What should we do about the Earth overpopulating?

Homosexuality?

i say start by killing off all the gloomy guses…

I mean, the Rapture is happening any day now, so we probably shouldn’t worry about running out or resources.

- Only Vaguely Misquoted from James G. Watt, former Secretary of the Interior under Reagan.

Populations are actually going down in small developed countries, like Italy and Japan. If we can figure out some way to bring up the standard of living in countries with fast growing populations, maybe we can come closer to solving the problem.

;;loads gun;;

I have no idea…

Determine a means to utilize the collective physical and intellectual capacities of the populace so as to devise a method by which the entirety of said population can survive, coexist, and thrive peacefully.

The sad thing is, I don’t think there is a way to handle this. The Chinese are the only people who have made a law restricting childbirth, and they’re probably the only ones who would be able to make something like that work. If President Obama tried to tell Americans they can only have one kid, well… It wouldn’t go very well. Especially with people like John and Kate Plus Eight around.

It is true what @Haleth said about the shrinking populations of Italy and Japan. But meanwhile, there is effectively no birth control to speak of being used in many countries of Africa, which is creating not only a larger but a poorer, less healthy human population.

If we indeed could raise the standard of living in highly populated third-world countries, maybe the population could be stabilized. But that would take a whole lot of work and organization to achieve.

And after all, it is the most basic need of any species to procreate. The only thing that will effectively stop the overpopulation of this planet is probably going to be some large-scale natural (or nuclear) disaster, not something planned out by humans themselves.

I wouldn’t mind terribly @jobe‘s solution. But I’m in a minority for that one, surely.

Then there was that proposal, that modest one, by a Mr. Swift? It addressed only a slightly different problem.

You might consider looking at how China implements a single-child policy. Of course, the policy can be circumvented entirely if a family is willing to pay for their extra children, so even that method isn’t entirely effective.

We don’t need to do anything. It will work itself out. People always worry about this and it makes no sense.

Before I spend time laying out why it wont happen, please tell me what you think will happen the day when the first person born is over the limit of what the earth can hold.

@ParaParaYukiko Good points but maybe raising adoption awareness would also help?

isn’t that why the republicans invented aids, to kill off africans?

@jackm We are already over what the earth was supposed to be able to handle and because of our large population we eat many poisonous foods today. Don’t you think this is a problem?

@TheCreative
Whats the number?

@jackm
over 9000

@ragingloli
O RLY?

@TheCreative Increased adoption would certainly help. I’ve heard, however, that adoption can be a very messy, difficult and expensive process, much more so than just having a kid yourself. If there was a way to change that, adoptions would probably increase.

Plus, it’s natural for people to want to have their own child with their same eyes, hair, etc. It’s part of the natural need to pass on one’s genes, and it’s why many women choose IVF over adoption. Things like these are hard to change.

I am all for having to have a license to have a child. I don’t think the problem is too many people it’s not enough smart people. There’s plenty of room here, plenty.

@ParaParaYukiko Very true. It would be hard to change. What a world we live in.

Well at least I’m going to adopt! ;p

@TheCreative Yay! I would not be against the idea of adopting myself, either. My sister just had a baby, though, and it kind of sparked the “Aww, I want a little me, too!” idea in me. Not that I’m having a kid any time soon, no way… but that’s just the very basic instinct for me to pass on my genes. It’s amazing how much power one’s animal instincts really have, even in these days.

Like @aphilotus said, the Rapture is happening any day now, and when the faithful all go into heaven, those of us left behind will feel like NYC is the wide open spaces of Wyoming. unless the Rapture already happened, and nobody measured up?~

Soylent Green anyone? That might solve the population problem. I nominate the vegetarians to be first; everyone knows vegetarians always taste better than carnivores. Besides, you can’t get vegans to eat meat anyway.

I did my part for population control, I didn’t end up with offspring. It’s not my problem now.

Removed by Me.

To solve the overall problem is not within our ability. We can try to convince everyone that it is, indeed a problem, but other than that, only a natural act (widespread starvation or disease) will provide temporary relief.

