are renewable resources and as @Amused mentioned we already make enough food for the world. It’s mostly a distribution problem.

So I don’t find your argument compelling about why we can’t improve the quality of living for the rest of the world. The problems are mostly political and not technical.

Just because food and wood are renewable, doesn't mean that we can produce then at any rate we want. Further both food and wood production have taken advantage of vast stored resources that aren't being replaced as quickly as they are getting used. Oil is also a renewable resource if you have a few million years to wait around for it.

Not all materials actually stick around after use, such as helium. Further, just because there is dissolved iron in the ocean, doesn't mean it'll ever be feasible to mine it. Many metals also oxidize and get thinly spread out all over the world. Radioactive isotopes decay and are gone for good as well (although we can breed many of them, this also uses up fissionable materials). Most plastics and many alloys can't be broken back down to their original raw materials for true reuse.

Finally, to actually build first world accommodations for 10 billion people will result in huge amounts of materials being "stored" in their useful state, preventing their reuse. We also know first world conditions results in much quicker turn over of goods, houses"need" updating every ten years, an "old" phone is two years old, 20 year old fast food restaurants have to get bulldozed to build the latest version, etc.

Basically your arguement is "God will Provide," where God is technology. But denying unsustainable resource useage is basically the same as denying global warming. Your claims on water are a perfect example, the US uses 1100 gallons of water per person per day (USGS 2010 water survey), Africa uses about 5.

 

[Thebobo]

Did they ever say what was the underlying cause of the barren women in Children of Men?

 

[Muse]

Could be. I don't know much about the probability of a pandemic occurring. What is obvious, however, is that nuclear war is inevitable. It's only a question of when, and to what degree of severity. The chances of nukes not being used this century are pretty low. Nuclear weapons are proliferating and the probability is that they're going to eventually be used. The best case scenario is that say 1-3 cities are destroyed, with 7 figure death tolls, and this is so horrific that nukes don't get used for at least another 100 years after. But it could be a lot worse than that.

I don't know about that. Not saying you're wrong, but "there is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what's happening." From The Medium is the Massage. Thing is, any entity using nuclear weapons would know how disastrous the consequences are, both in destruction, suffering and politically. Therefore I'd think that a usage of nuclear weapons would probably (if it does happen) involve terrorists. They likely don't have actual nuclear weapons, but more likely radioactive materials and the ability to disperse them with explosives. Nasty politics, to say the least.

 

[Paratus]

Just because food and wood are renewable, doesn't mean that we can produce then at any rate we want. Further both food and wood production have taken advantage of vast stored resources that aren't being replaced as quickly as they are getting used. Oil is also a renewable resource if you have a few million years to wait around for it.

We already support 7.5B people with the resources we have. Food is renewable on a roughly yearly scale as long as fishing, farming, etc are done responsibly. Responsible techniques are known it’s a political/behavioral issue to implement them.

Wood is renewable on a 5-10year scale done responsibly.

There’s plenty of oil in the ground it simply requires the right costs to make it worthwhile to get it. In addition the technology already exists and is in use to make hydrocarbon fuels from scratch if need be.

Not all materials actually stick around after use, such as helium. Further, just because there is dissolved iron in the ocean, doesn't mean it'll ever be feasible to mine it. Many metals also oxidize and get thinly spread out all over the world. Radioactive isotopes decay and are gone for good as well (although we can breed many of them, this also uses up fissionable materials). Most plastics and many alloys can't be broken back down to their original raw materials for true reuse.

There’s still 60-70 years of known iron reserves even at a 2% year over year increase. Of course the point of improving people’s QoL is to eventually have a slowly reducing population, reducing the need for resources.

Finally, to actually build first world accommodations for 10 billion people will result in huge amounts of materials being "stored" in their useful state, preventing their reuse. We also know first world conditions results in much quicker turn over of goods, houses"need" updating every ten years, an "old" phone is two years old, 20 year old fast food restaurants have to get bulldozed to build the latest version, etc.

The whole point of increasing the QoL now is to hit the lower end peak in the UNs population projections and not reach 10B+.

Basically your arguement is "God will Provide," where God is technology. But denying unsustainable resource useage is basically the same as denying global warming. Your claims on water are a perfect example, the US uses 1100 gallons of water per person per day (USGS 2010 water survey), Africa uses about 5.

Hardly. The technology I’m talking about is already in use to varying degrees. I’m not relying on anything that’s waiting on a fundamental breakthrough like fusion.

You’re also conflating the US with being the minimum needed for being the first world. Europe is most definitely first world but England and France use 5-7 times less water per person per day than the US. Italy uses 2.5 times less power than the average North American. They also have roughly neutral to slightly negative population growth.

