Some simple facts about the future people would rather not face

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'M SO GLAD YOU ALL SAW FIT TO IGNORE SCIENCE, MOTHERFUCKERS.

The most effective way of limiting populations is also the most ethical; with education and relief from hardship.

[Disco Pickle]

I actually didn't mean to ignore you I just got caught up in the talk with P3nt.

I did mean to ask what you meant by relief from hardship and how that helps in limiting populations.  I hadn't heard that part before.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

What I don't understand is why so many people would rather there be MORE PEOPLE than a sustainable population. What, exactly, are the benefits of having more people? Why is it treated like a tsunami, uncontrollable and unaddressable, rather than as something fundamentally easier to solve than the problems of disease, shortage, and famine?

This really is the crux right here. But whenever I bring up mandatory birth control, everyone looks at me funny.

It doesn't have to be mandatory. It only has to be free and readily available, along with food and education. But that's socialism, and therefore immoral.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I actually didn't mean to ignore you I just got caught up in the talk with P3nt.

I did mean to ask what you meant by relief from hardship and how that helps in limiting populations.  I hadn't heard that part before.

Hungry and desperate people breed more than well-fed and comfortable ones.

Educated people breed even less, even if they're relatively poor.

I think the basic reason is that if people (in this case, actually, just women) can see and feel evidence that there is a better life available than being a baby machine, they will choose it. In a heartbeat, in fact. Statistically, education (of women) ALONE reduces the birth rate. Dramatically. More than any other single factor. Even if they have to become celibate social pariahs. Add female emancipation, relief from hunger/homelessness, and free, readily-available, female-controlled birth control, and the existing evidence shows that the population would go into a sharp decline.

The problem?

Every economy is based on growth. It will never happen, and there is a lot of money and power behind it never happening even if there were not a million factors weighing against it.

Some women actually want to be worn-out baby pumps. Most would choose other lives if they were available. The lack of ability for women to choose or not choose pregnancy is one of Nature's great cruelties.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

What I don't understand is why so many people would rather there be MORE PEOPLE than a sustainable population. What, exactly, are the benefits of having more people? Why is it treated like a tsunami, uncontrollable and unaddressable, rather than as something fundamentally easier to solve than the problems of disease, shortage, and famine?

I like the idea of less people, I'm just not sure how we could do that ethically.

The most effective way of limiting populations is also the most ethical; with education and relief from hardship.

Yup.  When literacy and earnings reach certain points, birthrate drops off drastically.

Unfortunatey, in this post Lehman Brothers world, those two programs are first in line for "austerity cuts".  Foreign aid, which usually goes towards those two goals in foreign countries, coming in third.

OH CAIN, YOU DIDN'T MISS IT!

OK, I feel better now.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

What I don't understand is why so many people would rather there be MORE PEOPLE than a sustainable population. What, exactly, are the benefits of having more people? Why is it treated like a tsunami, uncontrollable and unaddressable, rather than as something fundamentally easier to solve than the problems of disease, shortage, and famine?

Population growth tends to add to economic growth, which adds to military potential, which makes your dick bigger.

Also certain welfare and social programs to which we have become accustomed fail if the population starts to shrink.

Yeah, actually that's the biggest catch-22. The only system by which we could create a totally free mandatory global education system and readily available free birth control is through socialism, which is dependent on economic surplus, which is dependent on an economic system based on population growth...

[P3nT4gR4m]

What I don't understand is why so many people would rather there be MORE PEOPLE than a sustainable population. What, exactly, are the benefits of having more people? Why is it treated like a tsunami, uncontrollable and unaddressable, rather than as something fundamentally easier to solve than the problems of disease, shortage, and famine?

This really is the crux right here. But whenever I bring up mandatory birth control, everyone looks at me funny.

It doesn't have to be mandatory. It only has to be free and readily available, along with food and education. But that's socialism, and therefore immoral.

Most of the good ideas are. Right now we have enough food for everyone on the planet but starvation is on the rise. Go figure. Everyone is thinking "me me me" and the irony is that the best thing that could possibly happen for "me me me" is if everyone suddenly switched focus to "us us us"

There's only one black swan I can think of that would give us a chance of making this quantum leap in collaboration - alien invasion. We (as a race) need a top level predator to distract us from killing each other and give us a reason to work together. Problem is the aliens would have to be real fucking stupid to stand a chance of losing when all they have to do assure victory is sit back and wait patiently while we take care of it for them. So there you have it. That's what I'm pinning the tattered shreds of my hope on - invasion by extraterrestrial retards  

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

We could switch to a different kind of economy, but that's unlikely as we are essentially the same as squirrels. Stupid, wasteful hoarders.

