What problems facing the world today would not be aided by population reduction?

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: What problems facing the world today would not be aided by population reduction?

Jim, you have still failed to debunk my "more beautiful women are a good thing" point!

At some point you will out grow that perspective. Oh!, but then there is the innovation of Viagra, etc. WOW!

[Judas]

Re: What problems facing the world today would not be aided by population reduction?

At some point you will out grow that perspective.

I turned 38 yesterday. I hope there will still be decades of lust, er, I mean appreciation still to come! ;)

[rabot10]

Re: What problems facing the world today would not be aided by population reduction?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7429594.stm



The accompanying picture above is difficult for me to differentiate from similar ones that I have encountered in the media over the last 50 years. If there is any difference, it is that most pictures had the poor children covered in flies and the bellies bloated. Not much if anything has changed with the starvation in Africa as I see it. Perhaps a smaller percentage of children are starving today compared to times past, but I don't really know.

The gists of such stories, as I see them, is to attempt to prevail upon the sentiment, humanity, empathy of the rest of the world that is not starving. The effort, to my perception, is to hopefully force the rest of the world to feel some degree of pain for these people's sufferings and thus to donate whatever in an attempt to lessen the hardships or prolong the lives of those afflicted.

I wonder why is it that children are the ones who are shown to be the suffering versus adults who must be just as badly affected?

If there is any result of the world's concerns, demonstrated by whatever has been contributed to food programs over the last 50 years, about the starvation and hardships these Africans have experienced, I fail to see it. Perhaps life has been prolonged so that more babies can be produced so that the number of those facing starvation now, or next year, or next decade is or will be larger.

On all these pages of iTulip, how many problems are discussed now facing the world would not be considerably lessened or perhaps even disappear if the population of the planet was reduced by half?

One of the first things I might have learned in medicine (internal medicine rotation as an oral surgical intern) was "When one hears hoofbeats, look for horses, not zebras." (In Africa that probably isn't true.) Years later I was confused to hear or read about Occam's razor: "a scientific and philosophic rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities" until I figured out: horse--zebras = Occam's razor.

To my simplistic thinking, most of the world's problems would be lessened significantly if the population were to be reduced significantly--for my off-the-cuff preference, say by 50%. That is the simple answer. Any answer that does not take into account the ultimate necessity of lessening the population only unnecessarily escalates the complications of seeking a solution, which in my opinion ultimately will be a band-aid compared to any true solution of the problems facing mankind today.

I truly hate to kill a fly, though I do kill them because I despise them, because life is all that fly has; however, I seriously always apolgize to the fly for taking its life. The fact about flies and other noxious forms of life is that their lives are accidents over which their progenitors had no conscious control. It is not the same with us humans. We do have the possibility of controlling whether or not we produce offspring. It seems to me that we humans clearly do not all act in ways that are in our own best interest or the best interest of those who may follow our brief period on Earth. Society by ways of government make new laws when pushed to do so by the behavior of those whose actions are against the general welfare of the rest of society. When will those who govern societies take it upon themselves by the severity of population excess to enforce population control? Despite what anyone thinks of China's communist leaders, it has had the good sense to limit the number of children its citizens can bear. It's unfortunate that the policy was not begun sooner and has not spread to encompass the world.

I personally feel no remorse over the deaths that have occurred in the world because of starvation, disease, or natural disasters. It is truly unfortunate that people die of such and unpleasant to think about their sufferings, but each of two individuals are generally responsible when they procreate new humans--no one else is responsible for their actions, and thus no one else should feel badly about not bearing some responsibility for the outcome of the production of new babies for which the future is bleak at best. The true misfortune for those dying of starvation is that they were allowed to be born at all.

I am not asking that anyone agree with my sentiments about this problem, but I am seeking opinions that would make me think I may be wrong about the serious need to curb worldwide population growth.

What is made better on this planet by the continuous increase of human population?

Jim what are your thoughts on Bird Flu - a good thing - bad thing?

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: What problems facing the world today would not be aided by population reduction?

Jim what are your thoughts on Bird Flu - a good thing - bad thing?

