ScaryCool Theories: Overpopulation

[ScaryCool]

Let's get right to it. We see lots and lots other issues being talked about in the media, but none of them anywhere near what we need to really address in the here and now such as

overpopulation in the world.

In the year 1900 the world's population was at 1.7 Billion

Today it is 7.6 Billion

That is about 3.5-4 times the amount it was only a little more than 100 years ago.

We can't continue to go at a rate like that. In China, they placed a policy in 1979 where only 1 child per family was allowed and we all know they outnumber US citizens today by about 4x

Some people may think down on China for interfering with people's lives like that but really think about it. Think about the traffic in your area, the population of it. If it SEEMS crowded, imagine if it grew 4 times that amount.

I know this may seem a little crazy, but if we're to survive on this planet for centuries to come, I feel we're definitely going to need to stop growing somewhere along the line. Resources are not infinite.

We have an area of trash in the ocean that is twice the size of Texas. That may not completely correlate and you could argue that we just need a better ways to handle it (which is an understatement), but until that is figured out, this is one issue that I believe does connect in the end.

Perhaps setting limits to a 3 kids at the most more globally? Very much a easier said than done situation and I do not LIKE the idea, I just feel it's a logical one for now.

Also please keep in mind, this is an issue that ALL parts of the world should really consider. All countries can experience this.

What are you thoughts on this? Any other solutions or perhaps something else pointing to otherwise that may put my mind at ease?

I at least hope it was thought provoking!

[hellionthesagereborn]

Overpopulation is not a thing, its never been a thing and even if it was a thing, and it is not, the end result would be famine and death which would then bring our population back down to a sustainable level so it wouldn't have a long term impact nor would it risk our existence. However the idea of overpopulation was posited some time in the late 1800s if memory serves, it was due to the increase in population but the guy who came up with the theory noticed that farming could only produce a certain amount of food, so he thought that at the current rate we would end up being over populated however many many things happened, variables, that he did not account for like refrigeration, artificial fertilizers, advances in irrigation, and pesticides and preservatives all of which increased the shelf life of food significantly and increased its production significantly (we currently are producing food enough to feed over 11 billion people and that's only from half the world using this technology as effectively as it can.) and its distribution. The other factor is population growth. We made advances in medicine (penicilian did not exist when this theory was created so he could not have predicted the billions of lives that would be saved with this discovery), so prior people would have ten children in the hopes one or two would reach adult hood, we then had technological advances which saved most of those lives resulting in a huge jump in population, however upon realizing that we no longer needed to have ten children (very costly and exhausting endevour) people stopped. In fact most countries in the west are actually having NEGATIVE population growth, we have the exact opposite problem of what you are proposing. The only place where we are seeing an increase in population is Africa which itself is expected to plateu within the next 50 years or so as infrastructures and governments stabilize. So again, Over population is not only not a thing, we are suffering from a loss of population.

[HOAAH]

I have heard this argument also, in the US and Japan we are not having that many kids anymore.

[hellionthesagereborn]

@HOAAH Yeah, most places have a negative birth rate so they are in fact going to start losing population if something isn't done. Don't know how this overpopulation thing is still talked about in this day and age, I mean if you took every human currently alive, you could fit them in an area the size of LA, and even spread out we only take up 30% of the total land (this is excluding Antarctica) so we are not even using up that much land either.

[ScaryCool]

Land wasn't really the issue and even with the population growth going down (which I will admit I didn't take into affect as I shouldve), it's been shown in many cases that we're using more than we should in many aspects of life. Bees disappearing as they have could be catastrophic for vegetation and the gases produced by the big industrial farms are not small amounts, they rival the cars themselves. You could actually argue overpopulation has already occurred due to the impacts being created today. I'll be happy to take it back once technology advancements can solve these issues like it did in the past, but until that is the case I would say overpopulation is occuring to a degree in this sense as if we were a much smaller group then we could perhaps afford to live the way that we do now. Plus like you said, famine and death evens it out but that's kind of what I'd like to avoid haha

[hellionthesagereborn]

That's not true though. Bees disappearing has nothing to do with us being "over populated", we don't know what is causing that and we have many people actively breeding them so they shouldn't be dwindling but are (which is why its so alarming because we can't figure out why). Don't know what gases you are talking about, I presume CO2? If that is true then that is actually helping vegetation and the environment as not only are we sorely lacking in it comparative to many other times in not just our history but through out the history of the planet, but with its current increase our planet is now greener then ever before (probably since the middle ages when we had a global warming event like the current one). As for overpopulation "happening", again we have negative birth rates, we don't even produce enough people to replace the ones that are currently living: en.wikipedia.org/.../List_of_countries_by_population_growth_rate

