Are we overpopulating?

[Viktorkrum77]

This is an age-old question seen time and time again. As you may know, the human population is the one of a select few of artificially uncontrolled populations (minus the "small" murder rate when compared to the world's population). The population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. If you take away Europe's falling population, you are left with staggering population growth in all continents, and countries such as China and India take the lead. And the US is not far behind either, and neither is Africa. And so this leads me to my first question, are we overpopulating? Are we going to run ourselves out of resources?

 

 

 

My second question takes two sides. Diseases are vital to our well-being, like or not. Diseases are our only true population controller, without them we would've ran the Earth out of resources by now. So, do you think we are curing too many diseases, and leading to our population increasing at a more dramatic rate? Or do you believe we are not curing enough diseases, and that diseases actually play a low-key factor in our population size, and things like murder/suicide/accidental death play a more important role?

[1_man_army]

The population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050.

 

 

 

From what source did you get that figure?

 

 

 

To increase in population by well over 2 billion in less then 43 years would be unimaginable - in fact the term "going at it like rabbits" would be an understatement.

[darkmage099]

WHY

 

 

 

Well, humans don't die. We simply just live. There is no limiting factor. Most people survive nowadays. Before, the children who reached adulthood were a minority. There is no predator that can stop us besides ourselves. There is no environmental factor that can stop (the majority) of us. Well not now at least. However, humans will eventually reach their carrying capacity and start to level off. People will starve and life moves on for the fortunate. Yes, we think Sudan is grief-worthy but imagine when there are mass amounts of people starving and there is no food to help them. There are solutions. We just haven't been able to harness them.

[indy500fan]

The population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050.

 

 

 

From what source did you get that figure?

 

 

 

To increase in population by well over 2 billion in less then 43 years would be unimaginable - in fact the term "going at it like rabbits" would be an understatement.

 

 

 

1970 - 4 billion

 

2007 - 6.7 billion

 

 

 

EDIT: first three results on google as sources:

 

http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop

 

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

 

http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/world.html

[Smapla]

Grahg.

 

 

 

Me and my friend have this plan. Tell everyone you know to have just one child, and then have their children do the same thing. If that happened for two generations we'd cut the population down quite a bit, and maybe we could stop mucking with our resources.

[1_man_army]

The population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050.

 

 

 

From what source did you get that figure?

 

 

 

To increase in population by well over 2 billion in less then 43 years would be unimaginable - in fact the term "going at it like rabbits" would be an understatement.

 

 

 

1970 - 4 billion

 

2007 - 6.7 billion

 

 

 

 

I stand corrected. It does seem alot though, I didn't think it would be possible to grow so quickly in such a short time.

[WutangFlu]

to answer the main question. Yes....

 

 

 

Although, we are not overpopulating... we are already overpopulated.

[malo2]

notice how the poorest countries arent as populated, yet the richest arent that populated either? China and India are clearly the biggest sources pf the worlds population, and they happen to stand in the middle of the wealth spectrum. Could this be happening because those countries are doing well enough to have high life expectancies, yet just not well enough to be educated of birth control, and safe sex practices?

[Chocobodude0]

We're already overpopulated at this point. I don't think it's diseases curing people, I believe it's that people have so many children.

 

 

 

It's a cruel thing to say, but we need to go easy on children-bearing. Maybe adoption would be a better alternative?

[biggy08755]

We need a zombie epidemic to clear the earth.

 

 

 

But yes we are overpopulated and overpopulating.

[gillett]

I don't think we are overpopulating, personally I think we are cramming ourselves like sardines into the nice areas. I understand that people spend millions of dollars on the nice real estate because lets face it, the quality of life is better. But this increase in quality of life is bad because it lowers the quality of life in other areas (by causing the real estate value to lower).

 

 

 

just my 2 cents

[Diminished2b]

More Developed Countries like those of Anglo-America, Western Europe.. No.

 

Less Developed Countries like those of Africa, Asia, Latin America.. Yes.

 

Of course with exceptions, like Russia's population declining, Japan's population doing the same..

 

 

 

But no, I think population rates in general will stabilize eventually.

 

 

 

My logic is the demographic transition theory.

 

• [*:22a5p2jh]Stage 1 - High birth rate, high death rate
   
  [*:22a5p2jh]Stage 2 - High birth rate, low death rate
   
  [*:22a5p2jh]Stage 3 - Lower (but fairly high) birth rate, low death rate
   
  [*:22a5p2jh]Stage 4 - Low birth rate, low death rate
   
  [*:22a5p2jh]Stage 5 - Population decreases (Contemporary stage)

 

Several less developed countries are in Stage 2. Most more developed countries are in Stage 4. Once less developed countries go into Stage 3 and 4 their population won't increase so rapidly... diffusion of medical technology and things like family planning will bring them up.

 

 

 

And as technological factors go up, we will be able to inhabit land previously thought to be uninhabitable.. The Western part of the United States is very sparsely populated, even more so in harsher environments.

 

 

 

Then again, I don't see this happening any time relatively soon. :|

[Wisp]

The population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050.

 

 

 

From what source did you get that figure?

 

 

 

To increase in population by well over 2 billion in less then 43 years would be unimaginable - in fact the term "going at it like rabbits" would be an understatement.

 

Just a comment but, if i remember correctly about 20 rabbits turned into several trillion within a few decades, in australia I believe.

