Overpopulation Rhetoric is Alarmist and Counterproductive

[CorruptUser]

morriswalters,

Why do you keep going on about California and the southwest as if its somehow indicative of the planet as a whole? Yes, they are fucking up their water supply - this doesn't mean our planet is over capacity, it means its incredibly stupid to waste your water when you live in what is essentially desert or near-desert. But the US has enough remove and resources to move every single person out of the entire southwest and still support them comfortably. (we don't particularly want them up here, of course...)

There's an even better joke for the cynics out there. Imagine damming a river in the desert, where there are few environmental repercussions from creating the reservoir. Clean, carbon-free electric power for generations to come, with the only cost being minimal maintenance. And what do we do with all that power? Use it to keep all the bright neon lights in Las Vegas lit, of course!

[morriswalters]

Well, I could name any number of places but that would get long winded, but if you want I will. This great Green Revolution was founded on cheap oil and water. California is just an egregious example. I could cite that China is outracing their water supplies particularly in agriculture to the point they are becoming a net importer of food. Then again there is Africa which is increasingly more arid. Capacity is an issue of having what you need where you need it. Pardon to the people in California, but I'm not interested in moving them or solving their problems. Or Las Vegas. I live in the Ohio River valley. The Ohio is a fairly substantial river as rivers go. It's dirty, you can swim in it but make sure all your shots are current. And even around here water is not unlimited. But if you think there's no problem who I'm I to make you do anything about it, but I reserve the right to see it differently.

addams, what time of year was it? See this.

How much water is used during the growing/production of a watermelon?
100 gallons

Seems a trifle much for the Mojave with annual rainfall of 13 inches, but what do I know. Cacti on the other hand are native and used stored water to survive until the rainy season. Of course in the Sahara were it is really arid you don't see a lot of Cacti either. Of course I'm glad that what few residents of the area have this marvelous bounty available to them. Do they ship internationally? I have come to look forward to my watermelon in December and January. And why all the hate at Vegas they have this funny lake built for them by the feds, and it supplies all the water they need. Their not short on water. I swear there is a very big lake full of fresh water. All they will ever need. They have houseboats and sports fishing and everything.

[Dauric]

And why all the hate at Vegas they have this funny lake built for them by the feds, and it supplies all the water they need. Their not short on water. I swear there is a very big lake full of fresh water. All they will ever need. They have houseboats and sports fishing and everything.

Lake Mead is drying up. There's a concern that even with recent increased rainfall in the rockies it's not enough to prevent the lake from dropping below the intakes that carry water in to the hydroelectric generators and carry water to the city of Las Vegas.

It's not full of water, it's certainly not more than they'll ever need. Those houseboats and fishing boats have been moving ever inward in the lake as marinas are uprooted and moved to follow the receding water line, at least the boats that aren't just beached and abandoned at equally abandoned marinas.

[Soralin]

Over population isn't about the number of bodies, rather it's about resources.

Except, in the long run, there aren't enough resources in the universe for that.

Say for example all you need for a human is 1m^3 of space, and say we had infinite energy, infinite resources, and could move at will at the speed of light, and live anywhere, even deep space, and maintained our current growth rate of 1.1%/year, then we would run out of space when:

volume of sphere x light years radius = total volume of humans after x years of growth
4/3*pi*(3*10^8 x)^3 = 7*10^9 * 1.011^x

I don't think this has a closed form solution in algebra, so just approximating it by plugging numbers in: After somewhere between 5750 and 5800 years at our current growth rate, even with infinite energy, and the ability to travel at the speed of light, and nothing needed other than space to put our own bodies, we'd run out of space. It would be a 5800 light year radius ball of solid humans. Nothing beats exponential growth in the long term.

And excepting ftl travel, that's as overoptimistic as things can possibly be. We'd have has to use up all of the mass of the Earth, or the Sun, or all of the matter in the volume of space available to us long before that, just to turn into more humans, to maintain that growth rate. And if we had the ability to make more mass (we're assuming infinite available energy after all), we'd collapse into a black hole from our own mass long before we reached the above point. And more realistic scenarios can only be more limited than that.

But say we do have ftl travel, but not infinite matter to make things out of, and that each human masses about 50kg. In that case, after about 9050 years of our current growth rate, in order to get enough mass to make more humans out of to maintain that growth rate, we will have had to disassemble everything. Yes, Everything. Well, everything in the visible universe at least(3.35×10^54 kg), every star, every planet, every cloud of gas, every black hole, every galaxy, everything, gone, disassembled to get raw matter to make humans out of. Nothing left but humans, floating in the dark.

Long term, the only solution is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_population_growth , or at least non-exponential growth, growth that isn't based on the current population size, any constant exponential growth rate will eventually overcome anything you can throw at it.

