Biggest Problem Facing Humanity

[Guest]

There are way more issues than raw resource amounts to consider when dealing with population; you have to supply the population where it is - which is probably not where it's resources are coming from - and then you have to solve all the social issues of large, dense, population blocks ( I'm assuming you've dealt with the physical issues like sanitation ) to just grab two topics. It'd be fine if humans were distributed homogenously, but they're obviously not and it's obviously causing problems already.

Unfortunately this is true, on the other hand overpopulation is not much of an issue after a nation enter a wealthy stage, births go down and logistics improve. Unless society breaks down the infrastructure required for larger populations to exist will emerge, then its smooth sailing for the most part. We are having issues because a lot of countries are undergoing growing pains at around the same time. Also with modern irrigation techniques even desert hellholes and tundras can support farms so growing food in harsh climates is less of a hurdle.

[ecat]

Gullibility & Greed.

[magnemoe]

Overpopulation is a myth

http://overpopulationisamyth.com/

Episode 3: Food: There's lots of it

http://overpopulationisamyth.com/food-theres-lots-it

Both of the world's leading authorities on food distribution (the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO] and the World Food Programme [WFP]) are very clear: there is more than enough food for everyone on the planet. The FAO neatly summarizes the problem of starvation, saying that "the world currently produces enough food for everybody, but many people do not have access to it." Food is a lot like money: just because some people have none doesn't mean that there isn't enough of it--it's just spread unevenly.

Africa alone could feed the world. source: World Bank

http://books.google.com/books?id=OPHJariKhU0C&pg=PA24&dq=Awakening+Africa’s+Sleeping+Giant

Pretty much sums this up, rebirth rates is falling fast world over, not only the West including Japan and Korea and China is below reproduction levels, but also most of the arab world and Latin america, look like as soon as an country reach some development level birthrates drops.

If you do low level manual agriculture it makes sense to have lots of kids as they are cheap labor. If you get an tractor or move to an town you don't want as many kids. As living standard rises kids become more and more expensive. Kids pretty much require separate bedrooms, computers, phones and fancy clothes today.

Sims 2 with the farming add on showed this pretty well, unfortunately you can not use kids as farmhands in Sims 3 (political correctness is another huge issue)

Food yes its more than enough. as I said in another post famines today exist as you had to go to an war to deliver food to the victims.

However the arab spring was started by rising food prices. Rich Chinese and Indians eat more meat, crop failure in Australia followed by speculation in food prices caused an spike. The governments could not pay marked price for subsidized food and fell. Followup governments and populations has larger issues.

|Velocity| The Chinese government is not communist, calling them evil is also unfair. No they are not nice people but lifting some hundred millions people out of poverty gives plenty karma even if your reason was to pad you large bank account.

[Bacterius]

Stupidity in general. I have been told it is infinite.

[-Velocity-]

|Velocity| The Chinese government is not communist, calling them evil is also unfair. No they are not nice people but lifting some hundred millions people out of poverty gives plenty karma even if your reason was to pad you large bank account.

You don't understand why I put quotation marks around "evil communists". It is because I am stating someone else's opinion, one which I am criticizing.

[Guest]

The biggest problem facing humanity is humanity. We do a much better job of killing each other than disease, global warming, and overpopulation combined.

[Nibb31]

Overpopulation is a myth

http://overpopulationisamyth.com/

That website is funded by the Population Research Institute, an organization that has a clear agenda. They advocate population growth, reducing funding for family planning and are actively against abortion and contraception. Their stance on overpopulation is just a disguise for their religious agenda.

http://www.overpopulationawareness.org/india/en/videos/overpopulation/population-research-institute-misleading-videos-to-further-their-religious-agenda_3212.html

Africa alone could feed the world. source: World Bank

http://books.google.com/books?id=OPHJariKhU0C&pg=PA24&dq=Awakening+Africa’s+Sleeping+Giant

Yes, we could probably feed 70 billion people if we really had to. It would probably involve highly optimized nutritional food pills, extreme industrialization of the entire food chain, rationing, reliance on a monopolistic agro-industrial complex, cultivating every arable square meter of land on Earth, and using all our resources to do so. Just about every element in our lives would be oriented towards producing food, instead of entertainment, tourism, science, education and all the other fun stuff that makes life worth living.

Would you really want to live in that sort of world though ? What point is there to having 70 billion people instead of just 7 ? Wouldn't it just be easier to simply stop population growth and maintain a decent quality of life for those 7 billion. Technological advancements and efficiency gains would then allow us to optimize quality of life instead of having to catch up with population growth.

