Is it possible that violence, mental health issues, and other social challenges are byproducts of overpopulation?
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Violence, crime, general dickheadedness, those are all intrinsic traits of the human race.
No. But it’s easier to see. There are simply more mentally ill, or otherwise challenged people walking the Earth. It’s statistics. There are 7 billion of us now. So. There will be more unstable people, than when there were 5 billion etc…. And more, when we reach 10 billion.
I wouldn’t call the Earth overpopulated. There is PLENTY here, if we worked together….
Yes. Overcrowded conditions lead to less tolerance for behavior that affects other people, combined with an increased incidence of such behavior.
The US population is approaching 325 million. That is a 60% increase from when I was in garde school. The “rush hour” commute my Dad used to make took him half an hour in 1968. Fifty years later, it would take an hour. No reason except population growth.
Overpopulation has led to widespread homelessness as the comeptition for housing increases weekly. There are parts of San Francsico and Oakland that make the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression look like a weekend jaunt- overcrowded tent cities on sidewalks and under freeways.
@zenvelo: ”Overpopulation has led to widespread homelessness…”
You misspelled capitalism.
Oh my god @seawulf575 I am agreeing with you yet again.
I think it is a big part of it YES!
But it wouldn’t be as bad if like what @MrGrimm888 is saying we work together, and get these people help,instead of shunning them,but that costs money and we can’t have that.
No. That stuff was happening a long time ago, even back in 1930 when the world’s population was only estimated to be 2 billion. Some social challenges are definitely products of overpopulation, and mental health issues are probably just more noticed, but could be results of pollutants/chemicals in the environment, like birth control drugs are on declining world sperm counts.
Yes. Higher population leads to more stresses, which lead to anxiety and other social issues. An example: higher population means that it’s more difficult to find a job or get into a university, both of which cause undue stress in young people. Higher population means more traffic, and higher traffic is associated with low quality of life (California was just ranked the state with the worst quality of life and its traffic is a major factor in that, as are its sky-high home prices, which are due to high demand and again, high population).
Higher population also means that people feel more anonymous, they feel more like a faceless cog in a machine, there’s a lack of ability to differentiate oneself from the crowd that just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
Yes, however it’s not the population number itself, but the resulting conditions in specific places because of the number of people AND the situations with those people which may be made more difficult with many people living in the same place. For example, cultural mixes that feature intolerance and xenophobia and clashing moral codes, economic behavior such as raised prices, perceived competition for limited opportunities, crowdedness, lack of space and peace and quiet. traffic congestion, religious feuds, etc.
Not to mention that overpopulation tends to also involve excessive consumption, excessive use of land by humans, eradication of natural environments, putting humans in conflict with the continued survival of the planet, which stresses out the parts of us who still love and care for our planet as a whole, causing some of us to dissociate and rationalize and/or become even more cynical, etc…
A truly dim wit is required to accept anything so ludicrous as the notion that our troubles stem from overpopulation. That is unless you are referring to the “overpopulation” of people with declining standards of living. No one with a brain and an even rudimentary appreciation of this country can seriously state that the United States is overpopulated. The resources are plentiful, and God knows there’s plenty enough to go around. It is in the manner that those resources are distributed that stresses are generated and the resulting “byproducts” proliferate.
@stanleybmanly The US is not the world as a whole. And our continuing to have lots of babies doesn’t contribute to the world’s welfare as a whole. Take your blinders off! At the current rate, the world’s population will hit 15 billion by this century’s end, 24 billion by the next. (Based on the current growth rate of about 90 million per year.)
One other thought…when you are thinking about overpopulation, don’t just think of overpopulation for the whole country, but locally as well.
@seawulf575 Yeah, I wouldn’t say the U.S. is actually “overpopulated” in that the resources can’t provide for the amount of people, but certainly some areas are reaching their limit. And there are of course other parts of the world where a huge population is underserved by the resources.
Dare I say it’s the root of most problem in the world. We’ve limited resources on earth so adding more liabilities will naturally cause more problem, it’s as simple as that. I just hope that those who contribute to overpopulation through excessive, irresponsible breeding are the ones who should pay all the price.
@thisismyusername The resources owned by those people are the result of their effort (whether it’s ethical or not). You work hard your earn more. That does not mean that other people are entitled with what some people have gained in their lives. Moreover, the resources monopolized by some people are impossibly available to most people in the public, therefore most other people will still fight for the same limited resources that are available to them.