[Elder Iptuous]

so, then, it's settled.

for Cram's ambitious quest to make a positive change in the world we should conspire to hoax an invasion of retarded aliens that threaten to nuke the planet, thereby prompting us to work collectively as a species.
and if the people fail in this, then the retarded aliens must actually nuke a good number of them.

it's for the children.

[Salty]

By how much would the population have to shrink for our current rate of AWESOME doesn't kill us? If we were to do what we've been doing, would shrinking the population (through SCIENCE, for arguments sake) help at all?

Even if there were only like 200 million people on earth do you really think they'd come to a point where they simply said "fuck progress, I don't want to buy more and nicer things than I buy now"? Eventually they'd be consuming as much as our present population. Sure, that'd take some more centuries. But it would happen someday.

Thank you for that completely obvious observation that in no way answered my question or was in any way pertinent to my motivations for asking it.

[BabylonHoruv]

Sure they do.  They're running out of girls, though.  Funny, that.

However, their forests have never been more fertilized!

That can also help keep the population down.  women are essentially the limit on reproductive capacity, it's why societies that are obsessed with fertility, like the early Mormons or Ancient Jews, condoned Polygyny but not Polyandry.

I also think that gender selecting for males would be far less likely in a society with more gender equality like the US.

[Cain]

What I don't understand is why so many people would rather there be MORE PEOPLE than a sustainable population. What, exactly, are the benefits of having more people? Why is it treated like a tsunami, uncontrollable and unaddressable, rather than as something fundamentally easier to solve than the problems of disease, shortage, and famine?

Population growth tends to add to economic growth, which adds to military potential, which makes your dick bigger.

Also certain welfare and social programs to which we have become accustomed fail if the population starts to shrink.

Yeah, actually that's the biggest catch-22. The only system by which we could create a totally free mandatory global education system and readily available free birth control is through socialism, which is dependent on economic surplus, which is dependent on an economic system based on population growth...

Although, reliable and responsible use of tertiary education could also substitute for a lack of a growing population (in certain European countries - for example, Germany - reproduction levels are below the 2.1 "steady population" level.  Germany has experienced economic growth...but as I suggested back on page one, this is more due to cutting wages and pocketing the difference, currency manipulation and financial fraud than strong, sustainable growth.  Still, this may be the only suitable option).

Which of course brings us back to point one on page one, plus the above noted problems: we're cutting education funding, forcing a bunch of ideological nonsense on kids, and cutting foreign aid which usually goes towards basic education programs.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Just or future reference approx how many steps ahead of us are you

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

What I don't understand is why so many people would rather there be MORE PEOPLE than a sustainable population. What, exactly, are the benefits of having more people? Why is it treated like a tsunami, uncontrollable and unaddressable, rather than as something fundamentally easier to solve than the problems of disease, shortage, and famine?

Population growth tends to add to economic growth, which adds to military potential, which makes your dick bigger.

Also certain welfare and social programs to which we have become accustomed fail if the population starts to shrink.

Yeah, actually that's the biggest catch-22. The only system by which we could create a totally free mandatory global education system and readily available free birth control is through socialism, which is dependent on economic surplus, which is dependent on an economic system based on population growth...

Although, reliable and responsible use of tertiary education could also substitute for a lack of a growing population (in certain European countries - for example, Germany - reproduction levels are below the 2.1 "steady population" level.  Germany has experienced economic growth...but as I suggested back on page one, this is more due to cutting wages and pocketing the difference, currency manipulation and financial fraud than strong, sustainable growth.  Still, this may be the only suitable option).

Which of course brings us back to point one on page one, plus the above noted problems: we're cutting education funding, forcing a bunch of ideological nonsense on kids, and cutting foreign aid which usually goes towards basic education programs.

Yes; regardless of whether we could brainstorm a system that would work, the barriers to implementing it are heavily rooted in basic human idiocy.

[Triple Zero]

for Cram's ambitious quest to make a positive change in the world we should conspire to hoax an invasion of retarded aliens that threaten to nuke the planet, thereby prompting us to work collectively as a species.
and if the people fail in this, then the retarded aliens must actually nuke a good number of them.

Ok, we're going to need a genetically modified lynx, someone with a giant blue cock and a secret base in Antarctica.

Also, we need a stupid story about emo-pirates (they're a METAPHOR, get it), it won't work without a parallel story about tormented emo-pirates.

Then, we'll just teleport a giant caterpillar in New York.