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How long will it be before we have to take positive steps to curb overpopulation? www.buzzle.com/articles/thomas-malthus-theory-of-population.html
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Interesting, thanks for that, a timeless and to my mind common sense view from a long time ago which applies today more than ever.
We do have a serious and unsustainable population problem, arguably its happening here but not yet to a level that has caused food shortages, this is only a matter of time though as food prices continually rise and the nations purse gradually empties.
You only have to look at how feckless families procreate when the state pays to see Malthus' predictions coming true.
The shortage of good wheat this year is causing just about manageable problems, and not just here, should there be more years of strange weather and poor harvests it wouldn't take much to cause serious shortages of all sorts of food.
The elephant in the room is Africa with India likely to follow and China apparently considering changing its own birth rate management, and if what i have read is true buying good land in Africa in order to feed Chinese people in future years, or did i imagine that.
Africa taken as a whole hasn't been able to afford to feed itself for years, extremes of political change haven't helped, throwing ever more charity at the situation only causes extended suffering as the population continues to grow, its probably well past unsustainable now...i don't have the answers, but someone will eventually have to take some heavy decisions.
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I have always believed that the end of "Mankind" would come if not by the Bomb, then Starvation. I know where I would start with birth-control measures, then the "give £2 a month" Oxfam-type charities would be next! - may sound harsh, but it`s all Nature is trying to do now!
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Every time I read or hear about a new medical breakthrough to cure this or that ailment I can't help wondering what the long-term effect on the planet is if there are fewer diseases around which would ordinarily and naturally curb the population.
For example many charities are working towards eradicating malaria, one of the biggest killers on the planet in developing countries, and yet if this perfectly natural phenomenon was eradicated, how many more people would live long enough to procreate further adding to the numbers all wanting more space to live, trees to burn for fuel and land cleared for crops which would end up turning to desert?
I read an article in the past year or so in BBC's Focus magazine which stated that water shortages could actually be the trigger for a large war particularly in Africa or the middle east where one country wants to dam a large river for power and water supplies to its citizens leaving a mere trickle for the country further down stream.
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Some dangerous ideas. I wonder how long it will take for some politician to get on the bandwagon of state brothels? I can see such an establishment now, white-tiled reception area with overweight receptionist, unkempt and with egg on her cardigan, an attendeant in a uniform and big boots and peaked cap... but I have already lost my appetite.
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The last people I want interfering with population patterns are politicians, experts, theorists or religious nutters.
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>> The last people I want interfering with population patterns are politicians, experts, theorists or religious
>> nutters.
But Zero, those groups already have interefered in roundabout ways...
Politicians have already interefered by creating a system of benefits which enables those without the means to procreate and maintain financial support at the expense of taxpayers. Plus our borders have been opened allowing previously unheard of numbers being able to claim off the state as well as their extended families who in turn procreate etc etc.
Experts have done so by constant medical breakthroughs which eradicate diseases and prolong life.
Religions - Catholic Church (need I say more?)
Hmm, that just leaves Mother Nature then really as one force we have no ability to control.
What this planet really needs is a good old fashioned meteor strike!
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>> Politicians have already interefered by creating a system of benefits which enables those without the
>> means to procreate and maintain financial support at the expense of taxpayers. Plus our borders
>> have been opened allowing previously unheard of numbers being able to claim off the state
>> as well as their extended families who in turn procreate etc etc.
I don't think there's actually a great deal of evidence for the suggestion that mega families on welfare are actually a serious problem fiscally. They're only a small proportion the Social Welfare (SW) budget and most are people who had families then fell on hard times. Don't forget 50% of the SW spend is on pensioner benefits.
The welfare drones are a convenient myth with which to beat down the SW allocation. Much the same mythology attaches to new arrivals from abroad. The vast majority are self supporting tax paying etc.
Population growth is a consequence of failure to eradicate disease and famine. When people are convinced two of their kids will outlive them and they have means of contraception families get down to 2-3.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Tue 6 Nov 12 at 13:52
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That's all well and good Bromps, but it ain't gonna sell no Daily Wails.
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>> I don't think there's actually a great deal of evidence for the suggestion that mega families on welfare are actually a serious problem fiscally. >>
Since on here don't like references to articles in the "Wail", so instead here are extracts from a very recent article in the Guardian:
"2 million children in the 584,000 working families with more than two children get child tax credits."