Irresponsible breeding refers to creating more life forms (while we have too much already) without paying attention to how these new life forms can maintain themselves or improving the society and not causing more problems to the environment and other people. Breeding with lack of food resources and education for the offsprings will eventually lend itself to create depraving lifestyle that lead to poverty and criminal activities.
Any chimney sweeper works harder than someone like Drumpf ever will.
@Unofficial_Member: “The resources owned by those people are the result of their effort ”
badumdum! good stuff.
@Unofficial_Member – Be more specific with your “irresponsible breeding” please. I sense there may be some dog whistling here. Don’t want to jump to conclusions.
@thisismyusername honestly, all you do is criticizing my opinions. If you find the idea of overpopulation is so endearing or if you think it won’t have adverse effect to society then feel free to think like that but know that the reality speaks differently.
Then allow me to put it bluntly for you. People keep on making babies without a care in the world of how they can support their babies from childhood until adulthood as well as providing required amount of education to ensure that their kids will be of value to the society (or at least won’t become a problem or liability to other people) are the very few examples that can define “irresponsible breeding”.
The world we live on has a limitation in space, and it’s not hard to imagine that someday in the far future you can’t walk a foot without seeing another human being because the world is basically too cramped with people. Doesn’t mean that we can ignore it now or do nothing to the minimize the rate of human population.
@ragingloli I meant it as generic idea. I did not say that other people don’t work as hard or hard enough nor did I discredit their effort. Yes, the world might be unfair to these people but that doesn’t justify them multiplying like ants when they can’t even support their offspring. The bottom point is you need money to create more life. If you don’t have enough, don’t make one.
@Unofficial_Member “We’ve limited resources on earth so adding more liabilities will naturally cause more problem, it’s as simple as that. I just hope that those who contribute to overpopulation through excessive, irresponsible breeding are the ones who should pay all the price.”
What about those who over-consume our planet’s limited resources (regardless of their breeding habits)?
@Darth_Algar That would be… unusual, as it proves to serve no economical value unless such thing produce happiness for the person who own the resources. Generally, people will only consume what’s needed, over-consumption will lead to wastage but what’s important is whether or not such resources are owned by the person who commit over-consumption. If you own an petroleum plant (unlikely) and yield tons of oil then decided to burn off all the oil that you couldn’t use/sell then you’re perfectly ok to do so. It’s your own resources, you may use it however you like, overconsume or not. Most important resources of limited value are owned, or at least managed or regulated by the government so your scenario of ‘over-consumption’ seems like a farfetch idea as like I said it won’t be beneficial for the business, government, and people of said country.
While overconsumption can be separated from overpopulation lets not forget that overpopulation does affect and play a major role in how high the rate of consumption for resources, be they limited or not.
@Unofficial_Member I just hope that those who contribute to overpopulation through excessive, irresponsible breeding are the ones who should pay all the price.?
Well if they produce more descendants and the world becomes a hell-hole for future generations, they’ll have more suffering descendants on it, at least.
As for over-consumption, huh? There’s a massive difference between what different people choose to consume, both by nation and on an individual basis. Having more people multiplies the consumption, but some people live relatively sustainably and others seem to go out of their way to waste as much of the planet as they can, which can multiply their relative impact-per-person by many times.
Of course, it really doesn’t help when some cultures have economic ideas that ever-increasing consumption is actually a positive goal…
One article lists:
“On average, one American consumes as much energy as
o 2 Japanese
o 6 Mexicans
o 13 Chinese
o 31 Indians
o 128 Bangladeshis
o 307 Tanzanians
o 370 Ethiopians
@Zaku got the point.
We, as a culture, like to point our fingers a lot at other peoples, especially those poorer nations. They’re the ones having all the offspring, they’re the ones overpopulating, it’s all their fault, they’re the ones that should pay the price.
But each and every one of us comfortable 1st worlders are the ones eating up all the world’s resources. Cheap goods, gadgets out the ass, ginormous, gas-guzzling SUVs, ridiculously large houses on ridiculously large plots of land, temperatures in our houses, cars, offices, ect all perfectly heated and cooled down to the degree, more food than we can possibly eat, fruits and vegetables in abundance year-round. We just consume, consume, consume. More oil, more coal, more metal, more food, more comfort, more convenience, more material. More, more, more. And we delude ourselves into thinking that we deserve it all simply because we want it.
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