Is the US Overpopulated?

[soulmurk]

[QUOTE=Lissa]
But their impact would still be the same.

Look at little communities who suddenly have a string of robberies. The whole town goes nuts, usually blaming an influx of [insert minorty group here] and freaking out about how nowhere is safe “these days.” The true cost of crime is not felt only by the victim, but by the community at large.

Secondly, you’d have a smaller “tax base” on which to support criminal justice. The penalties for crimes would have to be harsher and more immediate, meaning the chances for injustice are substantially raised.
[/quote]

You’d also have less criminals needing to be put through the justice system. If everything were broken down exactly as statistically equal as your example, everything would remain the same, only with smaller numbers.

Ever read any of those apocalypse novels? They’re quite interesting. One of the aspects that most of them have in common is a complete breakdown of law and order. Roving gangs rampage and loot across the land, raping and killing anyone not well-armed and strong enough to defend against them. I’d guess that such a scenario is likely, and if my guess is right, that’s a hell of a worse crime problem than we have today.

Why would a post-apocalyptic world be likely just because there were less people around?

Sweetie, leadership is almost always corrupt. The king/leader/chief always gets the largest share of resources (disproportionate to his actual needs) which he doles out to his cronies. The lowest guy in the rankings always gets screwed. It’s a funamental fact of human nature. Wealth=status=power=corruption. Hell, you even see it in chimp societies.

There have been a notable few societies which have been more egaltarian than others, but they tended to get their asses kicked when the barbarians invaded. (Power requires enforcement thereof, meaning you have trained fighters on hand.) But you gotta realize that Western ideals of possession and greed have become so incredibly pervasive around the world that it’s unlikely survivors of a wave of human die-offs would form into to Happy Hippy Communist Communes.

All I said was that they had the possibility of being more equitable, not that they would be. You’ll get no argument out of this cynic.

I don’t think you get what I’m saying. How can morality not be part of the discussion when the only possible “solutions” to the problem are inherently morally repugnant to many people?

Because that moral repugnance is what stops people from doing what needs to be done.

You realize that the number of people who are completely unable to care for themselves is very, very small in comparison to our overall population, don’t you? So small that it won’t make a dent in our population if we threw them out to die like dogs. (And they won’t be reproducing much, either.)

Perhaps not, but it would help.

Right now, I have two lamps burning in my bedroom, and no one is in there. I’m wasting electricity willy-nilly. (As an American, it’s my God-given right to waste things.) Seems like targeting people like me would be a better way to save electricity resources than pulling the plug on a relatively small number of comatose patients.

Dude, have you seen the shit that they feed to comatose people? It’s so vile, you’d have to be comatose to consume it. There is no other “use” for that food than using it as compost.

Have you seen how many people entered med school last year? We’re not facing a shortage of them. Secondly, most comatose people live in nursing homes, not hospitals, which have their own funding.

And how many other people think that way? It isn’t your, or anyone’s, right to waste things (funny how you can remove your sense of morality from that issue but not others), but that, along with this “I can’t see the end of the tunnel yet so let’s just keep on digging” mentality are topics for another thread.

You don’t know much about medical research. See, a development or a new understanding of how the body works is not applied just to one single ailment. Doctors researching cancer may learn something from research into gingivitis, for example. You never know where a discovery might lead.

Well, it’d be good to know that as my cells eat one another at least my gums will be healthy.

That’s incredibly big of you. Can I take it, then, that you currently have a living will refusing all lifesaving medical intervention? If tomorrow, you fell down the stairs and broke your neck, you would insist you be left alone? Quite noble of you to put your money where your mouth is. I commend you. Here’s hoping that appendix holds out.

I have, as a matter of fact, made preparations. What does that mean? Were you waiting for me to say no so that you could call me a hypocrite? Pretty disingenuous of you…

You did not answer my question: in your scenario, would an injured person be left to bleed to death or die of infection from lack of medical intervention?

No, why would they be?

Sheesh, that was sort of nasty. It didn’t answer the question, either.

