Three's a crowd? The battle over population and reproduction

[MrDowney666]

tits

[malsifood]

Our time has run out! Enabling human choices does not work! The population of the west will be replaced by the exploding muslim countries! Egypt: 80 Mio. Inhabitants. 1/2 are under 20 years old. So: 20 Mio. couples the next 20 years. Lets assume that the egypt government tomorrow only allows 2 children per couple! What will happen? + 40Mio children +50% Inhabitants! This is, if the government acts!(best case) But they will not! Islam does not permit fammily planning!

[gits6666]

First world civlization consuming more than 100x the amnt resources than a third world person to sustain a lifestyle that is generally filled empty comercialized fluff to keep unbalanced economies afloat. People want to be able theire cake and be able to eat it, hording and is in opertunism is programmed into our genes. Population control and lifestyle regression are dicissions most people are unwilling to make. We need to understand why. NO CAUSE NO EFFECT. NO CHOICE NO MORE RESOURCES.

[nonaCbarC]

There are two ways to reduce birth rate: contraception, abstinence, i.e. contraception isn't the only way to reduce birth rate.

[badger5079]

If everyone has access to contraception, this will allow a great reduction in birth rates. Allowing people access to contraception is a form of liberty, not coercion. The Catholic church invades peoples' private lives to dictate to them that contraception is wrong because it wants to increase the number of Catholics. This is leading to an unnecessarily high birth rate which is unsustainable.

[SirGeorge8600]

@badger5079 Bullshit. I'm an atheist, but I'm also a realist. Statistics from multiple sources show that countries where the majority of believers are Catholic either have a neutral or declining birth rate, and only a small fraction of these countries have an increasing birthrate that are in the third world, and was increasing before Catholicism established itself there....

[badger5079]

@SirGeorge8600

Do you deny that third world birth rates are high due to a lack of use of contraception? Catholicism is only one reason for this behaviour, of course.

[SirGeorge8600]

@badger5079 And clearly Catholic countries know how to use contraception...hmmm. Maybe it's low average IQ's of the third world? After all, if they're following 100% of what the Pope says unlike the vast majority of your normal average Catholics then something must be wrong in the head...

[badger5079]

@SirGeorge8600

Third world populations are uneducated and more vulnerable to the illogical dictats of religious leaders. Third world people are less educated about STIs.

[badger5079]

The population of the earth is spiraling and will eventually cause us to run out of resources. The shock may come via war, disease or famine or flood but something is going to cause the population of humans on the closed system of the earth to drop. It would be easier for humanity if we reduced our numbers before the reduction is enforced upon us.

[alexmigda]

Killer 'stache!

[aerobique]

.there is no food problem

there is a waste problem

[aerobique]

earth is more than rich... most people are poor

[MarmaladeINFP]

The discussion is pretty good. I liked what the first guy said. The lady seemed to be stuck in a mindset of ideology rather than facts. She did make a simplistic argument about personal rights as being entirely separate from social good. For some strange reason, she seemed to be arguing against the first guys argument that increasing choice is good.

[MarmaladeINFP]

At the end, she was arguing that facts and morality are opposed. Anyone who makes a rational argument is automatically making an immoral argument. Why can't we consider both facts and morality? Why can't we have a morality that doesn't exclude the facts but is actually based on facts? There has been a lot of research on human behaior and psychology which includes research on moral development. Why would we want to ignore all of that just for the sake of one particular moral ideology?

[jefevonQ]

Imagine that, a Catholic that will not agree with someone on reproductive issue.

Here in WI, USA, we have great ag land. As a young adult, I noticed that we kept building over it. The population issue became a mathematical one. How long can this go on? Can you imagine all of Chine and India living like the U.S.? We'd be screwed and quick! No one is suggesting that we stop reproducing. Just slow it substantially.

You don't need a P.H.D. to see this.

[RosenzweigBenjamin2]

@jefevonQ You do need to appreciate the law of accelerating returns. If you look at Hong Kong it has one of the highest population densities on the planet and yet it is one of the wealthiest locations in the world because of individual economic liberty; people can start small businesses without heavy restriction or taxes.

Then look at India, where its nearly impossible to start a small business but Coke, Pepsi and KFC get free passes.

[jefevonQ]

I don't ever want to live in Hong Kong, or a place like it. That culture and environment isn't what we want.

Anyway, don't encourage the people who believe that we can just keep breeding and taking all we want. They believe that God &/or the marketplace will solve the problem.

[RosenzweigBenjamin2]

I don't believe either will solve the problem of resources being depleted. I believe that the accelerating rate of technological change will. I'd really like my generation to start considering the ethics of genetic engineering, designer babies, transhumanism, etc.

My second point is that I think we would both put the blame for depleted resources more on corrupt businessmen and politicians then on the working class. How many resources have we used in Iraq? How much wasted by Halliburton?

[jefevonQ]

The tech change may be the answer. We need to 'perfect' the human gene research, so that wasteful human conditions and diseases can be dealt with or eliminated.

I just don't see a planet packed with humans as the future that any culture really wants. We really need to retain 'fall-back' space.

[RosenzweigBenjamin2]

@jefevonQ Agreed. But just wait about 7-8 years when we'll finally have the processing capacity, advanced GPS systems and sensors that will finally make driverless cars reliable and, in fact, safer than manually driven cars. Or 3-4 years when the cost-efficiency of solar energy and the energy capacity of batteries will finally be less than oil and will continue on a downward trend so as to make fossil fuels obsolete. I feel that overpopulation is the least of our worries.

[RosenzweigBenjamin2]

@jefevonQ These are, of course, based on extrapolations of Moore's law done by Ray Kurzweil and General Motors. Just look up Ray Kurzweil's TEDtalk on the youtube search engine for his take on the issue. I also highly recommend his later work "The Singularity Is Near". The fact of the matter is that, unskilled labor is quickly becoming obsolete. Without education reform, we will have unprecedented levels of unemployment. & we already have devastating shortages in engineering, medical and tech.

[RosenzweigBenjamin2]

On the bright side, however, the college-educated (especially those in engineering, medical, tech and education) will enjoy unprecedented economic prosperity as a result of cheap, renewable energy.

[jefevonQ]

I don't necessarily disagree with what you've stated, but! There's always a 'but'. These concepts, labeled as rules are yet to occur over a longer time-line. Ours is pretty short.This is definitely something to work for. To some extent, it's no different than faith though. Except to perhaps Nitsch.

And I'm one of the 'unskilled' laborers. Well, actually, I have returned to school for engineering. Ironically enough.

[RosenzweigBenjamin2]

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to compare it with faith, though yes, I agree these rules are not set in stone, trends can and often do discontinue at some point. If the trend does continue, however, you'll be set.

[jefevonQ]

Remember, these trends happen over a couple of generations, based on history anyway. I'm not that concerned about my lifetime. Hopefully! It's the long term, 50-100 years where things may start getting interesting.