@gorillaman

If a global population of less than 1 billion is desirable in your eyes, then do you desire the death or sterilization of 6/7th's of the people you know? Or perhaps you desire the death or sterilization of 7/7th's of the people you DON'T know?

This world is simultaneously overpopulated (with wasteful, self-destructive type people) and under populated (with selfless, garden loving infinite sustainable type people). It's not about number.

Until every golf course, front yard, and public park is covered in hyper dense, square foot type gardens, overpopulation (based on quantity) is a complete myth.

It's not my job to police the world by forced population policies. Nor is it David Suzuki's job. Nor Obama's job. Nor gorillaman's job. Nor anyone else's. The best a man can do is to control his own activities and teach his neighbor the virtues of his infinitely sustainable choices.

@Sniper007

Colonisation of other planets, if it happens, will not ease overpopulation on Earth. Assuming it's actually done with humans rather than, say bacteria which are so much easier to transport; it must involve small seed populations of colonists, not firing billions of people off into space. Where do you imagine the energy required would come from? As it stands in 2014 we can barely move a handful of people into low earth orbit, a few hundred kilometres away.

Think about the logistics of transporting and housing all these billions of colonists in a hostile environment. Making the environment itself habitable is an even greater challenge; we can't even seem to fix the one we have on Earth, the one we spent billions of years evolving to suit.

The expansion of the universe, meanwhile, is always giving us less material to work with and perpetually moving it further away.

@SDGundamX

Relying on technology to solve overpopulation is like refusing to stop smoking because by the time you get cancer science will have found a cure.

Scientific advancement is not a given. It doesn't progress at a guaranteed rate and it isn't a genie that will automatically offer a salve to every need. Or, to coin a cliche, "Where's my jetpack?"

Luckily however, in the instant case scientists have offered an easy solution to overpopulation: Stop having so many children.

@RedSky

Poverty reduction without population reduction - reduction, not stabilisation - is catastrophic. The current global population of ~7.2 billion is only survivable, never mind sustainable, because most of those billions are impoverished peasants who barely consume any resources at all. Elevating the poor to a rich, westernesque lifestyle multiplies the effects of overpopulation tremendously, even if it slightly slows population growth in absolute terms.

Rosling doesn't seem to understand the actual problem, and his predictions are at any rate, horrifyingly optimistic.

We need to be shooting for a global population in the range of 100 million - 1 billion. Any substantially higher number than that is an apocalypse waiting to happen.

The solution to overpopulation has always been poverty reduction:

http://videosift.com/video/TED-Hans-Rosling-on-Global-Population-Growth

What stabilises population growth is the birth rate being below the replacement rate (2.1). At 2009 it was 2.33, meaning the doom and gloom is almost completely unwarranted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate#Replacement_rates

As far as the one child policy, it's unclear if it was necessary in light of China's growth and consequent poverty reduction which would have reduced it without any direct action. What's certain is that it's created a huge group of ageing workers currently approaching retirement with few children to take care of them.

By 2050, China will be roughly as bad as Japan, which has the largest elderly/young imbalance in the world currently. Which will weigh down pension systems, slow down policies towards growth and ironically keep population growth higher because of diverted spending.

Overpopulation is, always has been, and always will be, an issue of quality not quantity. We will colonize other planets, once the people on this one get their acts together. Last time I checked, the known universe is expanding faster than the human race can colonize it. I see nothing that changes that pattern.

Does everything out of South America invade, overpopulate, and put a drain on our economy? Bigger walls!!!!!!

Wow.

I know Hawaii has a lot of problems. Overpopulation, poverty issues, racial tension, and a meth-habit that would make Walter White blink.
This woman seems to have some of those.

Hi voodooV..sorry it took me so long to reply.

you're committing another logical fallacy here. Argument from ignorance. just because you can't think of any other reason for morality doesn't prove god did it.

The fallacy you mentioned doesn't apply. The argument isn't for Gods existence, the argument is that atheism is incoherent because it has no foundation for morality, among other reasons. Ravi asked the question, without God what are the Ontic referrants for reality?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontic

To answer your question though. Survival...pure survival is pretty much the foundation of morality. what behavior ensures a long, prosperous and happy life? That's your morality right there. And it's all based on logic and reason, not an imaginary god.

is it better to be a dick to someone or is it better to work with other people. hrm...which ensures a higher probability of success in your endeavors.

is better in the long run to help or to hurt. Which ensures a greater likelyhood that people will be willing to help YOU out when you need it.

virtually everything that we consider moral today is the evolution (gasp) of instinctual rules we've learned over the millions (not thousands) of years that ensure a longer, happier life.

