300 Million

[nolawitch58]

At some point this morning, the USA reached the milestone (or millstone as I like to think of it) of 300 million people. The total global population is well over 6.5 billion. There is little to celebrate and much to revile about such a point.

When discussing the problems that the increased burden of overpopulation put on the planet, many of my friends totally disagree with me that there can be an economic model that provides for economic growth while population reduction is occurring. My assertion is that the only reason for that is laziness on the part of economists. I can find at least one instance of a situation where population reduction resulted in economic growth for the remaining people: the Black Plague. After the initial dying off, the survivors were left with greater demand for their labor and could obtain higher wages for it. Most economists trace the beginnings of the Middle Class to the Plague. Before that time, Europe was a feudal economy.

Other boons for survivors are wars. After World War II, those who came back enjoyed a robust economy and great career opportunities. Of course, they ruined it by producing so damned many offspring.

Will it take an epidemic of Avian flu or some other unknown calamity to reduce populations to sustainable levels? Have we maybe reached a tipping point where no progress is possible and we can only expect things to get radically worse over time?

If things will get worse, is there anything we can do individually to stave off some of the negative impact to ourselves?

Crossposted to cf_hardcore.

In other news, I took ratkrycek to lunch yesterday. I never spent much time in the 9th Ward before Katrina. I certainly didn't go over there afterwards since there was so much going on and I didn't want to get in anyone's way. Slowly, the community comes back to life. There are fast food places open. Many houses are already gutted, but it's likely they're still fighting with insurance companies or to get some federal assistance in order to rebuild. Common Ground is doing a wonderful job over there.

I'm going over to lab_rattus' mother's apartment tomorrow to hang out with her while her mother plays bridge. I'll be dragging some computer stuff with me so I can help her find and correct the problem with her mom's computer. Maybe that will ease her frustration level if she gets something accomplished even by proxy.

Comments

Bah.

[bloodyviking.livejournal.com]

Reducing the population to sustainable levels doesn't help for long. People will just keep overproducing until the situation is as bad as ever, if not worse.

This is becuase humans are still dumb mammals.

[lionsphil.livejournal.com]

Rats do exactly the same thing. If they get into a grain silo, they will fill it with rats. Then they will fill it with rat corpses when resources run out, and a few will move on.

The natural world has many examples indicating that the only effective clamps on population are competition for resources, and predation.

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

Too bad the only natural predator man has is itself. Perhaps we need to encourage more serial killers, eh?

[entheos93.livejournal.com]

That's not true. We have disease- that's definitely other creatures taking over and winning.

[krikkert.livejournal.com]

I can relate to your post here. Having children is not a right, and within our lifetime, we will probably see the rise of childbearing as a privilege.

I find it funny how we require an exorbitant amount of education for becoming an engineer or an architect, but everyone can raise a child.

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

I hope you are right, my friend. I can certainly see draconian measures such as China's one child policy being instituted in more countries. bloodyviking is right, though. People don't do anything decent voluntarily. Once again the Tragedy of the Commons scenario is played out and everyone loses. People are collectively nitwits.

[krikkert.livejournal.com]

"Show me a communist and I will show you a person who will be angry if I take his bread."

I feel the first half of the famous quote is especially fitting.

[krikkert.livejournal.com]

Again -- we educate engineers, architects, heck -- even actors and painters need an education now! Yet raising a child should come naturally.

I've heard that one...

[thenea.livejournal.com]

I have no interest in having children. Last time I told this to my mom I was informed I was selfish and taking my life down "the wrong path", i.e. there is something wrong with me because I have no desire to reproduce.

*sigh*

Re: I've heard that one...

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

In retrospect about three or four decades from now, you will have been the least selfish of your peers for not clogging the planet with more humanity to share in the misery. I predict that children will revile their parents for having birthed them into such horrors as will exist when the population surpasses 8 billion.

ACK!

[bloodyviking.livejournal.com]

Far too many of them don't raise their children, they just spawn them and turn them loose on society, and expect other to raise their spawn for them. That is another rant, though.

We can hope that you are right about the rise of childbearing as a priviledge. Too many people see it, for some reason which they are unable to articulate, as a Right.

Re: ACK!

[krikkert.livejournal.com]

Just like holding a driver's licence is a Right, eh?

[voxwoman.livejournal.com]

Well we can't have a consumer economy without consumers. My 'brood' isn't helping matters, either. My oldest (well, not exactly "mine" - I just married his dad a while ago) impregnated his girlfriend, and they are HAVING it. Sigh. Two babies (he's 22, she's 19, I think) having a baby. He's more concerned about the speakers in his Mustang than pre-natal care for the thing. And until the pregnancy happened, him and his girlfriend were fighting enough to have the police called about once every 2 or 3 months. They aren't quite as dumb as a bag of hammers, but you have to wonder about a girl who let's herself get knocked up with no backup plan.

And the fucking doctor let them hear the hearbeat and then said "so, do you want to go through with the abortion?" (of course, they couldn't.) I've been told that the abortion doctors are now required to do that. Is that true?

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

I don't know if they're required to do that sort of foolishness now and in your state, but last year when I was working at the Women's Clinic, they weren't down here. Of course, there is a 24-hour waiting period between "counseling" and the procedure here in Louisiana. And the state has mandated that a bunch of trees be killed and turned into useless booklets that provide listings of adoption services in every parish to give to each woman seeking an abortion.

