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

[paigetheoracle]

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* *

Good points again! This reminds me of what is happening in Africa especially and the chaos there plus the feral youth gangs now infecting Britain. "Good fences make good neighbours" Robert Frost because control and limit allow us to develop internal resources, rather than have to fight for external ones: Population overgrowth leads to external chaos and internal confusion - reduction in density allows things to calm down and rationalize out, mentally and physically.

[paigetheoracle]

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.

Sorry Sym I seem to have misjudged you somewhat! (One finger pointing mistake!)

[paigetheoracle]

Originally Posted by Symbology

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

Interesting point - maybe that is what will happen and there's nothing we can do about it or 'need' to!

[Symbology]

Originally Posted by paigetheoracle

'Symbology' - can we get a little reality in here? Sexism my backside - we are talking about problems of existence and you are pussy footing about womens feelings? If you were pregnant all the time, would you care a damn about what others called your vagina? I don't think so. As for the education thing - it is female suppression by men that is being addressed here, not whether men are educated or not and that is 'real sexism' not the pseudo-joke you are talking here.

If, in the process of discussing science or opinion, we blithely trample all over a minority (or majority's) feelings, rights, and dignity, then we can damn well better expect to get told our insensitivity is wrong, degrading, and non-productive to the discussion.

This branches into the topic of "politically correct" words. But there are a whole string of words that in the past were considered "just fine" by those that were not the target of such words. But the words still carried significant negative connotations. Somebody had the balls (a word that, ironically, does not carry negative connotations) to speak up and declare those words as not right, and to offer some alternatives.

I find that the anti-pc and anti-affirmative action groups still try and grumble about having to share the public space with "Them damn ____". I can agree with them that it is important that such protective campaigns not bring the whole process to a screeching halt if possible. But if bringing it to a screeching halt is what it takes to get it to stop, then count me in.

Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.
~Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler

The little rift between the sexes is astonishingly widened by simply teaching one set of catchwords to the girls and another to the boys.
~Robert Louis Stevenson

[charles brough]

Originally Posted by Pyrotex

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.

Yes, you have, I think, hit upon two major reasons. There is one more: the subject is also avoided because all the old religions of the world promote the concept of fertility and the so-called "sacredness" of life. If it is "sacred," then "the more of it the better." Now, the old-religious influence has so grown in our society that no media source wants to get involved in mentioning the subject. After all, the over-religious have a big stake in it; over-crowding the world leads to atomic war and the faithful want an armageddon so they can be "saved" and Christ can return.

This shows the power of religion! Well, if even old religions can have such negative power over society, imagine what a scientific one, a scientific world-view and way-of-thinking system would have and how it would have the power to mold thinking in a population reduction way. It is not a matter of only brute force. Incentives could be used. But people with a common belief system against population growth would cooperate to see that it happens. It just needs to be the society's goal.

[charles brough]

Originally Posted by Kayra

I think there are other significant forces at work as well. Well, they are at work when birth control is available and social/religious taboos do not prevent them.

Most of the world exists in different stages of a demographic transition from high infant mortality to low infant mortality. Some countries are completely through the transition already. In those countries, the average fertility is well below 2 children per woman. In the 25 countries of the EU, it is at 1.5 on average. Japan is at 1.3. North America is 2.

The “cost” of having too few children is no free labor and no old age security. The “Cost” of having too many children is a tremendous burden and hardship on the family itself to maintain its own level of living. From these forces comes a balance that seeks for the unit to perpetuate itself, plus a little bit more or less. It is a natural state of mankind and can be shown before and after the demographic transition brought about by the current causes of population increases.

I guess what I am trying to say is that within 1 or 2 generations, with no intervention by man or government, each society has, and I believe will continue to, self adjust it’s own birthrate. I personally think it will end up somewhere between 9 and 10 billion, and decline from there naturally.

There are some animations on this website that show some of what I mean.

Interesting . . . Assuming we both mean the same thing by "society" (with Islam, the West, the Hindu world and the East Asian Marxist world being examples), the we can go back into world history and find out what did happen to all the earlier faith-based societies. They all had a great cultural/technological age and then their science died, religious reaction took its place, and they languished in over-crowded conditions until a new "wave of the future" religion gathered up even more people and united them into a force able to build a new and larger society or civilization.

I think they all tended to go through the cycle you mentioned.

Anyway, you surely don't think that the rest of non-Western world is going to eradicate poverty in a couple generations do you? Even China is still mostly a vast, dense population of poor farmers, as with India and Africa.

[Icarus]

Neo-malthusian proponents have always been there.

It seems fairly obvious. But scientific technology seems to have contained the problem. But of course, water wars are now occurring in Africa. And many famine-inflicted areas see a lot of conflict over the little resources left.

