The final solution to the demographic problem of Europe?

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Ari Rahikkala
Downsizing human population has to start *somewhere*, and we can't do it as long as every nation believes that *their* children should be the ones to inherit the world.

Propagating your genes is the reason why you exist, didn't you get the memo?

[Heraclitus]

Yeah, I thought that was more or less self-apparent. Shame!

[Ari Rahikkala]

Originally posted by VetLegion
Propagating your genes is the reason why you exist, didn't you get the memo?

Indeed. Now, tell me the full name of the first wife of Fyodor Vassilyev. Oh, you don't know? Maybe it's because she's not important enough to history to have her name recorded...

[Krill]

No. Mass sterilisation programs. Screw religion, no more kids

[C0ckney]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
Whether or not there are too many humans for the world to sustain now is debatable. I would argue that there are too many humans right now... however the crux is that the rate of growth of the human population is far too high....

i wonder how you've reached this conclusion. why are there, or will be, too many humans? what is this based on?

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by C0ckney


i wonder how you've reached this conclusion. why are there, or will be, too many humans? what is this based on?

Isn't it obvius he's a human hating, mindworm loving gaian witch.

But seriusy, there are not too many humans around, we just need to make sure populations stop growing for a decade or two so science can catch up and reduce our footprinto to sustainable levels.

[Ben Kenobi]

Like bacteria in a petri dish while our consumption per annum may be matched to the planet's output per annum, depletion of natural resources and pollution will reduce the ability of the planet to support us.

The difference being it isn't a zero sum game. Look at the bacteria that basically produce the entire oxygen in our atmosphere.

Same with people. To say that more people makes for a worse environment and can only take and not give is too simplistic.

[Krill]

[q=Ben]Same with people. To say that more people makes for a worse environment and can only take and not give is too simplistic.[/q]

So...is it possible to feed 6-7 billion people and provide them a decent standard of living (so, elevate India, China, and most of Africa) on this planet without turning rainforests into farmland and destroying soil quality?

[Ben Kenobi]

So...is it possible to feed 6-7 billion people and provide them a decent standard of living (so, elevate India, China, and most of Africa) on this planet without turning rainforests into farmland and destroying soil quality?

Look at Europe. Way more dense population, yet you would think that the environment was better there then in the poorer countries.

The problem isn't so much the environmental problems, but the wealth. Wealthy nations can afford to be environmentally conscious. Poor ones just use whatever they can scrape by.

What we need is for everyone to be industrialised, to go through the same stages and the same growing pains as we did. Yes we used to pollute much more, but as our technologies have improved, so have the technologies to deal with pollution.

Again, it isn't a zero sum game. You need people in order to do things and make things and build things. No people, you don't see any of these things.

If I were to show you a graph of technological progress, it would go hand in hand with population growth. As the population has increased so has the technology.

[Krill]

Look at Europe. Way more dense population, yet you would think that the environment was better there then in the poorer countries.

Not necessarly. HOw much do we rely on food stocks like fish that are being farmed to extinction? How much do we rely on oil imported from hostile nations (I'd love to consider humanity as a whoel for this discussion but frankly that is just deluded. Humanity won't be united for a while...)

[Krill]

Again, it isn't a zero sum game. You need people in order to do things and make things and build things. No people, you don't see any of these things.

Some things are a zero sum game. There is only so much Iron, so much aluminium, so much oil in this planet. There is only so much energy available from the sum (per unit time...) that we can use. There is a finite amount available to each country. the more we take the less there is in teh Earth.

[Krill]

If I were to show you a graph of technological progress, it would go hand in hand with population growth. As the population has increased so has the technology.

Correlation is not causation...we did not grow to increase our technology level, we increased our populations as our technology improved the amount of food we could produce.

[Pekka]

Getting more people around what essentially is a people problem would seem like a bad idea.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Krill

Look at Europe. Way more dense population, yet you would think that the environment was better there then in the poorer countries.

Not necessarly. HOw much do we rely on food stocks like fish that are being farmed to extinction?

This is probably one of the best points which can be made (if there's one thing I despise or at least sternly roll my eyes at, it's people with a mentality that eating fish is in some way guilt free compared with eating meat (and they actually say that; fish isn't meat))

It's worth noting that the planet could support a much higher vegetarian population than non-vegetarian.