[hellionthesagereborn]

Its considered to be a neutral growth rate if your population growth is 2.5(ish) two to replace the parents and the half to account for any untimely deaths. As you can see from that chart out of the 250 odd countries/territories most are at plateu or under. In the west they are negative meaning that its actually loosing more people then are being born by an substantial rate. Again, what your saying is overpopulation isn't, both in actual population and its supposed impact which the impacts themselves are not only provably not man made ergo not related to population, but are provably beneficial (again, the planet has not been greener then it is in hundreds of years which means more food and more resources for both humans as well as animals as well as a better environment for plants.)

[zagor]

Absolute crap. Negative population growth is a GOOD thing, to an extent. We need to stop ALL immigration from countries that have an unacceptable birthrate so they can stew in their juices and have to deal with their own inability to curb reproduction rates.

People who say "oh, it's not a problem" and "there's plenty for all" are Mathematical and Environmental illiterates who should just be ignored in the debate due to their sheer ignorance.

[hellionthesagereborn]

@zagor I'm sorry, I've already explained why what you said is stupid and why you clearly don't understand math, history, or facts. Please read before stating something stupid again, I'd really appreciate it. But to clarify this theory came out when you need about three times as much land to produce half the food, we don't do that any more and as we develop new technology we can produce more and more with less and less so we are actually able to do significantly more with less which means less environmental impact (which again, if you believe in global warming then you really don't know science or what is going on in the world as their have been five major ice ages, five major global warming events followed by many smaller ones like the late antiquity warming period, followed by the dark ages cooling period, followed by the medieval warming period, followed by the "mini ice age" during the renascence, followed by the current warming period (its almost as if it had a pattern)).

[zagor]

There is the whole "quality of life" thing to be considered as well. When you see pictures of people in, say, Tehran, sitting in traffic jams unable to move, does that make you say, yeah, wish it was like that here. Yes, electric and self-driving vehicles would help curb the smog side, but they won't do anything about the incredible claustrophobia of it all.

Also, the US does NOT have a negative growth rate, even without new immigration. It is one of the few First World countries for which that is true.

And overall, the population continues to grow globally.

So if you think there aren't enough people here, move to India. Don't fuck up MY country with your absurd ideas that sound like they were crafted by the Vatican. There are always those who have claimed, oh, the oceans are so vast we can just dump our crap in them forever. That there is no need to do anything that inconveniences our base instincts. History is proving them wrong.

[hellionthesagereborn]

@zagor Yes quality of life, how is that related to over population? Its not. As for traffick jams did you know that most traffic jams are alleviated by removing roads? Its because every one takes the same damn route instead of trying other paths i. e. people are stupid, not over populated. Tehran has nothing to do with overpopulation and everything to do with a shitty political system. We produce more food then their are people by a substantial margin, we take up less then a third of available land (this is excluding Antarctica, with Antarctica its even less). The US population growth rate is.81% making it a negative growth rate. So again, your argument is not an argument its willfull ignorance, or stupidity but in any case your wrong.

[zagor]

Trying other paths? Like building a freeway every 3 miles?

Of course traffic wouldn't be as bad if tech companies let more people work remotely instead of following the current trend of "agile", necessitating everyone together every morning. But that is a whole other matter I won't bother with here.

When a bridge is built to be able to hold 40,000 lbs, they don't build it such that it breaks at 40,020 lbs. Likewise, seeing how far we can get with population growth isn't a very bright move. No one needs to have 8 kids, no matter who they are and where in the world. Very simply, an increasing population strains resources, exacerbates pollution, increases political instability, and decreases the value of human life. Which of those do you disagree with?

And sorry for being a little rude in a previous comment.

[hellionthesagereborn]

@zagor A dying population puts a greater strain on our systems then a growing population. Our resources are not limited, at the moment using non optimal methods of farming we produce more then enough food to feed 11billion people, and that number is growing. We use less materials then before because we are now learning to make composits that require less materials with significantly better results. We see technology improving rapidly. Historically their was so much violence because in order to survive you had to steal the land and resources of your neighbor, currently thanks to technology we live in the most peaceful time our species has EVER known. We have figured out how to grow more with less, produce more with less, we have learned how to take our waste products which where a serious issue historically and reuse it. Even our land fills produce something (energy through decomposition). What your saying is not accurate. Apology accepted.

