Is the earth getting overpopulated?

[Philosophy Explorer]

If not now, when do you think that will occur? Do you foresee solutions?

For example, cemeteries keep growing. Besides sending the dead into space or turning bones into ashes, what would be a solution so that the living may have space to live?

There are many implications to this problem.

PhilX

[wtf]

If not now, when do you think that will occur? Do you foresee solutions?

For example, cemeteries keep growing. Besides sending the dead into space or turning bones into ashes, what would be a solution so that the living may have space to live?

There are many implications to this problem.

There is a huge amount of available space. A cursory search brought up the factoid that 95% of the earth's population is concentrated in 10% of the land. We could easily support a population many times as large as what we've got now. The over-population alarmists are wrong.

In fact the biggest problem facing the world today is underpopulation. Why is this? Well, young people's taxes support old people's retirement. As nations modernize, fertility rates go way down. There currently aren't enough young people to support the oldsters. We need more people, not fewer. People should be encouraged to breed like rabbits. I'm totally serious. Another cursory web search brought up plenty of support for my position, such as this.

https://www.pop.org/underpopulation-not ... l-problem/

I could go further out on a limb and point out that in the US, abortion has killed well over 50 million potential taxpayers (most of them African-American by the way. Margaret Sanger was a virulent racist). And now the global elite in the US and Europe are importing huge numbers of third-world workers. Those two things are related. You need young workers to keep an economy vibrant and support the old people. If you kill off your children, you need to get those workers from somewhere else.

That's why the average educated global elitist type has too few children and too many undocumented employees mowing their lawns, raising their kids, keeping their houses, and doing their day labor. In the old days, people had children for those purposes. Help out on the farm and so forth.

Pretty much everything is the opposite of what people think.

[Philosophy Explorer]

If not now, when do you think that will occur? Do you foresee solutions?

For example, cemeteries keep growing. Besides sending the dead into space or turning bones into ashes, what would be a solution so that the living may have space to live?

There are many implications to this problem.

There is a huge amount of available space. A cursory search brought up the factoid that 95% of the earth's population is concentrated in 10% of the land. We could easily support a population many times as large as what we've got now. The over-population alarmists are wrong.

In fact the biggest problem facing the world today is underpopulation. Why is this? Well, young people's taxes support old people's retirement. As nations modernize, fertility rates go way down. There currently aren't enough young people to support the oldsters. We need more people, not fewer. People should be encouraged to breed like rabbits. I'm totally serious. Another cursory web search brought up plenty of support for my position, such as this.

https://www.pop.org/underpopulation-not ... l-problem/

"10% of the land"!!! We both know that many would say "Why not 50% of the land." That sounds too easy. Are you saying that global warming and sealevel rising aren't real problems?

PhilX

[wtf]

Are you saying that global warming and sealevel rising aren't real problems?

You asked about population. I suggested the counterintuitive but very sensible thesis that the biggest population-related problem is underpopulation, not overpopulation as is commonly believed.

Are you saying you don't like the infield fly rule?

[Greta]

If not now, when do you think that will occur? Do you foresee solutions?

For example, cemeteries keep growing. Besides sending the dead into space or turning bones into ashes, what would be a solution so that the living may have space to live?

There are many implications to this problem.

Of course the Earth has too many humans. Ecosystems everywhere are breaking down. The climate is changing. Cities are becoming dangerously polluted and uncomfortably crowded and unproductively traffic-locked. There's an itinerant refugee population enough for a large nation. Other species are going extinct at a record rate. Conflicts of interest are everywhere, with various parties keeping the nuclear option open.

Everything humans are doing is unsustainable but since we are not adapting quickly to rapidly changing circumstances, nature will no doubt take its course, and the poor will surely be the first to be hit.

[-1-]

There is a huge amount of available space. A cursory search brought up the factoid that 95% of the earth's population is concentrated in 10% of the land. We could easily support a population many times as large as what we've got now. The over-population alarmists are wrong.

