Population Control: Let's consider it - Printable Version +- Tendo City (https://www.tendocity.net) +-- Forum: Tendo City: Metropolitan District (https://www.tendocity.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=4) +--- Forum: Den of the Philociraptor (https://www.tendocity.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=43) +--- Thread: Population Control: Let's consider it (/showthread.php?tid=4837) |
Population Control: Let's consider it - Dark Jaguar - 25th May 2008 It seems recent studies show that if current trends continue, marine fisheries will no longer be commercially viable by 2050. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15532333/ So the oceans are being overfished, oil is being over consumed, and energy demands are higher than ever. I think it's about time to seriously consider limiting the number of offspring humans make. It is time to rebel against our short-sighted genes or it'll doom us all. All they do is blindly build us at the start and from there they no longer have direct control. Our ability to rationally realize that our gene's best interests are pretty much irrelevent and overcome it is simply a happy misfiring that genes, shortsighted as they are, never could have seen coming. Nothing really physically impossible about "defying" them then. My point is, I think we are reproducing far too much. Now laws are a tricky business. Who gets to decide which people get to reproduce after all? However, and I've said this before, it need not be legal limits on it, but practical ones. Changing the next generation may be enough to turn the tide. First of all, the taboo-ing of things like condoms needs to stop. That's always been dangerously ridiculous. Secondly, I really think that genetic research into making reproduction an opt-in procedure at the very least should be undertaken. If someone can willingly turn on and off ovulation and/or sperm production, that should cut down on unplanned events by a massive amount. The last would be a bit of social engineering. I think people in general need to stop considering it their "right" to have children. Before you say anything, keep in mind that we ALREADY think this to a certain extent. If parents are abusive to their kids, we as a modern society have collectively agreed that they don't get to keep them simply by right, that children are not property. Further some people, myself included, think that someone who is clearly not capable of taking care of kids shouldn't be allowed to keep them even if they aren't actively trying to abuse them. Further still, it's finally starting to become clear that abuse can take the form of parents forcing children to take up a vegen diet (in which case some kids where this happened starved to death) and parents who's personal beliefs make them say their kids can't get life saving surgery, or who decide not to vaccinate their kids, are performing abuse (and in the latter case, endangering other kids as there's a needed critical mass of vaccinated people in order to hault the flow of a disease entirely). Further, as a society we agree that if someone keeps a house full of pets and doesn't get them neutered, to the point where they have a household of 30 or 40 cats, the cats need to be taken away. The next step is saying that perhaps people should be taught from birth that it's socielly irresponsible to just make kids repeatedly just for the sake of making them. Population Control: Let's consider it - Great Rumbler - 25th May 2008 It'd never happen in any country that's remotely free. That's merely an aside, though. The birth rate in developed countries is much less than it is in developing nations. So you fix the problem of exponential growth by fixing the social and economic problems in Africa, South American, and parts of Asia. Population Control: Let's consider it - A Black Falcon - 25th May 2008 Indeed. The world's population is only growing because of the third world. The better educated the people of a country are (particularly women), the more the birthrate of that nation goes down. The countries with the lowest birthrates are all first-world nations. Really, in many first-world nations the problem is how to deal with the fact that the population is DROPPING, not how to deal with all the growth! Even America would have about flat population growth if we didn't allow in more immigrants every year than any other nation on the planet. For developing nations, however, education is really the best answer. Economic improvement will help a lot too, of course, but education is the key. It works. Oh yeah, and full support for all methods of birth control is of course vital. Bush's actions on this matter have been incredibly destructive, hypocritical, and cruel. It needs to change, as soon as possible. Population Control: Let's consider it - alien space marine - 26th May 2008 A Black Falcon Wrote:Indeed. The world's population is only growing because of the third world. The better educated the people of a country are (particularly women), the more the birthrate of that nation goes down. The countries with the lowest birthrates are all first-world nations. Really, in many first-world nations the problem is how to deal with the fact that the population is DROPPING, not