How to fix overpopulation?

[Prometheus]

Introduction of worldwide Big Brother will make even more terrorists, as majority of regular citizens will be against it.

 

Not if it's introduced via social media: enough people are willing to surrender anonymity and civil liberties in exchange for convenience and security.

[Sensei]

Not if it's introduced via social media: enough people are willing to surrender anonymity and civil liberties in exchange for convenience and security.

Nonsense. Revealing couple pretty meaningless details, is completely different thing. So what people know your first name, surname, country, and job?

The rest is hidden for "friends". Conversations between parties are secret (or at least should be).

If you speak to your friend, partner, business co-worker, investor, privately, you don't want everybody around know about what you're talking about.

Making any serious business with BB on the line, is plain ridiculous.

Everybody will know that you plan to buy company prior acquisition, or sell stocks prior selling, and set up market accordingly and against you...

Edited August 24, 2016 by Sensei

[EdEarl]

That's why I am saying there is needed/required to fly to the Moon, Mars, further planets and colonize entire galaxy..

 

 

Introduction of worldwide Big Brother will make even more terrorists, as majority of regular citizens will be against it.

 

Earth's area is 5.1*10^14 m^2,

after removing oceans and seas remaining 29% of land, divided by 50B people, is 54.4 x 54.4 meters area per person (currently approximately 145x145 for 7B).

Cities, buildings should be already optimized to build as high as possible,

to not have to dismount them in the future..

Tower with 55x55 m^2 bottom area, with 100 floors, is reducing 1:100 needed buildings quantity to hold 50B people.

 

Or start thinking how to build below ocean or below ground surface (or even on/in the water).. Which is either doable, as well as, necessary in the future.

Denmark is already building homes and businesses that float on the ocean. There is no reason to limit ourselves to only land. Oceans at the equator are almost free of violent storms; we could build there, and extend our effective land mass.

 

 

Wikipedia

The Equator is about 40,075 kilometres (24,901 mi) long; some 78.7% lies across water and 21.3% over land.

0.787 * 40,075 = 31539.025 km

31,000 km (equator over water) * 4804 km (width) doubles effective land mass of the Earth. It would be a massive project, but we could build 3D printers and robots to make floating cities. Such technology will be possible in a few years. Farm equipment and other off-road equipment such as tractors and earth-movers will be running without drivers soon, in addition to cars and trucks on public roads.

 

Making a law to stop procreation would be virtually impossible, and the Earth's population might grow very large. On the other hand, Japan has a birth rate that is far below replacement level. We know that educated women tend to limit the number of children they have, and most countries were women are educated have reasonably stable populations. Japan's decreasing population is unusual. Their population density is about 336 p/km²,which is about the same population density as an Earth with 50B people. Belgium, with similar population density, has birth rate of 1.79, low enough for their population to decline. Perhaps people begin to feel too close and slow the birth rate; IDK what factors cause Japan's young people to slow the birth rate.

 

Whatever occurs, I don't see legislation as an effective control of population.

Edited August 24, 2016 by EdEarl

[Airbrush]

General public awareness may be the best form of effective control of population. You said it yourself, the more people are educated, the less children they have. We just haven't yet noticed how large the population is. When we do we will begin to experience social problems exacerbated by overpopulation.

"Perhaps people begin to feel too close and slow the birth rate"

 

Right, when it "feels crowded" people will respond.

Edited August 24, 2016 by Airbrush

[CharonY]

That is not why education reduces child birth. The strongest correlation is between female education and child birth. There are various models that try to explain that observation including economic ones that for example:

a) for higher educated women children are a higher opportunity cost

b) higher educated women have a higher bargaining power within household and have therefore more self-determination when it comes to children number as opposed to single-income households, for example.

Especially in less developed countries further effects such as improved child care due to better education that improves confidence that their children will survive. The awareness of how many people there are is meaningless if it has no direct noticeable effects. Also crowded does not seem to be a good indicator of anything if you see how concentrated people are in certain desirable areas.

[Airbrush]

Those are good points about higher educated women as a determining factor.

 

Crowded is a good term to describe the biggest cities in Japan, and they now have low population growth.

