Overpopulation Fear Overrated?

[Rothgar]

Overpopulation is not an issue that can be ignored forever. Just as the world has recently learned how important it is to try to manage a stable world economy, some day we will arrive at a moment of crisis where we will be forced to confront this issue.

The human race lives in a bubble with access to a limited amount of resources be it energy, food, or water. Until we find efficient ways to bring additional resources into this biosphere we are managing and depleting finite resources.

As an agronomist I'm biased but my biggest concern is food. The agriculture industry is trying to gear up for a world population of 9.5 billion by 2050. Not only are there more mouths to feed but people are eating better (i.e. meat proteins) as inhabitants of nations such as China increase their personal wealth. There is only so much arable land to produce food, a limited amount of fresh water and nutrient inputs to grow the crops and a limited yield potential for each crop which we are pushing already with plant breeding and genetic modification. I don't know which will be the first limit we reach, but it doesn't help when the most fertile land in the world continues to be developed into houses.

We need to actively manage these issues before they blow up. Not just leave them for future generations to figure out. Sparrow has posted the best quote so far on this issue. "If resources required to sustain the organism are being consumed by the organism faster than the resource can be renewed, then the organism is overpopulated."

It is too complicated of an issue to have any true 'solutions' and can only be actively managed. But it would be a good first step to require some type of family management and basic personal finance classes in all the U.S. high schools.

[Hilarious Joke]

Get more women into the workforce. This has been proven to decrease population growth.

[Peter Graham]

Hi Chris

How much would the world's agricultural and industrial production drop if we shot all the lawyers?

No lawyers = no effective redress for the average citizen, so I suppose it depends whether you want to live in a totalitarian police state or a subsistence farming economy.

In the former situation, agricultural or industrial improvement would be seriously hampered by the fact that the Dear Leader would spend most of our GDP on fast cars, gold braid and enormous statues of himself. There would be little incentive for outside investors to come and pump money into our already-decling manufacturing base, with the result that industry would first stall, and then go into a tailspin of the sort frequently predicted by the Daily Mail.

In the latter situation, agricultural production would be primarily based on feeding one's own, with the surplus eggs being hawked around the nearest town of a saturday morning. This could cause a problem for our huge urban and semi-urban population, most of whom would find that it is quite impossible to make three window boxes or a concreted square of back yard yield sufficient corn and veggies to keep body and soul together. Gangs of whey-faced townies would therefore be obliged to emerge blinking into our green and pleasant countyside with the express intention of stealing our sheep and crops. Country folk would band together under local warlords to resist the incursions and before you know it, we'd be back in the seventh century, where the production of an agricultural surplus was hampered by a lack of communications and the tendency of the neighbours to come and thieve whatever they could carry and burn the rest.


Regards,

Peter

[HareBrain]

Originally Posted by Rothgar

Sparrow has posted the best quote so far on this issue. "If resources required to sustain the organism are being consumed by the organism faster than the resource can be renewed, then the organism is overpopulated."

I don't know who Sparrow was quoting, but it isn't strictly true - it depends on whether the resource can be renewed in future faster than at present.

Whether it's wise to rely on this possible result of technological advancement is debatable.

[Winters_Sorrow]

Aren't both of those situations already in effect Peter?

Well, that was a bit tongue in cheek but overpopulation will become a more serious issue as life expectancy and health facilities improve across the world and especially in developing countries where people over-reproduce to make up for infant mortality and as a cultural sign of virility/worth.

I suppose in the short-term global society will go through a series of painful readjustments as the concept of "personal space" becomes an absurd luxury, and we begin sourcing for other foodstuffs not quite so tasty as before (algae cakes anyone?) but human beings are resourceful creatures so we could sustain a bigger population than some expect.

The devastation and damage we'd do to nature and our environment in the process is horrifying to contemplate though.

[Vladd67]

Originally Posted by Winters_Sorrow

I suppose in the short-term global society will go through a series of painful readjustments as the concept of "personal space" becomes an absurd luxury, and we begin sourcing for other foodstuffs not quite so tasty as before (algae cakes anyone?) but human beings are resourceful creatures so we could sustain a bigger population than some expect.

Mmmm Soylent Green anyone?

[Boneman]

by Winters Sorrow

but overpopulation will become a more serious issue as life expectancy and health facilities improve across the world

Then they'll encourage people to smoke, take all the duty off alcohol, and remove the speed limits on the roads - that oughtta do it...

The truly stupid thing is, that as the only self-determining species on the planet, we could do something about it, if we start planning now. But when the experts can't agree, what hope is there?

[dustinzgirl]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

That's just it, Dustie: without some precautions taken, with a limited sphere in which to develop resources (and that is simply an irrefutable physical fact unless we get our butts out and colonize other planets, which produces major problems of its own, including the simple orneriness of human beings in what will necessarily be prolonged confined spaces even once they get there), we are coming uncomfortably close to releasing the four horsemen on ourselves by our own lackadaisical attitude to such problems. Worry? Perhaps not. But being concerned enough to seek workable solutions... unless we wish to increase the incidence of plague, famine, war, and horrendous death in the not-too-distant future, we'd damned well better start putting in some effort....