Generally speaking a given area of land will support 2-4 times as many people on an almost-vegetarian diet as a typical westerner meat-heavy diet.

Of course many countries are already almost-vegetarian like India, these areas obviously can't support more people with a mere change in diet.

Once you have everyone eating a nutritious and wholesome vegetarian diet, it's still possible to further increase the population capacity:

1) Annihilate all remaining nature. Who needs national parks anyway? The question here is; who does earth belong to? If you are "EARTH BELONGS TO THE WRETCHED PLAGUE OF HUMANITY!" type, then it obviously only makes sense to not get sentimental about all those other species.
(I happen to be a member of VHEMT so this is NOT my personal stance).

2) Develop new farming techniques. The optimal way to feed people in terms of space, is probably algae farming or something similar. The idea here is instead of a balanced diet, you just start feeding everyone "nutritional sludge" which can be grown at very high density in otherwise poor farming areas. Then far more people again could be supported.

So the maximum human population depends on whether you accept THE ANNIHILATION OF NATURE, and NUTRITIONAL SLUDGE diet paradigms. These two things probably go hand in hand, once we've annihilated nature, the biosphere will probably collapse and the sludges will be the only things which grow well.
(although there is of course some scope for further annihilation of nature, and some scope for some nutritional sludge, without going overboard).


The other direction to take is one of lower human impact. That is, the land we do have, is farmed less intensively as to reduce damage to the waterways and such, and also to produce more wholesome food.
Going even further, land could be actively returned to nature.

The question really, is what matters.

Is the objective of the "Humanity game" to fill the planet with as many humans are possible?

Or is the objective to maximize "Average quality of life"?

I think there is a fairly strong sentiment that our war on nature is bad for morale in general, most people just don't like being at war with nature. Nature is something which most people like, it's something which is just nice to have around. The war on nature thus lowers average quality of life and we'd do well to stop the war and say sorry.

There could also be the objective of maximizing the cumulative quality of life. So it's better to have twice as many people whose lives are 60% as good, but not better to have four times as many people whose lives are 20% as good.


I DO know that Buddhism takes a clear stance on this issue - it's average quality of life which matters and QoL is measured through joy/bliss not wealth. I don't think most religions/philosophies actually think about it at all.

[Ben Kenobi]

Not necessarly. HOw much do we rely on food stocks like fish that are being farmed to extinction? How much do we rely on oil imported from hostile nations (I'd love to consider humanity as a whoel for this discussion but frankly that is just deluded. Humanity won't be united for a while...)

Which is worse then in Africa? If the worst problem in europe is declining fish stocks, then europe is very well off. Do people starve in europe for lack of food, or die from lack of potable water? Really, the air in London is far cleaner now then it was a century ago as technology has improved.

Some things are a zero sum game. There is only so much Iron, so much aluminium, so much oil in this planet. There is only so much energy available from the sum (per unit time...) that we can use. There is a finite amount available to each country. the more we take the less there is in teh Earth.

All the energy we get is from the Sun. We harness a tiny fraction of the energy out there because our technology is limited. Yes, there are limits to the amount of energy available.

The Sun produces 386 billion billion megawatts of energy every second. Of the amount that strikes the Earth, that leaves us with approximately 1/100th of that total which strikes the earth. Of that total, we use roughly 1/1000ths of the total energy that strikes the earth. This includes all the cars every single source of energy. To put it this way, to supply a years worth of the energy we need, would require sunlight for 9 hours on January 1st.

As for the amount of minerals, such as Iron and Aluminum, they total roughly 5 and 8 percent of the earth's crust. Total worldwide production of Iron is roughly 1 billion metric tons a year. Total amount of Iron on Earth is roughly 2.0 x 10 exp 21. If we were to mine out as much Iron as we do every year, it would last well after the sun has burnt out. It would last 200 times the amount of time we expect the sun to last. Aluminum is a bit rarer at about only 6 times as long as the sun will continue to shine.

I guess my point is this. We aren't anywhere close to the limits of iron, aluminum, or energy here on this planet.