Since you are very negative on trying to reduce population by poverty reduction what solution, if any, would you recommend?

 

[Amused]

Energy and food are only two of a vast amount off resources a modern society needs. Water, land, metals, wood, etc. Modern jet engine and gas turbines require some of the rarest materials on Earth, you can't just will more of them into being.

Even common materials like iron are being used up at an alarming rate. To keep food production high we've used thousands of years of stored underground water in a decade. The problem is people think materials are infinite, when they are not. At the current rate many materials will be effectively gone in less than 100 years.

Abundant renewable energy and cheaper desalinization means more water than we need.

Most metals are recyclable and cannot be "used up" unless you're using them for fusion or fission. Hell, we could start mining the landfills.

And, again, bring every population up to first world status and the population will fall or at least stabilize. Most first world nations have a negative or near negative population growth.

You don't need infinite supplies. Just the supplies we have used smarter, and to stop the population growth by bringing everyone up.

 

[Thebobo]

Abundant renewable energy and cheaper desalinization means more water than we need.
.

One problem is big business doesn't like abundant energy unless they can be sure to control it. The keep showing bioenergy, wind turbines in their TV commercials but do very little in the respect. Always said we need a manhattan like project for the future of energy.

 

[woolfe9998]

I don't know about that. Not saying you're wrong, but "there is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what's happening." From The Medium is the Massage. Thing is, any entity using nuclear weapons would know how disastrous the consequences are, both in destruction, suffering and politically. Therefore I'd think that a usage of nuclear weapons would probably (if it does happen) involve terrorists. They likely don't have actual nuclear weapons, but more likely radioactive materials and the ability to disperse them with explosives. Nasty politics, to say the least.

The problem with that reasoning is it assumes everyone who controls nuclear weapons will act rationally and at least in his or her best interests. That might be true in the vast majority of cases, but the more nukes proliferate, the higher the probability that someone non-rational will get his hands on them, whether it is a terrorist or an unstable dictator. The probability is they will be used by someone, somewhere in the foreseeable future, likely during this century.

 

[Zorba]

We already support 7.5B people with the resources we have. Food is renewable on a roughly yearly scale as long as fishing, farming, etc are done responsibly. Responsible techniques are known it’s a political/behavioral issue to implement them.

Wood is renewable on a 5-10year scale done responsibly.

There’s plenty of oil in the ground it simply requires the right costs to make it worthwhile to get it. In addition the technology already exists and is in use to make hydrocarbon fuels from scratch if need be.

There’s still 60-70 years of known iron reserves even at a 2% year over year increase. Of course the point of improving people’s QoL is to eventually have a slowly reducing population, reducing the need for resources.

The whole point of increasing the QoL now is to hit the lower end peak in the UNs population projections and not reach 10B+.

Hardly. The technology I’m talking about is already in use to varying degrees. I’m not relying on anything that’s waiting on a fundamental breakthrough like fusion.

You’re also conflating the US with being the minimum needed for being the first world. Europe is most definitely first world but England and France use 5-7 times less water per person per day than the US. Italy uses 2.5 times less power than the average North American. They also have roughly neutral to slightly negative population growth.

Since you are very negative on trying to reduce population by poverty reduction what solution, if any, would you recommend?

Abundant renewable energy and cheaper desalinization means more water than we need.

Most metals are recyclable and cannot be "used up" unless you're using them for fusion or fission. Hell, we could start mining the landfills.

And, again, bring every population up to first world status and the population will fall or at least stabilize. Most first world nations have a negative or near negative population growth.

You don't need infinite supplies. Just the supplies we have used smarter, and to stop the population growth by bringing everyone up.

You both are completely ignoring the fact that first world countries use far more resources than third world. The fact that the planet is currently supporting 7.5B when 6B of them are third world does not all mean that we could could support 8+B with first world levels of QoL. Cherry picking energy usage from a country with the most mild climate in the world and countries with little agriculture is also highly optimistic (and even when you do, the numbers are still a couple of orders of magnitude higher than third world).

Fisheries are a good example. Fisheries are currently in significant decline due to over fishing, pollution, climate change and human built infrastructure. All of these things will get worse as the world moves closer to the first world. Massive desalination needed for agriculture would likely further harm ocean life.

It is also complete fantasy to believe that 100% of metal can recycled, unless you live in a world where money is irrelevant. Never mind plastics, composites, etc. Saying we only have a 60 year supply of iron ore with only a 2% yoy growth rate should be your wake up call. The yoy growth rate will be much higher than 2% if we are moving people up to first world status and when iron runs out, so will first world QoL.