Rick, for sure I have NO expertise with flu. I have a personal experience with it having had Asian flu in 1957-58 and Hong Kong flu in 1969 at ages 16 and 27 respectively. The latter affliction made me so ill, that I clearly remember telling wife #1 that I really did not care if I died or not because of how badly I felt for several days. Neither time was I hospitalized, both times I was really sick, and in fact those were the only two times in my life that I have experienced even brief debilitating illnesses. Both my parents lived though the Spanish flu pandemic, and to my knowledge neither contracted it, and they lived in either a small town (2000 pop.) or in a rural setting.

Even though I think the planet and its future probably would be better if half the population today did not exist an hour from now, I have no sense of wishing any such tragedy that would make that occur. I hate pain and suffering and premature death. I do not watch TV shows of people getting hurt or crazy-assed boxers, mixed martial artists, etc. beating the tar out one another. And I would choose just as well not to watch any TV program that shows how bad it is to be without food, shelter, medical care as exists just now on some acute bases in Burma and China and probably always these days on some chronic basis.

I would hate to experience or for those after me to experience a pandemic of say bird flu or whatever new malady may come after it. It would result in unthought of turmoil. Take a few minutes and read about the ravages of Spanish Flu. It is not only scary because of the possibility of premature death, but it strikes me as scary just because of the morbidity of such a disease despite whatever might be a recovery.

Unless one totally rejects the notion of voluntary measures, or failing that governmentally enforced measures to limit Earth's population, the alternatives of starvation, nuclear war, some new pandemic, meteor strike of gargantuan proportion, etc. have nothing good in the way of pleasantness about them.

If there were fewer Chinese, probably there would have been fewer in Sechuan, and thus fewer killed, injured, maimed, homeless, and fewer who will start over with nothing I presume. Same for the victims of the tsunami, the Nargis cyclone, and the last big earthquake I remember before Sechuan as having been in Iran that took out 40K humans. Sure you can argue that because there is a large population, the odds are there will be survivors if something ever happens to the degree that might actually approach making man extinct, but if most everyone is dead it really won't make that much difference.

It's hard for me to opine on which is better: never to be born or to be born and die a premature death from any cause. If one must die prematurely to do so painfully would be worse than slipping away from a stroke or MI.

If there is a problem with how many humans Earth can support, and if a solution at some point becomes necessary, it is certain that I shall not be the one that has to deal with the burdens of what is the best decision, perhaps the same for anyone reading this far, but at some point the burdens of such decisions of how to curtail population growth will come to weigh on someone or many perhaps, that is unless some extreme geniuses come up with some extreme innovations.

[zmas28]

Re: What problems facing the world today would not be aided by population reduction?

How you going to do it?
They tried forced sterilisation in India, it was an abject failure and wasn't very popular.

Nonetheless I think your idea has merit; let's start with the worst offenders, Citizens of the US and Canada:


(pic courtesy Sudden Debt)

Yes, agree with your premise that "problems facing the world" depend on who you are and what perspective you bring. Much of the world might point fingers at us (US and other Western states) as consuming more than their share, often exploiting the poor of the world through colonization, gunboat diplomacy, propping up of client dictatorships around the world, and so on. From this perspective, many problems might be better without us, rather than the poor in Darfur or poor in India!
Personally, I don't care much for this sort of proposal. It reeks of a "final solution".
A very political thread that belongs in Rant & Rave methinks.

[touchring]

Re: What problems facing the world today would not be aided by population reduction?

The impact from pandemic is more psychological than physical. The first thing to do in an outbreak is to flee to a house in a remote place, stocked with 18 mths water and food and an electric generator + fuel. :eek:

Unless one totally rejects the notion of voluntary measures, or failing that governmentally enforced measures to limit Earth's population, the alternatives of starvation, nuclear war, some new pandemic, meteor strike of gargantuan proportion, etc. have nothing good in the way of pleasantness about them.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: What problems facing the world today would not be aided by population reduction?

Yes, agree with your premise that "problems facing the world" depend on who you are and what perspective you bring. Much of the world might point fingers at us (US and other Western states) as consuming more than their share, often exploiting the poor of the world through colonization, gunboat diplomacy, propping up of client dictatorships around the world, and so on. From this perspective, many problems might be better without us, rather than the poor in Darfur or poor in India!
Personally, I don't care much for this sort of proposal. It reeks of a "final solution".
A very political thread that belongs in Rant & Rave methinks.