I, for one, would much rather see a sane and rational solution to avert such taken, which would necessarily require a fair degree of education to lever people out of blind prejudicial thinking on such issues to at least examine the evidence openly rather than through acquired biases, rather than have a repeat of what we have seen throughout history when too many humans were forced into too small an environment (and its attendant limited resources). A healthy population includes mentally healthy as well; and you aren't likely to have either when an increasing number of people are going without vital necessities for survival....

My point being that it wasn't the quantity of the population but the quality.

If we do release the four horsemen on ourselves, and millions die, that is how, in the natural world, populations regulate themselves.

An overpopulation is diminished in the natural world either by a lowered death rate or higher birth rate.

Whatever we, as humans, choose to do to save lives simply acts as a counter to the natural world, therefore increasing overpopulation anyways.

There are more deaths and lower birth rates in areas of low resources because there are lower resources and in nature, when there are low resources, there are automatically low birth and high death rates, seasonally speaking.

We can not force people into not reproducing without drastic social consequences and a violation of the international human rights law (even if we did it would be lower birth rate which means that nature would be correcting itself anyways).

We can not go Soylent green because...well...ew.

We need to just let nature take its course. There are reasons why viruses mutate, why there is a higher population of infertile people than every before.

And even if we did release the four horseman, it would be an adequate, efficient, and effective way of controlling the population.

Overpopulation is just another bs line of crap.

The problem is that we do not adequately, effectively, and efficiently distribute our global resources.

And yes, more people does mean more crazy people. Crazy people often kill other people. So again, nature is correcting the population problem with higher death rates.

Diseases = higher death rates.
Lack of resources = lower birth and higher death rates.

So no matter what we do or even if we do nothing it is utterly inevitable that nature will find a way to correct our oh so human arrogance.

[pyan]

People have been worrying about this for at least the last two centuries, with some interesting (if repugnant to most modern ears) potential solutions...

"All children who are born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to a desired level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the death of grown persons.... Therefore ... we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use."

"Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlement in all marshy and unwholesome situations. But above all we should reprobate specific remedies for ravaging diseases; and restrain those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they are doing a service to mankind by protecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders.''

--Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, 1798

[dustinzgirl]

Personally, I think we should establish global lottery, in the Shirley Jackson sense.

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by dustinzgirl

My point being that it wasn't the quantity of the population but the quality.

If we do release the four horsemen on ourselves, and millions die, that is how, in the natural world, populations regulate themselves.

An overpopulation is diminished in the natural world either by a lowered death rate or higher birth rate.

The problem with this, Dustie, is that this once again reduces things to the old "tooth-and-claw" argument, the most brutal aspect of "survival of the fittest, and let the weak go to the wall". That's neither a sensible nor a humane nor a moral option... especially if we want to survive as a species, rather than joining those which have become extinct from various causes. We need to use our brains -- the one evolutionary development which has given us a chance in a world of things which are bigger, stronger, faster, more vicious, and more prolific than we.

There are humane solutions to such a problem, but they won't be easy to work out. Draconian laws are (most likely) not the way to go, but education about (again) critical thinking, the evidence supporting the idea this is a serious problem which needs to be addressed, and how to go about seeking viable, humane solutions, is a good way to start. Ignoring it and "letting nature take its course" simply wipes out every advance we've made in human rights so far; it doesn't preserve them. Those would be the first things to go. As pressures mount, the right to give birth and the right to live once you're here are both likely to be severely curtailed, and things like the human rights laws will simply vanish or be ignored.

Better to seek solutions or, as other have advanced, management of the problem rather than just "go with the flow". Nature herself is brutal and uncaring -- beautiful, but cruel. We have both the opportunity and the ability to be a little more, if we choose to utilize it. And if we don't... we really prove that we don't deserve to survive....
[/quote]We need to just let nature take its course. There are reasons why viruses mutate, why there is a higher population of infertile people than every before.[/quote]

This is teleology, and is complete nonsense. Yes, there are "reasons" for such mutation: blind biology; evolution taking its course in experimenting with every variant possible given the materials at hand. Those which prove hardier, more able to survive, pass on their adaptations. Those which don't, are left as part of the past.

As for the "higher population of infertile people"... numerically, you may be correct, but I question whether this is accurate quantitatively. After all, when you have a population which triples in less than a century, you are going to have a higher number of infertile people, though not necessarily a higher percentage. And even if we do have a higher percentage, the reasons are highly unlikely to be connected to any "reason" of the sort implied by the formulation of your statement. Again, it is blind biology, not "reason" in the sense of things working to a plan, or even for the best for the species or the planet. And, again, this is something we can change for the better. We have the skills, we have the opportunity. Or would you prefer to go back to a time when childbirth causes death a hefty percentage of the time? Or have children once again carried off by any of the "childhood" diseases which we all-but-eradicated. Smallpox? Rubella? Care to return to rickets? Nearly worldwide malnutrition?