how to deal with all the growth! birth control will not do any good, If the culture firmly rejects it on religious grounds. Those who do not reproduce get replaced by those who do, There is a good chance the fading society will not pass on their culture to the new comers. Until the day we can have genetically engineered humans with 300 year lifespans, I wouldn't go over board sterilizing populations, We will still need to replace the old with the new. The first world only breaks even ,In some places like Spain their is more coffins then cradles coming out. Population Control: Let's consider it - A Black Falcon - 30th May 2008 Quote:birth control will not do any good, If the culture firmly rejects it on religious grounds. Sure, but this is only a problem in certain places, and it is one that can be overcome. Quote:Those who do not reproduce get replaced by those who do, There is a good chance the fading society will not pass on their culture to the new comers. Are you referring to the "do immigrants become part of the culture of the nation they join?" issue? In America at least, proof is that they do. In nations where nation means only one specific ethnic group, however, that is admittedly much less certain. Quote:Until the day we can have genetically engineered humans with 300 year lifespans, I wouldn't go over board sterilizing populations, We will still need to replace the old with the new. What... huh? Who suggested that? Quote:The first world only breaks even ,In some places like Spain their is more coffins then cradles coming out. I know, that was one of my points. Europe is shrinking overall; only the third world is growing. That's the irony, really. Or the tragedy of it, more like. The nations that can most afford to deal with the problems of growing populations and the challenges of global warming and the strains of what is perhaps peak oil have mostly steady or decreasing populations, while the nations that can least afford it are growing, rapidly. It's really a recipe for disaster, sadly... Population Control: Let's consider it - Dark Jaguar - 31st May 2008 This is true of many European countries, but not all of them. It's also true of Japan, but China's population continues to rise dramatically. One thing to distinguish is there's a difference between population decline, and population GROWTH decline. Population growth rates can shrink and still result in a rising overall population. I think concerns that reducing reproduction is a sure path to extinction are pretty silly. No one's saying it should be reduced to zero, and realistically I doubt that's even attainable. As for the US... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population It would appear we aren't in the same situation as Europe. This is anecdotal, but just looking around me "not having kids" is not a high priority of my peers... neither is going to college... Part of this may put the lie to "abstenence only" sex education. The main problem is in interviews with people taught that saying that "if they did have sex, they probably wouldn't bother with protection because they're already messing up as it is". (As an aside, that's a disgusting line of thought. You're already "doing something wrong" so you might as well do MORE things wrong? Seriously, you mean to say that if you started torturing someone, you've already "messed up" so CONTINUING to torture them is now perfectly fine as you are already "in the wrong"? Well gee maybe the moral quesion isn't ABOUT you and your guilt! Maybe it's about the person in pain! Maybe even if you already screwed up the only moral course of action is to reduce the harm as much as you can from there! Seriously, how the heck do people get a mindset like that? This by the way should not be taken as saying that defying abstenence is wrong or anything so much as that this mindset is pretty evil.) Anyway, that's a rather simple answer to the issue but it stands to wonder where the source of America (and Canada's) population growth comes from when we're in the same boat as many European nations. Also of note is that while overall Europe has lowered population, there are small pockets where it's still growing, such as Italy. This also may be true in the US, where overall there's growth but there may well be many pockets where it's dropping (just not enough). Immigrants are one explanation, that's a good point ABF, but I'd like to see some good data to back up the idea that it's just due to immigration that our population is growing and not due to reproduction. GR, I think I have to point out that once again, my idea would not, and I would never even want it, to be FORCED on a population. Rather I just want the option to exist and for people to be made aware there would be nothing immoral about such a choice. The fundamental thing is simply that someone would be opting into being fertile, not opting out, and that alone would shift a lot of issues around. Population Control: Let's consider it - A Black Falcon - 31st May 2008 Quote:Part of this may put the lie to "abstenence only" sex education. Actually, abstinence-only sex education is proven to do nothing to reduce pregnancy rates, while doing a lot to hurt people's understanding of what contraception is and when they