Now, I'm not saying things are headed toward disaster, first world conditions and widely available birth control have already reduced population growth in many developed countries to around replacement rate. I'm just saying that controlling population growth (even if just by self-control by the above factors), is the only way to deal with it in the long run, or at least, must be included in any plan to deal with it. The math above is to show that expansion or innovation can't be viable solutions on their own in the long run, unless you can figure out how to make new universes or something.

[HungryHobo]

Nuclear fueled ships. It certainly is being done, but would you care to compare the cost between a nuclear powered vessel and a diesel electric one both to construct and operate?

I seem to remember there was one built years ago as a sort of publicity stunt.
Apparently the cost of fuel oil has gone up so much that it would now theoretically be economic to run.
Ships use enough fuel that paying the engineers to run such an engine can be cheaper than the fuel.

there's also some nuclear powered ice breakers.

[addams]

Did we forget that we live in a Multiverse?

Well; Not all of us think that we do.

To live in a Multiverse one must understand that what each of us does is important in some off hand way to each other system that we interact with.

We are each so unimportant. I in more than 6 billion. What is that like?

If, I in a billion is a pea in a swimming pool, then, I in 6 billion is a pea in six swimming pools.

It is not possible to control for what other people do. Each pea has an effect on all the other peas. It is not much of an effect. It is the best we are going to get, today.

So; To control for overpopulation take care of one another. I know! It is one of those paradox. It seems wrong, but, it is right.

Kill, kill, kill does not help. Help. Help. Help; And, be nice about it! That does help.

Fill the pools with happy peas. Start where you are.

I am going through a chaos phase.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

Please, bear with me. It seems simple enough. It is the way clouds work.

[aoeu]

maintained our current growth rate of 1.1%

The point of this thread was that the rate isn't going to be maintained, because considerations show world population will peak sometime this century. The population of many Western countries would already be declining if it wasn't for immigration. Something unexpected might happen, but generally that means people die.

EDIT: fixed the quote

[morriswalters]

That isn't my quote, can you edit it to reflect the correct attribution?

[Soralin]

maintained our current growth rate of 1.1%

The point of this thread was that the rate isn't going to be maintained, because considerations show world population will peak sometime this century. The population of many Western countries would already be declining if it wasn't for immigration. Something unexpected might happen, but generally that means people die.

EDIT: fixed the quote

True, I wasn't saying that it would be maintained, just pointing out that it can't be maintained ("can't", as stronger than merely "won't"), even under the most absurdly optimistic of scenarios. And not only that this growth rate can't be maintained, but any constant positive growth rate will face the same problem in a remarkably short span of time. And that this isn't a short term issue that can be solved and done with, it's an issue that will have to be dealt with forever.

[nitePhyyre]

The argument in the article in the OP is really a terrible one. "At 7 billion people the problem isn't that the world is over populated, the only problem is that most of those several billion have standards of living higher than that of the average person starving to death in sub-Saharan Africa." Really, mr. Pearce? Really? He also, IMO, seems to be arguing against a very significant straw man. He says that the people who complain about overpopulation are in the developed world, and the argument is always levied against the developing world. In short, he says that the 'overpopulation' argument is veiled racism. I've never heard the argument in those terms before. I've always heard "The world is over populated", not "The poors are breeding too much", like this author suggests. More to the point, I've always seen the argument as being: The world is overpopulated because it cannot afford to have everyone at a high standard of living."

Also, why does the article focus on population growth? Why are already over populated. We burned 100 million years worth of oil in 100 years. Having a stagnating population won't fix that.

It's a cute story--but it's also one that's completely irrelevant, and I'm mildly miffed that it was presented as if it was.

It's not completely irrelevant. It exactly answered the question you posed which was 'if we know a problem is going to hit us in a few decades time, why not try to tackle it now?' The article exposed quite surgically that the problems we expect to occur (and that includes overpopulation - or, the worry of the 1930s which was 'Western populations entering terminal decline') typically never end up occurring. Instead, problems totally out of left-field - eg. ocean acidification - end up occurring instead.

Or, on the other hand, it is nonsense ramblings. The closest it come to making a point is disproving the article's thesis.

First off, it blatantly ignores all the times the doomsayers were right.
Secondly, the author whole-heartedly embraces Normalcy bias. I mean he wallows in it. Like a pig in shit. The entire reasoning behind his article is that Normalcy shouldn't be viewed as a bias, but is a valid and, in fact, the preferred method of reasoning.

And what is the thesis of the article?

We commonly read or hear reports to the effect that “If trend X continues, the result will be disaster.” [...] Unless, that is, we mend our ways according to the author’s prescription. This almost invariably involves restrictions on personal liberty.

That's the gist of it. So what example does he use? Cities and horses.

"If we continue to use horses the way we do,the result will be disaster," says the doomsayer.
Fast forward 20 years, horses are no longer being used the way they were.
The author uses the fact that there was no disaster to say that the doomsayer was wrong. Because you know, 'If trend X continues' is synonymous with 'this crisis is completely unavoidable'.

