World Population Growth

[DrewDevil]

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I have a basic theory that is probably not popular, and is also easily misunderstood, so I rarely discuss it. In a nutshell, I think the world population (of humans) is too high and population growth should be stopped.

I view the world as having evolved more or less according to Darwin (I do not have traditional biblical creationist beliefs.) For almost all of history, life on Earth has evolved in a "natural" way. By that I mean according to the "laws" of evolution that presided up until [censored] sapiens came along.

Then at some point during the growth of [censored] sapiens population, things reached some "critical mass", and the intelligence of our species threw everything out of balance. Things that were true before were no longer true now.

We arrived at the state we are in now, where technology and the combined skills and knowledge of the world's civilizations have created a situation in which evolution no longer operates "correctly" (as it did). The weak often survive to pass their genes on. More food is produced than naturally would have been available on earth, so that huge populations can be sustained. The vast majority of the world's population live off the intelligence and production of others (to wit, "stupid" and unhealthy people can easily survive and reproduce). Medicine has advanced to the point where "traditional" evolution no longer works right.

In a sense, we are "devolving", yet our population continues to grow.

The unpopularity of some of these points is immediately apparent - one might jump to the conclusion that I'm implying medicine is bad. Can you imagine - not trying to cure cancer in our loved ones? Not trying to take every effort for our frail newborn to survive? I cannot imagine those things either, and would not want to.

However, things cannot continue forever. The growth cannot be sustained on this planet, and I imagine everyone agrees with that (except maybe for some right wing fundamentalist types). There are millions of people living in hunger and suffering and poverty, and yet our population continues to grow. I think we have the obligation as the most highly evolved and intelligent species ever to inhabit the planet, to control our situation and our destiny.

For example, trying to feed the hungry is a worthy short term goal, but at what cost? So that they will all survive to seed an exponentially growing population of even more hungry, poor and suffering people? Personally, I think the better longer term solution might be to put some of those resources into things like teaching birth control and making it available and educating cultures that it's the right thing to do. This might seem like a cold approach, but I think it's more compassionate in the long term.

Our population growth will stop, it's just a question of how it happens and how much suffering occurs along the way.

Of course there are other obvious issues, such as China's approach to birth control.

Comments or disagreements?

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You are completely wrong.

The entire population of earth could fit into Texas at a density far less than the current density in New York City. We have plenty of room.

Starvation is caused by governments, not food scarcity. There has never been a famine in a nation with a free press. You could look it up.

Food production mirrors population, it doesn't outstrip it. We have enough food to feed everyone on earth, we just can't get it to them because of repressive regimes.

Also, this is another one of those "crises" that always make me wonder what the suggested solution is. You think we'd be better off with a worldwide sterilization campaign? Or should people have to register with you before having kids?

[jeffnc]

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You are completely wrong.

The entire population of earth could fit into Texas at a density far less than the current density in New York City. We have plenty of room.

Starvation is caused by governments, not food scarcity. There has never been a famine in a nation with a free press. You could look it up.

Food production mirrors population, it doesn't outstrip it. We have enough food to feed everyone on earth, we just can't get it to them because of repressive regimes.

Also, this is another one of those "crises" that always make me wonder what the suggested solution is. You think we'd be better off with a worldwide sterilization campaign? Or should people have to register with you before having kids?

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It's always a hoot to hear "you're wrong" followed by examples of non sequiturs and poor reading comprehension :-)

[steggy]

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The entire population of earth could fit into Texas at a density far less than the current density in New York City. We have plenty of room.

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Source? That's amazing if true.

[scotchnrocks]

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The entire population of earth could fit into Texas at a density far less than the current density in New York City. We have plenty of room.

[/ QUOTE ] Source? That's amazing if true.

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From wiki, the earth's population is about 6.6 billion, NYC's population density is 66,941 people/mi^2, and Texas is 268,601 mi^2. This works out to a pop. density of 24,572 people/mi^2, almost a third of the density of NYC.

[Rococo]

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The entire population of earth could fit into Texas at a density far less than the current density in New York City. We have plenty of room.

[/ QUOTE ] Source? That's amazing if true.

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From wiki, the earth's population is about 6.6 billion, NYC's population density is 66,941 people/mi^2, and Texas is 268,601 mi^2. This works out to a pop. density of 24,572 people/mi^2, almost a third of the density of NYC.


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And I have no doubt that the Texas desert could support such a population density. This statistic is nothing more than a curiousity.

[bobman0330]

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The entire population of earth could fit into Texas at a density far less than the current density in New York City. We have plenty of room.

[/ QUOTE ] Source? That's amazing if true.

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From wiki, the earth's population is about 6.6 billion, NYC's population density is 66,941 people/mi^2, and Texas is 268,601 mi^2. This works out to a pop. density of 24,572 people/mi^2, almost a third of the density of NYC.


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And I have no doubt that the Texas desert could support such a population density. This statistic is nothing more than a curiousity.

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I don't think he's actually suggesting that everyone in the world move to Texas...

[Josem]

There's an excellent article on this issue in the current edition of the IPA review that arrived in my post box this morning.

1) GDP per capita of the world over time - see http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/

2) Simply measuring human density is a crap way of measuring so-called "overpopulation." Monaco, at 23,660 people per square kilometre, is the worlds highest density country (source). I doubt that the people of Monaco are deeply aggrieved by this situation.

3) The problem, then, is not an issue of density - it's an issue of living standards. If people can live happily and healthily in the high densities of Monaco, or the low average densities of Australia (2.6people per square kilometre, Source) it seems that density alone is not very well correlated to happiness/healthiness/etc.

4) If the issue is living standards, then the obvious solution, to me, seems to be to improve living standards. Things like free trade, ending the US/European/Japanese farm subsidies, would all go a long way towards fixing this stuff.

5) Typical European cows receive larger subsidies to live per day than African humans (source). If you're a European your taxes are currently being used (indirectly, admittedly) to impose poverty on the least developed nations in the world.

6) The Americans, though not nearly as bad as the European poverty makers, aren't far behind. At least George Bush has the courage to propose massively cutting these subsidies (Source)