[zagor]

A population that is at stable or negative growth is not "dying". It's not like the species is going to disappear. Historically, there have been a number of periods when population shrunk, due to famine, disease, war, etc. It is the past couple hundred years that have been the exception, with unrelenting fast growth due to improvements in health care and food production. So we need to (and are, in developed nations) counteract that by making sure birth control is available to all, and isolate the nations and religions that refuse to reign in the babymaking.

[hellionthesagereborn]

@zagor Its not a stable growth though. It takes two people to produce life, if they produce only one life that means they have 1 offspring to replace the two lost. So anything under that 2 mark is not stable, its a slow loss and decline i. e. a negative population growth. That is why 2.5 is considered stable because it replaces the two parents keeping the population stable and the.5 helps accomadate for deaths from accidents/disease of people who did not reproduce. You say their is unrelenting growth but that is an out right fabrication, the only place that has seen any increase is Africa and its predicted to stabilize by 2050s. Every where else it plateaued over 50 years ago and has been decreasing in recent decades. As I said this is what the science and statistics say, its not an opinion its a proven fact. You can continue arguing against it but you might as well be arguing that the sun revolves around the earth, its simply not going to be true.

[zagor]

But you conveniently ignored what I said about groups that have higher birth rates becoming a larger portion of the population, which sustains high birth rates, and makes up for other groups having less-than-replacement rates.

And negative population growth doesn't mean people will disappear. As I said, populations have fluctuated throughout history. It is just in modern times that it has taken off.

[hellionthesagereborn]

@zagor You conviently ignored literally everything I said. Populations platue so it doesn't matter, once a group gets access to better health and children survive they decrease how many children they have substantially as we have seen in literally every single other case without a single exception. This is just what it is and their is nothing you can say that will alter the reality or the data we have on the subject.

[zagor]

But that is NOT happening in some populations. Look at the ultra-orthodox Jews both in Israel and the US. Look at some of the splinter Mormon groups.

[hellionthesagereborn]

@zagor Yes, some very tiny groups which are so insignificant are not losing population, but that is for different reasons which I pointed out. If you live in a community that shuns or lacks modern technology, modern medicine then your going to have to have more children. However lets pretend that this is a thing (which no evidence has been provided), how is that going to impact the population? Its not. If they make up less then 1% of the population, and the other 90% are having negative birth rates and another 9% are starting to have their populations plateu then that 1% is not going to do anything, our population is still going to be in the negatives and they are not going to be able to offset it. Again, overpopulation is not an issue, its not happening and the thing we have to worry about is becoming underpopulated.

[zagor]

There are over 7 billion people, likely to hit 8 in the next decade or so. Up until the 1920's, there were never more than 2 billion people at one time, and the world did fine. Barring nuclear war or asteroid strike, how could underpopulation possibly ever be an issue? That is just absurd. There may be some minor inconveniences due to an increase in average age, but that is nothing compared to the possible environmental and social issues due to overgrowth.

[hellionthesagereborn]

@zagor Already covered literally all of this. Read all that I wrote and you will find your rebutell.

[RolandCuthbert]

He might have a solution.

www.sideshowtoy.com/.../...dios-feature-903491.jpg

But realistically. There is no real platform now for addressing issues that threaten the entire world. Which is why a lot of people have little hope humans can survive for much longer.

I cannot be optimistic.

But I am hopeful.

[Tomblebee]

Maybe no lids, until proven fit for parenthood?

[CoffeeWC]

I agree. The human population can only go so high with a limited supply of resources.

[SaintJonesy]

Absolutely, I agree. Overpopulation is the root cause of just about every other major issue we're facing as a species right now: the water crisis, global warming, the refugee crises. It's just not sustainable. I think the limit should be set at two children to net a zero population growth, but that would never fly with people in the world we currently live in. People don't realize that if we don't make some hard decisions now, we're going to have to make a lot of REALLY hard decisions in just a few decades.

[Trollfather]

That's not the ROOT cause. Human stupidity and greed are.

[SaintJonesy]

@Trollfather yeah but those aren't problems we can solve with current tech

[0112358]

Without immigration, the entire first world is in population decline, and it's an economic problem.

There's going to be a continued ballooning of population in the developing world over the next 50 years, and they could indeed be tough population wise, but they will be on a path to also joining the developed world in population decline.

And that problem has no obvious solution unless we figure out how to defeat aging.

[Deathraider]

Overpopulation isn't going to happen because of how population growth works. As countries develope, first their death rates goes down because of medical advances, but then their population growth goes down because of birth control. We just happen to be in a time when countries are starting to become more develope.

[zagor]

It is already happening.