And then to make matter worse? "Unless, that is, we mend our ways according to the author’s prescription." is backed up by this:

In 1898 the first international urban-planning conference convened in New York. It was abandoned after three days, instead of the scheduled ten, because none of the delegates could see any solution to the growing crisis posed by urban horses and their output.

We should draw two lessons from this. First, human beings, left to their own devices, will usually find solutions to problems, but only if they are allowed to; that is, if they have economic institutions, such as property rights and free exchange, that create the right incentives and give them the freedom to respond. If these are absent or are replaced by political mechanisms, problems will not be solved.

In addition to building an argument build only out of fallacies, he somehow draws the conclusion that economics solved the horse shit problem, not, you know, technological innovation.

Worst of all?

The price of crude oil is rising, partly due to political uncertainty, but primarily because of rapid growth in China and India. This has led to a spate of articles predicting that oil production will soon peak

He's a complete idiot. He apparently thinks that peak oil is some new term that has arisen because of high oil prices. Complete. Idiot.

The question is: When the population was just 999,999 and carrying capacity == economic production, where did you get that first scientist ?

I think you mean 99,999 in my example. It's not like those 99,999 dolts are immortal and don't have children. They die, and the first guy of the next generation is the scientist.

Yeah, I added an extra '9'.

For most of human history and prehistory, everyone was a subsistence farmer. Sure, with a 99,999 person population someone will give birth to a gifted scientist. But without a pre-existing economic surplus this gifted scientist will be a subsistence farmer. Again, for most of history, f(pop) == economic production == economic consumption. How was the equality broken is the pertinent question IMO. Your example started after it was already broken.

How the hell do you get: "the economy isn't pricing science properly, therefore, having more scientists is a greater benefit to science than having more resources for science"?

It's not a therefore in there. My first response is that we don't have enough scientists. Part of the reason for this is that would-be scientists are not deterred because a lack of resources in society in general, but because surplus resources are diverted elsewhere. No, it's not because of overpopulation that those resources aren't available, it's because we'd rather spend more of our GDP on frivolous shit.

Ahh. So 1st choice would be to have more science done per capita, but if that's not an option you can get similar results by brute force breeding? Is that what you are saying?

If so, I'll have to think about that for a bit, I think I mostly agree. Not sure.

I agree that growing watermelons in California and golf courses in Arizona are grossly inefficient and pretty stupid. However, the fact that we can and do get away with these kinds of misuse suggests to me that we are not overtaxing the natural resources of the planet. For instance, wasting the Colorado River on pretty fountains in Vegas is abhorrent to me, but the fact that people aren't dying of thirst there suggests to me that there's plenty of water to go around. And honestly, even if there were people dying of thirst in Vegas, I wouldn't blame the thirsty people, I'd blame the rich dick spraying all the water into the air.

I agree that driving from one city to the next with the gas gauge on empty is pretty stupid. However, the fact that the car started suggests to me that we are not overtaxing the natural fuel reserves of the car. For instance, wasting energy racing and stopping abruptly is abhorrent to me, but the fact that the car hasn't stalled there suggests to me that there's plenty of gas to go around.

Nothing beats exponential growth in the long term.
[...]
Now, I'm not saying things are headed toward disaster.[...]

Our economy requires exponential growth, or it collapses, disastrously. It wont be as bad as running out of food, water, or air, but still...

[morriswalters]

My first response is that we don't have enough scientists. Part of the reason for this is that would-be scientists are not deterred because a lack of resources in society in general, but because surplus resources are diverted elsewhere. No, it's not because of overpopulation that those resources aren't available, it's because we'd rather spend more of our GDP on frivolous shit.

Hmmmm. Let's see. A Doctorate is a higher level entropy function then almost any other individual in society. To produce him requires greater resources than almost any other person. The more you have the more resources you need to support him. While more Scientists would ask more questions which might lead to more innovation, how do you assure that those innovations actually solve the right problems? You can't beat entropy and you can't change the normal distribution.

[CorruptUser]

My first response is that we don't have enough scientists. Part of the reason for this is that would-be scientists are not deterred because a lack of resources in society in general, but because surplus resources are diverted elsewhere. No, it's not because of overpopulation that those resources aren't available, it's because we'd rather spend more of our GDP on frivolous shit.

Hmmmm. Let's see. A Doctorate is a higher level entropy function then almost any other individual in society. To produce him requires greater resources than almost any other person. The more you have the more resources you need to support him. While more Scientists would ask more questions which might lead to more innovation, how do you assure that those innovations actually solve the right problems? You can't beat entropy and you can't change the normal distribution.