I think "youthinks" are wrong, Jay. You are invited to search back to the beginning for any ranting by me or the others. The thread began with a current news story regarding starvation. So much recent iTulip discourse has been about oil and why it's priced as it is, and then all the commodities having kicked up in price. If demand plays any part in pricing of necessities, then to look at every aspect of what might be affecting pricing and exclude the number of humans who bid for necessities as part of the reason for expected long term increasing demand is flat out missing a large part of the equation.

As I put forth, perhaps weakly, the proposition that simple answers should be sought as more likely solutions vs. going to unending lengths to come with complex answer is pertinent I believe.

If any and everyone wishes to forget simple answers and bust their buttons seeking complex ones, have at it.

[touchring]

Re: What problems facing the world today would not be aided by population reduction?

This is actually happening in China now. My Chinese friends tell me that while it used to be that the law discouraged people from having large families, nowadays it is the decision of parents to delay and/or limit the number of children they want to have, and this is beginning to worry the government.

So, you see, the root cause is not the population size itself, or limited resources, but rather the limited access to opportunities.
J.

Poverty alone does not prevent population growth.



http://www.pedicabnews.com/?attachment_id=807

[zmas28]

Re: What problems facing the world today would not be aided by population reduction?

The problems (and answers) to food scarcity have a political and human dimension that can not be ignored if one is honestly trying to solve these problems. It is much more than the question of commodity pricing in markets.
The first thing to do is to try to understand the reasons for poverty before proposing extreme solutions, no matter how simple. You will find that the reasons are political, and the right solutions therefore must be political as well.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: What problems facing the world today would not be aided by population reduction?

Everything below is a quote from link. Summit targets global food crisis http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7432583.stm 6/3/2008

The UN will target investment for future food production A key UN-sponsored summit is set to open in Rome aimed at addressing the problem of soaring global food prices Food costs are the highest in 30 years, causing riots in dozens of countries. UN officials said Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would call for the immediate suspension or elimination of price controls or other trade restrictions. But many observers have so far focused on Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, whose presence at the summit has been called "obscene" by the UK and Australia. Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said the Zimbabwean president was "the person who has presided over the starvation of his people". Biofuel issue The hosts of the Rome conference - the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) - has warned the industrialised countries that unless they increase yields, eliminate barriers and move food to where it is needed most, a global catastrophe could result. The recent crisis is believed to have pushed another 100 million people into hunger worldwide. Poorer countries are faced with a 40% increase in their food imports bill this year. Rising prices have sparked protests such as here in Pakistan The BBC's Christian Fraser in Rome says the FAO is calling on donor countries to dig deeper - to help farmers in developing countries get access to fertiliser, seeds and the animal feed they require. The FAO says the problem of chronic underinvestment in agriculture can no longer be ignored. Ahead of the conference, the Islamic Development Bank said at a meeting in Saudi Arabia that it would spend $1.5bn (£760m) over five years to help the least developed Muslim countries tackle the food crisis. One area expected to generate disagreements in Rome is biofuel - most of the increase in maize production last year went into making fuels such as ethanol, not food. Mr Ban intends to ask the US and other countries to phase out subsidies that encourage farmers to produce for fuel. UN officials said there would be a range of "confidence-building" options for governments. The taskforce Mr Ban created to target the food crisis is expected to present a 38-page report with measures that could cost up to $15bn (£7.5bn) to implement. It will contain short and long-term measures. In the short term, the report will call for a reduction in tariffs and the provision of subsidies for poorer farmers. The long-term measures will focus on increased investment. 'Cascade' risk On the eve of the summit, Mr Ban said "we are literally paying the price" for overlooking investment in agriculture. "If not handled properly, this issue could trigger a cascade of other crises - affecting economic growth, social progress, and even political security around the world," he warned. The main causes of the rising food prices include rising demand from fast-developing countries, higher oil costs, and global warming. Officials will hope the plight of the poor diverts attention away from the presence of Mr Mugabe. It is his first visit to Europe since the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won a majority in parliamentary elections in March. He faces a presidential run-off on 27 June against MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Mr Mugabe's supporters have been accused of attacking MDC activists, leaving at least 50 dead. Zimbabwe used to be a net food exporter but now suffers from chronic food shortages.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: What problems facing the world today would not be aided by population reduction?

