[Aqgkvwzm]

Originally posted by snoopy369


1) How is this? Unless you are suggesting that the negative growth is only reducing 'smart' people, this is absolutely false (patently, even). If you are, I would remind you that it's not 'smart' people, but rather 'rich' (or semi-rich) ... and if you classify Paris Hilton in the former category you have problems. I hate to brake this to you but in Europe its the middle class that doesn’t have any kids. Also the more educated you are the less likely you are to have offspring.


As to throwing Paris Hilton into the debate all I can say is


Also the way you completely misunderstand the situation makes me mad enough to start behaving like Wiglaf and just bash the heck out of you.

I mean do you know what happens if you have fever kids? A larger percentage of old people, old people tend to be sick more. Old people also generally like to retire at some point. Old people are less active. Old people find it harder to adapt to new technology.

Need I go on explaining basic stuff to you?


Now, unless you are advocating we kill off the old people to have a declining population that can still maintain its age ratios I can't see how you can possibly have a coherent opinion on this.

[koebforfrn]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Even better - and much more seriously - if people REFUSE to use contraception, then they don't qualify for our "humanitarian aid", ie, food and medicine. Call me a pig headed fascist, but It blows my mind why that this isn't a rule already.

[rushiddink]

Originally posted by Heraclitus


I hate to brake this to you but in Europe its the middle class that dosen't have any kids. Also the more educated you are the less likley you are to have offspring.

[ssiikmuz]

[nithhysfusy]

Originally posted by VetLegion


I feel that it is a bad thing. I find it very difficult to verbalize why it would be objectively bad, so perhaps it is not.

Perhaps a better word is "unhealthy". I think "self-perpetuating" is a neccessary condition for a society to be called healthy.

So, a society that plays video games to its extinction, achieving record per capita happiness in the process, could be labeled a "good" society (for its members), but not a "healthy" society. Re-reading what I wrote there, I realize that this workaround doesn't really explain why we should want a society to be healthy, it just employs the implicit analogy between "healthy" and "good" to hide the philosopical problem. Hey, at least I admitted

Let me try to solve it properly. Why is it "bad" that some subgroup of humanity isn't reproducing given that most of humanity is?

How about this: if I consider the average member of a group to be "good", then I have to see a reduction of number of its members as bad even if they themselves are happy about it.

[Phighicle]

When the ocean levels rise it might be better if there were less people to drown, that's all I got to say.

[masteryxisman]

... of course the 40% that isn't water you could make into a mound to live on. But who wants to live on a cemetery?

[FBtquXT8]

Even better - and much more seriously - if people REFUSE to use contraception, then they don't qualify for our "humanitarian aid", ie, food and medicine. Wow. That's a horrible philosophy.

We should do just the opposite. We should give them more so that they can feed their families.

[gogFloark]

Originally posted by Aeson
People are made up of 60% water! If they all die the ocean levels will rise even higher. Bury people in Death Valley for 2 reasons.

1) It just sounds reasonable

2) The water from their bodies won't contribute to sea level rise but will create the Dead Sea. Oh hell, nevermind, that's been done.

[nermise]

The main issue- and really the only issue- is the expanding wealth of 3rd world societies. More luxuries means more consumption/waste/etc. and there's a finite amount of goods to go around. More people right now= exponential resource depletion, a declining one~ usage stays about the same.

3 guys starving to death in Africa use a lot less than the average westerner.

[hernkingAnank]

Originally posted by Lancer


Bury people in Death Valley for 2 reasons.

1) It just sounds reasonable

2) The water from their bodies won't contribute to sea level rise but will create the Dead Sea. Oh hell, nevermind, that's been done. Go with your instincts... they're both good reasons!

[WapSaibian]

Originally posted by snoopy369
It rather depends on how you define 'overpopulation'. You could define it certainly as 'population > food available', but that would be a rather absurd definition, considering we don't live in a communist society and all...

I think most countries would benefit from zero or negative population growth in the short term, at least. Spending additional resources to feed people who cannot be productive (due to the decreasing need for human capital, ie labor, as technology advances) is inefficient.

Certainly I don't favor directly reducing population However, if people are voluntarily reducing the population via not having more children, how can that be a bad thing?

The main problem is the countries who most need to do this, aren't (India, eg) ... this post comes as no surprise at all in light of this post

Originally posted by snoopy369


I generally believe that manufacturing (or raw materials) growth is the only meaningful growth in the long term for an economy; and we don't have a lot of room for that except in automation ('productivity enhancements') which, unfortunately, don't have as beneficial an affect on the economy because they tend to encourage concentration of wealth rather than distribution of it (as they decrease jobs and/or the need to pay as well for jobs, thus decreasing the amount of money available for the middle class and poor, which is the money that drives the economy via spending).

[Zs3ZASpA]

Originally posted by DanS
From what I have seen, Korea spends about the same as the US. That means 10% for education overall, not 10% for private education. Point stands that the US and Korea spend much more than others on education. Not so:

Korean public education spending: http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summ...99-2240920_ITM

Korean private education spending at 14.6% of GDP:
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0...DING-IN-S.html

Average spending per houshold per month of after school classes and tutoring (not counting private day schools): $153

"During the same period, local households¡¯ total education-related spending, including regular school fees, averaged approximately 303,000 won." (over $300)

That's a lot of money for a country with Korea's GDP and it sure as **** isn't being spent very efficiently.

[DumErrory]

For one thing, the level of the hunger. Yes, there were people who starved in 1790s England, for example, but not a whole hell of a lot. There were plenty of poor people, and even homeless people, but RELATIVE TO the poor people today in Africa, they were far, far better off. Are you sure you want to go there?