should be using it. It's a horrible, horrible concept that the Bush administration has pushed hard... hopefully when they are gone so will abstinence-only sex ed. :( Quote:One thing to distinguish is there's a difference between population decline, and population GROWTH decline. Population growth rates can shrink and still result in a rising overall population. Sure, but if the population growth rate keeps going down, the population itself is sure to follow eventually. This is exactly what is happening in China -- for now their population may still be going up, but if they hold to their population limits (one-child policy; some are allowed a second child or have one anyway, but overall it has worked amazingly well), China WILL eventually start declining in population. Already the population size increase difference between China and India is extreme -- India is continuing to rapidly, and uncontrollably, increase in population, while China is not thanks to their repressive, but effective, one child policy. This will only become more distinct as time goes on. Quote:Anyway, that's a rather simple answer to the issue but it stands to wonder where the source of America (and Canada's) population growth comes from when we're in the same boat as many European nations. Also of note is that while overall Europe has lowered population, there are small pockets where it's still growing, such as Italy. This also may be true in the US, where overall there's growth but there may well be many pockets where it's dropping (just not enough). Italy? Italy is not increasing in population. The map you want is this one (and this article): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth Note how all of Europe except for Ireland, Bosnia, Turkey, and a few tiny city-states are either barely growing or are shrinking. Most of the rest of Europe, as well as Japan, should join the purple areas (negative growth) in not too long... Most of Africa, except for the most AIDS-affected parts, is very rapidly growing. And as I said, Africa is least able to deal with the effects of global warming, while Europe is probably most able to deal with it... This chart is also relevant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate US fertility rate: 2.04, right about replacement. So why is it, then, that our population is growing so much? As I said, it's because of immigration. America allows in a LOT of immigrants. And again, the point about which countries are growing and which are not is clear. Population Control: Let's consider it - alien space marine - 1st June 2008 I think religion and culture effect fertility, Moslem's are big baby makers. The poorer and undeveloped a nation is , The more babies they make. Population Control: Let's consider it - A Black Falcon - 2nd July 2008 There was a fantastic population article recently in the New York Times Magazine. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/magazine/29Birth-t.html?pagewanted=1 Parts of the article, though you really should read it all! Quote:The spiritual concerns aside, though, the main threats to Europe are economic. Alongside birthrate, the other operative factor in the economic equation is lifespan. People everywhere are living longer than ever, and lifespan is continuing to increase beyond what was once considered a natural limit. Policy makers fear that, taken together, these trends forecast a perfect demographic storm. According to a paper by Jonathan Grant and Stijn Hoorens of the Rand Europe research group: “Demographers and economists foresee that 30 million Europeans of working age will ‘disappear’ by 2050. At the same time, retirement will be lasting decades as the number of people in their 80s and 90s increases dramatically.” The crisis, they argue, will come from a “triple whammy of increasing demand on the welfare state and health-care systems, with a decline in tax contributions from an ever-smaller work force.” That is to say, there won’t be enough workers to pay for the pensions of all those long-living retirees. What’s more, there will be a smaller working-age population compared with other parts of the world; the U.S. Census Bureau’s International Database projects that in 2025, 42 percent of the people living in India will be 24 or younger, while only 22 percent of Spain’s population will be in that age group. This, in the wording of a Demographic Fitness Survey by the Adecco Institute, a London-based research group, will result in a “war for talent.” And the troubles for Europe are magnified by other factors in the existing welfare states of many of its countries. Europeans are used to early retirement — according to the Adecco survey, only 60 percent of men in France between the ages of 50 and 64 are still working. Quote:The broad answer to the “Where are all the European babies?” question thus begins to suggest itself. Accompanying the spectacular transformation of modern society since the 1960s — notably the changing role of women, with greater opportunities for education and employment, the advent of modern birth control and a new ability to tailor a lifestyle — has been a tension between forces that, in many places, have not been reconciled. That tension is perfectly apparent, of course. Ask any working