World Bank offers $1.2bn food aid

The World Bank is to offer immediate financial help to countries worst hit by sharp rises in food prices as part of a $1.2bn (£608m) assistance package. Grants worth a total of $200m are being set aside for "high priority" countries most at risk from acute hunger. Haiti and Liberia will get $10m each to feed their most vulnerable people while Djibouti will receive $5m. The World Bank says 100 million people could be impoverished by the rising cost and scarcer availability of food. It has also identified Togo, Yemen and Tajikistan as being in need of immediate assistance following recent needs assessments. 'Immediate danger' "It is crucial that we focus on specific action," said World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "These initiatives will help address the immediate danger of hunger and malnutrition for the two billion people struggling to survive in the face of rising food prices." Countries will be able to access money to provide food for schools and other core services as well as to buy essential items such as seeds and fertilizer. Emphasis JN http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7426311.stm 5/30/2008

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: What problems facing the world today would not be aided by population reduction?

Could GM crops help feed Africa

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7428789.stm 5/30/2008

Snip: writing about Uganda

The school is struggling to cope. Staff are worried that, soon, they will be unable to feed the kids.

The school is a microcosm of the problems facing all of Uganda, and indeed the region.

The problem is one of supply and demand.

The United Nations predicts that demand is only going to increase. The answer must be to increase the food supply.
That is why millions of dollars are being spent on trying to develop Drought Resistant Maize.

[Guest]

Re: What problems facing the world today would not be aided by population reduction?

Jim - This is the first time I've ever seen you post so extensively about your lively concern for current humanitarian issues among the world's destitute. I've always thought of you instead as a sort of "homespun Ayn Randian" looking for the robust and elegant philosophical structures upon which you can hang your (quite healthy) self interest. Longtime Ayn Randian, suddenly turned activist for altruistic concerns about world hunger? Methinks you are closer to your true calling when rattling on about how half the globe's population needs to be "abated" in order to improve the quality of life (for the rest of us). That's how you come across in your less "politically guarded" moments. :rolleyes:

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: What problems facing the world today would not be aided by population reduction?

Jim - This is the first time I've ever seen you post so extensively about your lively concern for current humanitarian issues among the world's destitute. I've always thought of you instead as a sort of "homespun Ayn Randian" looking for the robust and elegant philosophical structures upon which you can hang your (quite healthy) self interest. Longtime Ayn Randian, suddenly turned activist for altruistic concerns about world hunger? Methinks you are closer to your true calling when rattling on about how half the globe's population needs to be "abated" in order to improve the quality of life (for the rest of us). That's how you come across in your less "politically guarded" moments. :rolleyes:

Well, Luke, as always you come across to be as being full of poop. Everyone hold your compliments to me for my stretch for civility.

[Guest]

Re: What problems facing the world today would not be aided by population reduction?

I suspect Russia negative growth is reversing; nothing like a decade long (or longer) growth spurt to encourage families to start having more kids.

In Mark Steyn's "America Alone" he went on a lot about how they're not having enough births to replace themselves. Of course bad economic times could have been the problem, and with improvement they'll "get back on the horse", so to speak.

As for ways to reduce population, a lot of folks here have implied it requires some draconian measures. I don't think that's the case. We could start simply by not endorsing and subsidizing it! We give tax breaks and credits for kids, when if you think about it one should be paying MORE taxes if you have children, since they consume more govn't services and you'll need to cover their share till age 18 or so. It's one thing if there was a people shortage to encourage it through subsidy, but last I checked the commute to work here was 1.5 hours. I'm guessing we're well stocked at the moment.

Through "public education" we force the childless to pay for much of the cost of the children of others' education. We provide a plethora of "free" healthcare and other services for children that we don't for adults. So simply not subsidizing it would probably have some effect on birthrates. I'm not arguing for/against any of these, just saying the cause/effect.

Then you could move onto some active tactics. In some cases merely offering 10 free lotto tickets in exchange for becoming sterilized would suffice. In others it might require a cash payment in exchange for limiting childbearing. So have 10 kids if you choose. Or have none and enjoy your new car your subsidy bought you. Decide to have a kid later? You owe us $25K plus interest.

It's funny how we call it "an illegal pyramid scheme" when someone relies on a continual exponetially expanding pool of people to fund some financial endeavor like water filters, but it's "growth...and growth is always good" when we rely on simply pumping more people into the world to support growth of the economy or a city or whatever. As if getting bigger is de-facto better. A population density either too low or too high, taken to extremes is obviously bad. 1 person per state would be kind of sad. But so would 500 million. So obviously there's a balance there somewhere.