[-Velocity-]

Overpopulation is not an issue, everybody keeps speaking as if we are running out of food, water, minerals, oil, ect ect. In reality the earth is far more massive than we give it credit for, problems like famine and overpriced materials arise from geopolitical and economic issues, not supply and demand. For example, the earths combined food production is somewhere around 5 times the consumption of the people eating it(the rest goes to livestock to guess what...make more food), the reason 3rd world countries are starving is because most of it's grown in 1st world countries and the rest is hoarded by corrupt local governments. Another example is oil, oil is not rare, it may not be produced quickly, but there is a ton of it. While it is difficult to estimate exact numbers, we have enough fossil fuels for anywhere from 500, to 2000 years, not that we should use it for that long. Gold is also not a rare metal, and our iron supplies are unlimited compared to the demand. People are focusing on the wrong problems, the problem is not how much we have, but what we are doing with it and how it is being distributed. The earth could support many more people than we have now just fine, not to mention once a country stabilizes and becomes wealthy it's birth to death ratio becomes 1/1.

You completely missed the point. Look over my post... where did I mention running out of resources? Though that is certainly a problem (more like, the resources we need will slowly get more and more expensive to extract), that's not the primary problem I see with overpopulation, at least, not at this point in time.

How much carbon dioxide would there be in the atmosphere if our population were just 1/7th of what it is now? (i.e., 1 billion people?) How many species would be driven to extinction by habitat loss if we only used like 1/4th the farm land and residential area that we use today? How much pollution would we be adding to the environment if our population was just 1 billion? How much environmental destruction would be being caused by our mining efforts to supply those 1 billion people?

The fact is, in the modern world, our destruction of the environment is almost directly proportional to the population. Just think of how much additional carbon emissions each additional child represents.

Edited October 7, 2013 by |Velocity|

[Guest]

Those are excellent points, Nibb31, and I hope we can figure out how to overcome the problem of feeding ourselves. I think we can do it, as long as we learn to live with each other first. History teaches us that simply hasn't happened yet. We seem to find some reason to start a big fight every so often and kill each other.

[lajoswinkler]

Of all the stuff people mentioned here, global warming and overpopulation are the only one that are really new to us.

Famine, corruption, gullibility, crime, we had all that before and it's actually dropping. People are getting better on average and human rights are being respected more than ever in the history of mankind.

Things like religious crap which is in the way of prosperity are only a nuisance which will fade to a much less prominent level. The society will deal with it, I'm sure. With the spread of world wide web, knowledge and education can't be stopped. That's why people like the taliban are trying to slow it down but it's like trying to stop water from going through stone. It will find its way.

We're too weak to avoid overpopulation, but nature will take care of it by famine and microbes.

Global warming, oh... we can just sit and watch. The best thing we can do is to slow down its progress, for the sake of the future generations.

[Deejay2000]

Humanity itself.

[-Velocity-]

As far as global warming goes, I have yet to figure out why a couple hundred thousand square km of star shades at L1 wouldn't fix a little overheating. We could mass produce a bunch of very thin solar shade material in space, place it directly between Earth and the Sun at the L1 point, and just block enough sunlight to completely null out any global warming.

I read an article that said such a scheme would supposedly cool the tropics more than the poles- but I never found out why they were saying that? Maybe due to parallax? The most extreme parallax, at the poles, from a star shade at Earth-Sun L1 would be a little under 15 arc minutes- when the solar disk is 30 arc minutes in diameter- so it would be borderline. However, if you utilized the radiation pressure on the sunward-facing side of the sail to reduce the effective gravity of the Sun by a bit, it ought to move the effective L1 point away from the Earth, reducing the parallax a bit, maybe enough to ensure full shade coverage even at the poles. Even without that though, we'd be talking about full shade coverage of almost all of the Earth.

Anyway, that article was based on recent research, and as we know, that can be very much subject to change, especially for something as complicated as the climate.

Edited October 7, 2013 by |Velocity|

[dharak1]

I hate to say it but... Birth control won't EVER be enough to take care of population. Fir my mom none of that stuff works, out of all 3 of her kids she was on birth control for all 3. Even if the pill was 100% effective for everyone not everyone will take it. The only way to stop population growth is the way it has been done in China. Even then it would need to be more enforced.

[jwenting]

lawyers. They have turned us into a bunch of risk averse cowards too afraid to do anything at all, anything whatsoever.

By now we're even incapable of thinking about taking risk, exploring, expanding our horizons, because "something bad might happen".

Hence we've given up space, guaranteeing the end of mankind.

[Van Disaster]

That's really just a synonym for greed ( sorry lawyers! ).

I'm going to add our entire economic system to the list of problems, and mostly that's down to money having it's own intrinsic value ( I suppose coming from the idea that it's technically gold ) rather than being a token for barter. I was quite pleasantly surprised by the amount of alternative money systems being used when I went to look, I thought it was mostly going to be theoretical daydreaming

[SargeRho]

Sustainable energy sources. Fossil fuels aren't. Thorium fission is, as is Nuclear Fusion.

[Nibb31]

I hate to say it but... Birth control won't EVER be enough to take care of population. Fir my mom none of that stuff works, out of all 3 of her kids she was on birth control for all 3. Even if the pill was 100% effective for everyone not everyone will take it. The only way to stop population growth is the way it has been done in China. Even then it would need to be more enforced.