"There are another 880,000 working families with more than two children receiving child benefit"
So around 2.9 million children affected. Further quote:
"Child tax credits are means-tested but the Children's Society calculates that the saving on them, if they were restricted to taking a maximum of two children into account, would be about £3.5bn a year. Savings on child benefit, if reshaped in a similar way, would yield up to £1bn. This is big money."
Big money, eh, but not a serious problem fiscally?
However, I do accept that some staunch Republicans with dodgy arithmetic might claim they can save £billions by abolishing the Monarchy.
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If I didn't know better I'd think he was wasting his time by trying to engage me again. But he wouldn't do that, as I can not have anything of interest to say as I made a mistake in haste on an internet once.
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>>"There are another 880,000 working families with more than two children receiving child benefit"
Remember when it was called Family Allowance?
Change the name to XXX Benefit and we can all look down on it then.
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>> Remember when it was called Family Allowance?
Wasn't family allowance brought in as a way of giving some cash to the mother...generally, not trying to start an internet sexism war...instead of some form a tax relief that would mean a net increase in take home pay for the breadwinner, which might in some cases have ended up down the pub/bookies.
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>> Big money, eh, but not a serious problem fiscally?
>
My point was about the assertion that the feckless/idle were pais to have endless sprogs. Tax credits go overwhelmingly to the working poor, arguably subsidising low wages.
And anyway, £4billion is not a lot in a SW spend of over £200billion.
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As far as I know, only the Chinese have attempted seriously to do something about overpopulation - and they were pilloried for it by other nations. Unfortunately, overpopulation sits above all those other factors disease, starvation, diminishing fuels etc and, if we are still around, the crunch will come when there aren't enough fossil fuels left to sustain agriculture.
Unfortunately, we are faced with so many problems that, in the end, we just turn our backs and hope that someone else will sort it out - for example, where are we going to put our rubbish when all the holes are filled in?
I am a biologist and logic leads me to be pessimistic. Am I sad that my children aren't producing grandchildren? Not really!
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>> As far as I know, only the Chinese have attempted seriously to do something about
>> overpopulation -
And have admitted they cocked it up. They are now suffering a Gender imbalance.
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>> only the Chinese have attempted seriously to do something about
>> overpopulation -
>>
By "the Chinese" you mean the Chinese government.
Millions of people, as opposed to governments, have done a lot to control population numbers down the centuries. Birth rates have risen and fallen in response to climate, harvests, wars, depressions, political repression, political encouragement, medals for mothers, etc.
But the biggest factor I think is prosperity. Birthrates fall as countries get richer. Isn't the world population estimated to peak at about 9 billion in 2050?
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Population control is easy: cheap alcohol does a lot to kill off the weaker members
See Scotland ... where life expectancy in parts is less than Iraq.
tinyurl.com/3db9xhx
And Russia where the population is stable just..
tinyurl.com/clwz3rl
So whisky and vodka will do the job admirably.
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"We must control the population!", they cry. And yet I don't see those making such statements queuing to have themselves "removed" or have their knackers crushed by a pair of house bricks. Someone (country) else's problem, as always.
Bromps has this right, with greater worldwide prosperity will come a more stable population. It's the same with the nonsense about Islamification and the supposed takeover of Europe by Middle Eastern/Asian Muslims. All stats show that those who move here conform to our norms of 1-3 children per family, usually because they are now prosperous, healthy and are confident of their children surviving childhood.
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>> So whisky and vodka will do the job admirably.
>>
Or as pointed out above, move the world's poor population to England - because once they are here they are known to conform to our norms and stop having too many children. Crisis over.
Last edited by: John H on Tue 6 Nov 12 at 14:51
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That really is rather silly. If you thought about it you'd realise that what I'm pointing out is that, if you give people prosperity, stability and confidence, they will tend to produce smaller families and lower birth rates. That applies to wherever people live. My point is nothing to do with thinking everyone should move here, it is merely an illustration of the point in my second sentence of this post.
See here:
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/123ade02-4e6f-11dc-85e7-0000779fd2ac.html#axzz2BSEHbhOn
If you're going to start engaging me again, please do so sensibly. I promise to admit when I'm wrong, as I have done before. So there's no need to go around trying to be all clever like.