[Viktorkrum77]

We're already overpopulated at this point. I don't think it's diseases curing people, I believe it's that people have so many children.

 

 

 

It's a cruel thing to say, but we need to go easy on children-bearing. Maybe adoption would be a better alternative?

 

 

 

It's a truth no one wants to here, but people need to stop having sooo many kids. Give adoption to the homosexual people and you will have adopted (I estimate) more than a quarter of currently unadopted children. If our government legalized homosexual adoption we could possibly eliminate homosexuals having kids naturally through sperm banks and such.

[Diminished2b]

Grahg.

 

 

 

Me and my friend have this plan. Tell everyone you know to have just one child, and then have their children do the same thing. If that happened for two generations we'd cut the population down quite a bit, and maybe we could stop mucking with our resources.

 

 

 

That's what the People's Republic of China is doing with their One Child Policy.

[purpieman2]

Grahg.

 

 

 

Me and my friend have this plan. Tell everyone you know to have just one child, and then have their children do the same thing. If that happened for two generations we'd cut the population down quite a bit, and maybe we could stop mucking with our resources.

 

 

 

That's what the People's Republic of China is doing with their One Child Policy.

 

i learned about it, and is it still around?

[Chocobodude0]

We're already overpopulated at this point. I don't think it's diseases curing people, I believe it's that people have so many children.

 

 

 

It's a cruel thing to say, but we need to go easy on children-bearing. Maybe adoption would be a better alternative?

 

 

 

It's a truth no one wants to here, but people need to stop having sooo many kids. Give adoption to the homosexual people and you will have adopted (I estimate) more than a quarter of currently unadopted children. If our government legalized homosexual adoption we could possibly eliminate homosexuals having kids naturally through sperm banks and such.

 

 

 

Yeah. I'm a very pro-adoption person. Why?

 

 

 

I'm adopted myself.

[Diminished2b]

Grahg.

 

 

 

Me and my friend have this plan. Tell everyone you know to have just one child, and then have their children do the same thing. If that happened for two generations we'd cut the population down quite a bit, and maybe we could stop mucking with our resources.

 

 

 

That's what the People's Republic of China is doing with their One Child Policy.

 

i learned about it, and is it still around?

 

 

 

Yes, but it's not exactly the most iron-slated policy.

 

 

 

Moreover, in accordance with PRC's affirmative action policies towards ethnic minorities, all non-Han ethnic groups are subjected to different rules and are usually allowed to have two children in urban areas, and three or four in rural areas; in addition, some couples simply pay a fine, or "social maintenance fee" to have more children. Thus the overall fertility rate of mainland China is, in fact, closer to two children per family than to one child per family (1.8). The steepest drop in fertility occurred in the 1970s before one child per family was implemented in 1979. This is due to the fact that population policies and campaigns have been ongoing in China since the 1950s. During the 1970s, a campaign of 'One is good, two is OK and three is too many' was heavily promoted.

[Viktorkrum77]

Yeah. I'm a very pro-adoption person. Why?

 

 

 

I'm adopted myself.

 

 

 

I'd adopt a kid in an instant (minus all the legal buisness I heard it takes). To me, taking in a helpless defenseless child is better than having your own. I hate taking responsibility for someone else's mistake, but how can you deny a helpless child, it's not their fault, it's their parents. Also, there's none of the birth, pregnancy, babyshowers, etc mess that comes with having kids.

 

 

 

Now, to just get a democrat into office.

[InkofDeath]

I'm waiting for that 28 year old who got rejected out of university, sitting in his garage with a highschool diploma, messing around with chemicals, and wipes out 7/8 of the earths population, and somehow animals and plants survive. ^^<- - - yet that still is only temporary.

 

 

 

I think major breeding laws need to be put in, before we're to far into overpopulation. We need to enforce that law for 10-20years or however long needed, and then let all the uncurable things happen, and we should have a the population to control again, but this would probabl need to be done every 100 years or so..?

 

 

 

also, i don't think adopting would solve overpopulation...?

[xvillexvalox]

Yes, we have overpopulated.

 

 

 

[garden tool]mosapiens have existed a relatively short amount of time as compared to the most succesful human-like species.

 

(of the genus ([garden tool]mo) , sapiens, or us, are the only ones left)

 

 

 

no living thing, besides something like grass, should have ever populated to these numbers.

[vilageidiotx]

Its obvious we are overpopulated, but not-curing diseases wont matter. History pretty much tells us that when we cure a disease, nature or man makes another one, deadlier then the last.

 

 

 

I like the one child idea. Couple that with possibly paying or rewarding people who choose to become steril(the medical way, no home remedies like hammers). If every nation inforced this, the population problem might slowly fix itself.

[warri0r45]

"We're a virus with [bleep]ing shoes, man" :lol: :P

 

 

 

We are going to eventually overpopulate, but I'd say we haven't yet. Overpopulation is when the population dosen't have enough resources to survive and declines as a result. Our population is still increasing, so it hasen't technically happened yet, but it's on the way.

[Bloodstain]

Like my history teacher said, what we need is a big war or some sort of big natural disaster, etc to bring down the population :-w

[Defender2516]

All those who are in favor of decreasing the population?

 

 

 

hears 1000 "I"s.

 

 

 

K, heres the plan, listen closely now. See that bridge? Jump off, that should get rid of a few people!

 

 

 

Seriously, you guys are talking about ending people's lives. Grow up please..

 

 

 

~Defender~