What you're talking about is pragmatism, which is to say that if it works then it is the best way to do things. Yet plenty of people have led long, prosperous and happy lives by exploiting other people for their gain. That's what works for them, so why shouldn't I emulate that standard of behavior instead of being self-sacrificing? Some of the most successful people who have ever lived got there by being terrible human beings. Basically, your standard of survival isn't about what is right, but what is right for me and that is entirely arbitrary. It also is an incoherent standard for morality.

Which is why only two of your commandments still hold up as secular laws.

I forget where I learned this but even biblical morality can be traced back to rules that made sense, at the time, that ensured survival. I think it has been shown that many of the biblical rules involving not eating certain foods can be traced back to diseases or some other logical reason, but hey, we didn't have an understanding of these pesky little things called bacteria and microorganisms back then so when you ate a certain food and died, that wasn't science, it was your imaginary sky god who was angry with you.

What's really interesting about that is that Moses was educated as an Egyptian prince, which was the most advanced country in the world at the time. He would have certainly been exposed to their medical knowledge, but you won't find a shred of that in the bible. The Egyptians were doing things like applying dung to peoples wounds, whereas the Laws of Moses detailed procedures for disease control, like hand washing and quarantine procedures, as well as public sanitation, and dietary laws which prevented the spread of parasites. They were thousands of years ahead of their time; we only started washing our hands to control disease in the past 200 years.

Even your fear and hatred of homosexuality and abortion can be easily explained by survival. When your village only numbered in the hundreds or maybe thousands and simple diseases and winters wiped out LOTS of people, discouraging homosexuality and abortion is actually a pretty good idea when the survival of your species is at stake. But when you've got advanced medicine and we've got the whole food and shelter thing dealt with and our population is now 7 billion. the whole "be fruitful and multiply" thing just isn't necessary anymore. In fact, it's becoming a problem. and Once again, survival will dictate our morality. If we do nothing to combat overpopulation and resources become an issue, I guarantee you that large families will eventually have a negative stigma attached to them until the situation is resolved.

You're talking to a former agnostic who once approved of homosexuality and abortion. I am not afraid of it, and I don't hate the people doing it. This is a clash of presuppositions; if there isn't a God then I couldn't give you an absolute reason why people cannot have homosexual relationships or murder their unborn children. If we're all just glorified apes contending for limited resources, then in that paradigm it may be necessary to cull the herd. I think the appropriate response though to someone contending we should eliminate vast swaths of the human populace to save the planet is, "you first".

But God is in control and this is His planet, and since He is still creating human beings, He will provide the resources to take care of them. It's the iniquity of mankind which is limiting the resources when the truth is that we have way more than enough to take care of everyone. Take for example the fact that over 30 thousand people starve to death every day. Is that because we don't have enough food? Actually, we have more than enough food yet we waste about 1/3 of the world food supply every year. The gross world product in 2012 was over 84 trillion dollars, more than enough to feed, clothe, house and vaccinate every single person on the planet. Those people die not because there isn't enough, but because the wickedness of man.

Don't ask me though, ask an anthropologist or sociologist. They've been studying this stuff for decades. I'm sure you could even find an anthropologist/sociologist that believes in god and they'd still say the same thing. our understanding of reality changes....as does morality. no one takes seriously the old biblical rules about stoning unruly kids, working the sabbath, and wearing clothing of two types of fabric anymore. So why should we listen other outdated biblical rules that don't apply anymore. As countless others of sifters have already informed you, you have the burden of proof and you haven't met it yet.

Call me when someone discovers a disease or some other problem that arises when you mix two fabrics and we'll revisit those rules k?

God has three kinds of laws, moral civil and cermonial. The rules you're referring to were civil and ceremonial laws for Israel and not for the rest of the world. They have no application today because they were connected to the Old Covenant God had with Israel. God has a New Covenant with the whole world that doesn't include those laws. The moral laws of God do not change with time, or ever. And although we fancy ourselves as more enlightened today, the reality of the world we live in tells us that human nature hasn't changed one bit. Human nature is every bit as ugly and self serving as it always has been. If you peel back the thin veneer of civility you will find a boiling pot of iniquity.

