solutions to overpopulation

[swansont]

3 minutes ago, Itoero said:

so? People should know this, regardless of those papers.

It's completely beside the point I raised. 

[CharonY]

9 minutes ago, Itoero said:

Out of last paper:" A principal finding is that respondents ascribed to their husbands the responsibility for high parity; these women reported deliberately giving birth to many children in order to inhibit men's tendency to divorce or engage in plural marriage."

[...]

I pointed to this when I told of the messed up woman emancipation in Islam.

Jesus. Does this apply to Muslim-dominant areas outside of Northern Nigeria? Again, if Islam was the driving factor you would see it everywhere, and probably especially in countries with more than 50% Muslims as in Nigeria. Do you see that? If not, what could be the reason? (It is honestly not that difficult, provided one does not start with a conclusion and works the arguments backwards).

Edited July 25, 2018 by CharonY

[Itoero]

42 minutes ago, swansont said:

It's completely beside the point I raised. 

What do you mean then?

36 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Jesus. Does this apply to Muslim-dominant areas outside of Northern Nigeria? Again, if Islam was the driving factor you would see it everywhere, and probably especially in countries with more than 50% Muslims as in Nigeria. Do you see that? If not, what could be the reason? (It is honestly not that difficult, provided one does not start with a conclusion and works the arguments backwards).

I don't get why you even ask that question. Are you drunk perhaps? There are regional differences due to external factors.

Edited July 25, 2018 by Itoero

[Sensei]

High fertility rate of any living organism is correlated to offspring mortality rate. Species which have large rate of deaths of newly born and in childhood, have to have large number of children. Otherwise specie will extinct.

List of countries by infant and under-five mortality rates (per thousand in 2013 year):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_and_under-five_mortality_rates

(scroll wiki page to the bottom. There are historical data since 1950 per country)

Notice that there are regions with mortality rate >= 10%.. !

Human broke from this "rule" thanks to vaccines, modern medicine, and cleaner standards of living (hygiene). Natural adaptation is to have less offspring, as more will survive. But not entire world adopted. In some areas they continue "tradition". Now their fertility is problematic. Couple hundred years ago, these children would die in childhood, before reaching adult age. There is needed to change mentality.

Let's compare it with fertility rate worldwide map (quantity of child per woman in 2017):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

 

Edited August 6, 2018 by Sensei

[DrP]

On ‎19‎/‎07‎/‎2018 at 7:52 PM, Itoero said:

What do you think are the best solutions to overpopulation?

I'm sorry if this has been said already  -  but doesn't the problem solve itself?

 

 

[Abigboi]

Overpopulation is no longer a problem, China is no longer replacing it's population and the same can be said for other large countries. Overpopulation will soon be taken by ageing population.

[Itoero]

On ‎6‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 3:33 PM, DrP said:

I'm sorry if this has been said already  -  but doesn't the problem solve itself?

Every thing solves itself, sooner er later.

Something else that shows problematic woman emancipation due to religion:

"Dr Sosis has also studied modern secular and religious kibbutzim in Israel. … Within religious communities, men are expected to pray three times daily in groups of at least ten, while women are not. … The researchers’ hypothesis was that in religious kibbutzim men would be better collaborators (and thus would take less) than women, while in secular kibbutzim men and women would take about the same. And that was exactly what happened. …"http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/03/religious-cohes.html

[CharonY]

On 8/11/2018 at 2:37 PM, Itoero said:

Every thing solves itself, sooner er later.

Something else that shows problematic woman emancipation due to religion:

"Dr Sosis has also studied modern secular and religious kibbutzim in Israel. … Within religious communities, men are expected to pray three times daily in groups of at least ten, while women are not. … The researchers’ hypothesis was that in religious kibbutzim men would be better collaborators (and thus would take less) than women, while in secular kibbutzim men and women would take about the same. And that was exactly what happened. …"http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/03/religious-cohes.html

I think the issue in your reasoning (or at least the way you convey your reasoning)  is that you keep elaborating on a singular element out of several contributing factors. While you acknowledge it yourself, you then revert focus to the singular element again.