Ah, I thought the reference to a eulogy would be answer enough. Yes, Mr. Hawking would have been euthanized. I thought that since you seemed to know so much about him and admired him so you might want to be the one to give his eulogy.

Okay, spell it out for the rest of us who aren’t so clever:

Would you leave an injured person to die under your scenario?

Should Stephen Hawking be dumped out of his chair onto the floor and left to perish?

Someone who was injured and wished aid would have it, why would they not?

No, Mr. Hawking would not be “dumped out of his chair onto the floor and left to perish.” I’m aware you are morally opposed to the idea, and that’s just fine, but there’s no reason to try to make the prospect sound uncouth and barbaric to justify your repulsion; it’s okay to simply disagree.

[soulmurk]

[QUOTE=Lissa]
Not “proper”-- I think you mean “pragmatic.” I agree, of course, that there are times when we must steel our hearts and gird our loins against sympathy in order to do what is right, but this isn’t one of them. I’ve pointed out why weeding out the “unfits” wouldn’t make much of a dent in our population, and others have pointed out that the “problem” is virtually non-existant. Drastic circumstances call for drastic measures, but compared with the other, very real problems facing our planet, like global warming, this is a fart in the wind.
[/QUOTE]

That is the crux of our disagreement, I believe that this is one of those times.

If global warming is one of the issues you feel is important, wouldn’t a reduced population go towards helping solve it? There would be less people adding fluorocarbons to the air, less methane producing cattle needing to be raised, less automobiles on the road, etc.

[BrainGlutton]

[QUOTE=msmith537]
I’m not so sure that a shrinking population is much worse.

[quote]

Well, the Europeans are awfully worried about it.

[BrainGlutton]

[QUOTE=Hampshire]
Take a ride in a plane and look down. You don’t see houses and buildings butted up against eachother from coast to coast.
[/QUOTE]

You wouldn’t see that in India or China, either, but they’ve still been very worried about overpopulation for a long time. (China, in particular, seems to have overreacted to the problem.)

[Bryan_Ekers]

[QUOTE=soulmurk]
If global warming is one of the issues you feel is important, wouldn’t a reduced population go towards helping solve it? There would be less people adding fluorocarbons to the air, less methane producing cattle needing to be raised, less automobiles on the road, etc.
[/QUOTE]

Not really. Assuming the world population was cut from six to three billion, wouldn’t that lead to all (or most) of those three billion demanding and receiving the standard of living currently enjoyed by the small minority living mostly in the westernized democracies? Picture the Chinese population reduced to a mere 500 million, but all of them driving cars, having lunch at McDonald’s, using riding mowers on their lawns…

My personal preferred strategy to combat pollution is more nuclear power, edging up to distributed controlled fusion, coupled with hybrid and then fully-electric cars.

[BrainGlutton]

[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
With that last item the irony almost attains the surreal. When it comes to transit, everybody would like to live two blocks from the train station, but they don’t want the railroad to go through their neighborhood.
[/QUOTE]

I wouldn’t mind!

[BrainGlutton]

[QUOTE=soulmurk]
Maybe I’m just a heartless jerk, but as a species we diverted natural selection long ago, and now people that should not be here . . .
[/QUOTE]

:dubious: How exactly are you defining those? If it means people who could not survive in the environment Mitochondrial Eve inhabited . . . that probably includes most of humanity.

[BrainGlutton]

[QUOTE=soulmurk]
Since all I did was answer what was effectively a poll of opinion . . .
[/quote]

That would be IMHO. This is GD.

[QUOTE=soulmurk]
Take any social problem that exists today. Would this problem be reduced or otherwise eliminated if there were less people? The answer is, inescapably, yes.
[/quote]

Would it? Fewer mouths to feed means fewer hands to work.

[QUOTE=soulmurk]
As it stands now, people who would be unfit to survive under “natural” conditions are passing on their inferior genetic code and weakening the human gene pool.
[/QUOTE]

“Dysgenic pressure” remains an unproven theory. Have you any cite that our average genetic quality really is deteriorating any particular respect? (I think there’s at least one scientist – forget his name – who has demonstrated that average IQ, at least, is actually rising; though that could be due to non-hereditary factors.)