Stop committing basic logical fallacies and you might learn this stuff for yourself You haven't ever said anything that isn't easily invalidated by a simple logical fallacy or hasn't already been debunked long ago.

It's easy to speak in generalities; if I have committed a logical fallacy, then specifically point it out. The one that you detailed earlier did not apply.

Do you watch the Atheist Experience videos Shiny? because every time I watch one of the videos and listened to the same old tired theist "arguments" over and over again. I'm always reminded of you because you just aren't saying anything new. If you're serious about understanding why your ideas just don't pan out and you're not just trolling, you should seriously watch those.

I've watched the show, and again, I was a lifelong agnostic before becoming a Christian. I was pretty far left and would have probably fit in well with the lot of you not too many years ago. So, this is all to say that I understand where you're coming from and why you think and believe the way you do, because I used to think and believe in the same ways. Your mindset isn't a mystery to me. What I've learned about it is that God has to reveal Himself to a person before they will know anything about Him. Everyone gets some revelation and it is up to them to follow it. I received the revelation that there is a God and I pursued that for many years until He revealed Himself to me through His Son Jesus Christ. He has revealed Himself to you and everyone else on this website in some form or fashion. You would be shocked to hear some of the revelation people have received and turned away from, or rationalized away later. Statistics show that 10 percent of self professing atheists pray, and that is because they are unable to within themselves completely deny the revelation that they have received. I guarantee you there are atheists on this board who wrestle with all of this but since it isn't something atheists talk about (or would admit to publicly) you would never know it, that you're all keeping a lid on the truth.

OMFG!!!Wow... I guess I have to answer that.
Why do you continue to refer to the utopian free market that you admit never existed, you can't possibly know how it would turn out since you have nothing to reference, so please stop acting like you "know" how it would be, that's simply making your politics a religion, with no need to explain and no basis for your argument but supposition.
If only more people would vote FOR a candidate instead of out of fear of the "other" candidate, my political "regulation" would work great. I can't control others, only try to explain my position and hope they agree.
I am quite happy where I am, but I also know other places are not as nice. I feel it's mostly due to overpopulation/high population density, but that's another subject altogether.
I'm sorry your experience with police is so one sided...I do wish it were not so. I think blaming them for an accident during a car chase may be a little unfair, not knowing the details I'll reserve judgment. I would hope you were properly compensated if it's as you suggest. My experiences have been both unpleasant and helpful, but I could understand the position of the one's that were unhelpful, even if I disagreed completely. My wish is that others would understand that, on average, having police is far better than not (even when they end up not always helping YOU), without needing personal NEED for the police to understand...I'm including you in that wish.
You would lose that bet...I'm a landlord.
I'm disabled and don't take a dime in public assistance, but pay my fair share for having roads and water systems (and then some) because it's a good thing to have them for everyone. I could find ways to pay less taxes, or fight for them with my vote...I just see that as shirking a duty owed to one's fellow citizens, so I don't. No man is an island.
So, no $35 real security exists that you'll show us? Can't imagine why that would be. No evidence, no existence.
By your logic, taxes are voluntary, you can choose not to live in the US and you don't get thrown in jail for not paying them. (most HOA's have a clause where they can take your home if you don't pay).
Again, you claim you don't care about my thoughts, but you continue to prove you do by responding.....you do see that, right? I don't claim to not care about your position, I try to not simply ignore those I disagree with as that tends to end intellectual evolution on both sides. Sometimes it's a futile effort.....
Again, because I don't want to disband the government doesn't mean I (or others) LIKE it, but we do have control, we simply need to assert it in thoughtful ways, not react out of fear of the possible future. That's my viewpoint anyway.

...if only that really happened.
I'm 100% in favor of feeding human meat to animals, if it's safe for them to eat (most is probably poisoned). At least we could give a little back to nature in death, but people seem to want to keep it to themselves for some reason.
I'm also in favor of eugenics, or selective breeding of animals we have control of (including humans). We could have almost completely ended genetic diseases in one generation if only the thought didn't outrage and disturb most people. We could have also stopped the insane overpopulation with strict selective breeding, solving many if not most of the problems facing us today. That is a step removed from offing my little bro to feed the dogs....even I'm not that heartless in real life.
The only arguments I've heard against it are 'only Nazi's would do that', and, 'it's my right to pass on my (low quality) genes to as many mini-mes as I wish'. I disagree with those ways of thinking and see them as throwing out the baby with the bath water or short sighted self centered bad planning (or child abuse, depending on your genes).
Personally, I didn't think my 'better than average' genes were good enough to warrant creating another person to save them. (I have an above average IQ and no known physical genetic flaws, only crippling personality flaws and a broken body!) Perhaps you can imagine how I feel about the likes of Honey Boo-boo breeders negating my choice and then some.
I know, I know...I'm a disgusting narcissistic Nazi freak....but what about the argument I made?

the impending disaster is overpopulation and it's byproducts - CO2 emissions, waste, and resource depletion.

