Human Population
UltimaGecko
hates endnotes Join Date: 2003-05-14 Member: 16320Members
hates endnotes Join Date: 2003-05-14 Member: 16320Members
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<div class="IPBDescription">...and 'deep ecology'</div> Prompted by =DD= Wolf Kahler's rant<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=68894&st=15' target='_blank'>in the Off-Topic North Korean train wreck thread</a>, I feel the need to discuss human population, its effects on the enviroment, tradgedies of the past and deep ecology.
Over the last 200 years <a href='http://guibord.com/Democracy/FILES-HTML/World_Population_Graph.html' target='_blank'>[graph]</a> human population has increased at an exponential rate. That's around 6 billion people today, when two centuries ago there were 600 million. The advent of farming and medical advances allowed for longer lifespans, increasing from late 20's to early 40's all the way to 80+ in non third world countries.
This is a population boom. A population explosion. Multiple countries have now surpassed 1 billion people as their own populations. Great numbers of deaths, such as World War 2, Stalin's purging and floods of populated areas (such as China) make no dent in the population. In fact, the last substantial percentage of human population loss came from plagues in thirteen and fourteen hundreds, which mostly affected Europe.
This brings us to the value of human life and the equilibrium the human race lacks. Organisms like yeast reach equilibrium quite easily, and live off eachother in a manner where their population experiances no major booms or crashes (in essence, they canibalize themselves to keep about equal numbers in an enviroment with limited food which could not sustain more creatures) [and no, I'm not suggesting cannibalism].
The point is, numerous species of animals on Earth experiance this phenomenon, deer, wolves - most mammals in fact. This begs the question, Are humans equalizers or cyclers? This generally does not happen in the wild, because equilbrium happens through the web of life: wolves keep the deer in check, and the lack of extra deer keep the wolves in check (as an example). Humans on the other hand have no 'natural' predators, based on our technology, so it makes one wonder which we are.
That is, will we eventually reach equilibrium and stop growing without shrinking; or will we grow until we can't grow anymore, experience a famine/disaster and have many people die which would continue in an endless cycle.
Thus the 'Deep ecologists' enter the picture, groups of people (such as =DD= reminds me of, slightly) who say all other envriomentalists are false, and their view of ecology relies soley with human interest. Deep ecologists believe themselves to be non-human centered, with the idea that we've become culturally and enviromentally seperated from nature, but that we are still cells within the organism that is the planet. However, we're also a scourge upon the planet, that is, we do nothing but harm it - we are the cancer cells of the Earth (as my philosophy professor explains it.
They suggest the Earth should maintain a constant population of around 160 million people (if any at all...), that more humans than this came about only through the advent of agriculture. We should become hunter-gatherers. Whatever helps the enviroment is morally good and right; and whatever harms the enviroment is inherently morally bad. [these would be the people associated with tree sitting, putting sugar in the gas tanks of construction equipment, burning the houses of rich people (who encroach upon the enviroment - mostly in California, for this)]
The other side of the story, or the 'soft ecologists' (as the 'deep ecologists' would call them) believe we just need to take care of the enviroment, protect the species, clean up the earth with better clean air acts and pollution standards, that we need to conserve water and power and that the human race can live as well with animals as ever, no matter our population [granted this is a much broader area, and not necessarily applied perfectly with each remark to every ecologist].
So, what are your opinions on the state of the human population? Are we to many in a space to small? Should we revert to our ancestors way of life, to help the Earth (and appease the 'deep ecologists')? Should we mourn the loss of every life - is a human's worth any more than an ant, or a dog, or a monkey - in that we should mourn for people who die in train crashes or the holocaust, but not fumigated ants, or the death of siberian tigers? Are we equalizers or cyclers?
Thoughts and discussion... <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
[as usual, not to clutter the opening post, I'll post my response in a bit (actually have to go play dominion and attack people...)]
Over the last 200 years <a href='http://guibord.com/Democracy/FILES-HTML/World_Population_Graph.html' target='_blank'>[graph]</a> human population has increased at an exponential rate. That's around 6 billion people today, when two centuries ago there were 600 million. The advent of farming and medical advances allowed for longer lifespans, increasing from late 20's to early 40's all the way to 80+ in non third world countries.
