What do you think we should do about overpopulation?

I wrestle with myself over this. Sometimes I wonder if those who favor economic austerity haven’t stumbled upon a point by accident: if we deliberately kill the economy, we eventually don’t have so many people. There’s suffering, of course, and the rich live far longer and better than the poor, but if their real purpose is to effect a beneficial reduction in the surplus population (as Scrooge might say), they could be accidentally ecological.

“First kill all the lawyers.”

On one hand it seems to me that we have the same sort of “scares” cyclically. I like to think necessity is the mother of invention, and we develop new farming techniques, like undersea or oversea farming, or things I’m not qualified to imagine. Or maybe it will push us into space.
I’ve read Stephen Baxter recently, and something I’ve come away with is that stressful conditions (such as poverty) may increase desire to reproduce, as a way of decreasing the chances that Russian roulette will kill all your progeny. Good for DNA, bad for population control measures. That’s probably why there is a lot of difficulty with family planning in the poor areas of the world. But areas like China and India are beginning to increase their standard of living, so maybe their population output will plateau.

We keep reaching “peak this” and “peak that” but we really have not reached a limit. New technologies and human adaptation are innovative.

Malthus wrote two hundred years ago:

That the increase of population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence,
That population does invariably increase when the means of subsistence increase, and,
That the superior power of population is repressed, and the actual population kept equal to the means of subsistence, by misery and vice.

But that has not yet happened. And he championed many laws to discourage population growth, but many of them would be considered evil today.

The US population growth has stabilized (except for immigration), and Europe is declining. The pressures are from Asia and Africa; even South America has lowered its birth rate. And China, in attempts to control it, is running into a problem with too many males.

Those of us who lend credence to Gaia theory, think the population growth will self correct, even though it will be dire. No need for political intervention.

We will not do anything. We will keep going as we have been doing. There will be those who give warning and those who claim that they are all just Chicken Littles and we can fix anything with the right technology.
At some point we will reach critical mass and a solution will be imposed on Homo Sapiens with or without their permission or regardless of the consequences.
Nature is not fair but neither is it cruel. It is what it is and we are all subject to it.

Almost all population growth occurs in developing countries (currently China, India, etc.)

There are a few stages of population growth:
Stage 1: high birth rate and high death rate
Stage 2: high birth rate and declining death rate
Stage 3: declining birth rate and low death rate
Stage 4: low birth rate and low death rate
Stage 5: lower birth rate than death rate

Many western areas (US, Europe, etc.) are in stage four or five, with native-born populations decreasing (although immigration may lead to a net increase).

India and China are in stage three, which is the stage with explosive population growth. This is because modern medicine and technology has drastically increase their expected lifespan and decreased death rates. Birth rates, which are subject to cultural/economic factors, have not yet adjusted to match the lower death rate. This creates population growth.

India and China went through a very quick transition from stage 2 from stage 3. This is largely due to their adoption of Western medicine and technology during the 20th century. The quicker the transition, the more explosive the population growth.

Knowing mother nature, she’ll introduce a new predator to cull our numbers.

@Mr_Paradox C.H.U.D.s

Soylent Green.

^^ was waiting for that answer

cyanide pie.

Don’t blame me as far as I know I have not had any kids. HA!

But you are right humans are cruising for a big bruising. Something has got to give and it won’t be pretty or kind. Even all of the wars and aborted babies don’t seem to slow the ballooning people population growth.

China has a one child per couple law that must be helping somewhat. Perhaps such a system coupld be implemented around the planet. If that doesn’t work well enough then some sort of child lottery system may work? If not then we always just let nature run it’s course with massive starvation to weed out the weak.

Anyway this really isn’t a problem that I will have to deal with as I will be long gone when it really gets bad. I feel so sad for future generations.

@PhiNotPi is right. One reason for lower birth rates in developed countries is that people with more education wait longer to have children, and have fewer children. The other reason is the low death rate. If most of your children will survive to adulthood/old age, you don’t need to have as many in the first place.