Infant mortality efforts need to be a package deal with contraceptive efforts.

you're committing another logical fallacy here. Argument from ignorance. just because you can't think of any other reason for morality doesn't prove god did it.

To answer your question though. Survival...pure survival is pretty much the foundation of morality. what behavior ensures a long, prosperous and happy life? That's your morality right there. And it's all based on logic and reason, not an imaginary god.

is it better to be a dick to someone or is it better to work with other people. hrm...which ensures a higher probability of success in your endeavors.

is better in the long run to help or to hurt. Which ensures a greater likelyhood that people will be willing to help YOU out when you need it.

virtually everything that we consider moral today is the evolution (gasp) of instinctual rules we've learned over the millions (not thousands) of years that ensure a longer, happier life.

Which is why only two of your commandments still hold up as secular laws.

I forget where I learned this but even biblical morality can be traced back to rules that made sense, at the time, that ensured survival. I think it has been shown that many of the biblical rules involving not eating certain foods can be traced back to diseases or some other logical reason, but hey, we didn't have an understanding of these pesky little things called bacteria and microorganisms back then so when you ate a certain food and died, that wasn't science, it was your imaginary sky god who was angry with you.

Even your fear and hatred of homosexuality and abortion can be easily explained by survival. When your village only numbered in the hundreds or maybe thousands and simple diseases and winters wiped out LOTS of people, discouraging homosexuality and abortion is actually a pretty good idea when the survival of your species is at stake. But when you've got advanced medicine and we've got the whole food and shelter thing dealt with and our population is now 7 billion. the whole "be fruitful and multiply" thing just isn't necessary anymore. In fact, it's becoming a problem. and Once again, survival will dictate our morality. If we do nothing to combat overpopulation and resources become an issue, I guarantee you that large families will eventually have a negative stigma attached to them until the situation is resolved.

Don't ask me though, ask an anthropologist or sociologist. They've been studying this stuff for decades. I'm sure you could even find an anthropologist/sociologist that believes in god and they'd still say the same thing. our understanding of reality changes....as does morality. no one takes seriously the old biblical rules about stoning unruly kids, working the sabbath, and wearing clothing of two types of fabric anymore. So why should we listen other outdated biblical rules that don't apply anymore. As countless others of sifters have already informed you, you have the burden of proof and you haven't met it yet.

Call me when someone discovers a disease or some other problem that arises when you mix two fabrics and we'll revisit those rules k?

Stop committing basic logical fallacies and you might learn this stuff for yourself You haven't ever said anything that isn't easily invalidated by a simple logical fallacy or hasn't already been debunked long ago.

Do you watch the Atheist Experience videos Shiny? because every time I watch one of the videos and listened to the same old tired theist "arguments" over and over again. I'm always reminded of you because you just aren't saying anything new. If you're serious about understanding why your ideas just don't pan out and you're not just trolling, you should seriously watch those.

Overpopulation is a myth: Food, there's lots of it has been added as a related post - related requested by VoodooV on that post.

The world is overpopulated. The governments and people of countries with growing populations are committing crimes against humanity.

Japan is one of the few places doing it right, and moral defectives treat that as a problem.

Children absolutely don't belong to their parents and we, less as a 'community' than a species, do have an interest in ensuring that they're properly raised.

We're talking about the future of humanity - they're too important to leave entirely at the mercy of what are generally a pair of confused simpletons. The more we can limit the influence of the parent over their child, the further we can divorce our life outcomes from our circumstances at birth, the healthier our race will be.

Indiscriminately taxpayer funded education isn't a part of that. In an overpopulated environment parents should be expected to cover the cost of their children. Tax them as a group, enough to fund all the relevant social expenses, which of course include universal education with college places for the qualified.