mother. But some societies have done a better job than others of reconciling the conflicting forces. In Europe, many countries with greater gender equality have a greater social commitment to day care and other institutional support for working women, which gives those women the possibility of having second or third children. Quote:“Europeans say to me, How does the U.S. do it in this day and age?” says Carl Haub of the Population Reference Bureau in Washington. According to Haub and others, there is no single explanation for the relatively high U.S. fertility rate. The old conservative argument — that a traditional, working-husband-and-stay-at-home-wife family structure produces a healthy, growing population — doesn’t apply, either in the U.S. or anywhere else in the world today. Indeed, the societies most wedded to maintaining that traditional family structure seem to be those with the lowest birthrates. The antidote, in Western Europe, has been the welfare-state model, in which the state provides comprehensive support to couples that want to have children. But the U.S. runs counter to this. Some commentators explain its healthy birthrate in terms of the relatively conservative and religiously oriented nature of American society, which both encourages larger families. It’s also true that mores have evolved in the U.S. to the point where not only is it socially acceptable for fathers to be active participants in raising children, but it’s also often socially unacceptable for them to do otherwise. Quote:FOR $100 OR SO YOU CAN buy online a Third Reich “Mother’s Cross” (officially, a Cross of Honor of the German Mother). The medals were struck, beginning in 1938, in bronze for women who had four children, in silver for mothers of six and in gold for women who gave birth to eight. They were given out annually on Hitler’s mother’s birthday to heroines of the cause of fertility, which the Führer referred to as “the battlefield of women.” Natalism — the state-sponsored policy to increase the birthrate — has a rather tainted pedigree. Nevertheless, in the age of “lowest-low fertility,” it has made a comeback. If your population is falling, one logical, or seemingly logical, way to build it up again is to encourage people to have more babies. Quote:Then again, for the past several decades France’s fertility rate has been about the same as that in the United Kingdom, which has much more limited pro-natalist policies. Claude Martin notes an adjunct to child-related subsidies that may be more of a factor: 80 percent of French women between ages 25 and 50 are employed. It seems that money in itself isn’t a sufficient lure to get couples to have babies. They may want another child, but adding a few euros to their bank accounts doesn’t solve the underlying problems. As Alasdair Murray of CentreForum put it, “Structural problems in the labor and housing markets are the biggest barriers to fertility.” The crux, Murray says, is that countries with low fertility “are still geared toward a male, single-wage-earning model. Women are expected to exit the labor market when they have children.” Quote:Besides natalist strategies, there is another obvious approach to increasing the population. If you can’t breed them, lure them. The population flow largely went the other way during the first half of the 20th century, but immigration is quickly transforming European societies. Some are looking to Canada or Australia as models: there, the focus is on selective immigration — opening the door for those who have knowledge and training that will benefit the economy. Quote:Eisleben, another of the cities in the consortium, has a picture-perfect 16th-century downtown but is losing people fast, and many of its historic buildings have been long unused and uninhabitable. Eisleben’s shrinkage strategy centers on history: it happens to be the birthplace of Martin Luther. The city is laying out a tourist route — from the house in which Luther was born to his first church to the church in which he gave the last sermon before he died — that shows off its old center and turns its many derelict buildings and empty lots into art installations related to the father of Protestantism. The idea is to attract more tourists and money and build up the locals’ pride in their history. There is a certain paradox here: thanks to its Communist heritage, this part of Germany has the distinction of being one of the least religious places on earth. Eisleben gets 100,000 religious pilgrims a year, but only 14 percent of its population are churchgoers, and hardly anybody expects a turnaround. There is plenty I could say, but for now I will let the article speak for itself. Population Control: Let's consider it - alien space marine - 3rd July 2008 Thats why people who think like DJ are part of the problem. Excellent article , Thanks ABF. Population Control: Let's consider it - Dark Jaguar - 3rd July 2008 I agree with you about the abstinance-only education. That's what I meant by "put the lie to". ASM, you tend to never even understand what I'm actually saying. I actually think overpopulation IS an issue. How does that make me "part of the problem"? You lack certain reading comprehension skills that make half my conversations to you an effort