overpopulation

[deleted15807]

Re: Isn't populating denser, globally, the obvious natural approach?



Traffic gridlock isn't caused by sheer numbers, but by poor planning, and perhaps in a way, excessive mobility of people. We could choose to work closer to where we live, but then we like our choice of where to live rather independent of where we work as that can be too temporary, and we have great variety in our work interests. Streets and roads are often very inefficient, because they connect only through a few major "artery" roads, quickly noticable to bicycle riders who like quiet roads. There's plenty of roads, they just don't connect, without getting on busy roads. "You can't get there from here."

There's a couple of approaches. Better planning, build more freeway bypasses, or people staying home more, fat chance of much of that anytime soon? Or staying home more during rush hour. Or the "flying cars" of The Jetsons cartoon future. No roads = no traffic gridlock.

And being stuck in traffic, doesn't take away one's reproductive urges, nor the many practical reasons for having children. You can always move to a smaller town or village if you like, and then move again when it grows, if you like, but then, you may have many friends and family and want to stay.

I still stand by my view of bigger and more cities. Who's to say that various cities can't be "touching" or coelesced into one another. People can always choose to stay in "their city/neighborhood," if they like?

BTW, world population now officially, if you believe the official numbers, grows by about 1.2% a year. So where do you get 5 or 10%? Adding in increasing affluence or prosperity as well? All those extra boats and vacation homes and excessive vacation traffic?

More people only equal more stress on the planet. More deforestation, more disappearance of plant and animal food sources. 50 million acres disappear every year. How long can that be sustained? Mankind's scourge of the planet cannot continue forever. If we don't stop ourselves nature will do it for us.

Enormous areas of the world's rainforests are being burned each year, and these conflagrations result in layers of smoke haze that cover tens of thousands of square kilometers. Innumerable species have become extinct as the direct result of human activity, and the rate of extinctions is increasing estimates that, at the present rate of ecosystem destruction, as many as 25% of all living species will become extinct within the next fifty years. Today, one oil tanker captain can wipe out a whole ecosystem.

It has been said the human population has often been compared to some kind of planetary disease and that the earth's crust has a skin disease, a case of microbes infecting its crust, and that sickness is man.

 

[pronatalist]

Re: World population naturally rises.

How about just not adding all those billions of additional people? Seems much simpler and more responsible to me.

Nonsense. They say that you can't stop people from having sex. Well sex = babies. Most people want or end up with children. It goes against nature, to interfere with human populations naturally rising.

Of course, it helps quite a lot, that the world can hold, or be made to hold, lots more people. And a growing world population, helps keep the world interesting, rather than a dull, boring place.

 

[BigDuder]

you guys are all whimps. i am going to have so many children.

 

[Ethyl]

you guys are all whimps. i am going to have so many children.

Cool. Take 'em to overpronatalist's house to play. :biggrin1:

 

[pronatalist]

Re: If we don't control our numbers, neither will nature.

How do you think we grew so numerous anyway? Most anything of nature that could "control" our numbers, seems to be fast fading away.

More people only equal more stress on the planet. More deforestation, more disappearance of plant and animal food sources. 50 million acres disappear every year. How long can that be sustained? Mankind's scourge of the planet cannot continue forever. If we don't stop ourselves nature will do it for us.

No, nature has no interest in stopping us. People are both part of nature and transcend nature. We dominate nature, and so nature serves to enlarge our numbers.

Stress on the planet? Does the planet "care?" No, the planet does not think. It's a complex and resilient system designed to support human life, and multiply us to incredible levels. Deforestation? People don't eat trees, and we have trees within our cities.

Enormous areas of the world's rainforests are being burned each year, and these conflagrations result in layers of smoke haze that cover tens of thousands of square kilometers. Innumerable species have become extinct as the direct result of human activity, and the rate of extinctions is increasing estimates that, at the present rate of ecosystem destruction, as many as 25% of all living species will become extinct within the next fifty years. Today, one oil tanker captain can wipe out a whole ecosystem.

Well let forests burn then. People don't seem to like to live in trees, and farmers can't grow much on the shaded forest floor. Do you or I, have time or money to go "educate" all those peasant farmers, on "better" landuse practices? Forest fires used to spread over maybe 40 or 60 million acres annually in the U.S., before humans grew in power and interfered. Now it's more like a few million acres, every other year or so.

And we need the oil, to power all our cars. But couldn't we produce more of the oil, more locally?

It has been said the human population has often been compared to some kind of planetary disease and that the earth's crust has a skin disease, a case of microbes infecting its crust, and that sickness is man.

That's not really a very useful analogy. A planetary "pregnancy" is a far better analogy, as pregnancies need to grow, and all parts of the pregnancy are expected to grow, and growth is necessary to escape the womb. The growth of humanity is constructive, and far more organized than the willy-nilly growth of microbes. The human body has what? 100 trillion cells? World population is far less than 100 trillion people, so why worry ourselves excessively about "what must be?"

Besides, that's a tired old passé metaphor anyway. I have books all about such nonsense. One book called man, some sort of "City Pox" upon the planet. As if we were "alien" invaders who don't belong, contrary to a sensible pro-life view. So human populations spread. What else is new?

 

[BigDuder]

if all the well endowed men of this site refuse to have kids out of principle we may be looking at a world where only the offspring of duder are considered hung. this is a legacy i am comfortable with.

