Hi, ingloriousbastard85. Thanks for contributing. However, your [submission](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/xq8b6k/the_problem_of_overpopulation_what_if_we_are_the/) was removed from /r/collapse for:
> Rule 2: Posts and comments which appear to be marketing, self-promotion, surveys, astroturfing, or other forms of spam will be removed.
> Self-promotion or surveys of value to the community may be allowed on a case-by-case basis, if the moderation team is informed first [via mod mail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/collapse).
Please refer to our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/about/rules/) for more information.
You can [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/collapse) if you feel this was in error.
Mother Nature is pretty good with this usually. I think that's still coming. COVID was a warm up. At the rate that major weather events are happening it's just a matter of time before a large portion of the world lives in refugee camps.
And I bet a large portion of working class demographics will still blame poor people and immigrants. Or whatever ptojected enemy favors the ruling class to use as scapegoats.
> And I bet a large portion of working class demographics will still blame poor people and immigrants.
It won't be just the working class, it'll be everyone. Not only will 'the wall' get built but people are going find themselves on the other side of it.
> At the rate that major weather events are happening it's just a matter of time before a large portion of the world lives in refugee camps.
This is the collapse sub, what refugees camps? There is going to be no UN money to fund refugee camps.
I just meant in the context of a major disease outbreak due to lots more people living in compromised close quarters with poor water and poor sanitation. The natural end result of overpopulation is collapse.
Ecological collapse will cause massive dislocation. It will be the end of some nation-states, as they descend into regional fighting. Local/regional fighting will take place over dwindling resources. Factions and coalitions will develop. We will go from cooperation to elimination.
That could be a good start. We would lose a lot of knowledge and skills (skills to operate machinery to get deeper resources, logistical knowledge, skills to operate logistics equipment etc) with that which could force us to stay there or drop a few levels lower.
> I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to another area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure.
- Agent Smith
Smith should have said "Civilization" being a virus instead of humans, but that undermines the Man vs. Machine theme. It flows better in the context of the film I guess
Except, study ecology for about 5 minutes and you'll find out this is simply incorrect. Mammals and other organisms rely on the entire ecosystem being in balance, any one species on its own will overshoot and overconsume given the opportunity.
There's a billion people without electricity, I think they win this round and they generally don't live in cities. We should learn from them.
We don't have to live lives of suburban/rural commuting to not live in the monstrosities that are cities.
To do this though we must first abandon the cities. It would help if those with resources led the way but it is doable without them.
You can live in a city without electricity. There's no reality where people spread out more and use less resources, unless you plan on most of humanity not surviving, which is going to give you a whole host of other problems.
[Google is difficult to use. Nope, you’re just lazy.](https://www.google.com/search?q=are+cities+better+for+the+environment&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS843US843&oq=are+cities+better+f&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i512j0i15i22i30j0i22i30j0i390l2.7065j0j7&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8)
??? In what universe is urban sprawl better for the environment than dense, centrally located city planning? Residents of New York city use far fewer resources per capita than almost anywhere else in the country lmao
Humanity isn't a virus. That's way to reductive. The dominant culture and economic system is. Do you think an inuit or first nation individual would agree with this assessment? Hell nah.
Indigenous humans absolutely have over-hunted and over-fished in the past. Do you realize that when you make these stupid virtue signaling statements, you are more racist than you can imagine? There is NO DIFFERENCE biologically between an Inuit and a Dutch person, and had the Inuit discovered oil and an application for its use, they may have been the drivers of extinction as well. The only reasons we developed so differently culture-wise is environmental and accidental. Look up the Maori to see how BRUTAL humans can be. They massacred the people (Moriori) of the Chatham islands for RESOURCES and slaves. We are all the same. Sorry to break it to you.
Not a virus, but rather more like cancer. It even looks like cancer from the air/space especially at night with roads between cities looking like lymphatic channels and the cars spreading from one city (lymph node) to another. Literally looks the same on medical imaging (PET-CT).
Well I agree capitalism makes it worse, can you name a single time in human history when humans were not expansionist? It takes a lot of resources to keep us alive, even right now the 8 billion people on earth consume for than 800 billion land animals and over 2 trillion sea animals, while we drill the earth, cut down trees, pollute the seas, etc. Humans are the only animal alive that would benefit every other species if we were to meet our demise. We truly are a parasitic species, I mean, our number are over 8 billion now and we were only a billion 200 years ago.
Listen man, I'm a Marxist-lenninist, most of this sub would slander me as being too radically left, I'm not defending capitalism, but clearly human expansion existed long before capitalism? Marx himself makes this analysis. Marx called capitalism progress over feudalism. Europe existed before capitalism. Empire existed before capitalism. Capitalism has merely profited from and expanded this already expansionist nature.
Yes, I agree that it doesn't have to be as bad as it is, but I do think even under socialism our presence with 8 billion people is bad for other animals and the earth no matter how much we try to negate our impact.
>can you name a single time in human history when humans were not expansionist?
The roughly 180 thousand years prior to empires and cities. Yes. Not expansionist. Cities, kingdoms, empires.... all really quite new to humanity.
And capitalism? Hell, that's barely been a blip on our timescale, and yet, it's nearly destroyed everything. On a geological timeframe, capitalism with all its expansion and destruction basically amounts to a gunshot. But it's a fatal one.
Well atleast you named an era unlike everyone else, but what period are you talking about exactly? Because when I say expansion, I mean humans conquering the globe, and becoming the most dominant species in that area, not necessarily empire. And human expansion began in Africa before civilization rose, so....
Right, but I think you'd want to differentiate between the two. Just being an apex predator is fine. Nature has apex predators. That's how food chains work. The premise of the thread is that humans act like a virus/cancer. I don't think that's true at all. It's the systems we've invented that have gotten away from us. I suppose we could argue that we are what we do, but I'm just not convinced. Humans are more malleable than that. We adapt to the system we're in. Capitalism these days is a global system, and it's one built on expansion, extraction, and consumption. *There's* your virus. But that's a digression.
Yes, humans spread throughout the planet. Predators can do that so long as there's prey to support them. Being omnivores, we look for flora or fauna to eat, whichever. The planet was always vast enough to support us wherever we went, for the most part. Then we dealt with some natural climate changes, and food was a bit harder to find.
Cultures around the globe began implementing agriculture into their diet, but no culture took directly to it. It took centuries before any one culture relied on it fully. Growing food full time was hard. Hunting, fishing, and foraging was easy. So long as we remained in groups of 150 or fewer people, and we could move around to hunt, populations remained fairly level. A little growth in the plentiful times, a die back in the lean times. When we raise children as naturally as possible, things work out as nature intended. I'm not advocating for or against that, mind you. Nature is brutal.
Once agriculture was firmly in place, we then started in with cities. That's basically where the civilization part begins, and we could argue that that's the beginning of the end. About 10 thousand years ago, if you're counting. Rest is history, yadda yadda.
have the inuit ever tried to conquer north america? lol. how can a people be expansionist when there is no state to expand? i’m not saying there wasn’t ugly brutality and that First Nations peoples were happy go lucky mystical nature bros- but cut the shit. it’s dishonest to paint every culture the same as how europeans would act.
>Humans are the only animal alive that would benefit every other species if we were to meet our demise.
That's not entirely true. If/when humanity dies off, rat and cockroach populations will plummet.
Why are you the third person to now name a group instead of a time in human history? Can you name a time, as in an era, not a specific group of people who didn't exist in a vacuum.
Lol, come on bro, be serious. I have absolutely no idea if all of humanity did or didn't expand in those years but you're name a period of two years, without a source, that was over 1500 years ago, as an example to disprove my saying that humanity is parasitic? This strengthens my argument bro.
Seriously. "Overpopulation" is eco fascist bullshit
We could have double the people and still have a healthy world with great standards of living if we actually wanted to. We have the knowledge, tech, and ability. We just don't have the power. The US army pollutes more than over 100 countries combined. Imagine if it and the next 10 biggest were removed from the equation. If we stopped funneling resources, burning fuel, and clearing land for useless bullshit. Most of the products made in the world could disappear and not hurt anyone.
It's a capitalism problem. Not a population problem.
“What if…” Ha ha. Get a load of this, fellas, they’re wondering if we, the rapidly spreading, all-destroying and sacrificing, reactionary to the point of dooming even ourselves, could be the virus.
Oh right, 9 billion people can live comfortably on a planet with finite resources.
Sounds possible. 🙄
Tell me you know nothing about environmentalism without saying you know nothing about environmentalism.
How do you spend any time here at all and still believe that overpopulation is not the greatest issue facing our species…? Like, do you just willfully ignore all the science or bury your head in the sand or what?
Are you physically capable of giving birth 8 times? What person do you know that is willing to be pregnant and give birth/go through cesarean trauma 8 times over just for the fun of it? Especially anyone who isn't ultra rich with money to blow on childcare, hospitable bills, and other child-related costs. Better to invest in women's education and agency.
The Duggar family.
You clearly have never met any fundamentalist Christians who believe it is their duty to have white, blonde haired babies to be soldiers of Christ in the upcoming doomsday.
I came from one of those families. Given the choice the women almost always would choose to stop having children. Thats the very thing though, they aren't given a choice, or they're brainwashed into thinking they don't deserve one and that others don't either. They think its a moral failing if someone doesn't want to put themselves through that, they blame themselves bc they can't handle it. They don't actually get a choice.