But we are currently living through a mass extinction, most of the materials we need for our current way of life will be economically out of reach within 100 years, we are already destroying the climate and oceans, etc. All of these things are rapidly accelerating too, btw. But lets completely ignore all that, because we can just wish that it isn't all true and that tomorrow will be a utopia with everyone living at first world standards and an effectively infinite supply of materials due to technology (and humans effectively managing them).

The world needs massive population control (preferably on the birth side) and plans to handle resources better and more efficiently. In reality we will speed to the cliff, and then just fall off of it because people are in denial, either because they don't believe in science because of a religious god, because they don't believe in science because of a technology god, because they don't want the fall out of making hard decisions today, or just straight ignorance/denial.

 

[Paratus]

You both are completely ignoring the fact that first world countries use far more resources than third world. The fact that the planet is currently supporting 7.5B when 6B of them are third world does not all mean that we could could support 8+B with first world levels of QoL. Cherry picking energy usage from a country with the most mild climate in the world and countries with little agriculture is also highly optimistic (and even when you do, the numbers are still a couple of orders of magnitude higher than third world).

Fisheries are a good example. Fisheries are currently in significant decline due to over fishing, pollution, climate change and human built infrastructure. All of these things will get worse as the world moves closer to the first world. Massive desalination needed for agriculture would likely further harm ocean life.

It is also complete fantasy to believe that 100% of metal can recycled, unless you live in a world where money is irrelevant. Never mind plastics, composites, etc. Saying we only have a 60 year supply of iron ore with only a 2% yoy growth rate should be your wake up call. The yoy growth rate will be much higher than 2% if we are moving people up to first world status and when iron runs out, so will first world QoL.

But we are currently living through a mass extinction, most of the materials we need for our current way of life will be economically out of reach within 100 years, we are already destroying the climate and oceans, etc. All of these things are rapidly accelerating too, btw. But lets completely ignore all that, because we can just wish that it isn't all true and that tomorrow will be a utopia with everyone living at first world standards and an effectively infinite supply of materials due to technology (and humans effectively managing them).

The world needs massive population control (preferably on the birth side) and plans to handle resources better and more efficiently. In reality we will speed to the cliff, and then just fall off of it because people are in denial, either because they don't believe in science because of a religious god, because they don't believe in science because of a technology god, because they don't want the fall out of making hard decisions today, or just straight ignorance/denial.

The goal at first is the minimum QoL needed to reverse population growth. It’s hardly cherry picking to look at countries with low resources use, negative replacement rates and high QoL as the model to shoot for.

What’s fantasy is assuming we’d have to recycle 100% of metal to meet the needs of the entire world. “Only a 2% YOY” growth rate would require a world population of 27B+ in 65 years if iron use per person stayed the same. This also would assume 0 additional exploration for iron. Not a remotely reasonable assumption.

Again I would point out the whole reason to improve QoL is to eventually reduce population and resource use in an ethical manner. I’m in no way suggesting it would be easy, or it wouldn’t require an increase in resource usage until the hump in total population is passed. I am fully aware of what’s going on with fisheries, the environment, and the current extinction event. What @Amused and I are suggesting is an ethical way of reducing human population to lessen the impact on the environment.

You on the other hand have yet to offer another option, other than “population control preferably on the birth side” which is exactly what poverty reduction gives you.


So what exactly is your proposal.

• Top down procreation enforcement a la China? Who would be responsible for this in poor countries with weak central governments?
• Fight resource wars to obtain the resources we need to maintain our QoL and kill off a bunch of ‘surplus population’. (I’m guessing not since you prefer the birth side but then you say people need to make hard decisions) I’m actually beginning to think this is a popular idea with top 0.01% conservative donors.
• Do nothing and let starvation and drought take care of the population problem?

If you’ve got some other ethical plan I’m all ears as I can’t come up with another one.

Otherwise to paraphrase it the musical Hamilton, ‘you don’t have a plan you just hate mine’.

 

[NostaSeronx]

Four step plan:
1. Get into space.
2. Aim for population growth and not population culling.
3. Personal-level dynamic equalization of population.
4. Profit.

Can be done in any order, including profit!

 

[compuwiz1]

Four step plan:
1. Get into space.
2. Aim for population growth and not population culling.
3. Personal-level dynamic equalization of population.
4. Profit.

Can be done in any order, including profit!

Awesome! I always thought it would be cool to live like the Jetsons.

BTW, my wife and I always held the belief that a couple should only produce enough children to replace ourselves, so we had two kids.

 

[Bitek]

No.

/thread