Originally Posted by njaohnt
The birth rates are higher than the death rates, because less people are dying. As the populations age the death rates will increase. The problem with feeding more people is not the resources, but the fact that 90% of the farms in the world use very inefficient and labour intensive subsistence farming. You seem to think that the world just produces x amount of food, and cannot feed more people, when in fact it is the fact that the methods of getting food without much capital almost everywhere in the world don't produce the amount of food from one person's labour that you would see as enough to feed one person. Less people doesn't solve the problem, investments in agriculture do.
You didn't say it, it just seems like it.
What is an actual problem in the world right now that would be solved had less people had been born?
You are saying that it would be better if x number of people had not been born. I think that is wrong, as people create wealth, and generally do not destroy it. There is lots of land that isn't farmed, so more people can get more food from the land if they put in the work than they need. To say there are too many people I assume means that there are more people than the earth can provide for. You might look at resources like water and oil as things that are being used too fast, but there are replacements for oil, and the ocean has lots of water that can be used for a price that would still allow people to be quite wealthy, even if it had to be used for irrigation. Where in the world would it be better to have less people? If you take a poor African village as an example, what would have happened if only 1/4 of the people had been born there? Do you think life there would be better?
It happened in Britain, many european nations, and the US and Canada. It is happening in much of Asia, and you are saying that it can't happen for the entire world? Government incompetence (i.e. land transfers in Zimbabwe) is usually why companies don't build factories in areas of extreme poverty, so they prefer places like Bangladesh instead of much of Africa. As more and more governments wake up, industry will flourish in them and create wealth.
^ You are giving hints of your past affecting you...
... ^ and now you are rejecting looking into it... I'm condescending? You are saying a large portion of the people alive shouldn't have been born...
... ^ I think this is it. The rat race? What kind of rat race were you brought up in? ...
^ ... You see the light outside, thinking about how wonderful your life would be if you rejected your ideas, but you can't, so you say I am ignorant, because you are ignorant of the knowledge of how this "rat race" has affected you. Seriously, I know you are not going to have a good reaction to this, but hold that reaction back and think about why you see developments as bad.
Re-quoting below to analyze the points instead of the motive.
But poverty is decreasing despite the population increase. The decrease in poverty is the cause of the population increase. It's not like people started having more kids, it is that less children are dying. And for some reason this world of death to most children is where you want to go to to have a "happy and fulfilling life".
I've seen places much worse a reserve. In Canada if you work hard, you can live without poverty, inadequate housing, and inadequate water supplies; there are lots of jobs, they just require skills people have to acquire -- don't tell me that people on the reserves don't have access to acquire such skills, the government dishes out large quantities of money for this purpose with some success. Are you blaming the poor condition of reserves on overpopulation?
Poverty is just an arbitrary word. Before long anyone who can't afford internet and a cell phone will be considered poor.
Now this is strange, and pretty much confirms my suspicion that you are avoiding your past. Do you think it would be better if we lived like the First Nations did?
It is important to realize that the world's population is increasing not because birth rates are rising, but because infant mortality and life expectancy have improved. Do you want to live in a place where parents have many children, but few survive? You said, "There are problems with poverty, inadequate housing, and water supplies," but were these things better the way the First Nations lived? Was that adequate housing? What is stopping them from going into the forests and doing this now? Maybe some cannot because of land availability but no one does. Why are millions of people around the world moving from their subsistence farming villages to the city to work if they prefer living a, "happy and fulfilling life," instead of a "rat race," in the city?
It is not just increased life expectancy, it is more food for better nutrition, it is better housing(heated, with electricity). People died at 45 (and continue to do so in many places in the world) of nutritional problems and bad sanitation because of a lack of development -- the very development you (and environmentalism) seem to oppose.
What does the migrant problem have to do with overpopulation? Actually, none of the problems you pointed out would be solved had less people been born.
Capitalistic development is the reason you can read this message. Many people breathed the smoke like in Beijing so you could have the life you have. They sacrificed for the next generations -- and now you are telling them they have done a great disservice to the world. Yet you take my, "Go live in the forest" idea as a joke, as you know your life is much better here. Why?
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