Entropy is physics, not economics. You might be thinking of depreciation in the Solow model. I think. Just work on getting that to 0, and bam, infinite wealth. Basically, if everything lasts forever with no maintenance costs, everyone will eventually own a thousand pairs of shoes, 40 cars, etc.

The normal distribution is the most abused distribution in all of mathematics. First off, it's an approximation; good for most things, but you should never ever ever ever use it for estimating extreme tail distributions, especially when the empirical distribution itself does not contain the cumulative distributions you are looking for. Secondly, it can only be used when the second moment exists; I have no reason to believe that the value of scientific progress has a second moment.

[Griffin]

Niitephyre, you... really don't understand the horse example at all, do you?

The point is:
Just because its a problem, doesn't mean its a problem of overpopulation.
Restricting population or, so, people's ability to enter or use cities, probably isn't going to work as an effective solution.

Wasn't his point essentially that people find alternative ways around perceived obstacles, especially when there's money to be made in doing so?

Also,

Also, why does the article focus on population growth? Why are already over populated.

Assuming you meant "we" there, that's a pretty tough stance to take. Where's your evidence that we are already overpopulated?

[morriswalters]

No, I meant it as it read. The energy required to support a Doctorate is representative of entropy, as in thermodynamics. If you don't like the normal distribution or think that I used it inappropriately than I'm sorry. But the IQ's required to produce Doctorates are commonly described that way.

Here's the thing, irrespective of the technology or the way it's used or how it's consumed, civilization is a high energy state. It can only exist though profligate use of the available resources. We expend energy to do everything that we do. Including producing Doctoral candidates. The minute that it becomes impossible to maintain that energy level than the level of civilization will drop. Economics can't trump entropy. You can't build your way out, you can't import your way out, and in the longer term you can't produce enough energy to support large populations over time. Even a stable population over time will run out if it exceeds the available energy supplied by the solar cycle. And a large part of that energy is used to keep the planet habitable.

[addams]

I was thinking.

The Chinese one child policy is Absolutely Fucking Brilliant! And; That is the truth.

It has taken a while, but, we have proof on the ground. Proof that is elegant. Proof that with all the material and emotional support that the Chinese can give one another the results are wonderful!

One of the things that I like about this policy is that each child is a treasured child. Each grows in a world that is bright with Love. Each has hugs and cuddles. Each has enough food and adult conversations. Each and every one is a Shining Star in the eyes of the parents and grandparents.

These Shinning Stars are not without siblings. The emotional and psychological place for brothers and sisters is filled by the persons cohort.

These young people do have significant tender and loving sibling relationships. The relationships are important and wonderful. It was guesswork for a long time. Damn good guesswork, but, guesswork. It is not guess work, anymore. Yeah!

Any quality that siblings have these cohorts have. The tenderness is a delight to behold.
Sure; Some are competitive. Some are like oil and water, just, like other siblings.

Hey! They can fuck their brothers and sisters; And, Oh Dear God. Some of these young people are very fuckable.

One child? Yes! If, your child wants to play, then, play with them.
It is not like the Chinese never see any other people.

The other thing that I like about the one child policy is the relationships that form between Grandparents and child. Many Grandparents stay home and take care of the Shinning Star while both parents work.

It is a cobo deal. There is a long standing respect for age in many Asian cultures and the quality time spent with loving Grandparents is so good for both child and adult.

I have seen this with my own eyes. I have heard the love and tenderness with my own ears. This is brilliant! The old people are not discarded with last nights trash.

I think they are 'on' to something. Of course, the population is still growing. The olds are living and living and living. They have a fuck load of happy old people. Happy people are like the Ever Ready Bunny; They go on and on and on.

To those of you that worry, because, China may not be able to take care of her old people, I say, "You should be so lucky."

In the 19th and 20th Centuries the Rallying Cry was, "We will out number you!"

In the 21st Century the rallying cry is, "We will out think you!"

Just, hand them the prize and get out of the way.
They are fabulous. We want to see them. Get out of the way!

I got there by thinking about Chaos Theory and adding it to my own life observations. You can get there, too. Put your little thinking cap on and dance in your smarty pants.

It really is like a cloud. The thing changes form. It changes phase. It moves without force; Yet, it is a great force. Have you ever seen lightening?

[HungryHobo]

No, I meant it as it read. The energy required to support a Doctorate is representative of entropy, as in thermodynamics. If you don't like the normal distribution or think that I used it inappropriately than I'm sorry. But the IQ's required to produce Doctorates are commonly described that way.

Most phd's aren't all that special. they're reasonably bright but you don't have to be any kind of genius to get a phd.

we aren't limited by lack of bright people.

just have some common sense and the ability to work for meagre wages for 4 or 5 years and there's lots of useful research that's not terribly expensive.