And if it is problem, we don’t need natural (or artificial) selection to fix it; we can just drop our taboo on genetic engineering. We might end up with something like GATTACCA, but at least the problems you’re worried about would be solved. Tradeoffs, you know.

[BrainGlutton]

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
The idea that the either the world or the U.S. is overpopulated. This was a wonderful conceit forty years ago, (one that some people who do not pay attention continue to believe), but one which has been demonstrably disproven.
[/QUOTE]

Well, Paul Ehrlich is continuing to dig in his heels, pointing out that the world’s population has indeed grown by 2.8 billion since he published The Population Bomb in 1968. But certainly the disastrous effects of this he predicted have not come to pass.

[BrainGlutton]

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Without morality, why would you care about social problems or inequity in the first place ?
[/quote]

Because they might personally inconvenience soulmurk.

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
And that’s natural selection at work; convincing others to support you is a perfectly valid survival stratagy from a Darwinian standpoint. You seem to be confusing evolution with the work ethic.
[/QUOTE]

He shoots, he scores!

[BrainGlutton]

[QUOTE=soulmurk]
Since I’m advocating natural selection, my proposed solution would be to let those incapable of supporting themselves die.
[/quote]

And now you’re confusing natural selection with Libertarian social policy.

[BrainGlutton]

[QUOTE=soulmurk]
By that argument, it would be better to say that nature is beyond the ken of the trappings of morality altogether.
[/QUOTE]

True. Which implies nothing about how humans ought to behave or think. Furthermore, a sense of ethics might well be one of our species’ unique biological specialties, like speech and manipulation and abstract thought.

[BrainGlutton]

[QUOTE=Lissa]
Reduced, perhaps, but certainly not eliminated. There will always be a percentage of the population deemed deviant or “criminal”, if you will.Every society has crime, however the *definition *of crime may vary widely.

Let’s just put that percentage of deviants at 10% for shits and giggles. If 99% of the world’s population would die off tomorrow, 10% of the remainder would still be criminals.
[/QUOTE]

Rather more, I think, if the dying-off process took longer. When the chips are down, the fierce and selfish and greedy survive.

[BrainGlutton]

[QUOTE=soulmurk]
If eliminating crime and deviant behavior were the only reason to reduce the population, you’d have a fair argument against the practice, but it isn’t. Besides, while statistically speaking 10% would remain criminals, there would still be 99% less criminals to worry about than there were before.
[/quote]

And 99% fewer cops. Look at both sides of the equation!

[QUOTE=soulmurk]
It’s been a while since high school biology class, but isn’t it common knowledge that genetic predispositions are passed along to ones progeny?
[/quote]

What, you mean psychological predispositions? “Common knowledge” is often false. Until maybe 100 years ago it would have been generally assumed that if an Irish baby and an English baby were switched at birth, the English baby would irritate his Irish family by growing up to be a stiff, bloodless, rigidly proper but brave and honest prig; while the Irish baby would astonish his English family by growing up to be an ungovernable, passionate, hard-drinking, two-fisted poet. Likewise if you switched babies born to parents of different social classes. Some people still seem to think this kind of thinking is at least plausible enough on which to base a comedy, but it ain’t necessarily so. E.g., “twin studies” (of identical twins separated at birth and raised by different families) show environment is at least as important than heredity in forming psychological characteristics. See here. That doesn’t mean heredity is irrelevant to such characteristics; but it’s not important enough a factor, IMO, to form a basis for any public policy decison.

[BrainGlutton]

[QUOTE=soulmurk]
Survival is not arrogant. Presuming to be above the laws of nature is.
[/QUOTE]

Of course we humans not above the laws of nature – just try pretending gravity doesn’t exist. But we are much better than any other species at using those laws to our own advantage. Again, one of our biological specialties.

Remember, also, that the “laws of nature” are in all instances descriptive, not prescriptive.