This is a population boom. A population explosion. Multiple countries have now surpassed 1 billion people as their own populations. Great numbers of deaths, such as World War 2, Stalin's purging and floods of populated areas (such as China) make no dent in the population. In fact, the last substantial percentage of human population loss came from plagues in thirteen and fourteen hundreds, which mostly affected Europe.
This brings us to the value of human life and the equilibrium the human race lacks. Organisms like yeast reach equilibrium quite easily, and live off eachother in a manner where their population experiances no major booms or crashes (in essence, they canibalize themselves to keep about equal numbers in an enviroment with limited food which could not sustain more creatures) [and no, I'm not suggesting cannibalism].
The point is, numerous species of animals on Earth experiance this phenomenon, deer, wolves - most mammals in fact. This begs the question, Are humans equalizers or cyclers? This generally does not happen in the wild, because equilbrium happens through the web of life: wolves keep the deer in check, and the lack of extra deer keep the wolves in check (as an example). Humans on the other hand have no 'natural' predators, based on our technology, so it makes one wonder which we are.
That is, will we eventually reach equilibrium and stop growing without shrinking; or will we grow until we can't grow anymore, experience a famine/disaster and have many people die which would continue in an endless cycle.
Thus the 'Deep ecologists' enter the picture, groups of people (such as =DD= reminds me of, slightly) who say all other envriomentalists are false, and their view of ecology relies soley with human interest. Deep ecologists believe themselves to be non-human centered, with the idea that we've become culturally and enviromentally seperated from nature, but that we are still cells within the organism that is the planet. However, we're also a scourge upon the planet, that is, we do nothing but harm it - we are the cancer cells of the Earth (as my philosophy professor explains it.
They suggest the Earth should maintain a constant population of around 160 million people (if any at all...), that more humans than this came about only through the advent of agriculture. We should become hunter-gatherers. Whatever helps the enviroment is morally good and right; and whatever harms the enviroment is inherently morally bad. [these would be the people associated with tree sitting, putting sugar in the gas tanks of construction equipment, burning the houses of rich people (who encroach upon the enviroment - mostly in California, for this)]
The other side of the story, or the 'soft ecologists' (as the 'deep ecologists' would call them) believe we just need to take care of the enviroment, protect the species, clean up the earth with better clean air acts and pollution standards, that we need to conserve water and power and that the human race can live as well with animals as ever, no matter our population [granted this is a much broader area, and not necessarily applied perfectly with each remark to every ecologist].
So, what are your opinions on the state of the human population? Are we to many in a space to small? Should we revert to our ancestors way of life, to help the Earth (and appease the 'deep ecologists')? Should we mourn the loss of every life - is a human's worth any more than an ant, or a dog, or a monkey - in that we should mourn for people who die in train crashes or the holocaust, but not fumigated ants, or the death of siberian tigers? Are we equalizers or cyclers?
Thoughts and discussion... <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
[as usual, not to clutter the opening post, I'll post my response in a bit (actually have to go play dominion and attack people...)]
Comments
on another point, i do believe that we have out-grown if you will our equilibirum. we have done what no other species has done and formed technology. if there were others who were to have formed technology in this way then there will be a state of equilibrium between the two, but this is only theoretical in my mind and may never come apparent if this was to occur.
you ask whether we should mourn the death of every creature that inhabits this earth. To this, i say no. i believe that death and birth is a natural process and inevitably, we go through both these in our lives, as do all matter of life forms. i do see that people mourn the loss of loved ones but with mourning the loss of ants.. that seems unnecessary but this could be partially to do with our lack of understanding as to what they do for our society today (if anything) and also their great numbers. now, this brings me back to the human population. if we continue to increase, then will we no longer mourn the deaths of each other? no, because we recognise the part that they play in society and the innocence of some of these people that pass away. (bah, im talking complete crap arnt i?)
