No one blames over-population for our diminishing natural resources! WHY NOT?

[Nitack]

Originally Posted by charles brough

Yes, that's what happens. It is even worse. Rats and mice over-crowding ends in a dramatic change in behavior. There develops a behavioral breakdown. Gangs of mice invade family warrens, some of the rats become trance like. Other gangs pick on each other and rape. They sink into what has been called "a behavioral sink."

As we crowd each other for diminishing resources, we also are beginning to exhibit behavioral deterioration not only within our societies but also between them and between nations.

charles
the Atheistic Science Institute - home page* *

I don't necessarily think that your behavioral sink example is quite right. Perhaps if we were to overpopulate in the realm of 20-22 billion, but not at 10-15 billion that estimates say the planet can support. The gist of the conclusion from the behavioral sink experiment was that individuals can only handle a certain threshold of forced social interaction (such as what happened to the overcrowded rats). The main argument for the Malthusian overpopulation is not a matter of space, but a matter of how much food and resources could be produced in a given year to sustain a given population. Although food/resource shortages/wars would exhibit all of the characteristics of the behavioral sink, the cause would not be the same. The cause would be the procurement of the necessarily resources, where in the experiment with rats they had enough food and water provided for the given population size, it was the lack of social space which is believed to have caused the break down.

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by Nitack

...but not at 10-15 billion that estimates say the planet can support...

Yes. It seems to me that I have seen that estimate before. But what does that estimate assume? Does it assume no changes in global climate? No great disastrous hurricanes like Katrina and Ike? No resource-destroying (or -consuming) wars? 100% efficiency in our chemical and agricultural systems? Does it assume that our electrical, transportation, chemical and financial infrastructures never wear out? Hmmm?

[Symbology]

Originally Posted by Racoon

Yes, of course, the solution resides in the education of women.
Educated women have fewer children, and those children are usually better off.
But it ain't happenin'.

Woah Nellie!

Maybe if we educate the men, then they can start doing a better job around the world of treating women as equals, and being treated as real individuals vs. "them" - then we can see the better formal education of women.

To my observation women are plenty smart on the home front. They understand much better than men what the true costs are to parenting. It's the men who go around spreading their seed and not sticking around that are at least 50% of the responsibility here... if not more.

In the end, we will conserve only what we love,
we will love only what we know,
and we will know only what we are taught.
~Baba Diom, Senegal

A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.
~Benjamin Franklin

When you point a finger, three fingers point back at you.

[Symbology]

Originally Posted by Pyrotex

You ask an excellent question. One that has been basically ignored since the publication of "The Population Bomb" back in the sixties.

I believe the reason no one wants to ask it publically, let alone deal with it, is that it has only two solutions (that I can think of):

1. You impose tyrannical reproduction constraints upon everyone (like China has attempted). This is pretty much guaranteed to outrage almost everybody, and probably trigger mass uprisings and revolts that you will have to put down by brutal force and the imposition of a police state. (Luckily, China already had a police state. )

2. You let the Bomb explode -- which it must, eventually. This will result in mass starvation and disease, and probably lots of really ugly wars; a time which I call the "Great Die Off". But at least there won't be any "authority" to blame. If the "Great Die Off" is only bad enough to kill off less than, say, 5% of the population, then you are faced with an unending series of "Great Die Offs", about one every 25 years.

The FUTURE -- Either live it or live with it.

I've read the other posts... and I still think Pyro has it correct. And I also think that #2 still ends up causing #1. We might be able to come up with something less than tyrannical. For starters I think free sterilization and/or birth control to anyone who wants it would be a great start.

From The Matrix:
Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.

[Pyrotex]

Thanks, Symbo! Yes, #2 will eventually trigger #1.
Hey, that won't be so difficult. We already have "Homeland Security"--just ratchet that up a few notches and we'll HAVE #1.

It seems to me that most of the population "problem" arises from unintended births. A possible "solution" would be to "vaccinate" a certain proportion of pre-pubescent girls and boys so that they would be unable to procreate without a second medical procedure to counter the vaccination. When one of these children became an adult and wished to procreate, then a "jury" of their peers, informed by a small state-appointed committee of experts, would choose whether or not to permit procreation.