You don't need to go all China on people. You just need to remove the incentives for having children and implement sex education campaigns, it shouldn't be impossible to bring growth rates down to a level where the 3-child family is an exception, abortion is socially acceptable, and there is less social pressure to have kids. Remember, it has to be a worldwide effort. Western countries have low-enough natality rates. The problem is mainly in Asia and Africa. If we can bring their natality rate down to an average of 2 children per family, it would be a huge progress.

[dharak1]

That's what I forgot to say, Asia and Africa. In poor and underdeveloped countries it's difficult to control birth rates. Based on my family I can already tell the 3 child family is an exception. My grandparents had 5 kids the last one was born in 1983. They have 9 grandchildren. Less than 2 grandchildren per child. Its the same with my other grandparents. 2 kids and 2 grandchildren. Then you have my great aunt who has like 3 kids and 4 grandchildren. You can see how older families have more than 2 children but now have 2 or less. Most of the world population is in Asia and Africa.

[rkman]

That website is funded by the Population Research Institute, an organization that has a clear agenda.

Nothing wrong with having an agenda. (It's hidden agendas that are a problem)

They advocate population growth, reducing funding for family planning and are actively against abortion and contraception. Their stance on overpopulation is just a disguise for their religious agenda.

I agree that's troublesome but it does not mean that what the UN, the World Food Organization and the World Bank say about there being enough food production, isn't true.

Yes, we could probably feed 70 billion people if we really had to. It would probably involve highly optimized nutritional food pills...(snip dramatic scenario)

Sounds like you made that up on the spot. If not, sources?

[Seret]

Overpopulation, access to clean water, and cheap clean energy. The second two are largely only a problem because of the first. The world's population is expected to top out around the 10 billion mark, so whatever problems we have now are going to get about 40% more urgent.

[Nibb31]

Sounds like you made that up on the spot. If not, sources?

Yeah, total speculation, I admit. But the point is, we can probably support a higher population, but the problems we have now will only get worse and there will be sacrifices to be made. The question is, is it worth sacrifying comfort and quality of life just to allow more people on Earth, and what is the point of encouraging population to grow even more ?

Economical growth is limited, because resources themselves are inherently limited. If you see wealth as a cake, then more people means a smaller slice for everyone. The cake is not growing any bigger, or at least not at the same rate as the number of people who all want a slice. There are only so many solutions: either we accept to all have a smaller slice, or we accept that some people will be left with only smaller and smaller crumbs. Either way, the tensions will get higher and someone is going to end up smashing the cake so that nobody gets any. The only way to make sure everyone gets a decent piece of cake is to only allow the right number of people into the party.

[magnemoe]

You don't understand why I put quotation marks around "evil communists". It is because I am stating someone else's opinion, one which I am criticizing.

Sorry, I was interrupted, might also misunderstood you.

However China will get an serious problem in 30 years then they suddenly get lots of old people while starts to running out of workers.

In 50 years the lack of workers will be an serious problem. The west get hit first but the effect is more gradual and wages and living conditions makes it easy to attract people.

[rkman]

the point is, we can probably support a higher population, but the problems we have now will only get worse and there will be sacrifices to be made.

Where the problem is not lack of production nor potential production capacity, but disproportionate distribution of wealth in general and food in particular, and the sacrifice is reduction of greed and wastefulness primarily by the wealthy nations.

The question is, is it worth sacrifying comfort and quality of life just to allow more people on Earth, and what is the point of encouraging population to grow even more ?

I'm not convinced comfort and quality of life need to be sacrificed in order to ensure sufficient amounts of food for all people - even with a larger population. Although i agree there is no point in encouraging population growth as a goal onto itself - but that's not the point i'm trying to make.

Economical growth is limited, because resources themselves are inherently limited.

I know, and global population growth is slowing down. (growth rate peaked at 2.2% in 1963, then declined to below 1.1% by 2012)

Then again, i think it is in principal technically possible to use resources that are not so limited. Energy (of which we have plenty, see the sun) and commonplace materials (carbon, water, various trace elements, all of which recyclable) go a long way toward making almost anything we want. Which does not mean carrying capacity is unlimited, but we are not close to that limit.

the tensions will get higher and someone is going to end up smashing the cake so that nobody gets any.

That tension is not a result of fundamental shortages. E.g. we're running out of oil, but once upon a time we sort of ran out of trees as a source of energy and building material for just about anything, but that didn't stop us. Transition from one to the other is not without problems, but running out of a resource for which there is a replacement does not put a fundamental limit on growth.

[Tankaa]

The inability to think in the long term and the ever-tighter focus on short-term gains is probably the overarching problem. "Externality denialism" is probably the worst byproduct of this, essentially "Darn the negative side-effects that affect you tomorrow, I got mine today."

[Idobox]

Plain stupidity and lack of education.

You can solve pretty much all the greatest problems of humanity by having people think about what they're doing, and why.