i do not believe that we are equalisers. what do we equal ? we can hunt to keep the "deer in check" but in so many occasions we have not equalised their population to work with others, we have wiped them out. Take the mammoth, hunted to extinction by humans. ok, say we do equalise the Deer. when the amount of deer declines, we do not suffer. when one food source of ours in anyway declines we do not bare any adverse affects due to the variety of food sources that we eat.
i think in the next deceade or so, we shall see the adverse effects of our population on the economy. be it the icecaps melting with global warming, the eradication of forestry and the homes of thousands of creatures. we are a parasite on the Earth. we feast on what it has to offer.. and all we give back in return is destruction and death to other populations that co-habit within this world society. and i see that if the population doesnt begin to decline slightly or stop increasing, then this problem will continually rise until it explodes in a shower of famine, death and destruction for the human race
<!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> (i hope that wasnt a load of nonsense)
What those deep ecologists, as you call them, are proposing is a return to the stone age.
This quite simply isnt an option.
Consider for a moment the earth is facing a major ecological disaster. One could argue that we ARE in a major ecological disaster, but just follow my train of thought. Lets say an asteroid will hit the earth, or that a lot of methane got released into the atmosphere from those frozen deposits on the sea bed. Such events would kill off a good deal of life on the earth.
A stone age society would likely persish, and if not perish would be powerless to do anything about it.
A society such as ours could lessen the impact of a disaster, if not prevent it entirely.
Also consider that reducing the worlds population to 160 million over any time period would require a method of selective breeding or enforced contraception.
The practice of medicine would have to be abolished.
Quite simply these "Deep Ecologists" are a minority suggesting a solution that will never be implemented, nor supported, by the majority of the world.
Moving on to the topic at hand though, that of an exponential rate of growth with limited room...
Quite simply I can view it as sort of a good thing.
Allow me to explain.
As the population rises, progress accelerates, newer and better ways of maintaining that population are found and implemented, furthering the process. Eventually, an upper limit is reached. We have not yet reached that upper limit, the earth can still support a much larger population. We can already feed the world twice over, we just lack the proper distribution and hence people starve in africa while people throw away a packet of chips they didnt really want anyway in <insert western country here>.
As far as I'm concerned we should work to maintain the exponential growth rate, not by further consuming earths resources but by expanding the area in which humans live by colonising the nearby worlds. Once we achieve a good infrastructure on earth (for a space faring society) we essentially ship off the willing excess population, not forcibly, but through incentives (IE, "Live on the moon! Amazing 2 bedroom apartments with your OWN Shower!").
One could consider this to be mans ultimate purpose. The earth has been forcing the evolution of more and more agressive species. The dinosaurs were most certainly aggressive but lacked adaptability. Most Pre-Permian life lacked a good deal of the competition. Our competitiveness has wrecked parts of the earth, but as the most competetive and adaptive life form on this planet it should downright expected.
Once the planet is completely and utterly wasted, what do you think humans will do? Stick around? Slump over and die? Hardly. They will collect what biospecimens they have, trees, crops, grass etc and go to say, mars, or even alpha centuari should a habitable world be found and they will spread the life that earth has created.
In the long term, although earth is the cost, the consequences of mankind is that Earth Life spreads as far as man spreads.
So, in this train of thought, we could be considered a kind of spore pod. Although the act of spreading may destroy the earth it ultimately leads to a greater good (spreading life throughout the universe should there prove to be none there in the first place).
Necessity is the mother of invention. If we stabilise and equiblarise (OMG Spelling?!) we'll wind up going nowhere and doing nothing.
Obviously, a great, worldwide pogrom is not an option for trimming the population. Much better would be to increase the standard of living worldwide and reduce the incentive for people to have millions of babies. Averaging one child per woman (like in Italy, actually) would go a long way toward reducing the population, or at least stemming the growth. Express a smaller worldwide population in terms of cheaper oil and the US is sure to go along with the plan <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Eventually, we'd be able to support our current population or larger without destroying the planet, but should we? Is more people on the planet a good thing? I think it would be better for everyone to halve the population and about double the quality of life.
I think, with this topic, it is important to realize that so far, all predicitions of "We are over populated! Disaster ahead!" have been wrong so far.