Western Europe and north America had a population explosion during the industrial revolution, because we were transitioning from one type of society to another. The same kind of thing is happening in developing countries today. If the economies of these countries keep growing, the people there will have better access to housing, education, healthcare, etc. The birth rate and death rate should level off on their own.

@ETpro You always ask such easy questions! I always answer them; I don’t know.
Makes me feel like Scarlett O Hara duh.

We are not overpopulated. That is a long standing myth – even alarmism.

We are poorly distributed. That’s the real problem. There is ample room for every human on earth (and billions more) if we made better use of land and did a better job of settlement in the uninhabited areas of the world.

Take the US for a simple example. Nebraska, Oklahoma, the Dakotas, Idaho – very sparsely populated. Ample space for tens of millions more in each state.

What is needed is far better planning and economic incentives for distribution. What is NOT needed is genocide or mindless population control.

The US will level off in the next 20 years, I think. The baby boomers will buy the farm and more young couple are sowing their wild oats well-protected.

If we could stop the Pope from preaching anti – condom tripe to third world countries, we’d be in good shape.

@Seek_Kolinahr I’m liking the new one so far. He seems to be slowly changing the Church’s position on many issues.

@elbanditoroso – Resources matter, when distributing people like that. A lot of places are empty because there’s just not enough there to support a big population. In the case of the Great Plains, when the aquifers are empty (and they’re emptying fast), it will only be fit to carry the kind of population that lived there before colonization, such as nomadic bands following the herds.

Re: China’s one child policy—It doesn’t cover everyone in China, by a long shot. Foreigners living in China, ethnic minorities (such as Tibetans), rural dwellers, people whose first child was a daughter, people who have a kid but remarry a childless spouse, and parents who were only-children themselves can all be exemptions. Link. “As of 2007, 35.9% of the population were subject to a strict one-child limit.”

Education and reason needs to replace mindless faith, ignorance and superstition. The areas of the world with the highest birthrates seem to be inhabited with people who have rather rudimentary mindsets and outlooks on things.

There are a group of local religious conservatives who write articles for my newspaper, and their comments reassure me why reason needs to replace authoritarianism. These conservatives have repeatedly written articles attacking those who’ve brought up the same points as those in the OP here.

The U.S population has risen over the past few decades, while Russia’s population has dropped dramatically. It also seems that many Muslim countries have increased their populations dramtically as well.

To be honest, as far as Earth is concerned we should have nothing to worry about. I’m sure the Earth will ‘fix’ itself, but we may not be a part of it anymore when the ‘repairs’ are done!

Sterilize stupid people. They tend to pop out more kids than the rest of the population. Before you know it, all the trailer parks in the country would be vacant.

I don’t think it will be very long, and we’re going to have another world war on our hands. That will take care of the over population for a while. Sad, I know.

Teach people about responsible reproduction (in vitro versus adoption, etc…).
Teach them to love THEMSELVES so they don’t need mini-me’s for their own naricisstic needs.
Change societal mores so people are not expected or rewarded (via taxes) for reproducing.
Cut aid if you have more than one child while on State assistance, mandatory sterilization.

@snowberry I would hope we’d be smart enough to know better. But depressingly, I read today that 95% of Americans are now illiterate regarding science. Being the one remaining superpower and consuming ¼ of Earth’s energy resources with just 5% of Earth’s population, that suggests you are probably right.

@KNOWITALL Excellent answers.

Tell the Duggar family from 19 kids and counting that just because your body is capable of reproducing, doesn’t mean you need to keep popping them out…wrap it up!

Create the world’s biggest Shaker community
@livelaughlove21 Hitler tried that. [along with Jews, Catholics, gays, crazies, orphans, elderly, gypsies etc etc]

@anartist Actually, Catholics weren’t targeted by Hitler. They were a major part of how power base because the Jews killed Jesus (never mind that Jesus was a Jew). Legitimate labor leaders were on his list, though.

To paraphrase Shakespeare: A plague on all our houses.