 

Noticeable effects will always be the main diving forces. Also climate change magnifies the situation. Climate change is a reality that will drive tens or hundreds of millions of people inland when oceans rise. This will lead to wars over land and water. Population control is "triggered" without our intention.

[Airbrush]

Maybe Hillary Clinton will shoot herself in the foot during the debates, and NEW skeletons come out of her closet. Trump could become the next president. Then it happens, a dozen of the world's biggest cities are destroyed by nuclear weapons by who-knows-who. A terrorist group. Everyone goes into martial law. Then Trump can create crises and use his blunt diplomacy methods to get the nukes flying around. That would cause a serious population decline.

Edited August 27, 2016 by Airbrush

[Tampitump]

I have a question on this: What figure would be considered as getting into the range of overpopulation? Are we at that point now?

[EdEarl]

Without technologically advanced or heroic methods to accommodate more people, 9 billion people is considered overpopulation. However, meat production consumes resources that might be used to feed almost 10 times as many people, and vertical farming with artificial light might increase vegetable production ten fold.

 

If we look at the mass of people vs all animals, including land & sea and microbes to the blue whale, the total mass of animals is much greater than the mass of people, perhaps 10:1 (guess). I checked the internet and found no one knows, and estimates vary widely. Nonetheless, it is prudent to get some idea of how much animal mass Earth can sustain.

 

All I can say with any accuracy is that 9 billion is not the ultimate limit, and no one knows how many people the Earth can sustain.

[Airbrush]

Nobody knows what social complications may arise from higher numbers of people and global warming will magnify it. Nobody knows how extreme the changes from global warming will be. When in doubt we should be careful about population.

Edited September 4, 2016 by Airbrush

[EdEarl]

One limit on population depends on how fast human waste, including bodies, can be processed into food and water (the Soylent Green solution). If waste could be processed immediately into food, then population is limited by living space, and that would allow 100 billion to 1000 billion (guess).

Edited September 4, 2016 by EdEarl

[John Cuthber]

One limit on population depends on how fast human waste, including bodies, can be processed into food and water (the Soylent Green solution). If waste could be processed immediately into food, then population is limited by living space, and that would allow 100 billion to 1000 billion (guess).

There's logically an energy requirement too.

[EdEarl]

Yes. With everyone living in Earthships or similar technology, riding in energy efficient electric light weight vehicles, and efficient industry, the per capita energy requirements can be much less than today. The sun shines more than 10³ more energy than humanity uses; thus, reduction per capita and solar abundance probably means we won't be limited by energy.

 

I didn't say it would be easy.

Edited September 4, 2016 by EdEarl

[CorrupD]

Well it's quite simple actually, stop healthcare properly nature never wanted it anyway. Stop medicine all people who actually dont belong here acording to evolution just die.

[Strange]

Well it's quite simple actually, stop healthcare properly nature never wanted it anyway.

 

I don't know what "nature never wanted it" means. It is natural for bodies to resist disease and heal themselves after injury. Animals don't just drop dead at the first sign of something that could adversely affect their health. In addition, many animals have been observed to "self medicate" using plants that are known to have beneficial effects.

 

So is it just humans that should not provide each other with any help in this way?

 

"Oh dear, nasty scratch you have there. It could become infected and we don't have antibiotics. So I will shoot you now to save time and avoid you suffering"

 

What a great idea.

[dimreepr]

When in doubt we should be careful about population.

 

Look what happens when we try https://www.google.co.uk/search?site=webhp&source=hp&q=problems+with+china%27s+one+child+policy&oq=problems+with+china&gs_l=hp.1.2.0l8j0i22i30k1l2.718555.727836.0.731855.21.17.0.4.4.0.221.1716.9j7j1.17.0....0...1c.1.64.hp..0.19.1403.0..35i39k1j0i131k1j0i10k1j0i3k1.ltjGgVsuKcI

 

 

Well it's quite simple actually, stop healthcare properly nature never wanted it anyway. Stop medicine all people who actually dont belong here acording to evolution just die.