-mandatory contraceptives
-mass sterilization
-...just plain murder (for the extremist ecologist, I guess)
-popularize abortions ("You're saving the planet!" <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> )
-disallowment of modern medical practices, drugs and antibiotics
-others that might be less radical that I've never heard about (or my philosophy teacher decided were too boring or something)
Then again, lots of them sit in redwoods for months just to save a couple trees.
Personally, I remember my 7th grade biology class, when an article we read said that the entire world population could fit inside Texas with as much room as the average person living in Manhattan (wish I had the article now, but I don't).
It has also been shown that western based countries have growth rates approaching 0% [Germany: 0.04%, est. 2003 <a href='http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gm.html' target='_blank'>CIA World Fact Book</a> ](I'm pretty sure some are negative, somewhere in Europe). So it's my belief that humans can reach equillibrium, perhaps around 10 billion (or once third world countries stop requiring a large number of children).
I think everything else, short of nuclear war, equalizes itself in human society. Large wars are offset by baby booms (millions died in WW2, millions were born from the returning troops afterwards). I don't think interstellar colonization will be viable for the next 150 years at least, so we're stuck with the moon, Earth and Mars (and its two moons, I guess). Seeing as each is obviously smaller than Earth, to live comfortably I'd guess we could have 1 billion on the moon (of course, we'd need technology to control gravity to actually support the life there, the atmosphere alone would be a problem for us presently (assuming we could make it)), 6 billion on a terraformed Mars and maybe around 16 billion on Earth.
Resource managment and allocation seem to be a major problem with humans, and thus, I'm not sure we would want to support many more people than we could now (sure, we could, but if we can't get adequate food to third world countries now, why would two times the number of people do it any better?).
I also think 'deep ecology' is fairly ignorant in its approach as well (because hey, why else would I put it in single quotes? <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> ). They wouldn't have the intelligence or care for the enviroment at 160 million people anymore, I doubt they'd be able to maintain the population at such a low number once science and stuff is rediscovered and reapplied. Or some countries just wouldn't do it, which would probably be worse for the enviroment than it is now (since third world countries would probably be the ones not to adopt the policy).
Not to go completely off topic, but, I think a global disaster would bring the population together and help it realize any mistakes its made and things it needs to fix (except the crazy maniacs who would use it as a pre-emptive assist at taking over the world/region). I think if the population could be controlled a little better (or spread out a little more) in China and India and other places that we'd be pretty well set for at least another 20 years. That would require some great cooperation and willingness to accept foreign citizens by many countries - and that's just not gonna happen.
Where could we live? The moon?<ul><li>Impossible to grow anything</li><li>No oxygen</li><li>No water</li><li>Gravity too low to support atmosphere</li><li>Radiation from the Sun - no atmosphere to block it</li><li>Extreme temperature drops due to lack of atmosphere</li></ul>Need I go on?
The situation is similar with Mars, and every other planet in our solar system.
We can't possibly go to another solar system; thet nearest star is 4.7 (I think) light years away. The current fastest possible speed of travel (in space) was {some number. Maybe 27,000 km/h, not sure}. Even if we do get technology to multiply that speed by <b>10x</b>, it would still take about 100 years to get to the nearest solar system (I think. I forgot already... I did a research essay on this a few months ago. Hope everything is right).
Moving to another planet is not viable. We have to stay on Earth <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
@maximum sustaining capacity: we are like bacteria in a petri dish; maybe even dumber. We grow exponentially until we surpass the sustaining capacity. The bacteria doesn't know that the end is coming; they grow and grow, until it all comes crashing down. As for humans; we can see a problem coming. We know that soon, the world's resources will run out, yet we do nothing about it. We continue squandering our resources. Soon, it'll all come crashing down.
<a href='http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/' target='_blank'>This site</a> describes part of the upcoming problem pretty well.
- If we can't grow anything, we'll take dirt from home.
- If it has no oxygen, we'll plant oxygen-giving plants in the dirt we brought from home.
- No Water? Water is possibly the simplest molocule to make... Ever. Really, just find two hydrogen atoms from... something, and mix with oxygen (from the plants) and you have water.
