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Population vs. Limited Resources
TL DR
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Historically, human societies have viewed reproduction as both a duty and a right. Page one of the Bible has God saying "Be fruitful and multiply", and Supreme Court cases regarding contraception have ruled that the state should not be party to a decision so "fundamental" as whether to have children. However, as we progress towards a more industrialized, crowded world where another child represents more another mouth to feed than an additional source of labor, we must change the way we view procreation.
Some problems with overpopulation include shortage of food and other resources, expansion of human settlement into pristine natural environments, ground-water depletion, and the cultural shifts associated with some countries' attempts to curb population growth. For example, female children are considered undesirable in China, which has policies in place to encourage one child per family.
In a speech about advancing our scientific abilities to fight aging, Aubrey de Grey argues that in the future we will have to choose between either a high death rate or a low birth rate to ensure the quality of life and survival of the human species. (Ted.com) Is it better to have more, shorter lives, or should we encourage people to reproduce much less in response to our increased longevity? What would a comprehensive government policy to manage overpopulation look like?
Additionally, what steps can humanity take to lessen the burden of so many people on the world's ecosystems? Americans consume enough resources that if all the world's people followed suit, we would need 4 times more space and resources.
Some problems with overpopulation include shortage of food and other resources, expansion of human settlement into pristine natural environments, ground-water depletion, and the cultural shifts associated with some countries' attempts to curb population growth. For example, female children are considered undesirable in China, which has policies in place to encourage one child per family.
In a speech about advancing our scientific abilities to fight aging, Aubrey de Grey argues that in the future we will have to choose between either a high death rate or a low birth rate to ensure the quality of life and survival of the human species. (Ted.com) Is it better to have more, shorter lives, or should we encourage people to reproduce much less in response to our increased longevity? What would a comprehensive government policy to manage overpopulation look like?
Additionally, what steps can humanity take to lessen the burden of so many people on the world's ecosystems? Americans consume enough resources that if all the world's people followed suit, we would need 4 times more space and resources.
TL DR on
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Does overpopulation have any impact on broader goals for humanity such as the solution of poverty or leaving Earth? Or is the impact of overpopulation significant enough compared to something like political and economic agendas? Obviously the subjects are in some ways related, but to what degree?
"Less fine" for who? There are people without adequate nutrition right now. There are people in this country without access to health care.
I say that rationing resources is ethically permissible, but not in the way we currently do so (capitalism).
Economics tries to make positive statements. Politics takes the positive statements of economics for the purpose of backing normative statements.
"We need more people because more people means more demand and more production to fulfill demand which is good for the working man" That's saying it is desirable to have higher demand in and of itself, and that's what you hear politicians saying, or popular economist pundits, not your academic economist.
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So what would an academic economist say? I'm actually quite bad at economics because, well, it's math. I get the theory but the whole practical application is all you know @_@
There is a LOT of empty land throughout the nation that has yet to be put to use for agriculture or housing. We don't even have to worry about building upward quite yet when there's room to expand out.
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Less fine for whoever you're fearing the supposive overpopulation issue is going to affect?
What would happen if 6,000,000,000 people suddenly started driving cars and using resources at the same level as Americans?
It seems pretty obvious to me that the planet can't support every person in the world having real access to the same standard of living as the United States. If we're cool with that injustice, then there's no such thing as overpopulation right now. But if we're not, overpopulation is a huge problem.
The academic wouldn't say anything about it being good or bad, merely increased demand could result in increased production of supply. No comment on whether this is good or bad or an eventuality.
I think it becomes a question of how far we go to ensure that the injustice is upheld.
Assuming you mean 6 billion people, it'd probably irreversibly drain the planet of pretty much every important resource, including water and air, in a few months, if that long.
The US currently includes...what? Four to five percent of the world population? And even within that, a portion of the population lives in poverty, and accordingly, has a much more limited consumption compared to their affluent neighbors. But even then the country's footprint on resource consumption, not just limited to oil, and waste output is pretty goddamn astronomical.