[tomndebb]

[QUOTE=soulmurk]
Neither have you offered any evidence to support your claims. It comes down to the simple fact that overpopulation is a subjective term and we have differing opinions. Having an opinion is not ignorant, and if I were presented with reliable evidence to the contrary of my personal opinions I would adjust them accordingly.
[/quote]
Having an opinion that has no basis in fact is pretty much the definition of ignorant. Several facts to which I have already alluded and which inform my opinion include:

• The fact that projections by people who actually study population growth have determined that the Earth’s population will stablize by the middle of this century. You can play the games and the assumptions, yourself on the UN World Population web page. However, you should note, if you choose to lean toward the “high varint” model that the “medium variant” model originally predicted 6.5 billion people by 2000. In 2000, we only reached 6 billion and it was not until this year that we actually hit 6.5 billion and they have had to adjust their estimates downward in order to stay nearly on track.
• The fact that there has not been a famine in the 20th or 21st century that was not directly caused by government interference (China, 1930s, squabbling warlords disrupt food distribution; USSR, 1930s, food deliberately collected and not redistributed by Stalin; India, 1940s, food hoarded by British colonial government; China, 1950s, Marxist centrally directed economy distupted food distribution; sub-Sahara Africa 1970s-1990s, civil wars and foreign invasions disrupt food production and distribution). The cause of famine has been established by Amartya Sen, whose work I have already mentioned, and there is no evidence that we are out of food, now or that we are in danger of needing to take food from anyone to give it to anyone else based strictly on population. (Wars are a separate issue, but population is not; the British quite successfully managed to create and exacerbate a famine (through stupidity, not malice) in Ireland way back in the 19th century based on an insistence that tenant farmers continue planting a failing crop and prohibiting them from switching to a crop that would allow them to feed themselves.)

Now, it is true, as BrainGlutton has cited, that Paul Erlich still holds on to his beliefs, but they are beliefs, Every single dire forecast or prediction of doom that Erlich has pronounced since 1968 has failed to occur. The fact that he continues to drag out isolated factoids (that tend to be well below his earlier predictions) marks him as a true beliver and not a scientist.

[QUOTE=soulmurk]
I also disagree that humans are moral by nature and believe that morality can be removed from the discussion. This too is an opinion we differ on that cannot be proven, thus, I’m no more ignorant on the matter than you are.
[/QUOTE]
You have too limited an understanding of morality. All decisions that affect life and death or quality of life are moral decisions, regardless whether the person who makes the decision is considered to be a “moral” person. Making those decisions (which is what people do) is the very nature of morality.

[QUOTE=soulmurk]
Natural selection also has nothing to do with how much money I make, the price of fuel in Chattanooga, or the color of my grandmother’s hair. What’s your point relevent to the discussion?
[/QUOTE]
Well, you made the claim that

Being as natural selection does in fact determine who lives and who dies. . .

If you are now disavowing that claim, that is fine, but I provided examples of events that caused death that had nothing to do with Natural Selection. You are the one who claimed that it was THE determiner of life and death.

[Lissa]

[QUOTE=soulmurk]
You’d also have less criminals needing to be put through the justice system. If everything were broken down exactly as statistically equal as your example, everything would remain the same, only with smaller numbers.
[/quote]

Yes, that’s what I said. The burden would feel the same.

Remember, a general die-off would include law enforcement officials. In my town, we have, say, 100 cops for 30,000 citizens. If 99% of the population died, that would leave 1 cop for three hundred. Numbers-wise it’s the same proportion, but that will be cold comfort to the sole law-enforcement officer left to control a panicked and traumatized population.

The same applies to doctors. What if the sole doctor left is a pediatrist?

Why would a post-apocalyptic world be likely just because there were less people around?

Well, the answer depends upon whether the die-off is gradual or sudden. If it’s gradual, the whole question is moot because by the time it took for 99% of the population to be decreased by war, neglect and selective eugenics, mankind might have evolved into a totally different animal.

If it’s sudden, human nature tells me it won’t be a pretty sight. Humans crave status, wealth and power. Warlords will emerge, and we’ll most likely regress to a feudal system. (Democracy requires wealth and stability.)