 

[pronatalist]

Cool. Take 'em to overpronatalist's house to play. :biggrin1:

We could trade babysitting.

 

[BigDuder]

We could trade babysitting.

why should we babysit? let these childless assholes lend in a hand every now and then. it takes a village.

 

[pronatalist]

Re: Maybe somebody else (nobody) can make the sacrifice of not breeding so much?

if all the well endowed men of this site refuse to have kids out of principle we may be looking at a world where only the offspring of duder are considered hung. this is a legacy i am comfortable with.

Well I am comfortable with letting your descendents proliferate throughout the planet, if they behave themselves, and you allow my descendents, to also proliferate throughout the planet.

Rather than "I'll scratch your back, and you scratch mine," we could say, "I'll scoot over a bit for your many children, if you do the same for mine."

I would think that well-endowed people ought to procreate prolifically, because wouldn't our descendents perhaps like to have those well-endowment genes passed on to them? Of course those who aren't well-endowed, may also procreate prolifically, if they can or are fertile enough.

 

[pronatalist]

why should we babysit? let these childless assholes lend in a hand every now and then. it takes a village.

Good point. They do have too much idle time on their hands, don't they?

But would you trust childless adults with no experience raising children, to watch your children? Me neither.

One point I could make though. Americans seem perhaps a wee bit "overprotective" of our children? In the developing countries, don't children go out and play, without always some adult closely watching them? And they always find their way home when they get hungry or when it's time, imagine that.

 

[BigDuder]

i will procreate at so alarming a rate that all future family bands will be descended directly from me.

 

[BigDuder]

Good point. They do have too much idle time on their hands, don't they?

But would you trust childless adults with no experience raising children, to watch your children? Me neither.

One point I could make though. Americans seem perhaps a wee bit "overprotective" of our children? In the developing countries, don't children go out and play, without always some adult closely watching them? And they always find their way home when they get hungry or when it's time, imagine that.

in the developing world kids die all the time. i've seen dogs eating the remains of babys with my own eyes before when in the third world. (this may be the first post i have ever made that is completely serious)

 

[Drifterwood]

People are both part of nature and transcend nature. We dominate nature, and so nature serves to enlarge our numbers.

Tell that to a Tsunami, Cnut.

 

[pronatalist]

in the developing world kids die all the time. i've seen dogs eating the remains of babys with my own eyes before when in the third world. (this may be the first post i have ever made that is completely serious)

Doesn't that come from, largely, them living more "at one" with nature? Living on too often, dirt floors, no screens in windows, dirty drinking water, undercooked food due to lack of any modern gas or electric stoves or microwave ovens, too natural of homes with holes letting in rodents and other critters. Sort of like what "environmentalists" might impose upon us, if they had their way? Christian standards were compassionate, helping to improve cleanliness and improve living standards, supposedly leading to the modern population "explosion" of humanity. So what do liberals offer? They want to undo all that progress, and at the very least, re-pollute our bodies with nasty, experimental contraceptives, so that we humans might live more "at one" with nature, rather than dominating nature like we were designed to do.

I am comfortable with living "naturally" more, concerning procreation, but I like my "artificial" clean home that bugs and critters don't like, because it isn't much of "natural" wet rotting materials, and my "artificial" food preservation refrigerator, my "artificial" microwave oven, my "artificially" clean drinking water, etc.

 

[pronatalist]

Re: If we don't control our numbers, neither will nature.

People are both part of nature and transcend nature. We dominate nature, and so nature serves to enlarge our numbers.

Tell that to a Tsunami, Cnut.

Our numbers are so large, not even a tsunami can get us all. What is it? 200,000+ people more in the world per day? Even people who die in some natural disaster like that, are "replaced" by more births, in a matter of hours. Or a few days at most.

We alter nature. We don't always fully "control" nature, sort of like we can't be expected to fully "control" our procreation level, either.

 

[BigDuder]

i think most predictions are for a smaller global population by the year 2100. in fact, it has been declining in most developed countries for quite some time

 

[pronatalist]

Re: But an even huger global population, would be so much cooler, to benefit the many.

i think most predictions are for a smaller global population by the year 2100. in fact, it has been declining in most developed countries for quite some time

No thanks to rampant contraceptive pushing by those evil "family planning" freaks. When we could/should be more populous than ever, by 2100, if the Biblical endtimes don't occur before then.

Even a newspaper cartoon got it about right, when it depicted the serpent in the Garden of Eden, offering Eve a condom. What for, to spoil her innocence and confuse her, and perhaps turn her into a raving femi-nazi?

 

[Drifterwood]

If Yellowstone blows, there won't be many of you left. Then there won't be many of us left. After all, in real time terms, we have only been here in a twinkling of the eye.

Mass extinctions are not uncommon. Your hubris regarding our fragility in the face of nature is a bit silly really.

 

[Ethyl]

Good point. They do have too much idle time on their hands, don't they?

But would you trust childless adults with no experience raising children, to watch your children? Me neither.

Excellent point...just as I don't trust people who insist birth control is Satan's work and tout irresponsibility.

 

[deleted15807]

you guys are all whimps. i am going to have so many children.

Fertility is tied to education and wealth. The poor and uneducated have the most. So please go ahead and prove the theory.