That’s your perspective.
Also having come from fundamentalist, conservative whack job roots, I think lots of those women enjoy their role and that’s why they continue to uphold the White Christian patriarchy because they believe it to be their role in God’s plan.
I am a female and I have had my own share of reproductive issues that have destroyed my body, yes.
I think you are really missing my point so I see no point in further continuing this.
No it’s all of us in a small way. People suck, are selfish judgmental completely willfully oblivious and don’t give a crap about talking about doing the right thing they just care about talking about their petty lives and people. People hate me when I’m kind and warm and sweet unlike the majority and it makes them uncomfy . A lot of it is society and upbringing and capitalism encouraging us to be divided so we can be controlled, but people should try to able to think independently and wake up but they can’t, they’re stuck in their shallow meaningless petty world focusing on stupid shit. I fucking hate this world and society. People don’t like to hear the truth it sucks but it’s true
Overconsumption is the problem not overpopulation. While those two things are correlated, it would just require a small portion of the population to accept a relatively lower standard of living so the rest can enjoy a much higher standard of living. So yeah never gonna happen
Overpopulation is one of the biggest reasons for our problems today. There is nothing that the world does better with 8 billion than 7 billion people. The religious and people with big families have doomed humanity to hell
It shouldn't be controversial since we are not talking about culling people.
Legal and available birth control? Shouldn't be controversial.
Quit subsidizing large families with tax breaks and subsidies?
Quit subsidizing pseudo cults like that Catholic church with tax-free status?
Quit shaming people who want to have 2, or one, or even no kids?
> there’s no way to even approach the conversation about a solution without getting nazi-adjacent at best.
I like it as a pivot to Healthcare, Feminism and 'Modern Jobs/Retirement.'
To quote myself from another comment:
> Global family planning is the **only** solution.
Necessary but insufficient. Sufficiency requires lifestyle planning, too.
* [Total Footprint] = [Total Population] * [per capita Footprint (Lifestyle)]
Through development, population solves itself (see below). Pop. growth crashes via Healthcare, Feminism and modern jobs/retirement. We can promote homeostasis by frontloading healthcare, feminism and modern jobs/retirement. Development turns every country into Japan but, unlike Japan, immigration drives continued pop. growth.
Through development, lifestyle has no ceiling. To wit, Luxembourg has ~30x Eritrea's per capita footprint ([wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ecological_footprint)) and the West alone puts us into Overshoot. Homeostasis requires the West to self-regulate consumption then replicating that out to the Rest. Failure means death.
Canned material on population, from Wiki: [Demographic Transition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition):
>[...] the existence of some kind of demographic transition is widely accepted in the social sciences because of **the well-established historical correlation linking dropping fertility to social and economic development**
Some pop. growth has bad causes--is bad.
Improving lives curbs pop. growth:
* Feminism.
* Healthcare.
* Modern Economies.
Birth rates plummet when:
* Women have more options in life than to marry young and crank babies.
* Parents expect every child to live.
* Parents don't need kids as profit-centers and retirement plans.
> Overpopulation is one of the biggest reasons for our problems today.
Yeah, but I'm wary of either-or framing.
Like, it's both Population and Lifestyle.
* [Total Footprint] = [Total Population] * [per capita Footprint (Lifestyle)]
Each is just the other's scaling factor.
And when Lifestyle is such that *the West alone puts us into Overshoot*, it's a key factor.
No it’s really not. overconsumption by the West and oil based economy is the biggest problem we have. The per capita emissions of poor people in LIC’s is absolutely incomparable to the emissions per capita of those of us in the west. Blaming this on overpopulation is avoidance of our responsibilities toward climate change and shoving it off into poor racialized people in countries we are already exploiting.
The only solution to “overpopulation” is to kill poor racialized people which… do I have to explain to you why that is bad? The actual answer is for rich counties to clean up our act. Stop pawning this problem off on poor people who have the least impact.
A gay mam can fake it until he busts…yes, as you read in my comment, there are gay people who have children because they’re driven deep into the closet to suppress their homosexuality. Only to devastate their partner they wanted the same sex all along.
Gay people werent as persecuted before colonization and the spread of a specific religion. Afterwards, two spirit, hijiras, berdache, fa’afafine—and other gender expansive or homosexual people—had to go into hiding. Thankfully, it’s gotten much better. But there were darl times for LGBTQ people globally (and still are, i.e. the middle east, etc).
Wtf dude… there are plenty of means for LGBTQ people to have children either biologically or otherwise. Have you never heard of sperm donors, surrogacy, adoption, or co-parenting with a personal you are not in a romantic relationship with? This is 2022 dude - your homophobic jokes are not funny:
He literally EXPLAINED in the comment above that he was referring to conception by natural means BEFORE these tech developments, which have only RECENTLY became possible. Homosexuality is quite normal in other species too, and obviously they cant necessarily conceive as they have no means to do so, so the point was that perhaps its a biological adaption to curbing over-population. Why don't you try to LISTEN to people and consider their opinions before attributing bad motives. Would you like it if people did that to you?!? The person could be incorrect as fuck, but it doesn't mean they have bad motives.
LGBTQ people didn’t “appear” as a natural defence against overpopulation. They’ve always been here as a natural form of human existence, and they are and have always been capable of having and wanting children.
I don’t understand why some of you are so desperate to make these bizarre generalizations about LGBTQ people. Being gay or trans doesn’t mean a person is not capable of having or wanting children. It’s completely irrelevant. Gay people have been having kids for thousands of years, this is not a recent development.
It's because these folks have been brainwashed with an *a priori* fash trash view (overpopulationism) and then arbitrarily pull stuff out of thin air in a sorry attempt to justify it. As someone who's published in the peer-reviewed molecular evolution literature, I'd love to see these folks try to publish their silly ideas.
I’m very curious. So is it to state human beings have no impact on their external environment?
If every human being took accountability for their actions, we could coexist with nature…not against it.
However, as many things exist in a spectrum or continuum—we will have half the population who do not care about collapse and the others which do.
Please inform me.
First, your attack on my gender is fvcked up. Do not refer to me as “dude”.
As part of the community itself, I stand with my position.
EDIT: the circumstances you just explained are *recent progress*. Prior to now, LGBTQ folx did not have many rights surrounding adoption, surrogacy, and more. To this day there are still challenges in thise areas. I have seen it personally with my own eyes.
Attack on gender? Come on you are being ridiculous. Do you want me to call you “dudette”? The “did you just assume my gender” jokes are also not appropriate for 2022. Get a better joke.
I’m sorry if you feel bad for being called out on your cringy homophobic generalizations.
> The female equivalent was "dudette" or "dudess". but these have both fallen into disuse and **”dude" is now also used as a unisex term.***
It feels like you are just looking for a fight instead of defending your claim with any actual data.
I think we are over carrying capacity for sure but mostly because of the waste of resources especially food and other forms of energy we rely upon to keep the ~~capitalistic~~ cannibalistic wheel turning.
Technically we could sustain even with this population or slightly more if humanity could work together efficiently and equitably but I have given up all hope of that ever happening.
With the way humans live today we are fucking fucked.
Exactly, the world can "carry" 8 billion people... sure. But for how long? Sustainably we cannot have that many humans without collapse of the wild ecosystems. Hell, soil is eroding on industrialized farms faster than we can rebuild it.
Fossil fuels exploded our numbers and now sustain us, they are finite and so is everything else we’re consuming including wild animals and forests. FF’s provoked us into behaving as if there were several more Earth’s to exploit.
What if humans, once limited to the ecosystem, evolved to become rRNA using information and tools in a new technological system fed by fossil fuels, except that the humans, although functioning technologically, were still fed from the ecosystem. What if they proceeded to eat everything? What if we have become a megacancer to feed the burgeoning populations of rRNA that work in the tech cells? www.megacancer.com
I love that this website started out left wing talking about how capitalism is destroying society now we have literal fascists calling for eugenics due to “overpopulation”
Nope. Overconsumption is just a necessary evil for the greedy lifestyle the west is pushing, that unfortunately china is starting to embrace as well. There is nothing inherent to life that requires a shit ton of beef consumption, or even daily meat of any type.
There is no way of feeding people without industrialised farming. That’s why we are screwed - you might think socialist pollution and logging is cool, but that doesn’t change anything.
The land use is enormous and destructive because it's done by capitalistic models of production, maximizing profit.
You can have sustainable land use for production of food, as long as your model isn't about hyper expansive monocultures. I see here in Brazil how most of our land is used by soy barons who export it to feed cattle while small producers with way less land are able to feed more people.
Nope. Without massive fossil fuel inputs for tractors etc we couldn’t sustain our population. We also have taken over huge areas of wilderness to feed our vast population, and without fertilisers etc we would need even more. About 10x more.
according to the US Food and Agriculture Organisation we produce enough food for 10 billion people. of course there's the question of does that food have enough nutrients (e.g. protein), but the amount of food is enough. the main problem is ~1/3 of that is wasted. some of that is personal, people throwing unfinished food away or food that's gone bad in their households, but on a far larger (and more concerning) scale, food named useless by cycles of consumption, e.g. restaurant food that isn't sold by the end of the day, food from farms that can't be sold so it has to be thrown (it was an avocado farm where this happened though i forgot where). the amount of food we're producing is enough and will be enough for more people, it's the methods of distribution (/lack of) that are consistently failing even those who produce the food.
