Not enough food in the World, or too many people ?

I'm of the too many people faction.

Why 'kill" ourselves trying to feed all the Worlds' population, when the simple solution seems to be to limit the growth of the population.

I'm all for the Chinese solution of one child per family.

In the "olden days", especially in Third World countries, adults would have many children, knowing a good proportion of them would die, and not make it to adulthood.

Nowadays, with the emphasis on keeping everyone alive, whatever the consequences, with the ever increasing use of expensive medicines, do we need a rethink of our priorities ?

Is is the same if it's one of YOUR loved ones?

I think we're edging towards Underground material but I would say, humanity has a problem in general with 'moderation'.

Survival is a very solitary thing I'm afraid.

I have mixed feelings though I think my gut says too many people based upon our current global infrastructure. Setting aside the varied viewpoints about environment and climate change...
I see water being a great limiting factor on population growth over the next couple decades. There's plenty of arable land, but without the water there won't be enough food. Mineral resources are also of great concern, though not as big as water. Most manufacturing takes water as well.
Then we have the biggun for the current time, power. (that's a gigabyte sized flamefest thread that should be saved for somewhere else oo

I believe the world has the ability to sustainably support more than the 6+ billion we have right now, all while being environmentally friendly. The problem is that we don't live in an ideal world; that a utopia isn't realistically possible. So while there is plenty of theoretical potential, the few who control most of our resources will never let go of their "power"and let us as a society climb to our potential. And even when all things are theoretically equal (like pure socialism :ironic, humans don't seem to fundamentally accept this and thus can never overcome their greedy selves.

So, due to lack of water based upon our current situation, I think we have too many people to sustainably and humanely support right now.

Population control isn't the sole answer though (and starts to dip into a whole further brimstone flamefest). Better management of what we have now, recycling, science and engineering research for the future is what we'll need imho.

Someone said humanity is like virus. We do not contribute anything to the ecosystem, we only consume whatever is there, reproduce, then move to the next spot. It's pretty true when you think about it, sad but true.

abvidledUK said:

Why 'kill" ourselves trying to feed all the Worlds' population, when the simple solution seems to be to limit the growth of the population.

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Except that doing so is anything but "simple".

For starters, a quick glance at population structure charts and you'll discover that even if we had replacement rates <1, total population would continue to increase for some time.

Then there's the logistic$ of the world-wide programs, etc.

It's not the food or the people. It's a distribution problem.

Vertical farming powered by fission or fusion, and combined with extensive recycling, could make astounding population densities possible, perhaps upwards of 1 trillion people on the planet. The only external output human life really requires is energy. On the other hand, if we go with living arrangements typical of those in most of the US with single family homes on huge plots of land, and mechanized personal transport, I doubt the Earth could support much more than 1 billion people.

I feel fortunate to live in this era. The past was difficult and medical care primitive. The future will probably be so crowded that I'd be lucky to share a loft in a converted warehouse.

Nature always has a way of balancing things out, and human population will be balanced sooner or later, either by an unknown virus, natural or man made disaster.

AlexGT said:

Nature always has a way of balancing things out, and human population will be balanced sooner or later, either by an unknown virus, natural or man made disaster.

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I agree totally.

I sometime wonder if we spend too much time, money, and effort, assisting natural disasters, hard as that may be to ignore.

Famine does tend to be a contributory factor that needs to be assessed.

Difficult not to do anything, but is it against the "Law of Nature" ?

I'm not religious, but I wonder if natural distasters happen for a reason.

abvidledUK said:

I'm all for the Chinese solution of one child per family.

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Two things you should be aware of:

1 ~ The penalty for those who are caught violating that law in China.

2 ~ What sometimes happens if a couple has a baby girl, instead of the usually much preferred baby boy.

If this was the Underground, I'd give you the details. But here's a hint....

#1 is not a small fine and a slap on the wrist. And #2 is generally far more horrific than most decent people can imagine.

spoonrobot said:

It's not the food or the people. It's a distribution problem.

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Bingo.

In the 40s and the 50s, antibiotics were invented. Subsequently, infant death rates and overall disease-related deaths declined dramatically.

Human fertility is closely coupled to infectious disease related death rates. Now that diseases are under greater control, mankind desperately needs to control birth rates.

abvidledUK said:

I'm all for the Chinese solution of one child per family.

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Which population crisis will you choose?

If birth rates stay the same or increase, there will, eventually, be too many mouths to feed.

If birth rates drop too far, then we are headed for an even worse problem, of more retirees, pensioners, aged and infirm than there are in the workforce. With all the attendant problems that brings.