Do parents nowadays not give their kids the stern lecture I was subjected to when I was a teenager? My dad sat my happy ass down when I moved in with him after the divorce. He exhorted me to stay in school and get good grades so that I could get a scholarship to go to college since he couldn't afford to send me. He also told me that I should wait until after I'd finished college before getting married and having kids. If I did it in any other order, he'd be very disappointed in me.

Do parents just not freaking parent any more? Do they think it's sufficient to keep a roof over their kids heads, food in their stomachs and clothes on their backs? Are they so deranged by all the schlepping they do to get their brats from sports practice to after school activity to lessons to whatever that they fail to say, "By the way, Bratleigh, you really shouldn't give birth until you're married, settled and financially stable."

Your stepson and his ilk are why the world is going to shit. One more kid added to the miserable mess with parents who have no business spewing offspring and who won't create a decent atmosphere to raise it doesn't sound like much, a drop in the bucket. Unfortunately, with the prevalence of that sort of occurrence, it's a deluge.

[voxwoman.livejournal.com]

the boy got the freakin talk and more than once. He "had a scare" a couple of years ago (same girl, I think), and *I* gave him the fucking lecture, and offered to buy his condoms if he was too embarrased or broke to get them. *Shrug* The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. His dad had him at 22, and his mom was 18.

I also got preggo at 17, but I made the other decision, and didn't have that one. I knew I'd be a crappy mom at that point in my life. (and yes, I was on birth control. It failed)

They don't do counseling here (at least they didn't 10 years ago, when I had another abortion). When I was 17, all the women who were terminating pregnancies that morning sat in a circle with a counselor and we talked about stuff. It was actually very helpful. (it was also the 70's, so we were all thick in the hippie era). I don't think there's a waiting period, except they won't do it before 9 weeks.

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

Too bad. How about giving him a vasectomy as a Yule present? If he's not smart enough to learn from a previous mistake, he'll continue to make them. The kids he impregnates women with willy-nilly will be the ones to suffer.

If I had ever gotten pregnant, I would have had an abortion in a New York nanosecond. I'm so glad I got my tubal and never had to worry thereafter. I would have been a crappy mother at any point in my life. I can't stand the little shits and it's good for both society and me that I chose to never have any.

[zombigirl.livejournal.com]

Hmmm....Pretty thought-provoking. Makes me want to apologize for my sisters helping with the overpopulation...
But honestly, do you think we'll have one of those pandemic flus? I read an article in Readers Digest, mentioning we're due for one. Then again, here's another one of man's ways of screwing with nature....Antibiotics, and antivirals...new medicines to extend the lives of people, no matter how sick they are...That can be just as bad.

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

Stop at one and urge your friends not to have more than one or two kids. Every little bit we can do for the planet is helpful. You're not running a farm and your offspring aren't likely to die, so put quality before quantity. Every additional child you have lowers your family's collective IQ. Plus, if you only have one, you avoid the obnoxious behaviour of sibling rivalry.

[zombigirl.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I'm happy I'm able to CARRY one to term, so I'm not pushing my luck.

[willow-dragon.livejournal.com]

Fuck that's alot of people. May I repost this in my journal?

I really hope there's some epidemic or calamity soon to get rid of a whole bunch of people...and I'd like to be one of the survivors, but something needs to happen soon. I really like the rats in a grain silo analogy.

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

Feel free to repost the overpopulation rant. I'm sure your friends wouldn't be all that interested in my other two paragraphs.

Honestly, I'm hoping for a pandemic as well. At least things would be decent for the survivors for a while. Then, of course, they would stupidly breed up to planet clogging levels again.

[willow-dragon.livejournal.com]

That's what I meant...reposting the overpopulation rant...

With North Korea testing more nuclear weapons...what do you think the chances of a nuclear war being on the horizon?

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid, I used to have a horrible fear of nuclear war. Now, I think it might be a good thing to weed out overpopulation. I can't get behind the warmongering assholes, such as the GOP, who would support such idiocy though.

As long as we have morons in government with lots of power, the chances of nuclear war increase. I could slap them all and toss their putrid asses in jail. I can't begin to convey how much I detest the current crop of fascists and the bumbling chimpanzee they chose to be their figurehead.

[bloodyviking.livejournal.com]

Wiping ourselves out is one thing, taking out large parts of the planet, along with whatever other lifeforms may be living there is quite another.

[patrixa.livejournal.com]

I sort of feel a time warp reading through all these comments-- back to the late 60's! Same issues and still no solutions. Paul and I had our "replacement" children; I had a tubal ligation after the second one and never been sorry. We also decried the lack of parenting skills and the inability of parents to say no.

My goat gets gotten all the time by people who do not understand that wants do not equal rights.

I wish I could say that over the decades, these issues havebeen solved, even partly solved; but I can't and that sucks. Too bad the silo example sounds apt.

So I'm going to keep the dream that if we cannot save this world, civilization gets another chance via space exploration and...oh, well, dream on.

I really like an idea Stephen Baxter came up with.

[tomo2k.livejournal.com]

"Give every human the inalienable right to parent three-quarters of a child"

That way, every couple has the right to parent one and a half children.
If they want a second child they buy a half-child from another couple.
A third - buy some more child rights.

Any individual that doesn't want any children at all sells their 3/4 on the open market.

This would mean that multiple children are born to parents who can afford it - and those who only want one child get some money towards rearing that child by selling the 'spare' half.

Enforcing this could possibly involve forced reversible sterilisations for anyone who goes into child debt - once the debt is repaid and a child's worth of parent right is purchased, the sterilisation is reversed and they can have the kid.

Re: I really like an idea Stephen Baxter came up with.

[patrixa.livejournal.com]

Cool, but do-able? Hmmm.