From a broader viewpoint the question you would have ask yourself is what the relative contribution of these elements (including women's right, access to family planning, access to food and housing, socio-economic development, religion etc.). What you keep pulling out is that religion explains the high birth right in a number of Muslim countries, then when confronted with deviation, you handwave it away due to "other factors" and thereby ignore that these other factors may actually play the bigger role.

It is pretty much acknowledged that in many (typically patriarchal) religions, reproductive rights of women are restricted. Likewise, there is an overlap with conservative world views, who tend also to be more religious. As such it does not come as a surprise that e.g. devout Catholics and Muslims have higher birth rates on average. Yet, it clearly is not the major driver as, again, if it was, the other factors (such as socio-economic development) should have less or no effect on birth rates in Muslim countries. Yet in a number of countries social policies had a massive effect in a short amount of time, while religiosity did not change appreciatively. Also, I just realized that I should not waste my time in repeating arguments and actually get some work done.

[Itoero]

38 minutes ago, CharonY said:

including women's right, access to family planning, access to food and housing, socio-economic development, religion etc

Those things are often causal related. Religion can be defined as a cultural system....

[peterwlocke]

survival of the fittest. maby a plague or genetically engineered monster(read super misceto or something viable most likely small).(not moral tho soooo)

[beecee]

On 7/20/2018 at 6:05 AM, Phi for All said:

Education is always good if you're looking for smart solutions.

Access to affordable healthcare is also good.

If we took MUCH better care of our environment we could have a lot more people without stressing natural resources or endangering other species. 

If we did all three of these things, I think our population wouldn't get to become a problem until we had perfected offworld colonization technology. That seems like the most rational course for mankind, to me. But we really should learn to respect ourselves and our home more.

Off world colonization/exploration as a species. We would be going a lot further and a lot faster I would suggest.

[beecee]

5 hours ago, beecee said:

Off world colonization/exploration as a species. We would be going a lot further and a lot faster I would suggest.

As a species and obviously as an International effort, just to clarify that.

[Itoero]

It can change of course but in general, more people = more fossil fuel use, more cars, more food...

The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.616 billion in 2018.

Edited February 5, 2019 by Itoero

[CharonY]

There is an interesting article outlining why overpopulation is not that much of an amplifier as one might think. In studies a similar point has been made. the richest 10% of the world account for about half the CO2 production. And those richest 10% are also those with the lowest number of children. There is also a book out by Bricker and Ibbitson (Empty Planet) which I have not read yet, but they make a point that by incorporating e.g. empowerment rates of women, the number of projected children declines much more rapid than anticipated, with an estimated 9 billion midcentury and a decline from then on.

[StringJunky]

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

There is an interesting article outlining why overpopulation is not that much of an amplifier as one might think. In studies a similar point has been made. the richest 10% of the world account for about half the CO2 production. And those richest 10% are also those with the lowest number of children. There is also a book out by Bricker and Ibbitson (Empty Planet) which I have not read yet, but they make a point that by incorporating e.g. empowerment rates of women, the number of projected children declines much more rapid than anticipated, with an estimated 9 billion midcentury and a decline from then on.

That's interesting, so, reducing the overall population and then making those that were poor more affluent actually will make the pollution problem worse?

Edited February 5, 2019 by StringJunky

[CharonY]

10 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

That's interesting, so, reducing the overall population and then making those that were poor more affluent actually will make the pollution problem worse?

The models basically say that reducing population has (eventually) less impact than lifestyle. Especially if critical targets are to be met, the focus must be on the former. As part of it, lifting folks out of poverty will take care of overpopulation, but richer folks also pollute disproportionately more. It is one of the guiding principles behind measures such as carbon taxes. But as expected they are also politically contested.

[StringJunky]

5 minutes ago, CharonY said:

The models basically say that reducing population has (eventually) less impact than lifestyle. Especially if critical targets are to be met, the focus must be on the former. As part of it, lifting folks out of poverty will take care of overpopulation, but richer folks also pollute disproportionately more. 