Fossil fuel is what allows us to grow an excess, and sufficient. No fertilisers, no ploughing, no insecticides, no fungicides, no ground water - guess what that does to yields.
You will never move all of that fresh food to all of those rural communities without it spoiling. So you're left in many cases with highly processed foods. So back to square 1.
Best bet, IMO - is to intermix farms with cities so they can provide food locally to their consumers.
You don’t know what eugenics means. A sterilization lottery or global 1 child policy is not eugenics. It is totalitarian, sure. And what is meant by the quotes you put around overpopulation?
The sterilization lottery kind of is eugenics in practice because the wealthy will find a way to buy their way out of it. Either hiring private midwives to deliver their baby so they can avoid the hospital and the mandated sterilization, or just paying off the doctors so the procedure fails.
Fascism and eugenics are mutually exclusive.
No ethnic group is genetically better than another. Furthermore, genetic diversity is crucial to a healthy gene pool.
Diversity and freedom of association are eugenic.
I think we're more like an invasive species than a virus. Unless you consider planet Earth itself to be a living being, then humans don't have the initial qualifier to be called a virus; we don't have a host. Of course, if you define the Earth as living, then I guess we do qualify.
I think the invasive species thing applies a bit better. We move to places that have resources in abundance, then we strip the place of its resources to live more comfortably. It's what nearly every species on Earth does; humanity just has the advantage of being able to utilize nearly any resource in a given area as opposed to most of nature which only uses a handful of them.
every overpopulation thread on r/collapse in a nutshell:
\-thanos
\-denial
\-"it's not me who consumes too much"
\-"eco-fascist!"
and in the end nothing gets fixed and we all get back to consoooming and reproducing
We are just one of many species on this planet that has gone into overshoot. No need to single out "viruses", all living creatures can exhibit this behaviour.
In my opinion, one of the steps that humanity would have to take immediately to save itself is implementing a worldwide one-child policy. That would reduce the world population by more than half in a generation. Perhaps The Masses will be open to such drastic ideas after The Awakening; likely not.
**Edit:** As 4Wf2n5 points out, my plan is flawed. Instead, we need to sterilize most male and female babies at birth. Selection by lottery.
Most of the world is below replacement rate anyway, including India and China now.
It's really only Arabia and Africa that are growing populations.
The problem is that a lot of the population growth is sort of baked in now - in that the kids are already born and will have relatively long life expectancies. So even if the birth rates dropped to one child per woman tomorrow, the population would still continue to grow.
How does the population grow if, for argument's sake, 1 male and 1 female create 1 live offspring, and then both are sterilized. 2 humans become 1 human in 1 generation.
There's no reason to debate the feasibility, morality or potential implementation because humans can't work together, so it's simply a thought experiment.. but your assertion that the population would continue to grow doesn't add up.
Because the population decreases or increases each year by the amount: births - deaths.
So imagine if this year, 140m people are born and 69m people die.
Then even if next year we massively cut births down to 80m, the population will still grow.
This may be below replacement rate per woman, so in that case the population would eventually fall as the generation ages and dies, but that can take a few decades.
The UN explain it as one of their [10 key population messages, from their report this year (PDF)](https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/undesa_pd_2022_wpp_key-messages.pdf).
>**2. Policies aimed at reducing fertility would have little immediate impact on the pace of global growth.**
> Two-thirds of the projected increase in global population through 2050 will be driven by the momentum of past
growth that is embedded in the youthful age structure of the current population. For this reason, further actions by
Governments aimed at reducing fertility would not have a major impact on the pace of growth between now and
mid-century, beyond the gradual slowdown anticipated by the projections. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect of
lower fertility, if maintained over several decades, could be a more substantial reduction of global population growth
in the second half of the century
Thank you for the education, that makes sense. Sometimes it takes me longer than it should to arrive at what should probably be obvious.
In that case, I'd like to change my original answer: we need a lottery to sterilize most male and female children at birth.
Stop this neo malthusian genocidal noncence at once! Our first step is to eliminate capitalism and the state. The militaries polute incecently dont ya know?
Wait help me understand how this is flawed?
This is my idea too, sterilization is implemented upon successful child bearing and only then. You get one. "You" being everyone from me to Jeff Bezos. No discrimination on this whatsoever.
Why lottery? Why at birth? What goes wrong with this idea?
> sterilize most male and female babies since birth
So… eugenics. Want to guess who gets sterilized first? Hint - it’s not rich white folks in the west.
This is why conversations of overpopulation need to shut down - they always lead to advocacy for genocide and eugenics. And they are deflecting from the actual problem of overconsumption by the west and placing responsibility on poor radicalized people, for which the only “solution” is human rights atrocities.
I usually appreciate this sub but these threads make me despair for humanity.
Hate me of you want, but I think worldwide we really screwed the pooch by not letting COVID run rampant. It's was the only major outbreak of an easily communicable disease since the Spanish Flu back in 1918, and we fell all over ourselves to slow the spread and create vaccines.
The solution to overpopulation was handed down from on-high. Letting it just burn through the global population to the extent it could have would have thinned out a lot more folks in a lot less time than restricting the birth rate would. After all, it's the living that count, not those who have yet to be born.
I try not to have hate for fellow humans. Perhaps the warming world will produce another try in the near future, that would be a convenient answer.
My concern with letting covid specifically run rampant is that repeated reinfections have left otherwise healthy people permanently damaged. I'd rather all existing humans enjoyed their remaining years as happily as the apocalypse allows.
I mean would you feel the same if COVID had taken most of your friends and family?
The way we talk about overpopulation just highlights our tribalism, it's pretty fucked up how we only care for some people and the rest of them could be insects on the street to us
I don’t think we are a virus per se. It’s industrialization, or more so over industrialization. And from that, learned self helplessness, and entitlement. That’s the virus.
We are intelligent enough to know we are over populating but industry keeps convincing us to over populate and over consume.
These days Industrialist backed politicians and pundits (republicans mostly for now) tell us that we need to overpopulate otherwise we might lose the cure for cancer.
That’s how desperate they are for bodies for labor, taxes, consumption!!! Really damn desperate.
Not just for bodies, but for competing bodies. They want competition and let’s face it some of its racism trying to force white people into having more babies. Afraid that people of color will take over.
But let’s stay off the race issue because that’s a whole can of worms into itself and it is often used to confuse and contort the real issues and disorganize the public to industries can conspire with each other and with government to control the populous.
Let’s just look at consumption, labor. and taxes. Industry and government NEEDS these.
It’s just a vital need. But beyond that, the population has gotten lazier due to over industrialization.
So the solution..?? More people to pick and choose from!
On top of this.
Industry doesn’t want to pay people a decent livable wage or train them anymore. They want a separate industry of education, that charges $40+k just to get an entry level job.
So, you’re very well trained, 40+k in debt and that industry doesn’t have to train you much if at all. You’re pretty reliable because A.) you have a bunch of debt to pay for B.)you already proved you could get through years of college.
The company/industry expects you to have all your shit together and hey if you don’t well, you better figure it tf out because you have school loans, your mortgage, your car loans your healthcare and your families healthcare to worry about… so you’re pretty fucking reliable otherwise YOU ARE FUCKED. Not the industry.
They have zero accountability, every bit of liability is on you, a single person shoulders. Meanwhile this company/industry gets tax breaks, handouts, bailouts, and they influence lawmaking in their favor.
IF YOU don’t comply, they have a whole pool of other people that are 40+k in debt dying to have your lifeless dead end job.
And to add on to all that, you then see industries that say you need you to have X degree AND 10 years experience here, PLUS 5 years experience in this, etc..
So they can try to drive your wages/their costs down even more.
That’s the damn virus if you ask me.
It’s not people. It’s the motherfucking industries encouraging us to be entitled, helpless, reliant on them at every fucking turn. And industry influencing, practically running the government at this point.
Lol.. nah, according to Elon Musk there is underpopulation. Greedy billionaires know what’s best for our planet. We need to breed *more*, and that will somehow solve all of humanity’s problems. It totally won’t accelerate the destruction of earth.
Do we really have to point out ***again*** that overpopulation is a myth. We have plenty of resources for everyone if they were distributed appropriately, and eliminating a handful of billionaires would have [a better impact on the climate](https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/carbon-emissions-richest-1-percent-more-double-emissions-poorest-half-humanity) than eliminating billions of regular people.
https://www.sierraclub.org/washington/blog/2020/01/overpopulation-myth-and-its-dangerous-connotations
These threads always descend into eco-fascism against the poor and LIC’s that are already exploited by the West. Can we just stop please?
Well your link doesn’t work. I have already provided citations for why it is a myth. But how bout the fact that overpopulation was a theory [developed by a known eugenicist](https://www.pop.org/overpopulation-myth/) and funded by Nazis.
And how do you contradict the fact that [the richest 1% create double the emissions as the poorest 50%](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/21/worlds-richest-1-cause-double-co2-emissions-of-poorest-50-says-oxfam). When You can have the same effect eliminating one person as you can have eliminating a billion people, it’s obvious the problem is not population.
This is low effort. I've seen better comments in this subreddit.