In fact the biggest problem facing the world today is underpopulation. Why is this? Well, young people's taxes support old people's retirement. As nations modernize, fertility rates go way down. There currently aren't enough young people to support the oldsters. We need more people, not fewer. People should be encouraged to breed like rabbits. I'm totally serious. Another cursory web search brought up plenty of support for my position, such as this.

https://www.pop.org/underpopulation-not ... l-problem/

I could go further out on a limb and point out that in the US, abortion has killed well over 50 million potential taxpayers (most of them African-American by the way. Margaret Sanger was a virulent racist). And now the global elite in the US and Europe are importing huge numbers of third-world workers. Those two things are related. You need young workers to keep an economy vibrant and support the old people. If you kill off your children, you need to get those workers from somewhere else.

That's why the average educated global elitist type has too few children and too many undocumented employees mowing their lawns, raising their kids, keeping their houses, and doing their day labor. In the old days, people had children for those purposes. Help out on the farm and so forth.

Pretty much everything is the opposite of what people think.

The overpopulation problem is not presented by not occupying all available space.

It is presented by global warming, by generating toxic chemicals, by depleting non-renewable resources, and by destroying the ecosystems of many animal and plant species that die off at a record number.

Then again, the lack of population increase is unique to the western world. The world has been overpopulating, because the third world economies demand and create a high birth rate. It is fallacious to argue that there is underpopulation, by saying that 20% of the world's population creates shrinking, and therefore the entire world population is shrinking, while 80% of the world's population is expanding rapidly at an exponential rate.

[-1-]

You asked about population. I suggested the counterintuitive but very sensible thesis that the biggest population-related problem is underpopulation, not overpopulation as is commonly believed.

The problem you presented is a problem only affecting 20% of the world's population, while the problem you are denying is affecting 100% of the world's population. Your thesis was not sensible, because it was near-sighted, ignored too large amount of facts, and was misleading in its conclusion.

[Walker]

If not now, when do you think that will occur? Do you foresee solutions?

For example, cemeteries keep growing. Besides sending the dead into space or turning bones into ashes, what would be a solution so that the living may have space to live?

There are many implications to this problem.

There is a huge amount of available space. A cursory search brought up the factoid that 95% of the earth's population is concentrated in 10% of the land. We could easily support a population many times as large as what we've got now. The over-population alarmists are wrong.

In fact the biggest problem facing the world today is underpopulation. Why is this? Well, young people's taxes support old people's retirement. As nations modernize, fertility rates go way down. There currently aren't enough young people to support the oldsters. We need more people, not fewer. People should be encouraged to breed like rabbits. I'm totally serious. Another cursory web search brought up plenty of support for my position, such as this.

https://www.pop.org/underpopulation-not ... l-problem/

I could go further out on a limb and point out that in the US, abortion has killed well over 50 million potential taxpayers (most of them African-American by the way. Margaret Sanger was a virulent racist). And now the global elite in the US and Europe are importing huge numbers of third-world workers. Those two things are related. You need young workers to keep an economy vibrant and support the old people. If you kill off your children, you need to get those workers from somewhere else.

That's why the average educated global elitist type has too few children and too many undocumented employees mowing their lawns, raising their kids, keeping their houses, and doing their day labor. In the old days, people had children for those purposes. Help out on the farm and so forth.

Pretty much everything is the opposite of what people think.

That's brilliant, and true.

Resource allocation is the issue.

[Atla]

Imo under a benevolent One World Government (something that is contrary to usual human nature and will probably never happen), I think the population would be stabilized around 1,5-2 billion. And the main global project would be about fixing the environmental damage.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Are you saying that global warming and sealevel rising aren't real problems?

You asked about population. I suggested the counterintuitive but very sensible thesis that the biggest population-related problem is underpopulation, not overpopulation as is commonly believed.

Are you saying you don't like the infield fly rule?