America isn't alone, of course, but we're certainly doing more than our part.
I don't like framing the problem as overpopulation. Overpopulation is not the problem. Overconsumption is the problem.
I think the first real test will be when we are hit by both rising sea levels and peak oil at the same time in about 50-100 years.
I think nations will try to make berms around their coastal cities and when storms flood them out we will have hurricane Katrina type disasters happening all over the world every year. First world countries will be fine but poor countries will suffer massively.
I don't see immigration laws changing too much because while it's noble to take in 5k refugees no first world country rushes to take in 5 million refugees, and that is what we will be facing.
I don't think it will make much of a dent in world population though, a few hundred thousand here or there dying is really negligible in terms of global population and we are pretty good at flying in food and clean water to keep people alive.
Good point. OP title changed to reflect this.
While it's true that we could curb out consumption dramatically and still be happy as soon as you frame it as overcomsumption your pretty much advocating we lower our standard of living.
Banning iPads is a good start.
Yeah.
I don't think what we have is wrong. But... it is wrong that the vast majority of the world can't possibly come close to having what I have without destroying the planet, at least right now.
Oh, and sorry about the mistake there, I did indeed mean a simple 6 billion people, not 6 billion billion.
Malthus' observations were pretty much accurate for all of human history up until about his time, when economies started taking off.
Yes, but surely there are ways an economy can function without this increased demand requirement. What about an economy that doesn't grow but merely stays stable? Isn't there theoretical economics like there is weird fantasy realms of math that do all this cool shit (that I don't understand unless it's explained to me very very slowly) and sometimes someone comes out of there with a cool idea?
Right now I came up with something I liked:
Every family is allowed to have two children, no more.
One of your children dies? You have another one right there. Want to make another one? Sure, you got a spot open now.
If a family decides to have another child above the 2 they already have the child gets taken away and given to a foster family that either can't have kids themselves or is comfortable with taking a child as their own which is not their direct offspring. This child would also be included in the 2 children rule so it would take a spot.
The parents who broke the rule will also receive some kind of fine/punishment. Something that can really hit home that "yep,you just fucked up".
The children being taken away should keep people who actually want a child from breaking the rule and the fine/punishment should keep people who are seriously fucking retarded from just fucking like rabbits and then going "haha the government cleans up the unanted child for us anyway".
I love how this idea probably pisses off 90% of all people.
So it is impossible to come up with a regulation for this kind of thing that wont be unpopular. Trying to make such a regulation popular is a fools game. So it wont happen until it has to, and most people are not going to get to have a say if it wants to be successful. Because most people can't see beyond next week.
I know it has to happen and such laws still make me feel uncomfortable in a very deep way I can't really define, I just learn to ignore it.
Not necessarily. Just target a hated minority.
You've completely lost me. Please explain how targetting a hated minority will result in the person doing the hating support not being allowed to have a child of their own.
This 'consumption' you speak of contains the incentives for progress.
You can fuck without procreating. So, fucking is still on the table.
if you want something little that loves you buy a cat or something.
And regulations still allow you to have both sex AND children.
I mean,seriously,do you need more than 2 children? Are you seriously telling me there is going to be some terrible fucking hole in your heart because " I NEED 4 CHILDREN GOD DAMMIT 2 IS NOT ENOUGH"?
Mayhaps because it is a terrible idea.
The most comfortable, materialistically, I've ever been is living in the United States. And to be perfectly honest, I think it is, to an extent, wrong. Morally wrong, practically wrong. I own a small sedan, I can eat meat every day of the week if I choose to (and not just chicken either). I have two televisions and two computers (a desktop and a laptop).