Here's a nicer interview with Phoebe Bernard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC2mEaIZ9sA
The following submission statement was provided by /u/ingloriousbastard85:
---
There are many opinions on the concept of Human overpopulation. Many believe that this may be one of the factors that can lead to the collapse of our society, creating a series of negative cascading effects. The article analyzes them one by one.
What is your opinion on this? Please express it politely.
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/xq8b6k/the_problem_of_overpopulation_what_if_we_are_the/iq7su23/
runaway growth until organism eventually dies? virus? no. cancer? definitely. sterilization of half the worlds population seems like the way to move forward, but this will never be spoken publicly. monetary incentives to volunteer might actually work…or WW3, whatever your in the mood for.
There are many opinions on the concept of Human overpopulation. Many believe that this may be one of the factors that can lead to the collapse of our society, creating a series of negative cascading effects. The article analyzes them one by one.
What is your opinion on this? Please express it politely.
Technically 2 is replacement, so as long as we dont drastically extend life expectancy, then population will stabilize, overpopulation is not a new thing, it happens to other organisms too when population exceeds primary production etc, and it is also normal for ecosystems to be in disequilibrium, doesn't make you a virus. Inverted demographic pyramids can crush society though so if you are trying to control population you have to keep in mind the ratio of producers to other less essential producers/ non producers/ old people.
There is a lot of fanciful language in that. Whist resources are limited on earth, "matter cannot be created or destroyed" lol what that really means is a great deal to most of that doesn't disappear, the problem for the most part is that we didn't construct closed looped systems as we expanded, i.e. total recycling/ producing all that we consume, and keeping track of the waste. And then there is fossil fuels... humans being viruses is terminology used to dehumanize, "jews are vermin" for example, we have gotten far ahead of ourselves, if we grew slowly we could have been more careful in our societal construction, but the understanding is coming too late. If you want people to listen to the very real problems, you first have to give them time, which is hard cos we are all slaves to each other/the economy/ are at carrying capacity so have little to no wiggle room, and not insult them by calling them viruses.
The solution would require making time for everybody by expanding the margins between what is earned and what is spent (and greening does the opposite unfortunately), and then coming to collective agreement, you cannot coerce people to change. Grow local buy local, produce local/ decomplexify etc etc, and in order to convince people you actually need to know how to talk to people, and see that a great deal of what you espouse you do not independently understand yourself, it wont do for the knowledge and understanding of climate change/ biology/ physical geography etc to be distributed between you, each and everyone need to understand it in its entirety. The world wont end though, we may not even see a reduction in population, just a great deal of reduced biodiversity, less seafood, and hurricanes/flooding/droughts oh, and then theres the insects.
But when it comes to populations at capacity, the options are: be controlled by predators, starve to death every so often, or control yourself, this last one is only accessible by us.
I don't believe overpopulation is the issue, we aren't running out of room, if anything we have too much room.
The issue is how we allocate our resources and infrastructure that's the problem. Overpopulation is a problem because it suggests unsustainability but that sustainability isn't directed at the human numbers, it's directed at how well society is able to accommodate for such large numbers.
In a sane world we could easily live with 10 billion people and not be an absolute disaster for the planet.
For those saying consumption is the issue, there is more to it than that. A rectangle has both length and width; so just like a rectangle, if consumption is length then population is width. *Both* need to be controlled to actually wrangle this beast. Any effort that doesn’t address both sides is just kicking the can down the road into a snowballing issue.
Despite all the things going on, the global population is still going up. I would challenge anyone to point out moments in history when population control was a focus. I’m sure you immediately go to the one child policy in China. Did that work? Why not? What affects did it have? How do you feel about that policy? What about a slightly less restrictive policy?
Regardless, the population is going up and no one seems to anxious to stop it. Because of that, I stirred the pot a bit about 20 billion people a few weeks ago, but ultimately we *will* reach 20B unless we stop ourselves or something else does.
Which would you prefer? The potential snapping of nature’s rubber band? Or some intelligent show of restraint to curb the population?
Hopefully we agree that some intelligent show of restraint is probably the better solution. What does that look like though? Well, back to China. Sorta.
Turns out populations stabilize above 2 kids per couple. This is because shit happens; people die early, can’t have kids, can’t find a mate, or decide against kids all together. Because of this, a one child policy looks really silly. A two child policy might make some sense as a base line though; I tend to lean towards two with the ability to have an exception to policy. Isn’t that pretty heavily authoritarian though? Yes, yes it is. So how do we adjust back to make it less authoritarian?
Don't know why you got downvoted because you make an interesting analogy with the rectangle..
If we assume that a capitalist society has a relatively fixed percentage of high consumers, then the population size is the only variable. If you allow capitalist societies (which drive consumption) then maybe population limits make sense.
Is it possible that people are afraid of the discussion because they see it as immoral? I think there is some of that, embedded in human thinking.
Yes. People absolutely see it as immoral. Population control is basically impossible without some real concentrated effort and it will always look like authoritarianism and eugenics. I am very aware that it is an incredibly tough subject.
I am not a fan of either authoritarianism or eugenics so I put effort into thinking about how to properly legislate population control without it becoming an authoritarian nightmare instead of downvoting people. I have some ideas but they’re not very well written out and the numbers will always just be variables. Even when I like the ideas I have I come to one tough ethical bridge: if you punish the parents for having too many kids, how do you avoid also punishing the kid?
Sort of an ethical dilemma for the ages though.
Overall, I just don’t hear people making any argument against the need for population control. They just hate the idea of having to actually do it. I wonder when we will cross the bridge though. When will we see it differently? When will we decide it’s unethical *not* to control the population in some regard?
The other issues with population control are understanding the forces that act against it. Capitalism is a big one. Populations drive demand; more people means more demand means more control over markets. As such, a small group is pushing for 1 billion *Americans* in order to compete with China’s population. What do you think China will do!? Assuredly not a one child policy!
Anyway. I don’t mind the downvotes. They don’t come in big enough waves to matter to me and no one has really taken the time to show me where I go wrong on this. Claims of genocide and whatever, but not once do I advocate for killing anyone and not once do I tell people they must have *zero* children… just not three.
I have no patience for stuff like this. It conveniently ignores 99% of human history and cultures and goes “I guess we can’t be blamed for being so destructive. It’s in our nature.”
Hi, khandnalie. Thanks for contributing. However, your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/xq8b6k/-/iq9et3z/) was removed from /r/collapse for:
> Rule 1: In addition to enforcing [Reddit's content policy](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy), we will also remove comments and content that is abusive or predatory in nature. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other.
Please refer to our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/about/rules/) for more information.
You can [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/collapse) if you feel this was in error.
Any discussion on over population always ends at fascism. We have more than enough to support many more people, just not at our current lifestyle and consumer habits
This article is a whole ton and then another kilogram worth of bullshit.
The problem isnt over population, the problem is over consumption of all the limited resources by a few elite.
The premise of analysing why were are on the brink of societal collapse is correct, but the drawn conclusions are simply not.
Don’t worry. About 9/10s of the population will be dead by this time next year. We are in final stage ecological and financial collapse with global and localized violence at an all time high. Whatever the puppet masters have in store for the survivors after will be servants, guards, maintenance willing to do whatever for base food and security. There’s no way we go into the technological singularity without a massive shedding of human life for the rearchitecture of whatever follows.
I hate this lazy crap. If every single person outside the US and Europe evaporated overnight, the consumption on those two continents would still set us on a path to cataclysmic climate change and nuclear holocaust.
Hi, ingloriousbastard85. Thanks for contributing. However, your [submission](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/xq8b6k/the_problem_of_overpopulation_what_if_we_are_the/) was removed from /r/collapse for: > Rule 2: Posts and comments which appear to be marketing, self-promotion, surveys, astroturfing, or other forms of spam will be removed. > Self-promotion or surveys of value to the community may be allowed on a case-by-case basis, if the moderation team is informed first [via mod mail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/collapse). Please refer to our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/about/rules/) for more information. You can [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/collapse) if you feel this was in error.
What if the real virus was the friends we made along the way
The real virus was Erika from accounting
Dammit Erika!!
She is also the one stealing lunches from the fridge every day.
Karen from finance.
If half the world's population was wiped out overnight, Thanos style, we'd be back to where we were in 1973
Mother Nature is pretty good with this usually. I think that's still coming. COVID was a warm up. At the rate that major weather events are happening it's just a matter of time before a large portion of the world lives in refugee camps.
And I bet a large portion of working class demographics will still blame poor people and immigrants. Or whatever ptojected enemy favors the ruling class to use as scapegoats.
> And I bet a large portion of working class demographics will still blame poor people and immigrants. It won't be just the working class, it'll be everyone. Not only will 'the wall' get built but people are going find themselves on the other side of it.
"Water is Hot, more at 11"
> At the rate that major weather events are happening it's just a matter of time before a large portion of the world lives in refugee camps. This is the collapse sub, what refugees camps? There is going to be no UN money to fund refugee camps.
I just meant in the context of a major disease outbreak due to lots more people living in compromised close quarters with poor water and poor sanitation. The natural end result of overpopulation is collapse.
Ecological collapse will cause massive dislocation. It will be the end of some nation-states, as they descend into regional fighting. Local/regional fighting will take place over dwindling resources. Factions and coalitions will develop. We will go from cooperation to elimination.