- If the gravity is too low to support a atmosphere, we'll just have to build something to contain it.
- Radiation from the sun may not be blockable by the atmosphere, but it is by magnetic forces and layers upon layers of dirt and rock. Strong electromagnets placed around a sub-terrainian off-world space colony MAY be suffiecent to stop most forms of radiation. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
- Extreme temperature drops are no problem when you're inside a moon base colony where there's multiple layers of kevlar, titanium, and hardend steel along with solid rock and dirt keeping all the temperature a nice, stable temperature.
Where ever we go, we will adapt. And if we cannot adapt, we will adapt it. And as long as we explore, adapt, and live humanity will be the only equilizer of humanity. Humans will always endure...
Somehow...
Lets assume best case scenario and that we manage to colonize the moon ENTIRELY. In other words, it becomes a 2nd earth with trees and perfectly sustainable for life.
There are more people alive now then there have ever been that have ever walked the earth and died. This is true!
You know how about 10 years ago a 200 mhz computer was top of the line?
Same sort of progression.
I anticipate even if we completely take over the moon, within 10-20 years, the moon too will be completetly full.
Mars? Add another 10 years. Pluto? Titan around jupiter?
Only a matter of time. So now what?
Even if we did manage to colonize the other worlds, we'd colonize them, populate them, need a new one and repeat. From western country examples though, such as Germany and France, I think we could create a 0% growth rate easily, the problem is - some of the more populous countries, like India, have a relatively high growth rate [1.7% (2003 est.) - which is a lot, once you consider they have over 1 billion people]<a href='http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/in.html' target='_blank'>CIA factbook</a>] (I was going to say China, but I think their cool 'one parent per family for goverment assistance' thing kindof works since they have a 0.6% growth rate).
A greater problem with growth rates probably comes form South America and Africa, where growth rates are usually higher tha 1.5%.
How soon do you expect us to colonize the moon and Mars anyway? we haven't landed a person on the moon in 30 years and we've never had one on Mars. I think we'd want to hurry that up if it's our only solution.
I'm not trying to be bigoted, but rather making an observation about their culture that was definately true through the 40's (even said by Indian writers), and could easily be true now.
On another note: the amount of effort needed to colonize a planet is likely more than the effort required to make the earth sustainable. It costs like $10,000 per pound (about $4,500 per kg) just to lift something off of the earth. That really adds up. The prospect of moving soil from earth to the moon is ludicrous in that perspective. Maveric's other suggestions are equally infeasible.
<!--QuoteBegin-Hawkeye+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Hawkeye)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->There are more people alive now then there have ever been that have ever walked the earth and died. This is true! <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's really unlikely. Even if there has only been 1000 people alive on the whole planet for the last 5 million years, that'd be 5 billion right there. I'm pretty sure the world population reached 1 billion right around the industrial revolution in Europe, and in the thousands of years before that the world population was still in the hundreds of millions.
But then again that's my armchair prediction from a 3.0 GHz comp sitting in a comfy dorm room in a developed nation. I have no doubt my perspective would be different had I been not so lucky...
- If we can't grow anything, we'll take dirt from home.
- If it has no oxygen, we'll plant oxygen-giving plants in the dirt we brought from home.
- No Water? Water is possibly the simplest molocule to make... Ever. Really, just find two hydrogen atoms from... something, and mix with oxygen (from the plants) and you have water.
- If the gravity is too low to support a atmosphere, we'll just have to build something to contain it.
- Radiation from the sun may not be blockable by the atmosphere, but it is by magnetic forces and layers upon layers of dirt and rock. Strong electromagnets placed around a sub-terrainian off-world space colony MAY be suffiecent to stop most forms of radiation. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
- Extreme temperature drops are no problem when you're inside a moon base colony where there's multiple layers of kevlar, titanium, and hardend steel along with solid rock and dirt keeping all the temperature a nice, stable temperature. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Stop being so <i>optimistic</i>, Maveric <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
-Take dirt from home - too expensive, won't be able to take enough
-Bring photosynthesizing plants - need water + adequate (but not excessive) sunlight (how can you control it?)
