"Controlling" world populace

Figment · 2012-07-15, 06:29 AM

Overpopulation is bound to happen at some point. Many say it already is at that point. The Chinese even institute a one child policy (ironically leading to there being too few girls in China because people start messing with Gaussian distribution to continue their family lineage).

Land and resources are limited. What will be the consequences for economy, land, etc? Who will suffer first, how and why? What's next? How can you prevent it? How can you prolong the inevitable? Is there any point in food-aid if the next food shortage is only going to be worse?

Some questions to get you started.

**Malorn** · 2012-07-15, 12:01 PM

Meh.

Vash02 · 2012-07-15, 12:41 PM

Originally Posted by Malorn

When Germany needed more breeding room and implemented solutions to population control the rest of the world got upset.

But by all means continue, this will be an amusing thread.

This post failed so hard in terms of history and decency.

Warborn · 2012-07-15, 02:48 PM

Nice that we went Godwin by the second post. Never stop posting, Malorn.

The real question is whether population will become an issue before something else makes it a non-issue. Problems that stretch really far into the future -- centuries in this case -- are hard to get excited about, because there are so many other things which could very easily affect the outcome in a major way. Perhaps solar/wind/nuclear/etc will see a major revolution in efficiency and vertical farms will take off and we'll be able to feed a population so large that it spills the banks of our living room. Or maybe not, and we'll have major famines world-wide.

therandomone · 2012-07-15, 04:17 PM

Originally Posted by Malorn

When Germany needed more breeding room and implemented solutions to population control the rest of the world got upset.

But by all means continue, this will be an amusing thread.

Originally Posted by Malorn

Lot of anti-semite bigots here.

He's right, this is amusing.

Neurotoxin · 2012-07-15, 05:08 PM

Two ways. One is do nothing and let things sort themselves out however they do, but you can't complain about the results.

The other is the improvement of social conditions worldwide, such as that everyone's basic needs are fulfilled. Once everyone has food, clothing, housing, utilities, education, and medical care, we will have the social conditions that will make it much easier for people to want to have less children. Parents won't need to rely on their children as investments in their own future. With education, everyone can actually discuss the subject in a reasonable way.

therandomone · 2012-07-15, 05:34 PM

Originally Posted by Neurotoxin

Two ways. One is do nothing and let things sort themselves out however they do, but you can't complain about the results.

The other is the improvement of social conditions worldwide, such as that everyone's basic needs are fulfilled. Once everyone has food, clothing, housing, utilities, education, and medical care, we will have the social conditions that will make it much easier for people to want to have less children. Parents won't need to rely on their children as investments in their own future. With education, everyone can actually discuss the subject in a reasonable way.

The problem that could arise from the second solution is that as mortality rates decrease the population could end up increasing anyway due to births> mortality. As that is the case in the US right now. Only a handful of nations have a negative population growth,such as Japan. The only way I could think of is to attack the motivations people have when deciding to have kids. You touched on one but there's always more than one reason. Another way to hit the financial side of things would be to remove the tax incentives. Granted that doesn't touch on the psychological side,but that one is much trickier and I'm not sure there's a clear cut way to do that.

Baneblade · 2012-07-15, 05:52 PM

Well with the increase in abortions, I think we are doing alright controlling our population.

Sirisian · 2012-07-15, 07:06 PM

I'd actually be for tax credits only up to two children over a lifetime (with obvious exceptions for naturally born twins and such). Getting the US even to start dropping in population would be wonderful. I think Neurotoxin hit on the most of the important ones to getting all countries to decrease their population.

Originally Posted by Baneblade

Well with the increase in abortions, I think we are doing alright controlling our population.

Getting sex education out to as many people as possible needs to be on the top of the list. Melinda Gates is a strong supporter of that. As mentioned healthcare is a huge part of it. If people have access to simple stuff like free birth control it goes a long way to reducing accidental pregnancies.

Another concept that is often missing is destroying cultural ideas of large families. There are some people in the world who believe having massive families is important, so targeting those cultural ways of thinking is very important.

There is a high ethical side to this. I mean are you restricting people's liberties by telling them they can't have 3 or more children unless they adopt? You'd have groups in the US who would fight teeth and nail against even the most reasonable forms of population control. We already have huge problems in the US for people that don't want sex education to be taught at all which is causing teen pregnancy issues in those states.

Warborn · 2012-07-15, 10:09 PM

Originally Posted by Baneblade

Well with the increase in abortions, I think we are doing alright controlling our population.

I didn't bother checking any other nations, but in both USA and Canada the abortion rate has been in decline for a while. It spiked a bit recently in the US but nothing major.

Baneblade · 2012-07-16, 12:46 AM

I was poking fun at our willingness to slaughter each other before we are born, but after that we would rather enslave, kill, or starve millions rather then make a proactive decision to make it obsolete.

Saifoda · 2012-07-16, 03:39 AM

Originally Posted by DjEclipse

I miss Tupac. Have money for wars but can't feed the poor.

We already have population control, it's all the miserable shit we kill for.

We don't do nearly enough killing anymore. Sad, sad killing

.

Mutant · 2012-07-16, 06:54 AM

The plan for best case scenario;

Improve child mortality (lower it - If you know your 1st/2nd child will live to old age there is less reason to have more)
Improve female education (increase it - Women who are more educated tend want less children and are able to make the decisions for themselves)
Ensure access to contraception / family planning. (once people want to have less children make it easy for them to do what they want)

After this most populations birth rates tend towards the replacement rate.

Excluding mass deaths due to war/natural disaster etc the world population will stabilise in 50ish years around 10 billion. We might be able to keep it closer to 9 billion if we go after this aggressively.

Then we just need to ensure enough food / water / resources to go around and we are ok.

well it is that or the mass killing.

Figment · 2012-07-16, 07:14 AM

You'd also have to convince all the world religions to stop wanting more children to raise as followers and become/remain the dominant group.

That or turn people off religion.

Baneblade · 2012-07-16, 08:16 AM

Honestly, over population is going to be our most likely apocalypse. At some point we will reach critical mass and a full collapse will start. After that the world population will swan dive into an empty pool.