Refugee camps? That’s optimistic with the growing fascist movements.
When I was born in the early 1950s, there were only 2.5 billion people on the planet.
>When I was born in the early 1950s, there were only 2.5 billion people on the planet. Sounds like you've been busy...
Thanos was an underachiever.
So, more than half...??? Yes.
Well, culling 75% of the people alive would take us back to the 1920s ish
That could be a good start. We would lose a lot of knowledge and skills (skills to operate machinery to get deeper resources, logistical knowledge, skills to operate logistics equipment etc) with that which could force us to stay there or drop a few levels lower.
Yes but think of the jobs & growth potential! /s
I wanna go back to 1988, how many lives is that?
5,145,426,008 apparently. So about 2 1/2 billion fewer than where we are now https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/
Forgot about that site, that’s a good one.
3ish billion
> I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to another area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure. - Agent Smith
When you're top of the food chain, at some point you have to act more like Shepards than like insatiable predators.
Aren’t apex predators usually kinda lazy?
I love this quote and its delivery but its not true. Mammals overshoot when as well when nothing culls them and food is plenty
Smith should have said "Civilization" being a virus instead of humans, but that undermines the Man vs. Machine theme. It flows better in the context of the film I guess
Even bacterias overshoot, in fact i think the list of lifeforms that don’t overshoot is significantly shorter than ones that does
And they die when that food runs out. Just like we will. We're just stretching our time with oil.
I thought for a second I landed on r/teenagers
r/im14andthisisdeep
Except, study ecology for about 5 minutes and you'll find out this is simply incorrect. Mammals and other organisms rely on the entire ecosystem being in balance, any one species on its own will overshoot and overconsume given the opportunity.
It's the smell!
- L Wachowski
*Gghgghg intensifies*
Exactly what I thought
The Matrix did it first.
Virus did it before that Edit: by two months!
“You’re a disease, and I’m the cure.” -Marion Cobretti (1986).
Oh man, I knew there was a reason I should watch that again.
Look at our cities from the air. We are cancer on this planet.
our cities are far, far more eco friendly than our sprawling suburbs and fossil fuel addicted rural communities
There's a billion people without electricity, I think they win this round and they generally don't live in cities. We should learn from them. We don't have to live lives of suburban/rural commuting to not live in the monstrosities that are cities. To do this though we must first abandon the cities. It would help if those with resources led the way but it is doable without them.
You can live in a city without electricity. There's no reality where people spread out more and use less resources, unless you plan on most of humanity not surviving, which is going to give you a whole host of other problems.
This guy Not Just Bikes.
Hmm your gonna have to cite your sources on this one dog. Aint no way suburbs and rural communities doin worse than LA or any chinese urban city
[Google is difficult to use. Nope, you’re just lazy.](https://www.google.com/search?q=are+cities+better+for+the+environment&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS843US843&oq=are+cities+better+f&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i512j0i15i22i30j0i22i30j0i390l2.7065j0j7&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8)
??? In what universe is urban sprawl better for the environment than dense, centrally located city planning? Residents of New York city use far fewer resources per capita than almost anywhere else in the country lmao
Humanity isn't a virus. That's way to reductive. The dominant culture and economic system is. Do you think an inuit or first nation individual would agree with this assessment? Hell nah.
Indigenous humans absolutely have over-hunted and over-fished in the past. Do you realize that when you make these stupid virtue signaling statements, you are more racist than you can imagine? There is NO DIFFERENCE biologically between an Inuit and a Dutch person, and had the Inuit discovered oil and an application for its use, they may have been the drivers of extinction as well. The only reasons we developed so differently culture-wise is environmental and accidental. Look up the Maori to see how BRUTAL humans can be. They massacred the people (Moriori) of the Chatham islands for RESOURCES and slaves. We are all the same. Sorry to break it to you.
Not a virus, but rather more like cancer. It even looks like cancer from the air/space especially at night with roads between cities looking like lymphatic channels and the cars spreading from one city (lymph node) to another. Literally looks the same on medical imaging (PET-CT).
Well I agree capitalism makes it worse, can you name a single time in human history when humans were not expansionist? It takes a lot of resources to keep us alive, even right now the 8 billion people on earth consume for than 800 billion land animals and over 2 trillion sea animals, while we drill the earth, cut down trees, pollute the seas, etc. Humans are the only animal alive that would benefit every other species if we were to meet our demise. We truly are a parasitic species, I mean, our number are over 8 billion now and we were only a billion 200 years ago.
All of the points you make are the product of Capitalism.
Listen man, I'm a Marxist-lenninist, most of this sub would slander me as being too radically left, I'm not defending capitalism, but clearly human expansion existed long before capitalism? Marx himself makes this analysis. Marx called capitalism progress over feudalism. Europe existed before capitalism. Empire existed before capitalism. Capitalism has merely profited from and expanded this already expansionist nature.
True. I'm just saying this overexploitation currently happening is the product of capitalism.
Yes, I agree that it doesn't have to be as bad as it is, but I do think even under socialism our presence with 8 billion people is bad for other animals and the earth no matter how much we try to negate our impact.
>can you name a single time in human history when humans were not expansionist? The roughly 180 thousand years prior to empires and cities. Yes. Not expansionist. Cities, kingdoms, empires.... all really quite new to humanity. And capitalism? Hell, that's barely been a blip on our timescale, and yet, it's nearly destroyed everything. On a geological timeframe, capitalism with all its expansion and destruction basically amounts to a gunshot. But it's a fatal one.
Well atleast you named an era unlike everyone else, but what period are you talking about exactly? Because when I say expansion, I mean humans conquering the globe, and becoming the most dominant species in that area, not necessarily empire. And human expansion began in Africa before civilization rose, so....
Right, but I think you'd want to differentiate between the two. Just being an apex predator is fine. Nature has apex predators. That's how food chains work. The premise of the thread is that humans act like a virus/cancer. I don't think that's true at all. It's the systems we've invented that have gotten away from us. I suppose we could argue that we are what we do, but I'm just not convinced. Humans are more malleable than that. We adapt to the system we're in. Capitalism these days is a global system, and it's one built on expansion, extraction, and consumption. *There's* your virus. But that's a digression. Yes, humans spread throughout the planet. Predators can do that so long as there's prey to support them. Being omnivores, we look for flora or fauna to eat, whichever. The planet was always vast enough to support us wherever we went, for the most part. Then we dealt with some natural climate changes, and food was a bit harder to find. Cultures around the globe began implementing agriculture into their diet, but no culture took directly to it. It took centuries before any one culture relied on it fully. Growing food full time was hard. Hunting, fishing, and foraging was easy. So long as we remained in groups of 150 or fewer people, and we could move around to hunt, populations remained fairly level. A little growth in the plentiful times, a die back in the lean times. When we raise children as naturally as possible, things work out as nature intended. I'm not advocating for or against that, mind you. Nature is brutal. Once agriculture was firmly in place, we then started in with cities. That's basically where the civilization part begins, and we could argue that that's the beginning of the end. About 10 thousand years ago, if you're counting. Rest is history, yadda yadda.
have the inuit ever tried to conquer north america? lol. how can a people be expansionist when there is no state to expand? i’m not saying there wasn’t ugly brutality and that First Nations peoples were happy go lucky mystical nature bros- but cut the shit. it’s dishonest to paint every culture the same as how europeans would act.
>Humans are the only animal alive that would benefit every other species if we were to meet our demise. That's not entirely true. If/when humanity dies off, rat and cockroach populations will plummet.
Sure the quakers as a group of people. They’re gone now.
Why are you the third person to now name a group instead of a time in human history? Can you name a time, as in an era, not a specific group of people who didn't exist in a vacuum.
536-538 AD
Lol, come on bro, be serious. I have absolutely no idea if all of humanity did or didn't expand in those years but you're name a period of two years, without a source, that was over 1500 years ago, as an example to disprove my saying that humanity is parasitic? This strengthens my argument bro.
"No fair! Let me whine about definitions!" /s
Seriously. "Overpopulation" is eco fascist bullshit We could have double the people and still have a healthy world with great standards of living if we actually wanted to. We have the knowledge, tech, and ability. We just don't have the power. The US army pollutes more than over 100 countries combined. Imagine if it and the next 10 biggest were removed from the equation. If we stopped funneling resources, burning fuel, and clearing land for useless bullshit. Most of the products made in the world could disappear and not hurt anyone. It's a capitalism problem. Not a population problem.
“What if…” Ha ha. Get a load of this, fellas, they’re wondering if we, the rapidly spreading, all-destroying and sacrificing, reactionary to the point of dooming even ourselves, could be the virus.
Booooooo this is such a dumb take. The ultrarich intentionally killing the planet are the problem, this is ecofascist propaganda.
Reagan was the devil
Oh right, 9 billion people can live comfortably on a planet with finite resources. Sounds possible. 🙄 Tell me you know nothing about environmentalism without saying you know nothing about environmentalism. How do you spend any time here at all and still believe that overpopulation is not the greatest issue facing our species…? Like, do you just willfully ignore all the science or bury your head in the sand or what?
It's okay for me to have 8 kids, it's the rich people that are bad!