-Make water - don't have oxygen because of what I said.
-Build stuff to contain atmosphere - we'd need billions or whatever tonnes of construction material to cover even a small area.
Radiation can be countered by making the bases/colonies mostly underground or develop a shielding alloy using local resources (though this opens it up to micro meteorite bombardment so it would be more economical to have underground bases anyway).
Soil can be created from local resources, all it needs is a bit of treatment, first by bacteria and then plants later on.
The cost factor becomes irrelevant at a point. Yes it costs a lot of money to launch so much weight. It was the same with aeroplanes decades ago; so expensive and impractical it could never become a mainstay and yet only recently one of my friends managed to fly over to vegas to get married and was back within a week only $200 (Aus) out of pocket.
If launches become more common, the price goes down. If there is a necessity to get things done, it WILL get done.
Consider also that gravity is not a problem. Humans can adapt to 1/6 G and although it will foster genetic changes over time it will be long overdue (and beneficial) for our all too homogenous gene pool.
Necessity is the mother of invention, if we wish to maintain large populations then we have to improve the distribution of food/resources on earth and stabilise the population.
Interplanetary/Interstellar colonisation is a long term solution to a long term problem. Short term solutions just wont do. Reaching a population equilibrium simply isnt satisfactory for the long term future of mankind unless you envision it stuck and decadent on earth for a long long time.
All you need to colonise other worlds are an energy source, water, a source of oxygen and the correct tools to go from there. Namely, the correct tools are those of technology (ability to extract oxygen bonded within rocks) and biology (the ability to create a self sustaining biosphere within a bubble and terraform a planet as necessary).
We already have the technology to do it. All we lack is the necessity and the willpower.
Deep Ecologists, to be anything other than hypocrites, must suicide. Darwin says there's no future for that movement if it's honest, and if it's not, well, who needs more preachy hypocrites with their eyes on everyone but themselves? All humans (all organisms) are self-interested, therefore Deep Ecology can only be imposed on the masses. Ugly.
Conclusion: starvation is currently the result of poor distribution. Humanity currently commands far more resources than it needs to survive.
Willpower <i>and</i> an enourmous sack of cash, far bigger than it's worth.
My point being is that the group only cares about its own interests, and there are too few groups worrying about the interests of others. I mean why should they? There's nothing in it for them.
And so what you have is that all things boil down to this.. Mankind is a naturally greedy species, and it will kick us in the **** in the end.
I believe that if the world knew for a fact that 5 million people would have to die or the whole planet would be depleted of natural resources and die of starvation, we could not bring ourselves to do it. We'd sooner all perish than any one of us die for the whole. If that isn't selfish, I don't know what is.
Would you do that? Hmm, thought so.
Would you do that? Hmm, thought so. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thank you for proving my point further.
Would you do that? Hmm, thought so. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thank you for proving my point further. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is the most annoying part: "If someone isn't suffering, why should I be?!"
<!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html//emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
It's just a matter of getting everyone to agree to give up some of their luxuries.
Don't tell me that some guy can't live without 10 pools in his backyard. That money should have been spent on helping some third world country. The population growth would slow down to a maneagable level.
About 5 million people dying: wow. Wait about 2 years - that's how many children die in Africa.
EDIT: One more thing, now i dont mean to be cruel, but with the AIDs virus running rampant and at this time with no forseeable way to cure it, i propose we quartine all infected people in africa south of the shahara. Prohibit them sexual contact and reproduction with the uninfected majoprity of the populus. Because with no cure to this blight,in time it will do much damage which i assume can be much worse of the plague ridden 13-14 or whatever centuries. However i am not suggesting that these people be sent into concentration camps just quartiened, life would go on as normal but this arises the problem that prehapse an infected person falls in love with an unifected person we just send that said uninfected person to the quartiene zone.
Also there is also the growing threat of male infertility........
P.S. Sorry for any misspelling or improper grammer
Would you do that? Hmm, thought so. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thank you for proving my point further. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is the most annoying part: "If someone isn't suffering, why should I be?!"
<!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html//emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
It's just a matter of getting everyone to agree to give up some of their luxuries.
