The Need to Breed

[Shell B]

Education. I say it all the time. That is the solution.

[downbeatplumb]

No, the humane thing to do is to feed them and then help them reach sustainability.

Sure, that's another way of doing it, but that's what we tried last time. They don't stop having children for various reasons, religion, child labour, etc to name a few. We've had a hard enough time introducing condoms to Africa as it is.

Is Africa really the problem? I thought that there were vast war torn areas, (normally with "democratic in the name somewhere") and countries that are ravaged by diseases like aids and ebola to keep the population low.

There is an out break of Ebola in Kampala at the moment.

http://www.portalangop.co.ao/motix/en_us...25df1.html

China and India are the main concerns.

[Autumnlicious]

This entire thread has convinced me of one thing --

We must get to Mars.

Then if Earth breeds itself to death, there isn't a complete loss.

[Shell B]

We should get to Mars anyway. Start a new America without the south.

[MountOlympus]

Hey! I live in the south! lol

Forget Mars, I want to live on Jupiter!

[Autumnlicious]

Hey! I live in the south! lol

Forget Mars, I want to live on Jupiter!

Try suggesting something actually possible with our current technology and economy and also is possible.

One Dragon Capsule and One Falcon 9 Heavy would allow for a Mars direct mission and return. (~140million USD for the launch vehicle alone). Rather cheap in comparison to previous launch costs. And that is ignoring better solutions like NEO-asteroids repurposed as Earth-Mars cyclers.

So mocking the concept of going to Mars makes you look foolish given the current successes and progress of the commercial rocketry industry.

[MountOlympus]

Jeez, you serious ape! I was making a joke.

I do want to travel to Jupiter, but I recognize its beyond our capabilities at the moment. I will have to settle for that dreary redhead, I guess. Sigh~

[Cinjin]

I don't know Shell and Moros ...

We've all seen what happens on Mars if you have a little oopsy...

[Mister Agenda]

Middle-of-the-road UN projections have human population growth peaking by 2050, followed by a slow, centuries-long decline in population. Most developed countries are already at negative-replacement rates, European and US populations would be shrinking instead of growing without immigration. Large families aren't so attractive when having enough children survive to take care of you in old age is no longer your only retirement option and birth control is easily obtained.

By 2050 it may very well be too late. Also, declining growth, isn't a shrinking population. If the world only had 300 babies a day (which would be an unrealistic 96% drop in population growth) we'd still be growing. I don't think some of you people are getting it. We're already at capacity.

Also, if you're not willing to accept the projections of Global Warming scientists, than I'm far less inclined to take the projections of a few political analysts at the UN.

I did not state that it is not already too late.

We are currently already seeing a decline in growth, which I did not mention, but you seem to think I am confused about.

If the world only had 300 babies a day, given that about 156,000 people die every day, our population would collapse in a matter of decades and we would be near extinction in 75 years (because the death rate--not necessarily the absolute number--would increase as our population aged, about 3.5 billion people are currently 30 or over, the vast majority of those will be dead in fifty years). I suspect you meant to use a different number, but if birth rate were lowered to 30% of the current rate (to about 115,000 per day), it would be below the current death rate (about 156,000 per day) and our population would start to decline (in absolute terms, by about 40,000 per day).

After 2050, the projection is that population will begin to go down in absolute terms. Again, I'm not confused about declines in the rate of growth.

I said nothing about global warming projections. I don't see what my acceptance or non-acceptance of either projection has to do why you should or should not accept them. Perhaps you're 'on a roll' and not thinking things through? And the people who make the UN's population projections ARE scientists.

Maybe you should consider taking my posts, especially ones which are only sharing information, more literally. And law of charity says don't assume I'm an idiot who doesn't know what the terms I'm using mean without a good reason.

You usually do better work here, so I'm going to assume you're just a bit carried away and not take it personally.

[Rayaan]

By 2050 it may very well be too late. Also, declining growth, isn't a shrinking population. If the world only had 300 babies a day (which would be an unrealistic 96% drop in population growth) we'd still be growing. I don't think some of you people are getting it. We're already at capacity.

I don't think that the world is overpopulated yet, but it's just that there are too many people concentrated in certain small parts of the world which is bad for the economy and for the quality of life of the people as well. That's why many people who are living in the most densely populated areas today have a bad quality of life. By this, I mean having things like lots of traffic jams, drugs, violence, pollution, poor healthcare system, people living in slums, dirty roads, etc.

However, as I said earlier, I still do not support the idea of population control because I see it as a violation of human rights. And, in the end, just from a psychological point of view, most people live for the moment, for their own feelings, and for themselves. Appeals to reason, logic, education, and concern for others is not always going to work, unfortunately (although, of course, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't educate them either).

Personally, I wouldn't mind having no children myself. I'm 25 and I still haven't planned on even marrying yet. I can live happily by myself as I've been doing so to this day (unless if I change or something). But, either way, it's just my opinion that that putting a limit on human procreation is not the right thing to do. [Edit: Sorry, I wrote my age wrong. I'm 25, not 26.]

If overpopulation does become a problem in the future, then I think that it's going to be a hopeless situation. Telling people that they can't have a child could potentially lead to some kind of a nasty violence and/or create a variety of other problems in the future. For example, if you look at China's one-child policy, you can see the kind of economic stress and social pressures that it has placed upon the country ever since it was first introduced in 1978. You can read about this in the article below:

Can China Afford to Continue Its One-Child Policy? (PDF)