Counterintuitive and sensible are contradictory.

The infield fly rule baseball analogy doesn't make sense. You lost me here and I ask you to speak English plainly so I can try to see what point you're making (unless you're doing a poor job of copying me).

PhilX

[Necromancer]

When there is not clean water for everybody it's a fact that the Earth is Overpopulated. When there's not enough food for everybody for a healthy diet (let's say the fish). When the sea has a plastics problem. When species go extinct as never before. When Wildlife has never been smaller. When bees experience bee-hive-collapses. When there's more poverty than need to be. When the last White Rhino has died. When the freedom of wilderness and the happiness of animals are threatened.

Surely, the Earth is Overpopulated!

Population now, 7,5 Bn people: http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/.

[wtf]

The problem you presented is a problem only affecting 20% of the world's population, while the problem you are denying is affecting 100% of the world's population. Your thesis was not sensible, because it was near-sighted, ignored too large amount of facts, and was misleading in its conclusion.

The problem is that the 20% is growing. Third-world populations breed like rabbits but first-world populations are failing to breed at replacement rates. Now if that were a static picture, your point would be valid. However, as third-world societies modernize, they stop breeding. That's why you can take peasants with large families, import them into first-world countries as laborers and maids, and within a couple of generations, they're educated and no longer breeding at replacement rates, just like the natives of their adopted country.

Indira Gandhi memorably made this point when she pushed back on environmental concerns as the concern of the first world, which are against the interests of the developing nations. What the third world needs, she pointed out, is MORE development, not less.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... ate-change

[wtf]

Then again, the lack of population increase is unique to the western world. The world has been overpopulating, because the third world economies demand and create a high birth rate.

Right. And as the third world economies modernize, the birth rate goes down. And when global elites tell the third world not to modernize, that's colonialism at its worst, as Indira Gandhi pointed out. It was a very counterintuitive speech. Who would argue against environmentalism? Well, it turns out that environmentalism screws poor people. That marginal increase in your air quality raises energy prices and starves millions of poor people to death. But they're out of sight, so the hipsters in Brooklyn don't care. That is the point exactly. You have to look deeper at the actual consequences of feel-good policies to see what's really going on. Ms. Gandhi wasn't fooled and she memorably called out the west on its self-centered policies.

[wtf]

When there is not clean water for everybody it's a fact that the Earth is Overpopulated. When there's not enough food for everybody for a healthy diet (let's say the fish). When the sea has a plastics problem. When species go extinct as never before. When Wildlife has never been smaller. When bees experience bee-hive-collapses. When there's more poverty than need to be. When the last White Rhino has died. When the freedom of wilderness and the happiness of animals are threatened.

Those are talking points, not facts.

Surely, the Earth is Overpopulated!

Opinion, not fact.

YOU say the third world should stop breeding and stop growing. Easy for you to say. But not very fair to the aspirations of billions of people living in poverty. That's the problem with the feel-good policies of western liberals. "I've got mine, Jack!" is the ethos of the west.

You complain that there's more poverty than there needs to be. I agree!! But what is the solution to bringing people out of poverty? Development! And development brings with it environmental problems.

So your high ideals contradict themselves. Every time you clean up the air over a first-world city, you kill a few hundred thousand impoverished third-worlders who can no longer afford the energy needed to keep them alive. That's the real dilemma. The simplistic thinking of environmentalists is self-contradictory and extremely cruel to the billions of people who desperately need development to lift them out of poverty.

And like I noted, I'm not the first person to observe that. In fact it was Indira Gandhi's famous speech that woke me up to the fact that environmentalism goes AGAINST the interests of the developing world.

[Greta]

When we have replaced all environmental assets with poor people, does that mean that poor people then get to eat poor people?

What we are doing is simply not sustainable. Like an alcoholic who figures that the next drink can't hurt, our societies will keep pushing until something important breaks and chaos ensues. Don't expect anyone to admit being wrong when that happens.