OVERPOPULATION

[Uncle FEFL]

The amount of resources on the planet is finite, but you have to wonder just how long we can sustain ourselves with what we have now. Frankly we are making better and better use of some of our resources simply from our addiction of making things smaller. Guess how much metal we saved by recycling our old iPods and switching them all to 60% thinner ones? Or perhaps jamming in a phone in there too. I suppose that's a rather narrow way of thinking, food can never be optimized in such a way, but then again, the harvesting of food or whatever can be much much more efficient.

I'm reminded of two conflicting theories regarding the carrying capacity of earth. One is from Malthus who stated that human growth is exponential while resources grow linearly, and when we reach that intersection, people will just starve to death or whatever.

However the much more optimistic theory from Boserup is the one I think we will actually follow. He states that carrying capacity stays at one level, and whenever the population becomes a strain, humans have always devised new plans, new technologies to fit that, raising the carrying capacity. Some of the notable ones are simply colonization, government policies and the two green revolutions.

Oh well, I live in Canada, we have a lot of land and very very little people, not a huge worry for us anytime soon.

I was going to state Borseup's theory. Malthus' theory sounded good a couple hundred years ago, but now that we can make stimulated foods, as long with artificial foods, we have a much more slim chance of that happening.

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Unlike others, I don't think overpopulation will work itself out. The "World overpopulated by XXXX" dates are usually false, since they have such a large margin for being incorrect. Their theories state that if things stay the way they are or get worse, disregarding natural disasters, disease, and other natural aspects of population hindrance.

QUOTE(Shinryuji @ Feb 12 2010, 10:42 AM) It won't for much longer, if the recession returns, which it probably will. However, there are so many emptier countries, like France, that immigrants could go to. Also, TURKEY IS NOT PART OF EUROPE, NOR IS RUSSIA. THEY ARE ASIA. GET OUT OF THE EU! OR AT LEAST LEARN SOME GEOGRAPHY FIRST!

DISCLAIMER: This is coming from someone who is both Greek and Lebanese, as well as Sweedish and English, a true blue mongrel. Nor am I a racist, but the bounaries are there for a reason. I mean for fuck sake, Russia is 2/3 of the whole asiatic continent!

Well, part of Russia is in Europe. The Ural mountains divides that one block of Russia. How come Russia gets to be in two continents?

 

[emigre]

It won't for much longer, if the recession returns, which it probably will. However, there are so many emptier countries, like France, that immigrants could go to. Also, TURKEY IS NOT PART OF EUROPE, NOR IS RUSSIA. THEY ARE ASIA. GET OUT OF THE EU! OR AT LEAST LEARN SOME GEOGRAPHY FIRST!

DISCLAIMER: This is coming from someone who is both Greek and Lebanese, as well as Sweedish and English, a true blue mongrel. Nor am I a racist, but the bounaries are there for a reason. I mean for fuck sake, Russia is 2/3 of the whole asiatic continent!

Actually Russia and Turkey arn't in the EU. Sorry but I'm just being a geek

From what I understand of the world population, the main problem is the lack of birth control in LEDCs, for example a woman in Afghanistan may have six children becasue thre isn't a proper structure for family planning. Once you get that problem sorted (huge admittidly) then things might get better. linky (I know it's from wiki but the tables are from the UN)

 

[geedub]

China is already overpopulated and India is worse if you figure the size of the country in the equation.

i know what your saying but that isnt entirely true , i know China have the 1 child rule and have less living space ,but they dont have a problem with resources , India i agree with, more than half the country is malnourished !

simple maths tells you that population - resources = Death


you could probably argue the planet cant get overpopulated as the lack of resources will take care of that before it ever happens

 

[user0002]

We'll just have to follow the example of 'Civilization' and move to Alpha Centauri one of these days.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Meh, it's called natural selection.

There was some Bill Burr joke on overpopulation or something, but I CBA to find it.

 

[Devante]

Look up what Adolophous Huxley has to say about overpopulation.

Basically our problem now is we have death control, but no birth control.
So we have cures to diseases and ways to extend life past sickness, but no type of control to limit creation of new life.

I believe a very good scenario of what may happen due to this is sometime in the future (probably well beyond what we'll ever see) is that the resources will start to noticeably run out, and as people scramble to get the resources they need to live, crime and violence will rise until civil war breaks out.

After war, I'm not sure. I doubt it would even stop unless a single dominating government takes over and controls us 1984 style.

 

[Slyakin]

Who knows, maybe other countries will get the same idea as China, and limit all children in a family to one. It'll help. Also, like Guild said, natural selection isn't out of the picture yet.

 

[Rogue Trader]

We'll probably thin the world out with war over resources/war against the robots/etc long before overpopulation will be an issue. At the very least we'll all be dead. Maybe someone a few hundred years from now can look this up for a history project on why the world is so overpopulated.

That's right, i'm talking to you future boy....the past says SUCK IT.....

 

[Davess]

Well, the world would be over populated if WWI and WWII happened, also Baby boomer's are ageing, soon nothing but this generation (X?) will be here, hence, World will never be over populated.

 

[Uncle FEFL]

Well, the world would be over populated if WWI and WWII happened, also Baby boomer's are ageing, soon nothing but this generation (X?) will be here, hence, World will never be over populated.

What? I barely understood any of that.