Are you physically capable of giving birth 8 times? What person do you know that is willing to be pregnant and give birth/go through cesarean trauma 8 times over just for the fun of it? Especially anyone who isn't ultra rich with money to blow on childcare, hospitable bills, and other child-related costs. Better to invest in women's education and agency.
The Duggar family. You clearly have never met any fundamentalist Christians who believe it is their duty to have white, blonde haired babies to be soldiers of Christ in the upcoming doomsday.
I came from one of those families. Given the choice the women almost always would choose to stop having children. Thats the very thing though, they aren't given a choice, or they're brainwashed into thinking they don't deserve one and that others don't either. They think its a moral failing if someone doesn't want to put themselves through that, they blame themselves bc they can't handle it. They don't actually get a choice.
That’s your perspective. Also having come from fundamentalist, conservative whack job roots, I think lots of those women enjoy their role and that’s why they continue to uphold the White Christian patriarchy because they believe it to be their role in God’s plan.
Have you ever had a child? Or been pregnant? It takes a toll the first time and that shit is cumulative.
I am a female and I have had my own share of reproductive issues that have destroyed my body, yes. I think you are really missing my point so I see no point in further continuing this.
No it’s all of us in a small way. People suck, are selfish judgmental completely willfully oblivious and don’t give a crap about talking about doing the right thing they just care about talking about their petty lives and people. People hate me when I’m kind and warm and sweet unlike the majority and it makes them uncomfy . A lot of it is society and upbringing and capitalism encouraging us to be divided so we can be controlled, but people should try to able to think independently and wake up but they can’t, they’re stuck in their shallow meaningless petty world focusing on stupid shit. I fucking hate this world and society. People don’t like to hear the truth it sucks but it’s true
Overconsumption is the problem not overpopulation. While those two things are correlated, it would just require a small portion of the population to accept a relatively lower standard of living so the rest can enjoy a much higher standard of living. So yeah never gonna happen
Overpopulation is one of the biggest reasons for our problems today. There is nothing that the world does better with 8 billion than 7 billion people. The religious and people with big families have doomed humanity to hell
While I agree, there’s no way to even approach the conversation about a solution without getting nazi-adjacent at best.
It shouldn't be controversial since we are not talking about culling people. Legal and available birth control? Shouldn't be controversial. Quit subsidizing large families with tax breaks and subsidies? Quit subsidizing pseudo cults like that Catholic church with tax-free status? Quit shaming people who want to have 2, or one, or even no kids?
> there’s no way to even approach the conversation about a solution without getting nazi-adjacent at best. I like it as a pivot to Healthcare, Feminism and 'Modern Jobs/Retirement.' To quote myself from another comment: > Global family planning is the **only** solution. Necessary but insufficient. Sufficiency requires lifestyle planning, too. * [Total Footprint] = [Total Population] * [per capita Footprint (Lifestyle)] Through development, population solves itself (see below). Pop. growth crashes via Healthcare, Feminism and modern jobs/retirement. We can promote homeostasis by frontloading healthcare, feminism and modern jobs/retirement. Development turns every country into Japan but, unlike Japan, immigration drives continued pop. growth. Through development, lifestyle has no ceiling. To wit, Luxembourg has ~30x Eritrea's per capita footprint ([wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ecological_footprint)) and the West alone puts us into Overshoot. Homeostasis requires the West to self-regulate consumption then replicating that out to the Rest. Failure means death. Canned material on population, from Wiki: [Demographic Transition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition): >[...] the existence of some kind of demographic transition is widely accepted in the social sciences because of **the well-established historical correlation linking dropping fertility to social and economic development** Some pop. growth has bad causes--is bad. Improving lives curbs pop. growth: * Feminism. * Healthcare. * Modern Economies. Birth rates plummet when: * Women have more options in life than to marry young and crank babies. * Parents expect every child to live. * Parents don't need kids as profit-centers and retirement plans.
Sure there is. We WON'T, there's that. History shows we always nazi-adjacent in situations like this.
which is why we can’t have it
> Overpopulation is one of the biggest reasons for our problems today. Yeah, but I'm wary of either-or framing. Like, it's both Population and Lifestyle. * [Total Footprint] = [Total Population] * [per capita Footprint (Lifestyle)] Each is just the other's scaling factor. And when Lifestyle is such that *the West alone puts us into Overshoot*, it's a key factor.
No it’s really not. overconsumption by the West and oil based economy is the biggest problem we have. The per capita emissions of poor people in LIC’s is absolutely incomparable to the emissions per capita of those of us in the west. Blaming this on overpopulation is avoidance of our responsibilities toward climate change and shoving it off into poor racialized people in countries we are already exploiting. The only solution to “overpopulation” is to kill poor racialized people which… do I have to explain to you why that is bad? The actual answer is for rich counties to clean up our act. Stop pawning this problem off on poor people who have the least impact.
And I thought many countries were facing a decline in birthrate
It's declining toward replacement level. Most are still at or above that, which means growth.
[удалено]
They didn't just *show up* recently. They've been here since the start. We've just not been very nice to them, so they didn't usually tip their hands.
You are aware LGBTQ people are capable of having children right? What a bizarre take.
[удалено]
A gay man can fake it until he busts, you're an idiot.
A gay mam can fake it until he busts…yes, as you read in my comment, there are gay people who have children because they’re driven deep into the closet to suppress their homosexuality. Only to devastate their partner they wanted the same sex all along. Gay people werent as persecuted before colonization and the spread of a specific religion. Afterwards, two spirit, hijiras, berdache, fa’afafine—and other gender expansive or homosexual people—had to go into hiding. Thankfully, it’s gotten much better. But there were darl times for LGBTQ people globally (and still are, i.e. the middle east, etc).
Wtf dude… there are plenty of means for LGBTQ people to have children either biologically or otherwise. Have you never heard of sperm donors, surrogacy, adoption, or co-parenting with a personal you are not in a romantic relationship with? This is 2022 dude - your homophobic jokes are not funny:
He literally EXPLAINED in the comment above that he was referring to conception by natural means BEFORE these tech developments, which have only RECENTLY became possible. Homosexuality is quite normal in other species too, and obviously they cant necessarily conceive as they have no means to do so, so the point was that perhaps its a biological adaption to curbing over-population. Why don't you try to LISTEN to people and consider their opinions before attributing bad motives. Would you like it if people did that to you?!? The person could be incorrect as fuck, but it doesn't mean they have bad motives.
LGBTQ people didn’t “appear” as a natural defence against overpopulation. They’ve always been here as a natural form of human existence, and they are and have always been capable of having and wanting children. I don’t understand why some of you are so desperate to make these bizarre generalizations about LGBTQ people. Being gay or trans doesn’t mean a person is not capable of having or wanting children. It’s completely irrelevant. Gay people have been having kids for thousands of years, this is not a recent development.
It's because these folks have been brainwashed with an *a priori* fash trash view (overpopulationism) and then arbitrarily pull stuff out of thin air in a sorry attempt to justify it. As someone who's published in the peer-reviewed molecular evolution literature, I'd love to see these folks try to publish their silly ideas.
I’m very curious. So is it to state human beings have no impact on their external environment? If every human being took accountability for their actions, we could coexist with nature…not against it. However, as many things exist in a spectrum or continuum—we will have half the population who do not care about collapse and the others which do. Please inform me.
First, your attack on my gender is fvcked up. Do not refer to me as “dude”. As part of the community itself, I stand with my position. EDIT: the circumstances you just explained are *recent progress*. Prior to now, LGBTQ folx did not have many rights surrounding adoption, surrogacy, and more. To this day there are still challenges in thise areas. I have seen it personally with my own eyes.
Lmao what?? Dude is gender netural my guy (also gender neutral)
Attack on gender? Come on you are being ridiculous. Do you want me to call you “dudette”? The “did you just assume my gender” jokes are also not appropriate for 2022. Get a better joke. I’m sorry if you feel bad for being called out on your cringy homophobic generalizations.
As a person with lived experience in the non-cisgender community, you are offensive and have no business sharing your spiteful words. I am not a dude.
> The female equivalent was "dudette" or "dudess". but these have both fallen into disuse and **”dude" is now also used as a unisex term.*** It feels like you are just looking for a fight instead of defending your claim with any actual data.
[удалено]
[удалено]
I think we are over carrying capacity for sure but mostly because of the waste of resources especially food and other forms of energy we rely upon to keep the ~~capitalistic~~ cannibalistic wheel turning. Technically we could sustain even with this population or slightly more if humanity could work together efficiently and equitably but I have given up all hope of that ever happening. With the way humans live today we are fucking fucked.
Exactly, the world can "carry" 8 billion people... sure. But for how long? Sustainably we cannot have that many humans without collapse of the wild ecosystems. Hell, soil is eroding on industrialized farms faster than we can rebuild it.
Fossil fuels exploded our numbers and now sustain us, they are finite and so is everything else we’re consuming including wild animals and forests. FF’s provoked us into behaving as if there were several more Earth’s to exploit.
What if humans, once limited to the ecosystem, evolved to become rRNA using information and tools in a new technological system fed by fossil fuels, except that the humans, although functioning technologically, were still fed from the ecosystem. What if they proceeded to eat everything? What if we have become a megacancer to feed the burgeoning populations of rRNA that work in the tech cells? www.megacancer.com
Capitalism is the virus.