Really, what it's saying then is that everybody is responsible for the problem and its solution. We Westerners can't say "The third world  are having too many kids" and place the blame entirely on them. 

[koti]

On 7/19/2018 at 8:52 PM, Itoero said:

What do you think are the best solutions to overpopulation?

I've heard from a friend that education and especially female education can reduce birth rate.

Burn it. Burn it all.

[Itoero]

2 hours ago, CharonY said:

the richest 10% of the world account for about half the CO2 produc

Where do those mostly live?

Edited February 5, 2019 by Itoero

[studiot]

2 hours ago, CharonY said:

There is an interesting article outlining why overpopulation is not that much of an amplifier as one might think. In studies a similar point has been made. the richest 10% of the world account for about half the CO2 production. And those richest 10% are also those with the lowest number of children. There is also a book out by Bricker and Ibbitson (Empty Planet) which I have not read yet, but they make a point that by incorporating e.g. empowerment rates of women, the number of projected children declines much more rapid than anticipated, with an estimated 9 billion midcentury and a decline from then on.

 

How good are our models?

I'm no expert on population dynamics but I wonder if there isn't a chaotic possibility, given the number of factors in play.

I know for instance that a simple population model, dependent upon one factor eg food supply is purely classical.

But introduce a simple complicating factor such as the predator- prey equation and the dynamics become chaotic in nature, exhibiting the characteristic wild fluctuations characteristic of Chaos theory. That is the equations become unstable.

 

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

Really, what it's saying then is that everybody is responsible for the problem and its solution. We Westerners can't say "The third world  are having too many kids" and place the blame entirely on them. 

That seems part of the conclusions, yes. Unfortunately that is indeed a talking point that comes up every now and then and really is just a variation of putting blame on others so one has not to deal with it.

 

1 hour ago, Itoero said:

Where do those mostly live?

You can take a look at the Oxfam report "Extreme Carbon Inequality".  Currently the vast majority are in OECD countries, roughly one third of them live in the USA. Based on 2008 data, the average emission of a person in the richest 10% of China was about the same as the average footprint of someone in the poorest 40% of Europeans. The reason for the stark difference when comparing net emission is because much of the CO2 produced in China is actually for lifestyle consumption outside of China. For India,  the richest 10%  produce about 25% of the poorest in the USA. With increasing wealth that may change in the future by a fair bit, though.

51 minutes ago, studiot said:

How good are our models?

That is always a good question. It seems the general criticism is that the UN uses a rather simple projection and there is quite some criticism on the methodology as some consider it too crude. Basically the main components (from a cursory view, I am no expert either) seem to be based on projections of fertility, death rates and migration, if you look at the report. Some researchers such as Lutz from the IIASA have added modifications, such as education expansion for women. In these models under no education expansion the population size in 2060 would reach 9.8 billion, 9.34 under average expansion and 8.87 under fast expansion. They also found that connected to that fertility rates are already dropping faster than projected. Under these assumption, the world population would peak by 2070.

How accurate these models are depend a lot on what is happening, of course. If female education is expanding rapidly, the tentative consensus seems to be short term increase (but lower than projected without incorporating education levels) and potential decline toward the end of the century.

[HB of CJ]

I may have already answered this.  Dunno.  The Earth Shall Abide.  Die Back is Mother Natures way of correcting over population.  Mankind is just another type of animal.  Sooner or later a very large perhaps ongoing horrible natural event will severely cut back world human population.  One way or another.

[CharonY]

2 hours ago, HB of CJ said:

I may have already answered this.  Dunno.  The Earth Shall Abide.  Die Back is Mother Natures way of correcting over population.  Mankind is just another type of animal.  Sooner or later a very large perhaps ongoing horrible natural event will severely cut back world human population.  One way or another.

Or, as some predict, folks just have less children and population shrinks on its own. Which also has consequences for the society, of course.