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Most posters aren't taking this question seriously, but everyone should be honest and recognize that a time will come when there won't be enough resources to go around we'll be stuck with a difficult problem.
There have never been enough resources to go around. This concept, "scarcity," underpins economics and pricing.
Will people in the future live on 2 acres of irrigated lawn? probably not. Today's Tokyo might become the norm, for all we know. But two big questions are:
a. How many resources per person constitutes "enough" ?
b. Will we find substitutions for these resources?
c. Will we begin to utilize natural resources more effectively, or less effectively, and how will this affect what constitutes "enough" ?
Most posters aren't taking this question seriously, but everyone should be honest and recognize that a time will come when there won't be enough resources to go around we'll be stuck with a difficult problem. We can either let some people in some countries starve to death or institute a program of birth control/sterilization. I think the latter is the most humane solution. What the question really comes down to at that point is: what criteria do we use to decide who gets to have children and who doesn't?
My point is that no one should get to make those decisions and play God. God is in control, not us, and we need to stop pretending that we are.
Katiana, very good chart. If you notice 90% of the top ten over breeders are muslim countries, some of those in Africa (also muslim). Marriage of teens who start producing children right away till they're no longer able result in a dozen or more children as the normal course of business. (This is not to mention inbreeding which causes other health and mental problems.) Pride of male heirs, cultural discounting of females to the status as sex slaves, religious training as the only education which encourages excessive birth rates, cultures where women do all the work, NGO's helping eliminate diseases that previously caused the death of infants, all these things contribute to a higher world population.
Western countries are at or below replacement rates. Food shortages will push more and more third world immigrants into first world countries mostly illegally. The best we can do is try to change the cultural mores in places like this so that women are educated and elevated to personhood. In backwards countries where peoples lives are controlled by base superstition (by this I mean the raping of children to rid oneself of aids for example) and religious supremist outbreeding it is going to be a challenge as any influence is looked at as a threat. Changing thousands of years of custom in places like this won't be easy.
The world does not have a population problem because of the birth rate in developed countries, so I'd assume a rising standard of living among the poorer countries would help address the problem.
Wrong -- it's that we pay these people to come and breed here. The unemployment rate in Mexico for example is about half of what it is here, less than 5% but what Mexico lacks is all the freebies - the food stamps, WIC, Medicaid, Section 8.
Americans in a big state like California are definitely not the problem, it's those coming to get in on the easy life of handouts -- because these women with less than a high school diploma are not having all those births because they can get high paying jobs that support all those children they're having.
Another California birth statistic -- mothers born in the USA are only 57.2% of the mothers. That means 42.8% of births in California are to immigrants, very often fresh over the border. Immigration is by far the bulk of the problem.
So what are you suggesting we do about this overpopulation problem? Deport all the immigrants back to their countries? That's not a realisitic option. Even if you close the borders tomorrow you still have to deal with the large immigrant population that is already here. You tell us what the problem is but you offer no solutions.
The children of immigrants need to be educated about population and sustainability issues when they are in school so they don't grow up to be like their parents popping out babies like crazy. Babies they often cannot afford to have and they end up on welfare while bankrupting state and local governments as they exhaust taxpayer funds supporting the explosion of welfare babies.
Katiana, very good chart. If you notice 90% of the top ten over breeders are muslim countries, some of those in Africa (also muslim). Marriage of teens who start producing children right away till they're no longer able result in a dozen or more children as the normal course of business. (This is not to mention inbreeding which causes other health and mental problems.) Pride of male heirs, cultural discounting of females to the status as sex slaves, religious training as the only education which encourages excessive birth rates, cultures where women do all the work, NGO's helping eliminate diseases that previously caused the death of infants, all these things contribute to a higher world population.
Western countries are at or below replacement rates. Food shortages will push more and more third world immigrants into first world countries mostly illegally. The best we can do is try to change the cultural mores in places like this so that women are educated and elevated to personhood. In backwards countries where peoples lives are controlled by base superstition (by this I mean the raping of children to rid oneself of aids for example) and religious supremist outbreeding it is going to be a challenge as any influence is looked at as a threat. Changing thousands of years of custom in places like this won't be easy.
I think this may be a reasonable partial solution. Health insurance covering vasectamies in teenage boys. Problem is the groups who feel it's their duty to spread their seed will not choose this option.
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