[morriswalters]

Except as a percentage of the population. Corruptusers thesis was that you could increase the number of scientists by increasing the overall population. The down side with that is that you produce more non scientists then scientists. How much of a population increase would you need to double the number of scientists?(God I hate that word)

[CorruptUser]

Except as a percentage of the population. Corruptusers thesis was that you could increase the number of scientists by increasing the overall population. The down side with that is that you produce more non scientists then scientists. How much of a population increase would you need to double the number of scientists?(God I hate that word)

We could use the word "innovator", for economic purposes. Basically anyone that creates a new method or product that had never existed before. Not including methods that are worse than we currently have, of course.

Assuming the new people have the same distribution of intelligence, double the base population. Theoretically, eugenics would be able to increase the number of innovators while simultaneously decreasing the people you don't want in society. It's happening on a small scale, such as genetic screenings, selective abortions, and so forth. When forced, well, Godwin. Social engineering is another issue; I already stated earlier that I am against subsidizing people having more than 2 kids.

Some here will argue that because of 'resource shortages' increased population would result in fewer innovators per capita, which may make sense, but I will only concede that if those same people will also agree that more innovators per capita could arise as a result of communication and so forth; more people may mean more people around a potential innovator that sees said potential. There may have been plenty of genius farmers, but if their entire life was spent on a farm with no one else around for miles and no one to teach them, it was a waste.

[morriswalters]

Maybe, but in point of fact we have what we have. Fossil fuels are no more than batteries, stored energy. We've bet the farm that we can replace them somehow before they run out. If we do then fine, if not then not so fine. Population is a problem because of this.

[addams]

Maybe, but in point of fact we have what we have. Fossil fuels are no more than batteries, stored energy. We've bet the farm that we can replace them somehow before they run out. If we do then fine, if not then not so fine. Population is a problem because of this.

Huh. I think that you and I disagree about why the problem is a problem.

We may agree that the problem exists.

Too many humans. Right?

Why that is a problem will define and guide what the solutions to the problem are.

The oil thing. Jeeze. Yeah. I have heard.

I also heard a very bright man get all exasperated and speak up, one time.
He said, "The Stone Age did not end, because, we ran out of Rocks!"

Funny guy. I was not the only person that stopped to rethink.

You seem to think in non-personal Sociological Terms.
I think in personal Psychological Terms.

To me, too many people means that we can not Care for each other. The numbers are overwhelming.

When faced with overwhelming numbers I start looking for something else to think with. The math on using all the matter in the Universe to make human bodies is fairly good and not very useful.

We are, just, bored people on an anonymous forum in an imaginary place typing about things. Things.

It was summer. I found volunteer watermelons in the Mohave Desert in summer.

Why all the hate to Las Vagas?
1. ech. Vagas is O.K. It is strange. Both beautiful and ugly; And; It is an unnatural event. That lake is unnatural, too.

Spoiler:

The security at the lake and dam the last few times I was there were horrible!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesop%27s_Fables
Was it Aesop that wrote that it is better to live modestly in Peace than it is to live grandly in Fear? I think the US has taken the Devil's Wager. Not to be confused with Pascal's Wager.

2. I read this book.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Desert

The guy that wrote that book was all pissed off about the numbers.

The overpopulation rhetoric has been going on Big Time sense the 1960's in common public discussions. It is still an interesting thing to think about. People like to think about people. The Human is a fascinating and frightening animal.

How we think about ourselves and each other is important. Are we bacteria on a petri dish? We are using up all the available resources? When the resources are gone, then, so are we? That is a rational way of looking at what we are.

We are the thinking bacteria? Does how we go matter? Do we go bemoaning how little we have and fighting? Or; With a shared sense of Wonder?

Both are possible. Who makes these kinds of choices for us? No one creates the world alone. No one.

[morriswalters]

I'm not sure that I have any idea what your trying to say, but hell I'll play. No the Stone Age didn't end when we ran out of rocks. However if you have an airplane flying along and it runs out of fuel it then becomes a glider. Make the glider light enough and you can fly forever, make it the size of a 747 and it will come down, period. It takes fuel to make the engine go. Putt, putt.

I don't hate Las Vegas, I don't care about it period.

[CorruptUser]

Won't we still eventually run out of fossil fuels regardless of how many people there are now? And I don't think the future will necessarily be carbon based; the US could survive carbon free if forced to, but we'd have to eliminate suburbs. There is plenty of space in the Midwest for wind farms (assuming they use less electricity to manufacture than they produce), plenty of desert for solar towers, and plenty of rough seas for tidal generators (and more wind farms).

Thing is? I love spotting the wind turbines near the highway. I can only get a glimpse of them, behind the hills, as they were placed in such a way as to not be an 'eyesore'. They aren't ugly; they are the opposite. They are giant monuments to man's ingenuity. They demonstrate our ability to make nature our bitch.

