Overpopulation and possible answers.

[SugarMoses]

There is evidence that suggests as education and standard of living increases, parents decide to have less children. It is the quality over quantity argument. This said, I think it is important to continue to improve quality of life throughout the world, especially in undeveloped/developing countries, in efforts to help with population issues. As education and standard of living increase, the lure of the dowry system is reduced, as there are other means of earning money, etc.

As far as tax incentives or fines... I'm currently in China and have been for over 4 months now. I've talked with many Chinese about the 1-child policy (which is limited to urban areas. If you live in a rural area and your first child is a girl then you can have another. Furthermore, it's important to remember there are still parts of rural China that are more-or-less out of Communist control and therefore still have as many children as they want/is necessary) and i feel that the general consensus here is that the fee imposed upon a family that has two children (10,000 RMB which is not a small amount of money to the monetarily conservative Chinese people) is a good deterrent from having more than one child. Thus, I think that this method of population control could realistically be pursued by many countries in the not-too-distant future.

[dannieyankee]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Dannieyankee, I think you've got the cat by the tail, so to speak.

Yes, a population of a billion might have, let's say, 100,000,000 couples interested in having kids (the rest of the population is too old, too young, or already up to their 1-kid limit). That'll bring the population to 1,100,000,000. But it seems as if you're calculating as if the very same people will have kids every year.

It's a simple exercise: A kid's got a father and a mother. There are two people involved in creating a child. Now, if those same two people were to create two children, then they would replace the mother and the father after their respective deaths, resulting in a 0% population growth. This is, of course, ignoring such things like extramarital sex, but any offspring from those kleptogamic encounters will be made impossible via enforced vasectomies. Now, it should be abundantly clear that if a 1-child policy were to be strictly enforced world-wide, the global population must come down - because the new generation is now only replacing one of the parents.

The biggest problem lies in convincing the global population to the benefits of such a scheme - and how to enforce it.

You're right, I suppose I was pulling new adults out of nowhere. Thus, this is why I should never be a mathmatician ;D

While it is true that things such as extramarital affairs seem uncommon NOW, you forget to calculate how humans react to strict mandates. That number of children might possibly increase. I assume you understand that a global mandate would increase the number of world-wide kids in the adoption programme, correct? Which brings me to another correlated concept from the first post - adoption versus in-vitro fertilisation. Clearly, with the number of children needing to be adopted increasing and the mandate decreasing, you will see an increased number of adoption.

I have just discovered two flaws in my logic; one about the acceptance of homosexuality, the other about production and industrialised nations.

1) While attempting to bring the population down, there is no doubt that homosexuality will probably be very well supported - after all, they love and STILL don't make babies. In this modern world where nationalism is not a big idea, love is still something they could consider well to benefit the population. However, at a population of one billion, who says it will still be popular? Overtly religion people will already be in a flux, because babies aren't being made OH GOD WHAT NOW!?. The idea of also accepting homosexuality as a natural prevention of birth would be horrid to them and their blissful ignorance.

2) Many industrialised nations were built on hard labour. Making countries such as Africa and rural parts of India more industrialised will have to use that same method, unless another method is suggested. That would sorely hurt the population.

I agree about the idea of limiting the number of children instead by income level. I also suggest a screening of the parents - this is an opportunity to not only decrease the population, but to also severly shrink the population of children being abused in their households. This is a chance to increase the quality of living not only for the adults giving birth to the children, but of the vulnerable, the ones who cannot protect themselves. While I agree that the world should not be held back by its' weakest, children are our future. It is common that abused children could turn into abusing adults, whether or not they realise it. I know emotionally abused children turn into insecure, fearing children who shy away from their parents and quiet, bullied adults not able to take care of their own children, either from being emotionally abusive to them, or too lax for fear of being that same parent. Overpopulation is caused by both low education and stupidity - both increasing the chance of a weaker, more depressed population.

[Theory5]

Population control? There are quite a few reasons why it is wrong. Take China for example, over 1 billion people right? They strictly enforce a policy where a family can only have one child. if they have another one that one has to die or be adopted or something that takes it out of the country.

Why dont we just eat our children if we are worried about population growth? :-P

Most of the things you guys are suggesting would be too controlling, and would impose on our freedom. Its logical, sure, but you need to look at the moral implications as well. I say we look at places that are considered uninhabitable. Alaska, the ocean, space, under the ocean, stuff like that. This is pure speculation but we could have cities underwater or on a giant barge :-) or we can do what they used to build up boston and other cities: expand the land further into the bay. It would cost a lot but it would allow population centers to expand, giving more housing oppertunites to everyone. But to do this we would need to take better care of other resources, such as the ocean. Think about it; expanding into the water will cause debris to be lost in the water, more oil would be polluting the water, etc. Have you ever been to Boston? Would you swim in the bay they currently have? Of course not, its disgusting. I suggest that we build more permanent versions of those orange things workers use when working on a building where there is a chance stuff will fall into the water.

[SugarMoses]

Originally Posted by Theory5

Population control? There are quite a few reasons why it is wrong. Take China for example, over 1 billion people right? They strictly enforce a policy where a family can only have one child. if they have another one that one has to die or be adopted or something that takes it out of the country.

In an effort to avoid offending our fellow forum mates, I urge you to read the post two posts above yours (mine). I would like to clarify that the Chinese to not kill babies nor do they deport them. They impose fines. I find your statement to be inflamatory and ill-supported.

[Miranda]

Originally Posted by Theory5

Its logical, sure, but you need to look at the moral implications as well. I say we look at places that are considered uninhabitable.

It is not just a problem of where to put everyone... it is a problem of how to feed everyone, right?

[Doctordick]

Originally Posted by SugarMoses

There is evidence that suggests as education and standard of living increases, parents decide to have less children.

You have hit the nail on the head. If you check historical records you will discover that, when education and standard of living gets high, all societies have exactly the opposite problem, population decline. Even ancient Rome had serious problems with their educated and well off people not reproducing. They actually passed laws requiring marriage.

The solution to over population is advanced education for everyone. But it won't happen; my prediction is that the solution will be left to nature and nature's solutions are usually quite painful.

Have fun -- Dick

PS A billion is way over the correct answer. With modern technology I think the human race would do fine with a population around a hundred million and the optimum population could be as low as twenty million. That would be enough to provide a sufficient number of people to carry on every activity we currently enjoy plus enough people to support those efforts and, if the population were that low we wouldn't have to worry about much.

[dannieyankee]

Unfortunately, until we are able to actually do something about it aside from few 'charities' that work very little and only help a very small portion of countries for a very short time, we are screwed.

You know, I think the main problem with all of the world is that the UN has no power. It can't do anything. It can't overtake a government that is corrupt or starving and torturing its people. Think Cuba. What is it doing there? Nothing. Why? Because it can't do anything.

As soon as the UN has power, things like education can be enhanced, especially in third world countries.