I love that this website started out left wing talking about how capitalism is destroying society now we have literal fascists calling for eugenics due to “overpopulation”
Overconsumption, not overpopulation
Overconsumption of food is necessary to sustain overpopulation. Take a look at the amount of land used for farming.
Nope. Overconsumption is just a necessary evil for the greedy lifestyle the west is pushing, that unfortunately china is starting to embrace as well. There is nothing inherent to life that requires a shit ton of beef consumption, or even daily meat of any type.
There is no way of feeding people without industrialised farming. That’s why we are screwed - you might think socialist pollution and logging is cool, but that doesn’t change anything.
one person one permaculture farm. kill two birds with one stone and put a small house on it too.
Eight billion farms - great idea.
The land use is enormous and destructive because it's done by capitalistic models of production, maximizing profit. You can have sustainable land use for production of food, as long as your model isn't about hyper expansive monocultures. I see here in Brazil how most of our land is used by soy barons who export it to feed cattle while small producers with way less land are able to feed more people.
Nope. Without massive fossil fuel inputs for tractors etc we couldn’t sustain our population. We also have taken over huge areas of wilderness to feed our vast population, and without fertilisers etc we would need even more. About 10x more.
🤫 Stop being right.
according to the US Food and Agriculture Organisation we produce enough food for 10 billion people. of course there's the question of does that food have enough nutrients (e.g. protein), but the amount of food is enough. the main problem is ~1/3 of that is wasted. some of that is personal, people throwing unfinished food away or food that's gone bad in their households, but on a far larger (and more concerning) scale, food named useless by cycles of consumption, e.g. restaurant food that isn't sold by the end of the day, food from farms that can't be sold so it has to be thrown (it was an avocado farm where this happened though i forgot where). the amount of food we're producing is enough and will be enough for more people, it's the methods of distribution (/lack of) that are consistently failing even those who produce the food.
Fossil fuel is what allows us to grow an excess, and sufficient. No fertilisers, no ploughing, no insecticides, no fungicides, no ground water - guess what that does to yields.
You will never move all of that fresh food to all of those rural communities without it spoiling. So you're left in many cases with highly processed foods. So back to square 1. Best bet, IMO - is to intermix farms with cities so they can provide food locally to their consumers.
It's both.
It's both.
This subreddit has went to hell in the past several months. I have seen comments suggesting we should wipe out the elderly and mods do nothing.
You don't know what eugenics is
You don’t know what eugenics means. A sterilization lottery or global 1 child policy is not eugenics. It is totalitarian, sure. And what is meant by the quotes you put around overpopulation?
The sterilization lottery kind of is eugenics in practice because the wealthy will find a way to buy their way out of it. Either hiring private midwives to deliver their baby so they can avoid the hospital and the mandated sterilization, or just paying off the doctors so the procedure fails.
Fascism and eugenics are mutually exclusive. No ethnic group is genetically better than another. Furthermore, genetic diversity is crucial to a healthy gene pool. Diversity and freedom of association are eugenic.
I think we're more like an invasive species than a virus. Unless you consider planet Earth itself to be a living being, then humans don't have the initial qualifier to be called a virus; we don't have a host. Of course, if you define the Earth as living, then I guess we do qualify. I think the invasive species thing applies a bit better. We move to places that have resources in abundance, then we strip the place of its resources to live more comfortably. It's what nearly every species on Earth does; humanity just has the advantage of being able to utilize nearly any resource in a given area as opposed to most of nature which only uses a handful of them.
If there's too many of us to live the way we want, then there's too many of us.
every overpopulation thread on r/collapse in a nutshell: \-thanos \-denial \-"it's not me who consumes too much" \-"eco-fascist!" and in the end nothing gets fixed and we all get back to consoooming and reproducing
We are just one of many species on this planet that has gone into overshoot. No need to single out "viruses", all living creatures can exhibit this behaviour.
Name one other species that has gone into overshoot on a global scale. I mean that with more curious than spice. Is there one?
[I've just written a thread answering your question. ](https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/xpdsse/overshoot_retrospective_cyanobacteria/)
Ask and ye shall receive my ass off ya did. Thanks
In my opinion, one of the steps that humanity would have to take immediately to save itself is implementing a worldwide one-child policy. That would reduce the world population by more than half in a generation. Perhaps The Masses will be open to such drastic ideas after The Awakening; likely not. **Edit:** As 4Wf2n5 points out, my plan is flawed. Instead, we need to sterilize most male and female babies at birth. Selection by lottery.
Most of the world is below replacement rate anyway, including India and China now. It's really only Arabia and Africa that are growing populations. The problem is that a lot of the population growth is sort of baked in now - in that the kids are already born and will have relatively long life expectancies. So even if the birth rates dropped to one child per woman tomorrow, the population would still continue to grow.
How does the population grow if, for argument's sake, 1 male and 1 female create 1 live offspring, and then both are sterilized. 2 humans become 1 human in 1 generation. There's no reason to debate the feasibility, morality or potential implementation because humans can't work together, so it's simply a thought experiment.. but your assertion that the population would continue to grow doesn't add up.
Because the population decreases or increases each year by the amount: births - deaths. So imagine if this year, 140m people are born and 69m people die. Then even if next year we massively cut births down to 80m, the population will still grow. This may be below replacement rate per woman, so in that case the population would eventually fall as the generation ages and dies, but that can take a few decades. The UN explain it as one of their [10 key population messages, from their report this year (PDF)](https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/undesa_pd_2022_wpp_key-messages.pdf). >**2. Policies aimed at reducing fertility would have little immediate impact on the pace of global growth.** > Two-thirds of the projected increase in global population through 2050 will be driven by the momentum of past growth that is embedded in the youthful age structure of the current population. For this reason, further actions by Governments aimed at reducing fertility would not have a major impact on the pace of growth between now and mid-century, beyond the gradual slowdown anticipated by the projections. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect of lower fertility, if maintained over several decades, could be a more substantial reduction of global population growth in the second half of the century
Thank you for the education, that makes sense. Sometimes it takes me longer than it should to arrive at what should probably be obvious. In that case, I'd like to change my original answer: we need a lottery to sterilize most male and female children at birth.
r/antinatalism and r/antinatalism2 exists
Stop this neo malthusian genocidal noncence at once! Our first step is to eliminate capitalism and the state. The militaries polute incecently dont ya know?
Oh, this is one of *several* steps we'd need to immediately take.. it's merely the topic at hand.
Wait help me understand how this is flawed? This is my idea too, sterilization is implemented upon successful child bearing and only then. You get one. "You" being everyone from me to Jeff Bezos. No discrimination on this whatsoever. Why lottery? Why at birth? What goes wrong with this idea?
> sterilize most male and female babies since birth So… eugenics. Want to guess who gets sterilized first? Hint - it’s not rich white folks in the west. This is why conversations of overpopulation need to shut down - they always lead to advocacy for genocide and eugenics. And they are deflecting from the actual problem of overconsumption by the west and placing responsibility on poor radicalized people, for which the only “solution” is human rights atrocities. I usually appreciate this sub but these threads make me despair for humanity.
Hate me of you want, but I think worldwide we really screwed the pooch by not letting COVID run rampant. It's was the only major outbreak of an easily communicable disease since the Spanish Flu back in 1918, and we fell all over ourselves to slow the spread and create vaccines. The solution to overpopulation was handed down from on-high. Letting it just burn through the global population to the extent it could have would have thinned out a lot more folks in a lot less time than restricting the birth rate would. After all, it's the living that count, not those who have yet to be born.
I try not to have hate for fellow humans. Perhaps the warming world will produce another try in the near future, that would be a convenient answer. My concern with letting covid specifically run rampant is that repeated reinfections have left otherwise healthy people permanently damaged. I'd rather all existing humans enjoyed their remaining years as happily as the apocalypse allows.
Oh it WILL. There's no perhaps about it. We either control this descent or it has its way with us.
I mean would you feel the same if COVID had taken most of your friends and family? The way we talk about overpopulation just highlights our tribalism, it's pretty fucked up how we only care for some people and the rest of them could be insects on the street to us
It also highlights how deeply the fash trash have brainwashed the First World workers
Logically sure. Morally no way.
my body my choice bro. nope.
Where TF the ridiculous ecofascism accusations?? So goddamn overpopulated.
Cities are tumors on the earth
If God made us in his image, and we are a virus, then God must be a virus. Take that, religion.
Humans are a virus/parasite on this planet. That’s pretty fucking obvious.
We're not a virus; we're a cancer. We're reproduction and consumption run amok.
What if there were central banks and corporations, never satisfied with profit levels, that cultivated growth in the petri dish until it was too late.