How many folks in Africa have cell phones? Access to the internet? Do you really believe that the average African have a lifestyle worse then the poor did in 1750? The richest folks back then were fortunate to have a privy.

Well, the leaders of Britain and Prussia and France and the US during that time frame were many things, but "corrupt" was not the way one would generally describe them. By who's standards? They were plenty corrupt back then compared to the standards of today.

And again, while POOR people made up the majority of society, let me make a couple of points: 1)The poverty in those nations relative to the poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa today is not the same - it's worse in Africa. Really? I would have a hard time believing that the life of the poor in Africa is worse today then the life of the middle class in 1790. In many cases the poor in Africa live better then even the rich did back then.

2)There was a very productive entrepreneurial class, a well-educated, well-supported academia, and the beginnings of a middle class, none of which applies to most African states today. Well no. Most of the best go to the West because that's where the jobs are.

That's what I'm trying to do, although honestly, before we started this discussion, I thought it was so obvious that all I had to do was state it as fact. Seriously. Also, you are slipping something extra into the argument - you are assuming greater industrialization for Africa. I'm assuming no such thing. Why do you think that Africa is on the verge of an "Industrial Revolution" that will propel it in much the same way Western Europe and the US were propelled by it? I am saying that they are starting to make the concrete steps necessary. I am not looking at states like Zimbabwe or South Africa, who technically have industrialised. I am looking more at states like Kenya or Nigeria.

Look how rampant corruption has been in Haiti. Also, consider that the Dominican Republican was under outright occuption by the US Marine Corps for decades, in the early 20th Century - US influence may have something to do with the disparity. So the problem isn't the lack of food resources, but the management. The food is there. You get good people in power, the nation will thrive.

Here are some relevant figures, though. As of 2007, the US population growth rate was 0.88%. The growth rate of China was 0.61%. That's not that significant of a difference, given that the average WORLD population growth rate is 1.17%. For comparison, the growth rate of Ethiopia is 2.31%, that of Chad is 2.88%, that of Niger is 3.49%, and that of Liberia is a staggering 4.50%. For a full listing, see the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ion_growth_rate Yes I am aware of that, but those nations are far and few. If you look at the fertility rates, they are declining. Africa is the only nation which has fertility rates in the same range as western Europe did in the late 18th century. Everywhere else in the world is past that point.

You don't find a legitimate First World nation until Ireland, at #69, followed by Israel at #78, Luxembourg at #118, and Australia at #127. I think my point is well made. Sure, they are in different stages in the demographic transition. Africa has changed from the high death rate, high mortality and is starting to experience the large population growth that we saw in the west when the death rates came down and the birth rates stayed high. Many nations in the developing world have already progressed to the next stage where the birth rate drops to meet the death rate, something we didn't see in the west until the 20th century.

Now, for the disparity between China and the US, in terms of greater population growth in the US, even though the US is a richer nation, I think the explanation is that China, faced with a MASSIVELY expanding population in absolute terms, took steps to address that expansion so as to AVOID over-growing it's available resources. I don't support the manner in which China did so - an enforced 1 child policy through forced abortion - but China's continued growth alongside of efforts to curb population growth seems to make my point, not yours, anyway. The problem is that they will suffer economic collapse. Yes it is possible to make the jump that china did if people no longer have the burden of raising children, but that does not provide a solid economic foundation. Soon their workforce will be declining, just as ours will be except that their workers are only a third as rich as ours are. That will destroy their economy.

Famine, perhaps. Starvation, no, at least not in the US, Britain, France, Prussia, and the other rapidly industrializing powers. The Irish famine was still in 1850. Famine was still a large worry 50 years earlier.

Agreed, but there wouldn't have been an Agricultural Revolution without many of those factors I listed, to begin with. There is considerable capital floating around. The major problem is management more then anything else.

Duh, but you have to be able to FEED your population density first. I don't need to be Adam Smith in order to know that if your nation can't feed itself, then expanding your population won't help anything, unless/until you can address the food crisis. More people = more food that can be cultivated. Food is a very inelastic commodity. There is no incentive to grow more then you need. When the demand for food rises, then the productive capacity expands to meet the need.

And you continue to compare the relatively modern states of the US, UK, France, and Prussia with the relatively backwards, corrupt basket cases that make up much of Africa today. I think Prussia in 1790 would get crushed by the Nigeria of today.

You haven't yet told me why you think there's going to be ANY SORT OF agricultural or industrial revolution in those nations, They are in the correct phase of the demographic transition. Severe upswing in population and their death rate is going down while the birth rate stays high.

Among other things, a health minister who refuses to admit HIV causes AIDS. So if you wear a condom you will never get AIDS?

I can list more examples if you like, but population density does NOT greatly correlate to prosperity. Fine. Is the wealth of Australia concentrated near Alice Springs? Population density has a very direct relationship to wealth.

Hey, fine! I'm all for ending foreign aid to Africa. You seem to be the one in favor of it. I'm just saying that if we DO send aid to Africa, we should make it contingent upon checking their population growth and spread of disease through reasonable, scientifically proven methods. If they think that is unfair, well, fine - according to you they don't want the aid anyway. Right? Well then why are we arguing against each other? I think they would be best off without aid too.

Come on. Lack of contraception by definition causes greater population growth, which leads to greater hunger if you can't feed the population you already have and have no reasonable means for doing so. The first point follows, the second does not. Food is an inelastic commodity. There is no incentive to produce beyond your needs. When the population expands, then the demand pushes the supply to increase along with it and the food supply increases with population growth.

This is the argument that Thomas Gray used to rebut against Malthus way back when.