Some people like to work and some don’t. When supplies start to get scarce, some people are going to prefer to steal food than farm. Some people just like to rape and kill, and with no criminal justice to stop them, they can indulge as much as they like.

Because that moral repugnance is what stops people from doing what needs to be done.

And I disagree that it needs doing. Really, what’s it to you if the worst case scenario happens: that we starve because we bred too much, and our offspring are weak, helpless victims of fucked-up genes? You won’t be around to see it, and neither will the foreseeable future.

That’s also part of natural selection. Think about a predator introduced into a new ecosystem which isn’t prepared to deal with it. The predator gorges on the helpless prey and breeds profusely. But, the food supply dwindles, because the predator is over-exploiting the prey. The predator goes through a die-off because it can no longer be supported by the environment.

Why should humans strive to deny this natural flux?

Perhaps not, but it would help.

This is almost identical to that old-lady-pissing-in-the-sea joke. As I said before, drastic times call for drastic measures. I have yet to see any indication whatsoever that we are yet in drastic times.

And how many other people think that way? It isn’t your, or anyone’s, right to waste things (funny how you can remove your sense of morality from that issue but not others), but that, along with this “I can’t see the end of the tunnel yet so let’s just keep on digging” mentality are topics for another thread.

You’ve only a nodding acquaintance with the notion of “sarcasm”, I see.

Well, it’d be good to know that as my cells eat one another at least my gums will be healthy.

You’re a funny guy.

I have, as a matter of fact, made preparations. What does that mean? Were you waiting for me to say no so that you could call me a hypocrite? Pretty disingenuous of you…

Did you think so? I thought it was as blunt as a hammer, but I’ll take “disingenuous.”

I’m not trying to be flip, but why are you sticking around now? How you justify your current existance if you’re part of the problem? (No, I am not suggetsing that you kill yourself. I’m asking an honest question.)

No, why would they be?

Because, as I said, patching them up is likely going to cost society more than they will contribute.

Ah, I thought the reference to a eulogy would be answer enough. Yes, Mr. Hawking would have been euthanized. I thought that since you seemed to know so much about him and admired him so you might want to be the one to give his eulogy.

Stephen Hawking’s life is more valuable than my own. He has done more for mankind than I, or for that matter, you, will ever do. I find it repulsive to place the only worth of a human being on their physical abilites.

No, Mr. Hawking would not be “dumped out of his chair onto the floor and left to perish.” I’m aware you are morally opposed to the idea, and that’s just fine, but there’s no reason to try to make the prospect sound uncouth and barbaric to justify your repulsion; it’s okay to simply disagree.

It is uncouth and barbaric to deny sustenence and care to people when it is within our means to do so and they want to live. Christ on the crapper, man, even Neandertals cared for their wounded, malformed and aged. There is no way to impliment a population control plan which involves intentionally allowing people to die that is not uncouth and barbaric.

[BrainGlutton]

I’ve started a separate thread on whether “dysgenic pressure” is a real problem as soulmurk asserts. All are invited.

[Jonathan_Chance]

Actually, a question I don’t see answered here from Soulmurk is what exactly is meant by ‘natural selection’? He (I assume gender here) seems to believe that ‘natural selection’ will take care of the problem but never defines how that would be acheived. In what way would natural selection express itself? Shut down food distribution? Medical access and hospitals? What? By what magical means does natural selection take it upon itself to lower the population?

Because, regardless of his answer, I would posit that we are currently controlled by natural selection. Yes, we builds homes and farms and hospitals to offset certain causes of death. But these actions are completely natural for a social, learning species such as ourselves. We could no more help it than we could fly unassisted because it is natural for us to do so.

Just as it’s natural for beavers to make dams and alter their environment or for birds to build nests for protection of their young.

Altering environment and elimination of external threats to personal and species existence is as natural as breathing. We do it. Other species do it. The world goes on its merry course.