in correcting your misreadings of what I say. There's a reason I tend to ignore your posts half the time. Population Control: Let's consider it - Dark Jaguar - 3rd July 2008 I'm reading the article as I go, but that guy is frickin' racist. He's actually afraid of the noble line of Europeans being destroyed by horders of foreign devils breeding like rabbits? Seriously? That's seriously one of the most biggetted things I've heard in a long time? THAT counts as a "concern"? He's afraid european "culture" is going to be replaced? Ugh! How disgusting! It's just how things go you idiot! As for his concerns about "the family" it comes off sounding a lot like the "nuclear family" nonsense American right wingers are always spouting. So the family structure will change. Big deal! This idiot thinks it's some cardinal sin to not "provide" a bunch of siblings to a kid? Ugh! I'll read the rest of the article now, but that first part is really truly disgusting. Population Control: Let's consider it - Dark Jaguar - 3rd July 2008 Having read the rest, here's my thoughts on it. The article goes on and on about what certain nations are doing to address the population decline "crisis", and the end finally actually introduces scientists who have the only opinions that actually matter. What do they have to say? The same thing most scientists who have chimed in have to say, population decline is a GOOD thing, and these financial woes only matter because the previous generation was so frickin' large relative to the declined one. The idea that someone would guilt trip someone else for deciding they'd rather not have kids is rather disturbing. I'm with the scientists on this one. Population reduction in Europe and Asia, well certain parts, is a good thing. The article also points out that America doesn't actually have this going on. Yes if population growth decreases, it'll eventually result in population decline, but it isn't quite there yet and really I'm not sure we can expect a continued trend in the US. However, world wide it is still on a massive rise, and we will likely pay the price for other nation's silly levels of reproduction. Yeah, I was wrong about Italy though. Sorry there. I read wrong. China's forced reduction of reproduction rates seems to have done a good job but I'm against legal requirements where a social engineering and financial bettering could do a better job. Population Control: Let's consider it - etoven - 3rd July 2008 I think we need to take all the redneck crack whores / ass holes who live and Salem, and require under federal law that there vagina / penis be coted with a substance that burns the skin so no one will fuck em. It's a simple formula for the child to avoid vaginal / penal coting...
Population Control: Let's consider it - alien space marine - 3rd July 2008 Dark Jaguar Wrote:Having read the rest, here's my thoughts on it. The article goes on and on about what certain nations are doing to address the population decline "crisis", and the end finally actually introduces scientists who have the only opinions that actually matter. What do they have to say? The same thing most scientists who have chimed in have to say, population decline is a GOOD thing, and these financial woes only matter because the previous generation was so frickin' large relative to the declined one. The idea that someone would guilt trip someone else for deciding they'd rather not have kids is rather disturbing. China's draconian forced reduction program is what you call a fucking success?!! I think you should say that to the millions of Chinamen in their 18-20's who are damned for their entire lives to be single men who will never know the affection of a women and lose their virginity!! Bride snatching is big money in the Chinese criminal underworld because of the gender gap. ABF Map shows you just were population control needs to be done, Everywhere that has a color other then Green,light green,blue,light blue. All the reds,Oranges,purples,Yellow,pink need "planned parenthood" and the emancipation of women. Overpopulation is not a problem in the developed world were universal suffrage and women in the work force and higher cost in living has caused a reduction in the birthrate, Most European nations have more coffins then cradles. I don't think you really understand why immigration is a concern with people,If you read the article many from the Muslim world hold strongly to the belief that the "Islamic system" is the most ideal for mankind as they believe "Allah crafted it" there it is perfect,For the rest us who value the rights of the individual and not the dictates of someone else's religion,We are very concern about the future of our nation and its values as it demographics change by Immigration.You cannot simply rest your hope that they will all assimilate, They are tit knit community that has always been resistance to change, To many of the mosques are directly controlled and funded by Saudi Arabia. In turkey the sole "secular democratic Muslim nation", Political Instability in Turkey is entirely the result of Islamists who oppose the secular Kemalist state, You should see the myriads of coups that the army in Turkey has had to undertake to remove "elected" Islamist who tried to take