 

 

 

Easy to say when your healthy and comfortable, I doubt you'd refuse treatment or allow a parent to be part of the cull.

When you understand, control is illusory, and just how pernicious that illusion becomes; you'll understand how futile any attempt at (population) control is.

Edited October 6, 2016 by dimreepr

[Airbrush]

AB: "When in doubt we should be careful about population."

 

DR: "Look what happens when we try."

 

So the point you are making is we should not be careful about population?

 

What do you propose? We have recognized a problem looming on the horizon and as humans with science we try to make things better. Your opinion is we realize we have no control just give up on social engineering?

 

IMO we are already overpopulated, we just don't notice it until there is a disaster because of it.

Edited October 6, 2016 by Airbrush

[dimreepr]

So what are YOU going to do about it?

Airbrush, let's imagine you are the absolute ruler of China, what would you do to fix their population imbalance?

[Airbrush]

What humans have done throughout history, TRY to improve upon it. Take advantage of technology. Ask the experts, I'm no expert. We humans don't give up like the task is impossible.

Edited October 6, 2016 by Airbrush

[Strange]

 

Look what happens when we try https://www.google.co.uk/search?site=webhp&source=hp&q=problems+with+china%27s+one+child+policy&oq=problems+with+china&gs_l=hp.1.2.0l8j0i22i30k1l2.718555.727836.0.731855.21.17.0.4.4.0.221.1716.9j7j1.17.0....0...1c.1.64.hp..0.19.1403.0..35i39k1j0i131k1j0i10k1j0i3k1.ltjGgVsuKcI

 

Maybe that was the wrong approach.

 

 

When you understand, control is illusory, and just how pernicious that illusion becomes; you'll understand how futile any attempt at (population) control is.

 

And yet, population growth has slowed and even reversed in many places. We are no longer on an exponential growth path. So taking the appropriate steps such as education (especially of women), improved health care, good governments (to avoid famine), etc. are known to work.

[Airbrush]

And yet, population growth has slowed and even reversed in many places. We are no longer on an exponential growth path. So taking the appropriate steps such as education (especially of women), improved health care, good governments (to avoid famine), etc. are known to work.

 

Good, scientific answer!

 

At some point environmental and social pressures may put a damper on population growth, as we see in some regions, but will it happen soon enough to avoid disasters that come from overpopulation? Can we avoid the nightmare scenario of too many people and not enough food, so the only survivors are cannibals?

Edited October 6, 2016 by Airbrush

[dimreepr]

And yet, population growth has slowed and even reversed in many places. We are no longer on an exponential growth path. So taking the appropriate steps such as education (especially of women), improved health care, good governments (to avoid famine), etc. are known to work.

 

 

But we didn't do any of that in order to control population; it's an emergent quality, much like the Chinese example.

[Strange]

 

Good, scientific answer!

 

At some point environmental and social pressures may put a damper on population growth, as we see in some regions, but will it happen soon enough to avoid disasters that come from overpopulation? Can we avoid the nightmare scenario of too many people and not enough food, so the only survivors are cannibals?

 

It appears we have already avoided that.

 

There will still, unfortunately, be repeated case of massive famines because it seems that corrupt governments are a constant part of human societies (and famine is almost entirely a political problem).

 

But while the world's population is a problem that needs careful consideration, it is no longer a Malthusian crisis.

 

 

But we didn't do any of that in order to control population; it's an emergent quality, much like the Chinese example.

 

Well, for the last few decades, at least, one of the main goals of development programs has been to manage population growth by addressing these other issues.

[Airbrush]

Famine has been with us for our entire history. It is the results of "emergent qualities". People never had control over this, or much forethought. Can we have forethought for the first time in our history? There's a first time for everything.

 

What is a Malthusian crisis​?

 

In the future, transparency will be the key to controlling corrupt governments. Famine may be usually caused by politics, but the global scale is nothing we have ever seen before.

Edited October 6, 2016 by Airbrush

[dimreepr]

 

Well, for the last few decades, at least, one of the main goals of development programs has been to manage population growth by addressing these other issues.

 

Really??? Well OK if you say so, but that doesn't change the similarity of the emergent quality, population imbalance.