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Post by Dimstow on Mar 9, 2010 2:17:05 GMT -5
Overpopulation is a major issue and is becoming a more and more prominent issue across the world.
I think we can all agree that overpopulation is indefinitely a bad thing
BUT
I think overpopulation is an inevitable result of the Successes of the human race.By furthering our understanding of medicines, by extending or average lifetimes, by diplomatically solving issues rather than sending wave after wave of soldier at it we have allowed ourselves to survive and thus succeed and overpopulation is the simple, inevitable, result of that.
What do you guys think?
What can we do to solve overpopulation?
Do you think overpopulation shows that humans are succeeding in our goals or failing in them?
Do you think it had anything to do with raising trends in facial hair?
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Post by noobsensei on Mar 9, 2010 3:38:01 GMT -5
I agree that it's a result of human successes. As people start to live longer (and in more urban settings), they have less need to have lots of offspring. The problem is there is about a one-generation lag between the decline in death rates and the decline in birth rates.
In general, overpopulation is not a serious problem. There are some parts of the world (i.e. Africa and Southeast Asia) where it's a problem, but overall the world is not overpopulated. We could fit the entire population of the world into Texas, and it wouldn't be any denser than New York City currently is.
To the extent that it's a problem, it is largely solving itself. The birth rate peaked in the 1960s and has been dropping ever since. The population will eventually level off between 9 and 12 billion...and our technological progress should enable us to feed more and more people.
As for what we can do to help reduce birth rates faster, the main thing is economic development. In most countries, people decide on their own that having large numbers of children is unnecessary once they have a certain standard of living. Beyond that, we can donate to charities that promote sex education and condom use in Africa, where most people simply don't have access to those things.
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Post by Adrian (123easyway) on Mar 9, 2010 16:54:54 GMT -5
Overpopulation is baaaaaad. The main problem comes down to the same issues with global warming, the famously incorrect quote: "One man can't make a difference" I know this is slightly out of place but I think this is a reasonably good argument for pro-abortion. Although not touching any moral grounds, it would certainly hold the population firm.
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StarF
Meteor
Nerdcore Rapper
Posts: 84
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Post by StarF on Mar 9, 2010 16:57:06 GMT -5
We could fit the entire population of the world into Texas, and it wouldn't be any denser than New York City currently is. Wait, woah, what? That can't be true. |
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Post by Joey on Mar 9, 2010 17:31:33 GMT -5
Is the world really overpopulated, or are there a resonable amount of people, and the only reason we think overpopulation is a problem becuase we have some people with BILLIONS of dollars that could support HUNDREDS of people and still live a modest lifestyle? DISTRIBUTION, not overpopulation is the problem.
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Post by noobsensei on Mar 9, 2010 17:38:28 GMT -5
We could fit the entire population of the world into Texas, and it wouldn't be any denser than New York City currently is. Wait, woah, what? That can't be true. It is. New York City's population density, according to Wikipedia, is 27,440 people per square mile. Texas' land area is 268,820 square miles, and there are about 6.8 billion people in the world. So if you shoved them all into Texas, the density would be 25,296 people per square mile. About the same as NYC. |
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Post by Ryan on Mar 9, 2010 21:23:22 GMT -5
In first world countries, overpopulation is not a problem. In second world countries, overpopulation is rapidly reaching controlled levels. In third world countries there is a massive overpopulation problem.
This is primarily due to :
1)Poor conditions lead families to give birth to far more than necessary children, some of these children die to disease, and the other reason is that more children means more available labor to do what is necessary to survive (collect food, stay warm, work jobs/fields/gardens, etc.)
2)Cultural needs to give birth to children until there is a male. China and India are the most populus countries in the world. While China has taken steps to lower their population issue, that doesn't change the fact that families in China do not want female babies, they want a male to carry on the family name. This leads to orphaned children, who sometimes get adopted. In India, there are no population control laws, so some women will have 8 to 10 girl babies before they either give up or have a boy child.
In Kenya and other African countries, families end up having large number of offspring due to the age old profession of prostitution with lack of birth control. The population of Kenya is not necessarily that massive because a lot of the middle aged (20-50) people are dying of diseases (including AIDS). However, their populations are rising larger than they should.
These are just some of the reasons that the world population is still increasing exponentially and why we may possibly face an overpopulation crisis. These reasons do not represent our success as a species. Let us recap the general reasons: Necessity to overcome disease in a family and cultural views for necessity to have a male child (I'm not saying that cultural views are wrong, but I am saying that they are being exaggerated to a disproportionately large and excessive level).
If anything, these reasons represent our FAILURE as a species. There is enough food produced each year to feed every person what is necessary to survive, 4 times over. There is enough stockpiled medicine to ensure that families don't have to worry about diseases that commonly wipe out families in third world countries.
If we want to say that we have succeeded as a species in populating the earth, then the species must not have to worry about how long they will have to go before they get a meal, or the next time they will sleep in a place where there is a roof, or whether or not their mother will die due to a disease that can easily be cured.
The problem is overpopulation, it is caused by poor distribution, and until both are fixed, we have not succeeded.
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Post by Joey on Mar 9, 2010 23:17:32 GMT -5
It's like the envirorment. We don't realize that we are doing something bad untill one day we look around and say "what did we do?" we need to fix this before it becomes a major problem. We live in the us culture, where everything most people do is after they ask themselves "what will I get out of it?" when we should ask "what will be for the greater good?"
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Post by mr mac on Mar 11, 2010 0:14:58 GMT -5
We live in the us culture, where everything most people do is after they ask themselves "what will I get out of it?" when we should ask "what will be for the greater good?" I disagree. The greater good is something that might help a lot of people but would you give your life to donate your organs if 10 people would die tomorrow unless u donated them? You would have to do it for the greater good but i think in our own lives we have to do what makes our world a better place through our own eyes and if that means not caring about homeless people but helping poor people in other countries. As long as it makes you happy in the end. |
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Post by Joey on Mar 12, 2010 18:24:52 GMT -5
A life not spent for others is a life wasted.-albert einstine
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LegacyOfPaper
Moon
Why yes, I would like a side of fries
Posts: 178
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Post by LegacyOfPaper on Mar 12, 2010 18:29:19 GMT -5
Obviously we need make more productive people to make stuff to counter over population.
I'm serious.
Too many people wouldn't be a bad thing if more of those people could find ways to deal with the too many people.
We're like a gear factory that can't make gears to fix itself.
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