power. Cultural heritage , May mean zero to you DJ but not everyone else. Its true that some people have richer cultures their others, In Canada I think cultural pride is strongest in the French and first nations (red Indians), The rest of Canada has had a identity crisis since the collaspe of the British empire and some have called Anglo Canada a blander more liberal version of America. You've also failed to comment on the pensioner crunch in ABF article, It is the greatest argument for why western nations need to boost their birthrate! Immigration doesn't solve everything,They get to bring their own elderly who is gonna pay for them? The immigrant workers will age themselves. Some developing countries complain of a Brain drain, When all their best and brightest leave to the rich nations for employment, Causing a loss of valuable human resources further adding to the hardships of the poor countries. ABF best puts into words all my views on this, Better and clearer then I ever could. Quote:ASM, you tend to never even understand what I'm actually saying. I actually think overpopulation IS an issue. How does that make me "part of the problem"? You lack certain reading comprehension skills that make half my conversations to you an effort in correcting your misreadings of what I say. There's a reason I tend to ignore your posts half the time. You are a very condescending person! Not surprising that I butt heads with you allot . You should stop attacking my reading comprehension skills and first take a look at your own, Its obvious you didn't read ABF articles in their entirety. Quote:they use a thick rubber band on bulls here. They tie it as tight as they can, then leave it. After a few months the testicles rot away and fall off. When I heard this news, my first reaction was that it should be done to DJ. Immediately. Amen to that. Population Control: Let's consider it - A Black Falcon - 3rd July 2008 Dark Jaguar Wrote:I'm reading the article as I go, but that guy is frickin' racist. He's actually afraid of the noble line of Europeans being destroyed by horders of foreign devils breeding like rabbits? Seriously? That's seriously one of the most biggetted things I've heard in a long time? THAT counts as a "concern"? He's afraid european "culture" is going to be replaced? Ugh! How disgusting! It's just how things go you idiot! Well first, of course, the article says that immigration is in fact not a long-term solution, because the longer most immigrants stay in European nations, the more their birthrates fall in line with European norms, and over time those people too will get top-heavy with far more old people than young. I'm not sure if you were talking about it, but you perhaps do raise an important issue, though... do you mean the part where it talks about European fears of increasing Islamic minorities in their countries? Actually, if you don't ever follow the news from Europe, that's a HUGE, HUGE continent-wide issue, with lots of justifiable things backing the side which wants to limit the amount of Muslims allowed in. Racist? Perhaps... but it would be more accurate to phrase it differently. The problem is, essentially, that Islamic and Christian cultures are very, VERY different and do not get along well at all. In America, we have a very small Islamic minority... but I was talking about this article with my dad today, and he pointed out, what if Mexico was Islamic, and it was US getting millions of Islamic immigrants? If you think the Mexican immigration issue is big now... if things were like that, it'd be exponentially, EXPONENTIALLY larger. Because Islamic culture is so, SO different from Western culture that when the two come in close contact there IS conflict. Christianity used to be a lot like Islam. The more you look at the medieval Christian church, the more you see parallels with modern Islam. The difference is, Islam never had a Reformation and never secularized. Chrisitianity did. The world would almost undoubtedly be a better place if Islam had done that too... but it didn't. And so, it is a very, very conservative religion. The Turks are one thing -- Turkey is one of the most moderate or the most moderate Islamic country, and Europe has enough problems with it -- but Arabs and North Africans and others... they come to Europe, but they refuse to integrate or agree with modern liberal Western cultures. This creates a huge disconnect and increasingly massive social problems. England, France, and the Netherlands particularly are having the most problems with Muslim immigrants. This is, I am sure, largely because they are some of the very few European nations that actually allow significant amounts of immigration; most others allow in only token numbers of people, like Japan as well for instance. But what do you do with people who not only refuse to become part of your culture, they actively work to undermine it? Remember things like the killing of that Dutch filmmaker a couple of years ago, after he made an anti-Islamic movie detailing the horrible violence and murder Islamic women face daily (violence and murder at the hands of their family members, that is)? Read this for some on that... