Yes it does, and that is not a bad thing for the population long term vs killing ourselves by stupid resource overusage on finite resources…
That still leaves the major issue on who can breed, this obviously cannot be reduced to a wealth-check, but it is something that HAS to be regulated lest we kill us all…
John B Calhoun explored this pretty exhaustively. No matter which way it is sliced, overpopulation in practice Destroys ‘commen sense’ thought about how overpopulation works.
It ultimately comes down to a wealth check though, those with wealth will circumvent the lottery or whatever system you propose and will be loathed along with the government by all those who’s futures have been stolen from them. Civil unrest on a scale we cannot imagine would erupt and the ‘solution’ would ultimately turn from passive, to active. There are reasons why China made a one child policy as opposed to a no child lottery and you know how well that was received.
We’re better off addressing the other reasons for the world’s poor state of sustainability as the population plateaus naturally, because attempts to force this issue will not be met with praise, but with the embitterment of all those who fear it could happen to them, and eventually they will turn on whoever pushes such an agenda, or whoever they perceive to push such an agenda. There are many who see the green revolution as it is as an assault on their freedoms, if it were to be associated with the idea that these people might have no future, it would doom us just us much as any of the other threats to our existence.
Is overpopulation real or a legend? Is global warming a thing, or a myth?
From the point of view of, “am I going to do anything about it?”, they are pretty much the same question. With the same answer.
Reducing the population means not everyone gets to have kids.
Or that not everyone chooses to, or chooses to at replacement level. It’s been supported pretty continuously that women’s education reduces the birth rate, and allows more of those born to survive.
I’ve frequently said that abortion and contraception access are the cornerstone of a human response to climate change. And I really believe that. Not having to derail an education due to an unplanned pregnancy leads to more education, leads to fewer births. And all we have to do is invest in a little equality.
‘Reducing’ was the key word I took from Failquail’s post, and at first I thought that I might have taken it too far, but their second post indicated that I got the right idea.
I support education and contraceptives, as long as the latter is a choice.
Sure, reducing isn’t the word I took issue with - ‘gets’ is the one I took issue with. I can’t speak for how the person you originally replied to sees the issue, but I don’t think there need be a top-down regulation of reproduction when people tend to limit it themselves with bottom-up resource investment.
Which is the stage where politicians and economists figure out how to manage a world of finite resources and environmental degradation?
The stage when markets are no longer locked up by oligopolies who sell us pre-broken garbage designed to require frequent replacement.
In the meantime, the rich on the right blame the underclass for the degradation. The worst attack education and women’s rights and end up prolonging the demographic transitions. The rich who see the problem partially and try not to be actively evil are still unwilling to give up the market exclusivities that keep them rich.
Unless we stop giving these folks their unsustainable power, nothing will change for sustainability, mass-forced-migration, or near/actual slave labor conditions in stage 1, 2, and even stage 3 societies.
Humans? Who knows.
For all industrial societies with some modicum of transmitted communication, mass education, and female rights, humans do not suffer Malthusian collapse. This has been debunked by the actual numbers of every society that has undergone demographic transition.
He could not anticipate the massive influx of energy that has allowed us to expand in ways previously unavailable. This influx is finite (read fossil fuel), not neutral
This idea’s been around to justify new pop-“population bomb” books for a couple decades. The price of solar and wind is passing fossil fuel on its way down, and fossil prices are generally only going up as the tech gets pushed to the deep ocean.
It’s a neat idea (and good motivation to look beyond coal), but largely irrelevant to the actual data.
John B Calhoun explored this pretty exhaustively.
Bullshit can certainly relate to exhaustion. You’re talking about 50- to 70-year-old crap that hasn’t held up as applied to actual humans who aren’t being deliberately impoverished and trapped.
This idea’s been around to justify new pop-“population bomb” books for a couple decades. The price of solar and wind is passing fossil fuel on its way down, and fossil prices are generally only going up as the tech gets pushed to the deep ocean.
It’s a neat idea (and good motivation to look beyond coal), but largely irrelevant to the actual data.
the fact that we are developing alternatives does not mean the explanation that the green revolution which undermined Malthus was fed by fossil energy was wrong. Everything from tractor fuel to nitrate fertilizer came from fossil energy.
the fact that we are developing alternatives does not mean the explanation that the green revolution which undermined Malthus was fed by fossil energy was wrong
That’s not what the mystical “energy borrowing” argument says. The argument is that civilization (communication, education, rights, etc.) is unsustainable because magic inevitable energy reasons.
You can’t have rapid population reduction without causing a whole lot of human misery, because once people hit retirement age there have to be enough younger people left in the workforce to support them. So if some kind of “one child” policy was instituted worldwide you’d see widespread economic collapse and/or a big spike in euthanasia for the elderly.
Industrial societies have been around for less than two centuries, and they generally use much more resources than would be sustainable if everyone was at that level. This gets worse when we count the resources used in other countries for our benefit.
It doesn’t mean that developments in areas like energy aren’t important, but industrial countries haven’t proved that they are sustainable. Not even close.
One factor that hasn’t been pointed out yet (as far as I know) is meat consumption. If this could be significantly reduced, that would be a good way of increasing sustainability and improving animal welfare at the same time.
Those are fair points. I’d point back to the oligopolies and the dumb greed of the rich selling us bad meat rather than good substitutes, but I can’t really sell my speculations about how that might change with freer and more democratic markets.
Though there has been a recent drop in dementia so maybe older people will soon be able to look after themselves longer, and rely less on wealfare.
As long as there is a non-trivial period of time in between retirement and death you still have the problem. One working-age adult cannot reasonably be expected to provide long-term support for themselves, their two parents and one or more children of their own.
We should be delaying retirement as much as possible. Its terrible for your health to stop working anyway. The objective would be to minimize the interval between unemployability and death.