By the time the younger CPF members retire, for example, there will be no such thing as welfare. There will just not be the tax income base to support it.

Choose your preferred population crisis. And be careful what you wish for...

abvidledUK said:

I'm all for the Chinese solution of one child per family.

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That is why you are not American. It is just a different way of life I guess.

I believe we can produce enough food for everyone, it's just a problem of distribution and the behaviour of people. I study at a university with international students so I have a lot of friends from all over the world. Some of them can't believe their eyes when they see how much food the Belgian students throw away. They have the money to buy as much as they want so they waste huge amounts of food. It makes me angry but I don't know what to do about it...

And I think the 1 child policy is not the right solution. I heard so many stories about girls being killed because the parents wish a boy. Another side-effect is that the male-female ratio runs out of hand. And after all the policy isn't very succesful : I know a guy from Beijing who is only child, a girl from Shanghai who has 2 brothers because her parents are rich enough to pay the fine, and someone from the countryside in China who has 4 siblings because the local government doens't give a poop about the policy. For these 3 random Chinese people I know that makes an average of 3 children per family, which proves the policy doesn't work quite well.

lctorana said:

If birth rates drop too far, then we are headed for an even worse problem, of more retirees, pensioners, aged and infirm than there are in the workforce. With all the attendant problems that brings.

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Ironically that problem may well be solved long before population growth becomes a problem. I've heard that we're 15-20 years away from stopping aging, perhaps two generations away from reversing it. If/when people start living indefinitely, the need to control birth rates becomes even more imperative. While we may not institute Chinese-style limits of the number of children, I can easily see a law forbidding use of aging-preventive procedures without also getting sterilized. It will be up to the individual to decide do I have children, or do I live forever? Unless of course we just change our lifestyle to one of denser living to more easily accomodate a huge population.

I also feel the problem of too many elderly will be solved regardless of whether or not we prevent aging. We'll just start using robots to provide the needed services for retirees. The technology will certainly exist for this by the time there are not enough young workers.

Erasmus said:

I believe we can produce enough food for everyone, it's just a problem of distribution and the behaviour of people. I study at a university with international students so I have a lot of friends from all over the world. Some of them can't believe their eyes when they see how much food the Belgian students throw away. They have the money to buy as much as they want so they waste huge amounts of food. It makes me angry but I don't know what to do about it...

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We all waste a lot of food. Don't even think about a photo shoot for a hamburger ad where they make 200 burgers to get the most photogenic. Then they toss them in the dumpster. Some agencies now go and collect them for use at a local shelter.

As a non preachy vegetarian (I do it for health reasons) there is a lot of waste feeding the animals that we (most of we) consume. Consider it takes 16 pounds of grain and 2500 gallons of water to make a one pound steak. Chicken? 8 pounds if I recall. The return on intake vs edible product is very low.

That would be like buying ten gallons of gas and tossing four each time you fill up the tank.

Back in the pre-Ethanol days here it was common to pile corn on the ground at the grain elevators because the production was higher than the storage and shipping capacity. And that was before we manipulated the foods in the genetics labs.

Consider the food that is shipped to the areas where the famines are. Lots of times that food is not delivered to the people that need it. Their governments withhold it to keep the populace at bay. And in some of those areas, the agencies that help the people are starting to petition to not have food sent, just the equipment and supplies to allow the locals to grow food. If food is freely handed out, the locals stop fending for themselves. If the food stops, things get worse.

It is a tough line to tightrope walk. The ability to help requires planning.

It's obvious there's too many people, and the problem will only become worse.

However, it seems most people who agree with this only do so as long as nobody touches their god-given right of procreating. As a result, people keep popping children because they can.

We'll eventually reach a point where the situation gets so bad that it'll become necessary to actively force people to stop having children. Drastic changes would entail all the welfare problems that have already been mentioned, but if it can be done progressively it shouldn't be too hard from a purely technical point of view.
I'm thinking mandatory sterilization for a gradually increasing number of people over decades, with the rest chosen randomly and with heavy fines for those who don't comply.

Or we can always get so desperate for resources that we start huge wars to get everything we can, and solve the overpopulation problem (possibly in a permanent way) by nuking the hell out of each other.

The first solution is clearly more desirable, no matter how some like to associate it to dystopian tales. Some people will have to suffer for the benefit of the whole.

The smart way, of course, would be to stop considering having children as the blessed culmination of one's life and accept the idea that a great life can be had without procreating, but humanity on the whole rarely solves its problems in smart ways.