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_van_Gogh_%28film_director%29 What are you supposed to do with people who truly believe such radical things and refuse to modernize? Western thought says that all are entitled to their opinion, but what about people who refuse to acknowledge the truth of that concept... very challenging issues. Anyway, to the subject of the thread... This is the most important paragraph in the article, I'd say: Quote:So there would seem to be two models for achieving higher fertility: the neosocialist Scandinavian system and the laissez-faire American one. Aassve put it to me this way: “You might say that in order to promote fertility, your society needs to be generous or flexible. The U.S. isn’t very generous, but it is flexible. Italy is not generous in terms of social services and it’s not flexible. There is also a social stigma in countries like Italy, where it is seen as less socially accepted for women with children to work. In the U.S., that is very accepted.” Dark Jaguar Wrote:Having read the rest, here's my thoughts on it. The article goes on and on about what certain nations are doing to address the population decline "crisis", and the end finally actually introduces scientists who have the only opinions that actually matter. What do they have to say? The same thing most scientists who have chimed in have to say, population decline is a GOOD thing, and these financial woes only matter because the previous generation was so frickin' large relative to the declined one. The idea that someone would guilt trip someone else for deciding they'd rather not have kids is rather disturbing. ASM already covered a lot of good reasons why you are wrong, but I can say some things too. First, as ASM says, you, just like those people in the end talking about how it's not so bad, completely ignore the first, most important issue with population decline in a culture with a long lifespan: What to do when you have twice as many old people who want to be retired than young people working! Obviously, that is an impossible situation. You need at least as many or more people working than you have retired. America is actually growing and has massive problems funding healthcare... can you possibly imagine how hard that would be for a rapidly shrinking country with twice as many old people as young? Essentially, there are only two solutions: Greatly extend required working years (60? 65? There's absolutely no way it'll be able to stop there, it'll have to keep going up), and cut benefits. Most European countries will probably have to do both... but they really want to care for old people and have socialized medicine that guarantees everyone the right to health care! They're absolutely right that in a modern state it should be a right, not a privilege... but it's incredibly hard to sustain in shrinking countries. It's a HUGE, HUGE problem which will hit Europe, Japan, South Korea, and any other major shrinking countries really, really hard in the coming century unless they very quickly modernize their views of women to allow for working mothers, and modernize their views of men to allow for them to do more of the housework. Because if you read the article properly, you'd know that those are the two keys to the higher birthrates of the American and Northern European cultures' higher birthrates. The cultures which reject those two things, like Spain, Italy, Greece, South Korea, or Japan, suffer low birthrates as a result. Women won't have children when having them is too much of an economic burden and hurts your lifetime salary amount earned too much, as it would be if you have to quit your job and do all the housework (and childcare) as soon as you have children. And yes, as ASM says you continue to completely ignore the facts of the maps I posted a month ago, or the fact that maximum world population estimates have been estimated down and down and down every time they are made... the days when people thought massive overpopulation would cripple the world are mostly over. Even if the entire world fully liberalized its views of gender to match their modernization of society and reduced the underpopulation crisis that is currently affecting all those East Asian and South European nations (and Eastern European too, for slightly different reasons), that would only nudge them up to maybe replacement level at best, not above. And as every nation modernizes its birthrates immediately begin to plunge; it is true that a few nations are still rapidly growing, but between increasing birth-control and family planning efforts and the (coming incredibly tragic) effects of global warming, that, I believe, is only temporary. Perhaps some shrinkage would not be bad, as it is true that some countries are very highly populated, but at some point you MUST level off your population decline or your country will cease to exist. Population Control: Let's consider it - lazyfatbum - 4th July 2008 Africa gettin bi-zay Population Control: Let's consider it - alien space marine - 6th July 2008 lazyfatbum Wrote:Africa gettin bi-zay Victory for the alliance! DJ > ABF & ASM <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PjaR44bgx5w&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PjaR44bgx5w&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[SIZE=5][COLOR=Red] |