While I am against harsh responses such as have often been suggested, neither am I in favor of letting the horsemen out of their box if it can be humanely avoided. On the whole, we human beings have had it pretty damned good this past couple of centuries or so, and there's no reason it has to go back to what it was save our own stupidity and pig-headed stubbornness. And somehow, neither of those strikes me as worth a pin in comparison.

The problem is that we do not adequately, effectively, and efficiently distribute our global resources.

On this one, I agree with you. This is something we really need to get off our butts about and handle in a more humane and sensible fashion. All the arguments for other things aside, our greatest resource remains ourselves -- our ability to think about such things and to come up with viable solutions to crises. As time goes on, this becomes even more vital than it has ever been before. Again, going back to the brute law of "letting nature take its course" is a frankly stupid response to the situation, and the amount of unnecessary suffering it would impose hardly speaks well of any claims to humanitarianism on our part.

And yes, more people does mean more crazy people. Crazy people often kill other people. So again, nature is correcting the population problem with higher death rates.

Diseases = higher death rates.
Lack of resources = lower birth and higher death rates.

So no matter what we do or even if we do nothing it is utterly inevitable that nature will find a way to correct our oh so human arrogance.

Once again, Dustie, you are falling into the error of thinking in teleological terms -- something completely unwarranted by the facts. Nature doesn't "find a way to correct" anything; it has no mind. It simply is the blind laws of physical entity. It isn't arrogance to seek solutions -- it is our one chance at salvation, just as it has been throughout our history. Yes, we make the wrong choices quite often, but without exercising that ability, we simply wouldn't have survived to be here today.

N.B.: When I say above that it is a "stupid response", I mean no insult to you yourself, Dustie. But as an option, I stand by that description.

[Wiglaf]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

Sparrow: if you are referring to hermaphrodites, the problem is that, in addition to certain psychological pressures attendant on such a condition (and yes, it is more common than most people realize, though still quite rare), they would usually face horrendous societal attitudes which result in such things as doctors choosing which gender they will be to outright murder as "monsters" or "freaks". This may be a barbaric practice, but the existence of these things makes promotion of hermaphrodism an unviable proposition in our current state.... (Who knows, though, it may eventually become otherwise.....)

No, the problem would be that true hermaphrodites have never existed in primates. Either SRY causes testes to be formed or not. You can not have one male and one female gamete. (You can have big breasted men or hairy faced women but, it is not the same thing.)

The problem with controlling population is that it is nearly? impossible to do without being cruel.

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by Wiglaf

No, the problem would be that true hermaphrodites have never existed in primates. Either SRY causes testes to be formed or not. You can not have one male and one female gamete. (You can have big breasted men or hairy faced women but, it is not the same thing.)

The problem with controlling population is that it is nearly? impossible to do without being cruel.

True. Fully functioning hermaphrodism does not exist in primates (certainly not humans). But the external genitalia are present, and decisions are made on that basis. It was that to which I referred. As for it being a future possibility... with what we are likely to be able to do with genetics, I wouldn't rule it out....

As for the other... I have my doubts about that, but it is possible. It also may be a case of weighing the level of cruelty against the benefit overall. (I would hate to think so, but we do need to look at all our options, and at least attempt to find viable humane options which avoid such extremes without knee-jerk reactions when such are mentioned.)

[Parson]

Population control by fiat is probably impossible. China not withstanding. The one thing about population which is always true in the macro sense is that as women are more empowered they have fewer children. Another thing which is almost universal is that as economic opportunities grow families shrink. China's present success in limiting the size of families underlines their failures in prior decades, and their success now mirrors their growing economic clout today.

Population control by any draconian way is sure bring about a general cheapening of life. The easier it is to kill the elderly and infirm, or the unborn children, the easier it is to slip into Hitler's ultimate solution. Genocide will eventually raise its head wherever life is not protected.

I believe that doing good for people will in the end always prove to be the right choice. Malthus and his disciples will always be sorely mistaken.

[j. d. worthington]

I will admit to not having read Malthus' treatise in its entirety, only selections from it now and again over the years. However, in the quote above, what strikes me is its similarity in tone to "A Modest Proposal", by Dean Swift. Given that Malthus felt, from my understanding, that such things as population pressure, etc., were part of the divine plan to increase virtue, I have trouble believing he was seriously advocating such a course (or set of courses); it strikes me more as a clarion-call warning of how things can be out of hand or a cold, clinical view of the reality of the situation regarding how these relationships work, rather than suggestions for solutions. I'm not sure he saw any solutions, as at his period there were few alternatives other than celibacy (never a practical solution for the majority).

But his basic ideas on how the interrelationship between resources and population growth works still remain quite viable today, save for certain industrialized societies. If human beings favored the "natural world" for our actions, however, they would return with a vengeance.

I do tend to agree with you, Parson, that kindness and humane treatment (and, yes, I firmly believe this must of necessity include education, to enable more people to realize their potential -- hence increase their value as resources, incidentally) has benefits in this area as well, and certainly the other factors you point out support that.