…. I dont like babies.

We just need to knock some sense into the Duggard family. That is way too many kids. Aren’t they expecting a 19th child?

Nature takes care of over population with diseases and natural disasters.

A tsunami here, a swine flu there and everything shakes itself out.

Provide free condoms to every underdeveloped population.

The biggest problem with overpopulation is that capitalism relies on growth – and we have nothing to replace it with. This means a shrinking population will also have a shrinking economy, and people will never stand for that. We should be actively pursuing political research into this problem. It is my personal opinion that it will lead to a large scale war for food, where genocide will be considered part of the horrors of war rather than a war crime.

There are two successful strategies:

1) Good education for every human being on this planet, especially girls and young women
2) Ending poverty

Both will lead to widespread use of contraception. We can observe this effect in urban India.

Well we can all make a start by not having children ourselves…

We will max.out. (we already have)
We will kill ourselves off. (we already are)
We will take drastic measures in drastic times, and in the end who ever is left. Will start over.

The cycle of life.

Making parents be proactive about their 13 year old’s having children.
Stopping the “baby mamas”
Maybe we should take out reproductive organs at birth – and when youre financially and psychologically ready to have a child.. you’ll get them back :)

@pinkparaluies – That is what I say.

Tubal Ligation and Vasectomy. Voluntary and given by Uncle Sam. Then up to the age of 30 to have it reversed and paid for.

If you can’t play correctly.. your toys will be taken away until you can learn to behave properly ;)

Nothing. It will balance back out if we do nothing. There will not be enough mouths to feed, then the population will die back down. This is what happens with all species of animal. If we keep sending aid to countries who cannot afford to live and eat, then we’re prolonging the natural balance of things. Also, much of that aid does not go where it is needed, but rather to governments.

Also, if we do nothing, humanity will tend to spread out. The world is full of space and resources for all of man to survive. If we send aid (which is never really enough) to destitute countries, they will remain there to feed on the scraps and not bother to try to venture out for their own survival.

Stop screwing around.

You know, capitalism is one of the biggest reason for all the problems we still have today. Capitalism will not and should not last forever. Think about it.

Wow thanks for all your responses everyone!

@FireMadeFlesh and @rawrgrr Hmm.. interesting. I’ll will think about all that. Thanks!

with all the disasters and death, and less kids in the us anyway don’t you think it will be just fine.

I think it’s funny that the problem is intertwined in the answer. The biggest problem is food production and the biggest problem with food production are the chicken littles of the world freaking out about “poisonous foods”... as though “organic” fertilizers didn’t contain exactly the same toxins as non-organic fertilizers… as though present day genetic modification to plants and food crops that have been genetically modified for thousands of years is somehow a bad thing.

The problem is rooted in misinformation and naturalistic fallacy. Several time the OP says that the world has “more people than it was ‘designed’ to hold”. Either that’s a relgious term (God had a maximum occupancy in mind but somehow lost control of the population) or it’s just meaningless since the world wasn’t “designed” to hold any particular number of anything.

It’s worth noting that the whole of the world population could comfortably fit into Florida. The real challenge is food production, but food yields are growing faster than population so as long as the misinformation is kept in check that won’t be a real issue. The other problem is energy production and there are a lot of really promising leads in that direction too… again, if the misinformation is kept in check.

It’s funny that we’re getting this harmful misinformation from both sides of the political spectrum too. The liberals are filling everyone full of nonsense about organic and GM foods while the conservatives are filling everyone full of nonsense about fuel production. As long as we take the time to educate ourselves and vet our sources, we should be fine.

@crazyivan The biggest problem with overpopulation is pollution and land degradation. The population we have is not living in a sustainable manner, and we do not have the money or time to re-engineer our society to produce less pollutants and to reduce our environmental impact. That leaves us with only one option – a smaller population creating a smaller sum of pollutants.

Then there are the problems with a lack of infrastructure, inability to provide appropriately advanced healthcare to the whole population, homelessness, and the lack of forward planning in modern politics.

Well we’re starting wars as fast as we can… I’d say that’s some forward planning in modern politics.