:-)
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What Alanovic is trying to say is if people haven't got any money they can't afford to go out, so they stay in and have sex because it's free.
Pat
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I doubt it.
The fact is that cutlures with larger families tend to have them so that some survive long enough to support the parents in their old age.
As that support becomes more certain either because of welfare or child survival rate, then the larger families tend to shrink.
If you doubt, look at Wales. And I am welsh.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Tue 6 Nov 12 at 16:21
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>> What Alanovic is trying to say is if people haven't got any money they can't afford to go >> out, so they stay in and have sex because it's free.
Maybe you women think of it as free...........
;-)
Last edited by: Alanović on Tue 6 Nov 12 at 16:25
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>>Maybe you women think of it as free...........
You've got some balls. Although I'm thinking that might be a short-lived state of affairs.
You needed a bigger smiley. A *lot* bigger.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Tue 6 Nov 12 at 16:42
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>> >>Maybe you women think of it as free...........
>>
>> You've got some balls. Although I'm thinking that might be a short-lived state of affairs.
>>
>> You needed a bigger smiley. A *lot* bigger.
>>
Easy to be brave on an internet, eh?
:-)
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>> >> >>Maybe you women think of it as free...........
>> >>
>> >> You've got some balls. Although I'm thinking that might be a short-lived state of
>> affairs.
>> >>
>> >> You needed a bigger smiley. A *lot* bigger.
>> >>
>>
>> Easy to be brave on an internet, eh?
>>
>> :-)
I'm with the commie, Sex always has a price.
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You lot do amuse me sometimes!
You go all around the houses, being so polite and use 100 words to say what any good lorry driver can say in half a dozen;)
Pat
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>> Population control is easy: cheap alcohol does a lot to kill off the weaker members
Not so, during the middle ages the water was deadly so it was diluted with alcohol in various brews and various ways.
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That was very weak beer though, mostly. Sort of like Asda Farm Stores Bitter. Even the children drank it rather than water.
They didn't need strong alcohol to kill 'em off back then, plague and war did the job mostly.
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"Not so, during the middle ages the water was deadly so it was diluted with alcohol in various brews and various ways."
In Europe certainly and not just since the middle ages. China and Asia discovered another way of purifying water namely boiling it and infusing herbs i.e making tea. It is believed that this may be why Europeans have developed a greater tolerance for alcohol than the Chinese and Japanese.
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>> But the biggest factor I think is prosperity. Birthrates fall as countries get richer. Isn't
>> the world population estimated to peak at about 9 billion in 2050?
>>
Forecasts vary quite a lot, but 9 billion has some consensus behind it.
Birth control is possible and is actively encouraged in India (mainly Hindu) and China (communist) as they do not have the fundamentalist anti-birth-control religious freakery of Catholic and Muslim nations. The latter are said to be the most "fertile" and are predicted to represent a quarter of all people on earth by 2030.
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No chance: the Sunni and Shi'ite factions will wipe each other out by nuke. The downside is they will take a large number of other people with them.
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I believe that World Population should peak at 10 billion (approx).
This video makes the case, and explodes a few myths aimed at certain countries and religions at the same time.
www.gapminder.org/videos/religions-and-babies/
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Good video by Hans.Scaremongering by the overpopulation myth.>:)
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>> I believe that World Population should peak at 10 billion (approx).
"Should" as in "needs to" or as in "will"?
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Take no notice of the (err) doom n' gloom merchants, there will always be enough food to feed the ever-increasing world population, and ... it's even green!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green
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There is enough food and land for any increase in population Dog.Distribute the wealth and nobody has to starve.
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Very true Dutchie - one only has to fly over the UK to see that it's mostly uninhabited, except for the S.E.
And it's crazy that one person can own $10 billion while millions in the 3rd world starve.
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"one only has to fly over the UK to see that it's mostly uninhabited, except for the S.E."
Those empty funny shaped green patches you see are called fields. They are apparently used for growing food for the people who live in the grey bits. :-)
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Why do we need food though, when we can just as well eat McDonald's?
Seems I'm not the only one who thinks thus: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-12598429
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The danger of overpopulation;Thomas Malthus' views - -