Don't tell me that some guy can't live without 10 pools in his backyard. That money should have been spent on helping some third world country. The population growth would slow down to a maneagable level.
About 5 million people dying: wow. Wait about 2 years - that's how many children die in Africa.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You know, a similar form of Utilitarianism was proposed by a man named Peter Singer, who - among other things - proposed that the greatest way to get most of humanity happy, and that everyone should practice is a form of 'famine relief.'
Everyone pretty much agrees they don't want to be in a famine, it's worse than starving, there's no food, anywhere. Right?
Right, so he proposes:
Governments should make sure the starving people are fed, because the world does produce enough food to feed the world (and in fact, in the US some farmers are subsidized to produce less to keep the cost good for the economy).
It is still the individual's responsibility to pay for the relief, therefore they need to save money for the famined - you can do it, you just want to do it. Assuming there was someone drowning, and you could swim, and could physically save the person, it is morally right to go in and save the person (if you're able), so, since we can save a drowning person, we should save the people drowning in starvation:
-save money, get a second job; better yet, a thrid job!
-buy cheap food (ramen noodles every day, so that extra food can go to the poor starving souls!)
-buy hand-me-down clothes from thrift stores and Goodwill
-try not to have kids
(Aside from all the problems with this model...) Do you think Peter Singer is sitting in a one bedroom apartment, hoarding his money together to give to the poor? No, he's living it up in a mansion from the sales of his books telling how people <b>should </b>do this. How many do you think actually will?
Not to sound to evil here, but really, those 5 million children dieing is counteracting your famine problem, so the guy with 10 pools doesn't have to send money.
OK then - 5 million dying. Saves us the trouble of sending money (let's be ignorant of the future for a moment). There are still about... several hundred million starving, yet not dying? I do not see how people could be so selfish. People are starving to death. What do they do?
Well I don't know, actually. One thing I do know is that what they're doing is in no way helping those starving.
PS and one last (rude) point; the problems of starvation are also the faults of the families. Many people in Africa have 10 kids or so... oh yeah, they're all going to have food. And chances are, 5-8 of them will die (due to insufficient healthcare and support). Why not have 1 or 2 children... the attention is less divided; the support is less divided. They might actually survive past their youth years - they might actually get some food and health support.
Sorry for rambling on.
Would you do that? Hmm, thought so. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thank you for proving my point further. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is the most annoying part: "If someone isn't suffering, why should I be?!"
<!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html//emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
It's just a matter of getting everyone to agree to give up some of their luxuries.
Don't tell me that some guy can't live without 10 pools in his backyard. That money should have been spent on helping some third world country. The population growth would slow down to a maneagable level.
About 5 million people dying: wow. Wait about 2 years - that's how many children die in Africa. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
ok the whole "OMG save teh Children!" thing in africa is asstastickly backwards logic... they are just going to spawn 5-6-16 children in their place!
and AIDs? A virus that could be wiped from the earth with a few generations of harsh regulation runs rampant because we all cant keep the pance on and wait for testing. Getting rid of it would save millions of lives! IMO every person with aids is a asshat waiting to spread death and destruction.
You know... Hitler had a good idea with the little stars for the jews... we should put biohazard stickers on the fools idiotic enough to contract aids.
Sure it may not be pretty... but hey, no more aids right?
oh i didn't say any of that sarcasticly to insult your previous post... thats my opinion!
oh i didn't say any of that sarcasticly to insult your previous post... thats my opinion! <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
good, because everyone knows im right </sarcasm>
I'm not saying we should do that. But...
AIDS is not a good way to control the population. People have to suffer, and we spend billions of dollars on whatnot. It's better to prevent people from being born than have them die early.
If we didn't have planes or rail roads or cars etc., then we wouldn't have spread so quickly to the americas. If that were true, by now, we'd only now be taming the wild west by traveling via horse and covered wagon. There would still be plenty of natural resources.
Technology is what keeps natural selection from doing its job. We're keeping sick people alive that were going to die otherwise. They make children, and the cycle continues. Ironically enough, it's technology that will kill us in the end.