So, when things get really scarce, then over-population (or simply any population) will react to the lack of resources.....

Over-population is not regarded a problem because we seem to trust the human ingenuity in finding a way out of any problem. Too less oil, we'll eventually switch to solar energy. Too less food, we'll find higher yielding foods. Its a cycle which we need to hope will not fail.

About China containing its population. Seriously, i believe to be an over-reaction which infringes upon nature and basic human right to procreate.

[Symbology]

Originally Posted by charles brough

Yes, you have, I think, hit upon two major reasons. There is one more: the subject is also avoided because all the old religions of the world promote the concept of fertility and the so-called "sacredness" of life. If it is "sacred," then "the more of it the better." Now, the old-religious influence has so grown in our society that no media source wants to get involved in mentioning the subject. After all, the over-religious have a big stake in it; over-crowding the world leads to atomic war and the faithful want an armageddon so they can be "saved" and Christ can return.

And just to be clear they are talking about the "sacredness" of human life.

Chickens, pigs, cows, other water fowl, spiders, snakes, harvestable plants, weeds... well ok... anything we can eat, find annoying, or hampering progress is fair "game" for extermination.

Heck now that I think about it, in some cultures, not even all humans are safe.

George Carlin:
Do you believe in God?
No?
BANG! Dead!
Do you believe in God?
Yes!
Do you believe in my god?
No?
BANG Dead!

George Carlin: The longer you listen to this abortion debate, the more you hear the phrase "sanctity of life," "sanctity of life." You believe in it? Personally, I think it's a bunch of $#!%. I mean, life is sacred? Who said so? God? Hey, if you read history, you realize that God is one of the leading causes of death.

George Carlin: Here's another question I have. How come when it's us, it's an "abortion," and when it's a chicken, it's an "omlette?" Are we so much better than chickens all of a sudden? When did this happen that we pass chickens in goodness? Name six ways we're better than chickens.
[brief silence]
See nobody can do it! You know why? Because chickens are decent people! You don't see chickens running around in drug gangs, do you? No, you don't see a chicken strapping some guy to a chair and hooking up his n#^$ to a car battery do you? When's the last time you heard a chicken come home from work and beat the $#!% outta his hen, huh? Doesn't happen. Because chickens are decent people!

[paigetheoracle]

Originally Posted by Symbology

If, in the process of discussing science or opinion, we blithely trample all over a minority (or majority's) feelings, rights, and dignity, then we can damn well better expect to get told our insensitivity is wrong, degrading, and non-productive to the discussion.

This branches into the topic of "politically correct" words. But there are a whole string of words that in the past were considered "just fine" by those that were not the target of such words. But the words still carried significant negative connotations. Somebody had the balls (a word that, ironically, does not carry negative connotations) to speak up and declare those words as not right, and to offer some alternatives.

I find that the anti-pc and anti-affirmative action groups still try and grumble about having to share the public space with "Them damn ____". I can agree with them that it is important that such protective campaigns not bring the whole process to a screeching halt if possible. But if bringing it to a screeching halt is what it takes to get it to stop, then count me in.

Firstly this shows the problem people (like me and you - in other words 'anybody') losing their temper because they see something as real and threatening.

Science should be about discovering the cause of something (understanding) so it can be dealt with, not suppressing it because you don't like it and that includes both PC and non-PC comments (Morality says you should or shouldn't do something but science and especially technology is only interested in what works i.e. is practical).

Political correctness is impossible to enforce and counterproductive as it pushes things underground (hides them not eradicates them or allows them to mature and die out naturally). If the thought still exists, even if not expressed, then how do you get rid of the thought?

Is the fault in the listeners ego or the speakers? (hurt pride at image destruction or true victimization?). In my opinion political correctness is a lie upon a lie or a negative attitude versus a positive one (One man's joke is another man's insult).

Speaking personally it isn't only women who get all of this crap either but how do you really stop it? Last week I had someone call me 'Darling' and asked if I'd like a bottle put somewhere, where the sun doesn't shine and I'm a bloke but I must be on the feminine side to get that I suppose. So what should I have done - hit him (and his two mates) or insulted him back? Would that have changed the situation or only inflamed it more? Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me (only bruise my ego somewhat).

If you want to take this further then I suggest a moderator drag this whole argument elsewhere.

[paigetheoracle]

Originally Posted by Icarus

About China containing its population. Seriously, i believe to be an over-reaction which infringes upon nature and basic human right to procreate.

Rights to do what you want to do, even if it slits your own throat? Sounds like a peevish schoolboy attitude to me or the religious belief that we should breed into oblivion (George Carlin is a joke!*).



*Subtle point, that - he's actually more like a humanist or simple philosopher (What are you ignoring here?). We ignore common sense at our peril but addicts do because they are blinded by their addictions (ego).