[Deathraider]

@zagor Actually no.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QsBT5EQt348

[zagor]

This completely ignores cultural and religious motivations for high population growth. As time goes by the groups motivated by such considerations constitute a higher portion of the population, and continue to have high birthrates. Witness Palestinians and Ultraorthodox Jews in the Middle East.

[Deathraider]

@zagor Actually once a country becomes developed enough, having more kids seems less desirable. I mean people need to focus on jobs and kids cost a lot to take care of.

[Landshrk0068]

Over population is expected to be a limited time problem. By 2150 the birthrate in Africa, which is forecast to still be the highest in the world, is projected to be.8 not even replacement level.

But that garbage patch, is only 1 of 4 in the Pacific, 3 more in the Atlantic, and 2 in the Indian Ocean. Now that's actually a more pressing issue than over population.

[viginian]

The real problem is this
>globally.
The most impoverished and dare I say maladapted races to modernity are the ones pumping out kids. Areas of Africa have fertility rates of over 5 per woman, whereas white-European and East Asian societies (the only ones who seem to care about pollution) struggle to reach replacement rates.

Maybe this is racist in a "white man's burden" kind of way, but if you want to address overpopulation we'd need to basically re-colonize the 3rd world.

[Guanfei]

Problem with overpopulation is that everyone want to solve it, but not by limiting his own population.
There are areas causing most of the present and future overpopulation, but no one will ever tell them they should stop breeding.

[dano65]

Politically, I am pro-choice. The number of abortions, in the United States, however, is tragic. Many women, mostly black and white, if I'm not mistaken, have abortions here. Isn't that enough? I urge you to beware of eugenics. It is a slippery slope. A world limit on the number of children is bogus. The United States is not likely to submit to such tyranny. No global entity has the right to govern us like that. I doubt the Swiss would put up with that either.

[taleswapper]

Yeah... no. People have been whining about the over-population crisis for hundreds of years. It doesn't exist. Our ability to produce food, power, clean water, and many many other resources grows faster than the population does. by the end of this century, we'll be in space, and have a near infinite amount of room and resources to keep expanding.

[Bananaman177]

Right! Who dies first?

i.giphy.com/media/12YqWQpQ1HAPy8/giphy.webp

[Thatguyspenc]

1. While this was policy in China it had been done away with, just came back from China so i speak as someone who discussed this very thing with a few chinese.
2. I agree the trash is a huge problem and needs to be dealt with

[thiswasamistake]

Can't believe some people think this isn't/won't be a problem. It was already starting to be a problem like 50 years ago.

[AdmiralBailey]

Democrats import illegals as if recourses are infinite

[Naydyonov]

Solution: Limit population growth in Africa and in all south eastern Asian countries.

[LegateLanius]

I think they only way that it is going to be possibly addressed without people just going against it in the first place is for some sort of virus to be "accidentally" released.

[ScaryCool]

Well they do say that's an actual threat/possibility, so true. That's quite a scary devastating way to handle it.

[LegateLanius]

well, the alternative such as government enforced population control or anything forced upon them is going to be met with physical backlash, up to and including war.

[zagor]

LL, that is what China did, and there was no physical backlash or war.

[LegateLanius]

@zagor
Depends on the country

[Mr_Jolly]

We're well past sustainability. I doubt we have 50 good years of life on earth left before resources dwindle so much that it leads to world wide conflict. I certainly won't be contributing any more children to the world.

[Skali9119Liska]

I know why, no one wants your kids anyway

[Skali9119Liska]

Jk don’t kill me

[Anonymous]

We're just stupid animals fucking like maniacs without any concerns about consequences...

[ThatPersonOverThere]

Yep, we used to have a society where people were expected to be responsible and wait until marriage.
Feminism made proper short work of that 😩

Let's empower women to be whores, subsidize their poor decisions with tax payer money, and damn any far reaching consequences!

[DiegoO]

Don't worry, a devastating desease could kill millions, a WWIII can begging and en been nulear, a meteorite can hit earth and kill millions.

[CHADcel]

Some new innovation in technology may come along and raise the population limit to tens of billions

[TwinklingNeurons]

Underwater homesteading? What type of innovation are you referring to?

[CHADcel]

@TwinklingNeurons Obviously I can't predict it but no one could predict the industrial revolution and huge leaps in agriculture which is why people have been saying the planet is gonna reach critical population for centuries.

[zagor]

Yeah, and let's plan on that blind faith path. Let's get rid of our nuclear weapons by firing them all at each other and maybe God will grab them all out of the air.

[Anonymous]

Where is Thanos when we need him?

[ScaryCool]

He's scouting out nice sunrise spots.