License to breed - Page 4

LP, we can't look at it from a world's perspective one moment and from a country's perspective in the next moment. We have to be consistent. Are we worried about the "world's population growth rates" or are we worried about a few specific countries which have seen an "explosion" in the population growth rates?

Per Wiki, the facts are that the actual annual growth in the number of humans fell from its peak of 88.0 million in 1989, to a low of 73.9 million in 2003, after which it rose again to 75.2 million in 2006. Since then, annual growth has declined. In 2009, the human population increased by 74.6 million. Each region of the globe has seen great reductions in growth rate in recent decades, though growth rates remain above 2% in some countries of the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa, and also in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth

This is a clear indication that a) projections need not necessarily conform to reality b) populations growth rates increase and decrease and don't always increase.

As for "opportunities getting scarcer", you have to go with some metric such as GDP per capita growth rate. Take two of the most populous countries. China's GDP per capita growth rate between 1961-65 was 0.25% whereas the current GDP per capita growth rate is 10.62%. India's GDP per capita growth rates for the same time-frame are 6.02%, and 7.11% respectively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28real%29_per_capita_growth_rate

This is a clear indication that people are thriving even in the most populous countries.

So I proved both notions wrong.

To summarize:
a) population growth rates are not constant and are not exponential like some of you made it out to be
b) people were not better off when the populations levels were relatively lower; in fact they are doing better in this day and age than they were decades ago. The disclaimer here is that this is not applicable to ALL countries which brings us back to the original point. Are we worried about the globe or about specific parts of the globe?

Originally posted by: Unhinged

Alright lets assume we don't talk about ideologies and don't do anything and let the population grow at the rate that it is going now. What will be the social, economical and ecological impact in lets say year 2100 ?

Our resources would be really strained unless our scientific technology somehow increases the amount of resources we have. By the year 2100, we might have a population around 10 billion with about 7-8 billion being concentrated in Africa and Asia.

This license to breed idea assumes that this is the only way population growth can be controlled. I understand that we need to control population growth, but this is very extreme. This license to breed idea could lead to something like the Jewish Holocaust all over again. It's also something if you would treat every person equally with who's allowed to conceive. But it seems like certain people can reproduce while other can't because of disabilities they might have?? Yes, if they aren't able to function normally and aren't able to take care of the child, they shouldn't have a child. But if they are still able to take care of the child and function almost normally with a child, then I doesn't see why they can't have children.

How do you know that this won't lead to "making the perfect race". And trying to curtail the population growth of certain races? And forced sterilization go against ideals of personal liberty.

But what can they do that will reduce population growth? Educate women. Teach kids about birth control as teenagers. Bring people out of poverty. Make social reforms.

I think it's important to note that Europe's and Japan's population is shrinking and US and Canda have a stable population that might be slightly increasing, but that's mostly because of immigrants. It's not all despair. Countries are decreasing their fertility rates rapidly. Bangladesh is one key example where they managed to reduce their high fertility rate to about 2.2 children per women in about 45 years.

Originally posted by: LovelyPlanet

Thought rate has been established pretty early, only replace yourself. So two children per couple. But since people are living longer than ever even this rate has been causing to add to the population.
Population is 7+ billion at the moment and projected to increase to 11 billions before the end of this century and then go down slowly. So perhaps this problem is only catastrophic for people born in this century.

These figures are alarming since previous centuries haven't seen this kind of explosion. It is not only fight for food but the quality of life definitely suffers, opportunities get scarcer. We will survive fine, our children wont be for the next few decades.

Replacement rate depends on infant mortality rates as well. In a lot of countries it's 2.1.
As for @K.Universe's comment about humans ability to adapt: yes they have been able to adapt before, but doesn't mean they always will. We most likely wouldn't be driven to extinction, but might have to face a tremendous dieback. This is the first time humans are facing a limited amount of resources. Not saying we should go on a forced mass-sterilization spree, but we should try to reduce the population while we can

IMO this is what will happen:
We are already seeing some tribes, cultures or ethnicity are already on decline. In few years if not a century they will disappear. Uncomfortable truth is people who have sense of what is happening to this world are reproducing less and idiots who don't care are manufacturing children in masses. Keeping political correctness aside for little bit. I would say in few centuries the idiot population will overthrow everyone. Anarchy will rule and i guess enough idiots will kill each other to bring the population down to sustainable level.