People like Donald Trump and Ted Kennedy oppose wind farms tens of miles offshore because it "breaks the pristine, natural view from their homes". Well you know what else destroys pristine wilderness? Your houses, you rich assholes! If we really want to keep some places in their natural state, we'd demolish those homes. I mean, could you imagine if the Dutch had said "windmills are hideous, tear them down"? Just the word Holland conjures up images of windmills.

[morriswalters]

Sure we will run out of oil no matter what. But when your economy is predicated on cheap fossil fuels then running out of them is a disaster. The thing is that a sustainable economy is of a different order than the one we have now. The idea that you can make nature your bitch is part of the problem.

[Griffin]

Won't we still eventually run out of fossil fuels regardless of how many people there are now?

Actually, we already make at least a chunk of our "fossil" fuels in an entirely renewable way. Dense liquid fuel will probably stick around, but we'll have to build it instead of sucking it out of the ground.

Bioethanol is just solar powered gas, after all.

[addams]

Won't we still eventually run out of fossil fuels regardless of how many people there are now?

Actually, we already make at least a chunk of our "fossil" fuels in an entirely renewable way. Dense liquid fuel will probably stick around, but we'll have to build it instead of sucking it out of the ground.

Bioethanol is just solar powered gas, after all.

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

Yes. This direction. Soon someone will take a turn in the path. We can end up at a wonderful place.

The turn in the path? Oh, Something like that paint would help.

Think about a paint that has nanometallic particles floating around in it. It is thick stuff. When it dries the metallic particles line up with one another. Before the paint dries, a wire is placed into the paint. That wire runs into either the community grid or into batteries.

It is a little like photosynthesis. It harvests the energy from sunlight. It could happen.

How easy is that? It is fucking hard! I can't do it.
I know how an internal combustion engine works.
I can not go into the backyard and make one out of sticks and berries.

Everything that gets a coat of paint, unless there is a darn good reason, could have that paint on it. The parking lots in So Cal could be covered with a shade producing cover that also produces energy.

I do not agree that the only problem with too many people is energy.
I do not agree that is the most important problem with too many people is energy.

I have read more than one book on the subject. Most do frame the problem as one of limited resources or limited space.
I agree. Yet; Those are not the most important problems to me.

I think there are too many people, now. To me the number of other humans is a psychologically overwhelming. How can we know and care about so many people? We Can't!!


3000 is my number. More than that and it is too many people.

Killing a bunch of them would be counterproductive. That kind of thing makes the numbers spike.

So; There are several things that do help.
1. Stop having more people. More than one child and there needs to be some explaining to be done. I am a fan of the one child policy. It is Good.
2. Take care of the ones that are here. Ease or stop suffering. Seems simple enough. Right? It is not simple!
3. Economics is an intellectual construct. It is not something that I do not know much or anything about. It is possible with the human mind. Yeah. See? Money is not really, real. We think it is. We act like it is; So, it is.

There are people that know about that stuff. I have talked to a few. I am not proud of one of those conversations. It was not, just, my ignorance. It was that I was having an emotional reaction to a man that was there.

I was so angry at him and those like him. I was also very, very afraid of him. That is not a good combination. I was not level headed. Not proud.

Spoiler:

I have given it some thought. Hate is not a simple emotion. It seems to be a combination of both anger and fear.
I thought that I was immune to hate. I got over it as fast as I could. I will struggle with it for the rest of my life.
Let us be careful to not paint that with a broad brush. See? I am still struggling with it.

World Population is the subject of this thread.

The US policy of human torture is a different thread, somewhere. The people of the US are suffering. Most of the poor do not deserve to be punished for the gross indiscretions of a few of the not poor.

Things can change fast. It would take a paradigm shift. That is hard.

[Wodashin]

The idea that the human race could survive with only 3000 people is ridiculous. Genetic bottlenecking is bad, mkay? We could recover from something like that before, barely, but after time our genetic diversity has lessened. Most likely that would spell the end. Which is bad.

Overpopulation isn't a problem that will affect all of humanity. It's already affecting people in certain parts of the world, but food isn't something that's evenly split between everyone. More people in those parts of the world aren't going to hurt the rest. Not to mention that overpopulation is a purely terrestrial problem. There's a whole galaxy out there. Hydroponics. We can spread out. Best to do so. Explore the galaxy, universe, multiverse. At some point we could possibly advance enough to negate the need for resources.

[Griffin]

I don't know, I think 3000 is survivable. Humans are pretty industrious - we could probably come back from a much smaller number than that, to be honest, but we'd be much weaker as a result of it. We've got the lucky benefit of being able to survive with significantly less genetic diversity than other animals, due to improved adaptability, we'd be rolling the dice with disease for sure, and for quite a while afterwards.
Still, especially with something approaching modern technology, it would definitely be doable.

Not really good to use as a "target", though...

