Uh huh. That idea comes from a chap named Thomas Malthus in An Essay on the Principle of Population first published in 1798. While it got people thinking (a very good thing), over time most of his theories have proven to be complete tripe. Fertility does NOT increase with increasing wealth as he predicted, and he completely misunderstood the possibilities of industrialised farming (indeed, industrialisation generally). If it didn’t work for 200 years, why should it suddenly work now?
Because he was right in principle, though wrong in the details. While fertility doesn’t increase with wealth, the human population has nevertheless exploded to nearly 7 billion now and counting, cause there are still plenty of poor. Malthus didn’t really know how big the earth was, nor about the technical possibilities, but we have a fairly good understanding of that now. We’re rapidly degrading top soil with industrialised farming and by building infrastructure, not to mention that this isn’t really sustainable with peak oil looming. We’re killing the oceanic ecosystems, which provide 1/3 of the human population with vital nutrients, by shoving the different fish populations beyond tipping points, after which they take quite long time to recover. And the simple and well understood biological fact is, that every unchecked (no natural enemies) population in a limited environment (with plenty of food at the beginning) goes into overshoot and when it does many die until the number is well below the sustainable population. This is as true for mice as for humans, it just takes longer for us to multiply. We’re top of the food chain, but unlike natural top predators, we aren’t few, we are many, practically inverting the food pyramid. There are estimates that the human population already consumes roughly 2/3 of ALL biological ressources on earth combined, which is way above sustainble (by at least 75%). Biodiversity degrades at an unprecedented pace in the history of our existence and we have no clue how that will play out. The short summary is that we are living on borrowed time. Earths ressources were vast, but we plundered the food locker and will ultimatly pay for that. A good example of that are the easter islands.
It isn’t about the lack of resource but resource management. Let’s take just one example - the growing of beef for the burger industry. The amount of land and resources used for the cultivation of a limited amount of beef could be much better used and feed a lot more people if used in another way. But the pull of the dollar won’t allow that. Another example is the current push for bio-fuels - rather than accepting that alternatives means of energy need to be developed the West is now looking for an alternative to crude oil so that they can continue on the same road. And so farmers in the third world will be pushed towards growing biofuels rather than food.
A parallel example is the Afghan farmers’ reluctance to break away from growing opium - the financial return is just too good to refuse.
Until the demands of the West are put into context of the demands of the rest of the world, there will continue to be an imbalance, and the poorer nations will continue to pander to external forces rather than catering for their own population’s basic needs. These are the issues that we need to face today - not the simplistic malthusian debates about everything revolving around too large a world population. Don’t forget that his ideas were popularised by the C19th and C20th eugenists who linked it with their ideas about who should and shouldn’t breed, the creation of a perfect society, and the idea that only they could dictate how people should live, and their “value” to society.
Amrit, these examples are all true, but ultimatly insignificant. We are already way past the long term sustainability threshold for our population on this planet, even if we were all living on a soy diet. Properly distributing the current ressources to world population will only delay the inevitable, not prevent it. Our ressource base (arable land and fish stock) is actually shrinking, and fast, while our population is still growing rapidly, that’s exactly the scenario of how any animal population overshoots.
And my guess for the tipping point when everything goes south is twofold:
Oceanic ecosystems completely collapse to a very low population level, like it already happened with various sorts of fish.
Industrialized Farming starts failing due to chronic shortages of I-NPK fertilzers, fuel and pestizides.
These events may still be a decade or two away, but this isn’t really a long period of time in the grand scheme, and till then our population has probably reached nearly 9 billion.
And btw. this proper distribution itself is a utopia, it’s not how the planet works, neither the human society, nor nature itself.
Russia invaded because they did not want Georgia joining NATO. The purpose behind it is to try to bring more of the break away states back into the soviet sphere of influance.
So why russia has not invided Baltic states when they were going to join Nato?
I can think of several reasons however they would be conjecture on my part. Possibly the resurgent Russian imperialism had not peaked. However do not forget what happened to a pro-Western leader in nearby Ukraine; Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned and nearly died.
This is only as true for Mice as Humans if fertility is unchecked - something that is very much untrue for humans, as the rapidly declining fertility rates in industrialised societies attest. Furthermore, I would disagree that humans have no natural predators - you’re using it in the sense of things that eat humans, but it should properly be used as things that kill humans before they die of old age. There are plenty of those about - AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of India and the Far East is a good example.
one day" men will beat their swords into plowshares, and learn the ways of war no more"
i dont know if that will happen in our lifetime but it will eventually, just the fact that we, the citizens of all the different nations can talk like this brings that day a little closer
i picked “war to avenge past wrongs” I don’t know about you but i’m way too old to have my father fight my battles for me. So i’m just gonna have my son do it.
Fertility was pretty much unchecked for the past decades and the demographic momentum is easily going to carry us to 10 billion, if nothing dramatic (as I expect it to) happens, we’re still growing by 80 million people a year, that’s a new germany. Though the fertility rate already dropped as you said, we’re still way over 3 children per female worldwide. Disease is a natural part of population control and well integrated into the biological models of overshoot. But disease only reduces the growth rate (and thus the amount of overshoot) a little, but doesn’t prevent the outcome. In the end, starvation is the real killer.
Also, the important figure is not killed before old age but killed before reproduction. We have achieved great improvements (vaxines etc.) and significantly reduced child death rates even in the poorest countries, which was as important for the population explosion as the green revolution. But it will ultimatly only worsen the overshoot situation, since we have a higher growth momentum. And AIDS, as bad as it is, is a tiny blip on the radar as far as natural population control through disease is concerned. Far less than 1% of world population have it and they can live quite a long time with it and thus reproduce. So while all your points are correct, in total they’re as insignificant to the final outcome as Amrits points.
You can search for “the most important video you’ll ever see” on youtube. This math prof gives a lecture on exponential growth and our innate inability to understand its consequences. You should really watch it.
And just to clarify this. I don’t advocate to do anything about it, it’s not for us to decide who shall live. I merely point out the mathematically inevitable outcome of our current path. It all boils down to whether you think we are devouring more biological ressources each year than nature can replace or not. If the answer is yes, we use more, than we’re in the shit, and deeply.
And who has poisoned him?
Bet KGB:)
Errrr. Why ???
Depends exactly where, which is why I qualified it to certain areas. Sub-Saharan Africa is one such area where AIDS is genuinely having an effect on the population - places like Zimbabwe nearly 30% of the population has it, and in those of reproductive age it’s more like 50%. In terms of the effect on demographics over the next 10-20 years that’ll be up there with the Black Death.
Yeah, well, I’m an Engineer so I strongly trend to the attitude that there is a solution to everything within the laws of physics if we just put our minds to it. The amount of solar energy on the earth is sufficient, so it just requires a concentrated application of brainpower to solve the problem.
Well, the problem is, it’s not really an energy problem, since there are other mechanisms involved.
Yeah, but if you’ve got the matter and energy then it’s possible to do it within the laws of Physics and it’s just an engineering problem. If you lack either then it’s a problem involving bending the laws of Physics, and that’s a tad harder!
Actually all you need is the energy (since it’s physically interchangeable to matter anyway), but engineering a replicator is probably tricky for us in the next couple of decades.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080813144405.htm
This is actually what I’m talking about.
Yeah, I know mass/energy are interchangeable but in practical terms even transmutation is too much like hard work.
Its almost impossible not to have war, its kinda like something that must happen. But I had to pick one so I picked “war for some other reason” eh, you never no when them martians come and attack us lol.
I would love to go to War with all the gangs in the United States but the politicians here will never let that happen…