Would this be popular? Not on your life! Not in a New York minute!

[charles brough]

Yes, pyroteck, that is a good idea. I was just thinking of limiting children to one per household until population leveled off, then two per houshold. Your idea is better.

Of course, it won't happen in our present system. All the old religions are against controlling or even slowing the birthrate, and our secular way of thinking is so cautions about alienating the faithful, that we have a public opinion in which the idea never pops up in the media at all. It is not even printed in magazines, books or scientific journals.

Yet, controlling our numbers is the one most important thing that must be done to slow and then stop the growing struggle between the religious-bonded mega-systems like "the West" and Islam---as well as individual nations---over the diminishing resources.

What it will take is a whole new world-view and way of thinking. Our present world-view came into existence in the 18th century. A possible replacement exists and can be found at http://athesitic-science.com

(I don't think "equality for women" is quite enough to solve the world's problems).....
charles

[Pyrotex]

I agree, CB.
I haven't gotten around to visiting atheistic science yet, but I intend to.

[Symbology]

Which is why making the spectrum of birth control options free to those that want it would be a good start.

At some point when the "review board" is implemented, the problem will be that economic preference will be the norm

"Well clearly you are of good stock [expensive genetic engineering] and have the wherewithal to support and raise a child "[Stamp of Approval] *Slips Benjamin under the table*

"I'm sorry M'am, I realize both your parents were gold medal winners, but you just don't have the means to raise a child. [aka enough money to pay me off] Come back next year"

...as well as the natural corruption that goes with anything based on economics.

[Symbology]

Originally Posted by charles brough

Yes, that's what happens. It is even worse. Rats and mice over-crowding ends in a dramatic change in behavior. There develops a behavioral breakdown. Gangs of mice invade family warrens, some of the rats become trance like. Other gangs pick on each other and rape. They sink into what has been called "a behavioral sink."

As we crowd each other for diminishing resources, we also are beginning to exhibit behavioral deterioration not only within our societies but also between them and between nations.

charles
the Atheistic Science Institute - home page* *

You know... sometimes nature does something like -has a lightning strike hit and set off a fire- that wipes out the entire forest and leaves a nice level playing field of fertilizer (aka ash). Then the new little seeds get to compete and rebuild a new forest. It takes several hundred years, but pine trees have an edge in that their offspring come in a fire protected shell which actually only opens up when subjected to fire (a pine cone). Oak trees provide sneaky food to squirrels that kindly bury their offspring beneath the ground where the fire can reach them. Fruit trees provide more sneaky food that birds eat and then deposit miles away with more fertilizer.

Certain viruses provide the same level playing field in the form of a pandemic that burns across a population "like wildfire" - and interestingly enough any creatures that survive the fire/plague are generally immune to any reinfection. So then they and their offspring have another big level playing field to grow back into (regardless of how rich your parents were, EVERYONE is needed to work with LOTS of opportunities at that point).

So if you speed up the still frames a bit... maybe our species is just a wildfire blip on the terrestrial timeline [we have only been here what... 50,000 years or so?]... that will wipe everything out on the planet and let just the hardy ones that are built to survive the fire (like cockroaches) compete to rebuild the place after the "fire" is gone.

... or maybe I am just blowing smoke

[Racoon]

Originally Posted by Symbology

Woah Nellie!

Maybe if we educate the men, then they can start doing a better job around the world of treating women as equals, and being treated as real individuals vs. "them" - then we can see the better formal education of women.

To my observation women are plenty smart on the home front. They understand much better than men what the true costs are to parenting. It's the men who go around spreading their seed and not sticking around that are at least 50% of the responsibility here... if not more.

While I completely agree, the problem IS the lack of education and opportunity for women.

Men tend to enjoy the privledges and education that most women do not; especially in 3rd world countries.

An uneducated woman stays home and gets knocked up over and over again.
An educated woman does not.

Men are usually willing to fill the hole between a womans thighs regardless of education or socio-economics.

Its much tougher to break traditional societal gender roles, than it is to educate women on family planning, and allowing them to be gainfully employed. Thats the problem.

Its no secret that countires where women are more educated and are a vital part of the work force, are the countries with the lowest number of children per couple...