It is only unfortunate to leave it to idiots to self destruct the population rather than control have a civilized control of growth.

Originally posted by: Unhinged

IMO this is what will happen:
We are already seeing some tribes, cultures or ethnicity are already on decline. In few years if not a century they will disappear. Uncomfortable truth is people who have sense of what is happening to this world are reproducing less and idiots who don't care are manufacturing children in masses. Keeping political correctness aside for little bit. I would say in few centuries the idiot population will overthrow everyone. Anarchy will rule and i guess enough idiots will kill each other to bring the population down to sustainable level.

It is only unfortunate to leave it to idiots to self destruct the population rather than control have a civilized control of growth.

I do not think you know why people produce many kids. A lot of factors:

-Sad, but when poor people have children in some countries, they have more hands to do work. Mostly likely they have some sort of farm. More children, means more children to do things on the farm and help provide more food for everyone. Yes, they have to feed and clothe the child but in underdeveloped or some developing countries, it's not much of a cost to raise one extra child. The benefits of the child's labor will bring lots more income to the family than it takes away. Plus, when they grow up and the parents are old, they will provide for their parents. Even if they don't employ their kids on their farm, they might send their children out for work, to help provide for everything. When you are out there just trying to make end meet and fight for your survival, you aren't gonna think about how the world can't sustain a large population

-Lack of education. A lot of people are too poor to get sex ed or just didn't get it at all. They might not know about birth control, and if you are poor, would you think about buying birth control? Efforts in Bangladesh to educate the public by the government was actually one of the main reasons why the situation there improved SO much!

-Male pride and social constructs. Some women don't have the freedom to make their own decision in certain societies. Sometimes it's like, "He wants a male child, so what can I do". People keep on reproducing to attain a male child. This is outright disgusting, but it can only be fixed with a change of society and increase in education for women.

-And there's always people who choose to have large families inspite of having the education, money, and freedom to do so. However, looking at places like the Europe and U.S., that doesn't seem to be much of a problem compared to other places.

Like all topics there are people on both sides of fence and some sitting in the middle. So my question to people on all sides irrespective of which side they are standing. How do we as a civilization progress from 20th century to 21st or 22nd century? there is already debate of genetically modified food, cloning, harvesting stem cells for cure etc etc.

Looks like our approach currently is lets keep doing what we do, everyone to their self. As long as I can justify my own interest, i don't care about greater good. That is so damn close to the anti-vaccine group.

Originally posted by: Unhinged

Like all topics there are people on both sides of fence and some sitting in the middle. So my question to people on all sides irrespective of which side they are standing. How do we as a civilization progress from 20th century to 21st or 22nd century? there is already debate of genetically modified food, cloning, harvesting stem cells for cure etc etc.

Looks like our approach currently is lets keep doing what we do, everyone to their self. As long as I can justify my own interest, i don't care about greater good. That is so damn close to the anti-vaccine group.

Or maybe our approach is to try look for ways to do things without being unethical. Nothing even close to the anti-vaccine group. It's not politically correctness but ethics at stake for most. But we all have different ethics, so it varies upon each person.


For example, at one point slavery was general accepted. But now it is seen as a human rights violation

I do like the idea of only people who have the financial means to have children should have children. But how would that be regulated? In one year, they might not have the finanicial means. Are we going to sterilize them? What if later they have the financial means to raise a child and vice versa.

The things about people with certain traits not being able to procreate has an uncanny similarity to the Jewish Holocaust

Originally posted by: -Trishh-

Or maybe our approach is to try look for ways to do things without being unethical. Nothing even close to the anti-vaccine group. It's not politically correctness but ethics at stake for most. But we all have different ethics, so it varies upon each person.


For example, at one point slavery was general accepted. But now it is seen as a human rights violation

I do like the idea of only people who have the financial means to have children should have children. But how would that be regulated? In one year, they might not have the finanicial means. Are we going to sterilize them? What if later they have the financial means to raise a child and vice versa.

The things about people with certain traits not being able to procreate has an uncanny similarity to the Jewish Holocaust