When I lived with my extended family after my demobilization, I realized juts how wasteful my life was. Granted, they had DSL and cable television and all those other things, but I live with just one roommate. Replicating my life would be disastrous, and it's not really fair that I have it. And the worst part is, my life is pretty austere in some regards--my car is relatively fuel efficient (27 to 33 MPG, for a cheaply-made Kia automobile), I don't eat that much food, I use a ridiculously low-footprint motor scooter (80 MPG on average) in the place of an automobile about 80% of the time, even in the winter. I don't have a lawn, and thus, don't engage in lawn care. I rely on an urban sewage system. I eat primarily frozen food that lasts long periods.
I've got it good--and thus, quite bad for the world--but I seem to pale in comparison to my neighbors with their big, black SUVs, which they use on a semi-daily basis. One thing I could do more often is recycle, if the town as a whole wasn't so goddamn opposed to it.
Pushed far enough for a rational justification for procreation one finds that there is none.
It isn't something based on reason so reasonable arguments aren't going to help you understand it.
Most people don't use reason and good logic. The world would be a lot less fucked up if they did for a start.
You sure about that?
Actually, it probably would be more fucked up wouldn't it. Nobody would get anything done.
I like this framing, since the whole Malthus' issue isn't really relevant anymore (and the UN had projected we're to reach 9-10 billion by the end of this century before world population stabilizes [though I imagine this has some assumptions about overall levels of development built in but that's a digression]).
Though I imagine even this problem might be solved through technological progress. Either through more/different resource exploitation or extraplanetary resource extraction. Depending on the time scale involved in wanting to 'solve' the problem, anyway.
The peak oil dieoff theory involves oil being required to create food, despite nations with 50+ million people in Africa, significantly more densly populated than the US, that never experienced the green revolution. Yes there's starving people in placed like Congo but their population is still rising.
Peak oil is an economic problem for the first world, not an existential problem (for sources look at how much America's oil consumption dropped per capita after the oil shock of the 70s, and realize that in the event of a crisis the same thing will happen - we can use less, much less). I fear it might fuck large swaths of India in the ass though.
No no, the point is you enforce population regulation on some minority that the majority dislikes so that the people doing the hating don't have to endure such regulation.
Not necessarily.
Does walking 15 minutes to work rather than driving 60 minutes lower your standard of living? How about taking public transit?
Does eating more vegetables and less red meat lower your standard of living?
Those are two clear examples where reducing consumption actually improves your standard of living. At least, it improves it by any objective standard. There are plenty of people who think that eating a salad instead of a hamburger is a reduction in "standard of living" but that is purely a matter of preference, and we can't allow any preference no matter how silly or personal to dictate what "standard of living" means.
If we look at the problem in basic objective terms, such as disease rates, longevity, leisure time, nutrition, availability of housing and education, and so forth, then I believe that we can adopt more sustainable lifestyles, bolstered by greener technology, without dramatically impacting our quality of life.
Yeah but,I mean, even if you are a stupid couple without reason, you WILL understand that if you have more than 2 children,you will be punished.
And you can't tell me those people are gonna have more than 2 children. MAYBE once they'll go astray and then get kicked down by the punishment and realize "ok, we can just fuck with a condom on or I get a vasectomy or whatever".
I just don't see ANYONE who is living under that rule going "but I really, really NEED more than 2 children".
Klyka man you have too much faith in people. You don't need a good reason to "need" something. A need is a fundamental thing, people will happily just start off with "I need it" without anything else underneath. People will claim they need it even if you push them to the point where they can't articulate why. And if you do they will cut you off, ignore you, or otherwise fail to comprehend their lack of a good reason. There's a lot of people like that and politics works by listening to a majority. So they do have power.
Has anyone utilized the phrase "carrying capacity" yet?
Whichever pairing we use (overpopulation / average consumption) or (average population / over consumption) the presumed fact of the matter is that the Earth can only produce X.
When the needs of the species on the planet exceed X then, well, we be fucked.
Maybe we could have less babies AND eat less shit.
Sometimes, but most cool ideas from pure mathematical economics are self contained. See Kurgman and inteplanetary speed of light travel and interest rates.