[addams]

I may have been misunderstood.
3000 people is how many people I can know and care about.
Really know. Know them well enough to have it be personal.
Know them well enough to know personal stuff and have a sense of personal responsibility to them; Like family.

My number may have gotten smaller. I don't know.

I come from a place that was small. Everyone knew everyone. I like that. Some people don't. Big cities allow some people to feel free of social pressure. No one knows any of their secrets. I don't have any secrets.

I think that 3000 people is a lot of people.

So, the idea of 7 billion people freaks me out. The idea of one million people inside one city freaks me out. We each have our little quirks.

I was inside a city a few days ago. I saw a woman that was ill. She was really sick. I asked the people at the cafe about her. Was there anyone for them to call? "No." They told me, "No." I felt helpless and frightened in the face of her suffering. There was no way for me to make a difference to that one very ill woman.

That is the problem of Over Population for me. We become calloused inside the way hands and feet become calloused. We don't feel anything through the protective calloused parts.

I know we need more than 3000 people. We need many more. I don't need to be a helpless pea in 7 billion peas. Seven billion. That is a big number. Overwhelming.

You people are all O.K. with that? Maybe, you can explain it to me.

Two men in a city told me that cities only reach a one size in BIG. Then it is all on a map, not real. I did not understand. It is a Quantum thing, maybe.

[Dark567]

I don't know, I think 3000 is survivable. Humans are pretty industrious - we could probably come back from a much smaller number than that, to be honest, but we'd be much weaker as a result of it. We've got the lucky benefit of being able to survive with significantly less genetic diversity than other animals, due to improved adaptability, we'd be rolling the dice with disease for sure, and for quite a while afterwards.

I believe there is genetic evidence that the lowest population was around 10,000(http://ice2.uab.cat/argo/Argo_actualitz ... -Hardy.pdf). If we could select the people insuring genetic diversity, we could probably get away with less than 100, but a random sample probably would require more like 1000 people to survive.

Another interesting example is Tristan da Cunha, which is an island of ~250, all of which are descended from 15(8 men, 7 women).

[Griffin]

We've got species in the several thousand range that were down to the single digits or a single family, and through careful management, some of them looking like they might make a full recovery. So it is definitely possible. But its certainly not a good thing for the species in question, and its certainly not guaranteed.

But assuming you can avoid diseases and have a hospitable environment for your genome (and humans are really good at ignoring the second part), you can come back from very very very small numbers.

Genetic diversity isn't all its cracked up to be - and lets face it, if you somehow made it into the last 3000 humans alive for whatever reason, you probably have decent genes.

[jseah]

Allow human genetic engineering and poof, gene diversity on demand.

Well, not quite that simple. Start by recording genetic variants by sequencing a large pool of randomly selected people from all over the world. Copying those variants is within reach.

Creating variants will probably take alot of work however.

[Wodashin]

I meant that 3000 is too small for our genetic code to be stable after many generations. It would be too inbreedy. Genetic diversity has decreased greatly since the last bottleneck, partly because of the bottleneck. If we bottleneck again, the number must be above the 10,000 or so it was before. Biologically, it wouldn't work out too swell for us. Maybe if they were all East Africans, but even then. A solution is technology, but once we have the tech to change code to allow for a bottleneck, we probably have the tech to sustain a very large population. Perhaps even digitize it. Who knows.

I don't care that there are 7 billion people. I don't see how that would affect you. And I don't see how you can be fine with implying the taking away the lives of many, many, many strangers simply because their existence makes you uneasy. You are a dot in a sea of dots. Decreasing the population won't stop the earth from being a dot in a sea of dots.

There will always be some people with bad circumstances. Sure, if you had a small enough population you could control it, but that's pretty dystopian. Huxley-esque. Happiness and comfort aren't end-all be-alls.

[Dark567]

I meant that 3000 is too small for our genetic code to be stable after many generations. It would be too inbreedy. Genetic diversity has decreased greatly since the last bottleneck, partly because of the bottleneck.

Err.... So why exactly wouldn't that happen again? Inbreeding really only is a problem to relatively close family members, due to the chance you may end up with two identical alleles. You could easily avoid that with 3000 people. Once you get further than first cousin's the chance of duplicate alleles is pretty small:

Father/daughter, mother/son or brother/sister → 25%
Grandfather/granddaughter or grandmother/grandson → 12.5%
Half-brother/half-sister → 12.5%
Uncle/niece or aunt/nephew → 12.5%
Great-grandfather/great-granddaughter or great-grandmother/great-grandson → 6.25%
Half-uncle/niece or half-aunt/nephew → 6.25%
First cousins → 6.25%
First cousins once removed or half-first cousins → 3.125%
Second cousins or first cousins twice removed → 1.5625%
Second cousins once removed or half-second cousins → 0.78125%
Third cousins or second cousins twice removed → 0.390625%
Third cousins once removed or half-third cousins → 0.195%

[lutzj]

I meant that 3000 is too small for our genetic code to be stable after many generations. It would be too inbreedy. Genetic diversity has decreased greatly since the last bottleneck, partly because of the bottleneck.