Oh, and on an earlier point: count the Chance household as one of those the resented the explosive growth of a major metropolitan area (east coast of the US) into our previously rural neighborhood. We sold out and moved to a small town in rural Ohio to raise the kids.

[soulmurk]

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Having an opinion that has no basis in fact is pretty much the definition of ignorant.
[/quote]

Some opinions are purely about personal taste or belief, and ignorance is an unapplicable term because there are no facts. Some people worship deities they’ve no physical evidence of, does that make them ignorant? It’s a scientific fact that carrots are good for you, so does not liking them mean someone is ignorant?

Several facts to which I have already alluded and which inform my opinion include:

• The fact that projections by people who actually study population growth have determined that the Earth’s population will stablize by the middle of this century. You can play the games and the assumptions, yourself on the UN World Population web page. However, you should note, if you choose to lean toward the “high varint” model that the “medium variant” model originally predicted 6.5 billion people by 2000. In 2000, we only reached 6 billion and it was not until this year that we actually hit 6.5 billion and they have had to adjust their estimates downward in order to stay nearly on track.
• The fact that there has not been a famine in the 20th or 21st century that was not directly caused by government interference (China, 1930s, squabbling warlords disrupt food distribution; USSR, 1930s, food deliberately collected and not redistributed by Stalin; India, 1940s, food hoarded by British colonial government; China, 1950s, Marxist centrally directed economy distupted food distribution; sub-Sahara Africa 1970s-1990s, civil wars and foreign invasions disrupt food production and distribution). The cause of famine has been established by Amartya Sen, whose work I have already mentioned, and there is no evidence that we are out of food, now or that we are in danger of needing to take food from anyone to give it to anyone else based strictly on population. (Wars are a separate issue, but population is not; the British quite successfully managed to create and exacerbate a famine (through stupidity, not malice) in Ireland way back in the 19th century based on an insistence that tenant farmers continue planting a failing crop and prohibiting them from switching to a crop that would allow them to feed themselves.)

We have different definitions of overpopulation is all. You look at the numbers and statistics to show that, yes, the planet can and will support the current number of people, so logically, we’re not overpopulated. I don’t disagree with the facts (which, your link is broken BTW) as such, but rather with the widely held opinion that just because it’s theoretically possible (with the aforementioned fix to distribution problems) to house and feed every human out there means we should. That the moment of overpopulation is the moment that, under a perfect system, there are still people who go hungry or have no home.

Now, it is true, as BrainGlutton has cited, that Paul Erlich still holds on to his beliefs, but they are beliefs, Every single dire forecast or prediction of doom that Erlich has pronounced since 1968 has failed to occur. The fact that he continues to drag out isolated factoids (that tend to be well below his earlier predictions) marks him as a true beliver and not a scientist.

I’m uncertain why you keep attempting to link me with Paul Erlich’s doomsday predictions.

You have too limited an understanding of morality. All decisions that affect life and death or quality of life are moral decisions, regardless whether the person who makes the decision is considered to be a “moral” person. Making those decisions (which is what people do) is the very nature of morality.

Not all decisions that affect life and death are moral decisions. Manslaughter while acting in self-defense, for example. There is no moral decision, it’s kill or be killed.

I see what you’re saying, but I steadfastly disagree. Morality is a personal system of judging right from wrong. Holding someone else to your standards doesn’t make them any more or less moral. This is why it doesn’t belong in the discussion.

If, hypothetically speaking, it could be agreed that there were too many people on the planet and that something needed to be done about it, why should a legitimate alternative such as allowing nature to assist in deciding who lives and who dies, rather than trying to save everyone, be completely dismissed just because some (alright, most) people morally object? For logistical reasons, sure, but because it makes some people sqeamish?

If you are now disavowing that claim, that is fine, but I provided examples of events that caused death that had nothing to do with Natural Selection. You are the one who claimed that it was THE determiner of life and death.

Well, no. What I said was that since I was somehow appointed the defender of the argument for it as the sole means of population control, I’d play devil’s advocate. I didn’t mean to imply that natural selection was the only way a person might die, merely that natural disasters, war and famine aren’t reliable means of population control.