Err.... So why exactly wouldn't that happen again? Inbreeding really only is a problem to relatively close family members, due to the chance you may end up with two identical alleles. You could easily avoid that with 3000 people. Once you get further than first cousin's the chance of duplicate alleles is pretty small:

Father/daughter, mother/son or brother/sister → 25%
Grandfather/granddaughter or grandmother/grandson → 12.5%
Half-brother/half-sister → 12.5%
Uncle/niece or aunt/nephew → 12.5%
Great-grandfather/great-granddaughter or great-grandmother/great-grandson → 6.25%
Half-uncle/niece or half-aunt/nephew → 6.25%
First cousins → 6.25%
First cousins once removed or half-first cousins → 3.125%
Second cousins or first cousins twice removed → 1.5625%
Second cousins once removed or half-second cousins → 0.78125%
Third cousins or second cousins twice removed → 0.390625%
Third cousins once removed or half-third cousins → 0.195%

Assuming the gene pool is designed to be as diverse as possible. The problem with many small populations in practice is that they are usually fairly homogeneous to begin with.

[Dark567]

Assuming the gene pool is designed to be as diverse as possible. The problem with many small populations in practice is that they are usually fairly homogeneous to begin with.

You could do it a lot less with a 'designed' gene pool. A couple thousand will be statistically random enough to survive.

[Wodashin]

Plucking 3000 random people is nice in theory, but that ain't gonna happen. Plus, people from all over the world are still very genetically similar. It wouldn't work. We barely survived the last bottleneck. East Africa is the area with the most genetic diversity. It could work there. Maybe. But still, this argument is meaningless.

The fact of the matter is that selecting 3000 people to live, or to even suggest that there should only be 3000 people, is kind of abhorrent. People have the right to exist, and we can't just destroy all of humanity to appease people who find large numbers scary.

[CorruptUser]

I remember reading somewhere that breeding with your third cousin is the healthiest; it actually increases the risk of problems further out, and obviously closer in. I don't pretend to understand the biology behind that, so I'm just going to go with correlation != causation, and make up something like 'people who know who their distant cousins are are different from those who don't'.

Anyway, I'd believe the human race could survive with just 100 people. It'd be extremely ugly for a few generations, but the truly awful genetic defects will weed themselves out. There are various 'lost tribes' that had only been a few hundred people at any one time, with no outside contact for generations. I'm going to go out on a limb and make the erroneous claim that Hawaii was initially settled by only a dozen or so Polynesians that washed ashore.

EDIT: read up on Hawaii. Rare contact with outsiders. Not sure how diverse they were genetically. Also, Kamehameha?

[Griffin]

Hawaii was actually settled several times, first (as near we can tell) from the America's, and then that group was conquered by invading Polynesians. There weren't a whole lot of the Polynesians, but who knows how many people where there already when they arrived.

Also, depending on your geneset, inbreeding can actually actively /strengthen/ it. Though its actually pretty complex. Inbreeding isn't necessarily unhealthy, its just riskier. Every purebred dog you see is a direct result of inbreeding, heavy heavy inbreeding, and many of them are perfectly healthy animals with no problems. (And others... aren't)

Of course, as is usually the problem, if a few hereditary diseases get into that pool, its nearly impossible to get rid of them.

[addams]

Overpopulation rhetoric is alarmist and counterproductive.
Underpopulation rhetoric is alarmist and counterproductive.

Well; Someone was wrong on the internet. That is not going to make in into the six o'clock new.

There is not one damn thing that will be done. There is a great deal that humans CAN do. But; Nothing will be done.

Pfft. That is not true. Much is being done. Just, not by me. And; Not by you.

Most of you got the genetics stuff wrong.

Take it up with Spencer Wells.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Journe ... ic_Odyssey

Griffin got it right.
"Also, depending on your geneset, inbreeding can actually actively /strengthen/ it. Though its actually pretty complex. Inbreeding isn't necessarily unhealthy, its just riskier. Every purebred dog you see is a direct result of inbreeding, heavy heavy inbreeding, and many of them are perfectly healthy animals with no problems. (And others... aren't)"

Good God! What if we started with a smallish pool of white people? Oh, Yuck.
Can you imagine? After a few generation? Have you ever seen one of those hairless, colorless dogs? That could happen.

We started out a long time ago with only black people. We ended up with white people. If, we started out with white people, I don't think that we would end up back with black people. Maybe. I would have to think about it. I think slow.

It would,most likely, be something different. What? Only God knows.

[morriswalters]

Man, I tell you, you just can't beat entropy. My favorite science fiction author had a acronym for this. Tanstaafl.(I know he didn't invent it)