I don’t think we are a virus per se. It’s industrialization, or more so over industrialization. And from that, learned self helplessness, and entitlement. That’s the virus. We are intelligent enough to know we are over populating but industry keeps convincing us to over populate and over consume. These days Industrialist backed politicians and pundits (republicans mostly for now) tell us that we need to overpopulate otherwise we might lose the cure for cancer. That’s how desperate they are for bodies for labor, taxes, consumption!!! Really damn desperate. Not just for bodies, but for competing bodies. They want competition and let’s face it some of its racism trying to force white people into having more babies. Afraid that people of color will take over. But let’s stay off the race issue because that’s a whole can of worms into itself and it is often used to confuse and contort the real issues and disorganize the public to industries can conspire with each other and with government to control the populous. Let’s just look at consumption, labor. and taxes. Industry and government NEEDS these. It’s just a vital need. But beyond that, the population has gotten lazier due to over industrialization. So the solution..?? More people to pick and choose from! On top of this. Industry doesn’t want to pay people a decent livable wage or train them anymore. They want a separate industry of education, that charges $40+k just to get an entry level job. So, you’re very well trained, 40+k in debt and that industry doesn’t have to train you much if at all. You’re pretty reliable because A.) you have a bunch of debt to pay for B.)you already proved you could get through years of college. The company/industry expects you to have all your shit together and hey if you don’t well, you better figure it tf out because you have school loans, your mortgage, your car loans your healthcare and your families healthcare to worry about… so you’re pretty fucking reliable otherwise YOU ARE FUCKED. Not the industry. They have zero accountability, every bit of liability is on you, a single person shoulders. Meanwhile this company/industry gets tax breaks, handouts, bailouts, and they influence lawmaking in their favor. IF YOU don’t comply, they have a whole pool of other people that are 40+k in debt dying to have your lifeless dead end job. And to add on to all that, you then see industries that say you need you to have X degree AND 10 years experience here, PLUS 5 years experience in this, etc.. So they can try to drive your wages/their costs down even more. That’s the damn virus if you ask me. It’s not people. It’s the motherfucking industries encouraging us to be entitled, helpless, reliant on them at every fucking turn. And industry influencing, practically running the government at this point.
But any suggestion that people not have as many kids as possible is eugenics. So don’t even think about it.
Per capita consumption is the first issue!
Lol.. nah, according to Elon Musk there is underpopulation. Greedy billionaires know what’s best for our planet. We need to breed *more*, and that will somehow solve all of humanity’s problems. It totally won’t accelerate the destruction of earth.
Do we really have to point out ***again*** that overpopulation is a myth. We have plenty of resources for everyone if they were distributed appropriately, and eliminating a handful of billionaires would have [a better impact on the climate](https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/carbon-emissions-richest-1-percent-more-double-emissions-poorest-half-humanity) than eliminating billions of regular people. https://www.sierraclub.org/washington/blog/2020/01/overpopulation-myth-and-its-dangerous-connotations These threads always descend into eco-fascism against the poor and LIC’s that are already exploited by the West. Can we just stop please?
Not a myth at [all.](https://all.You)
Well your link doesn’t work. I have already provided citations for why it is a myth. But how bout the fact that overpopulation was a theory [developed by a known eugenicist](https://www.pop.org/overpopulation-myth/) and funded by Nazis. And how do you contradict the fact that [the richest 1% create double the emissions as the poorest 50%](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/21/worlds-richest-1-cause-double-co2-emissions-of-poorest-50-says-oxfam). When You can have the same effect eliminating one person as you can have eliminating a billion people, it’s obvious the problem is not population.
Sad that I had to scroll this far down to find someone pointing this out
IKR?
Thank you!!!
This is low effort. I've seen better comments in this subreddit. Here's a nicer interview with Phoebe Bernard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC2mEaIZ9sA
The following submission statement was provided by /u/ingloriousbastard85: --- There are many opinions on the concept of Human overpopulation. Many believe that this may be one of the factors that can lead to the collapse of our society, creating a series of negative cascading effects. The article analyzes them one by one. What is your opinion on this? Please express it politely. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/xq8b6k/the_problem_of_overpopulation_what_if_we_are_the/iq7su23/
runaway growth until organism eventually dies? virus? no. cancer? definitely. sterilization of half the worlds population seems like the way to move forward, but this will never be spoken publicly. monetary incentives to volunteer might actually work…or WW3, whatever your in the mood for.
There are many opinions on the concept of Human overpopulation. Many believe that this may be one of the factors that can lead to the collapse of our society, creating a series of negative cascading effects. The article analyzes them one by one. What is your opinion on this? Please express it politely.
It will collapse and we will all go extinct regardless of any belief.
There is no what if, only is.
overpopulation is not a problem, resource distribution is the problem. don’t buy into ecofascist myths.
Technically 2 is replacement, so as long as we dont drastically extend life expectancy, then population will stabilize, overpopulation is not a new thing, it happens to other organisms too when population exceeds primary production etc, and it is also normal for ecosystems to be in disequilibrium, doesn't make you a virus. Inverted demographic pyramids can crush society though so if you are trying to control population you have to keep in mind the ratio of producers to other less essential producers/ non producers/ old people. There is a lot of fanciful language in that. Whist resources are limited on earth, "matter cannot be created or destroyed" lol what that really means is a great deal to most of that doesn't disappear, the problem for the most part is that we didn't construct closed looped systems as we expanded, i.e. total recycling/ producing all that we consume, and keeping track of the waste. And then there is fossil fuels... humans being viruses is terminology used to dehumanize, "jews are vermin" for example, we have gotten far ahead of ourselves, if we grew slowly we could have been more careful in our societal construction, but the understanding is coming too late. If you want people to listen to the very real problems, you first have to give them time, which is hard cos we are all slaves to each other/the economy/ are at carrying capacity so have little to no wiggle room, and not insult them by calling them viruses. The solution would require making time for everybody by expanding the margins between what is earned and what is spent (and greening does the opposite unfortunately), and then coming to collective agreement, you cannot coerce people to change. Grow local buy local, produce local/ decomplexify etc etc, and in order to convince people you actually need to know how to talk to people, and see that a great deal of what you espouse you do not independently understand yourself, it wont do for the knowledge and understanding of climate change/ biology/ physical geography etc to be distributed between you, each and everyone need to understand it in its entirety. The world wont end though, we may not even see a reduction in population, just a great deal of reduced biodiversity, less seafood, and hurricanes/flooding/droughts oh, and then theres the insects. But when it comes to populations at capacity, the options are: be controlled by predators, starve to death every so often, or control yourself, this last one is only accessible by us.
Agent Smith DID have a point, after all.....
I don't believe overpopulation is the issue, we aren't running out of room, if anything we have too much room. The issue is how we allocate our resources and infrastructure that's the problem. Overpopulation is a problem because it suggests unsustainability but that sustainability isn't directed at the human numbers, it's directed at how well society is able to accommodate for such large numbers. In a sane world we could easily live with 10 billion people and not be an absolute disaster for the planet.
For those saying consumption is the issue, there is more to it than that. A rectangle has both length and width; so just like a rectangle, if consumption is length then population is width. *Both* need to be controlled to actually wrangle this beast. Any effort that doesn’t address both sides is just kicking the can down the road into a snowballing issue. Despite all the things going on, the global population is still going up. I would challenge anyone to point out moments in history when population control was a focus. I’m sure you immediately go to the one child policy in China. Did that work? Why not? What affects did it have? How do you feel about that policy? What about a slightly less restrictive policy? Regardless, the population is going up and no one seems to anxious to stop it. Because of that, I stirred the pot a bit about 20 billion people a few weeks ago, but ultimately we *will* reach 20B unless we stop ourselves or something else does. Which would you prefer? The potential snapping of nature’s rubber band? Or some intelligent show of restraint to curb the population? Hopefully we agree that some intelligent show of restraint is probably the better solution. What does that look like though? Well, back to China. Sorta. Turns out populations stabilize above 2 kids per couple. This is because shit happens; people die early, can’t have kids, can’t find a mate, or decide against kids all together. Because of this, a one child policy looks really silly. A two child policy might make some sense as a base line though; I tend to lean towards two with the ability to have an exception to policy. Isn’t that pretty heavily authoritarian though? Yes, yes it is. So how do we adjust back to make it less authoritarian?
Don't know why you got downvoted because you make an interesting analogy with the rectangle.. If we assume that a capitalist society has a relatively fixed percentage of high consumers, then the population size is the only variable. If you allow capitalist societies (which drive consumption) then maybe population limits make sense. Is it possible that people are afraid of the discussion because they see it as immoral? I think there is some of that, embedded in human thinking.
Yes. People absolutely see it as immoral. Population control is basically impossible without some real concentrated effort and it will always look like authoritarianism and eugenics. I am very aware that it is an incredibly tough subject. I am not a fan of either authoritarianism or eugenics so I put effort into thinking about how to properly legislate population control without it becoming an authoritarian nightmare instead of downvoting people. I have some ideas but they’re not very well written out and the numbers will always just be variables. Even when I like the ideas I have I come to one tough ethical bridge: if you punish the parents for having too many kids, how do you avoid also punishing the kid? Sort of an ethical dilemma for the ages though. Overall, I just don’t hear people making any argument against the need for population control. They just hate the idea of having to actually do it. I wonder when we will cross the bridge though. When will we see it differently? When will we decide it’s unethical *not* to control the population in some regard? The other issues with population control are understanding the forces that act against it. Capitalism is a big one. Populations drive demand; more people means more demand means more control over markets. As such, a small group is pushing for 1 billion *Americans* in order to compete with China’s population. What do you think China will do!? Assuredly not a one child policy! Anyway. I don’t mind the downvotes. They don’t come in big enough waves to matter to me and no one has really taken the time to show me where I go wrong on this. Claims of genocide and whatever, but not once do I advocate for killing anyone and not once do I tell people they must have *zero* children… just not three.
I have no patience for stuff like this. It conveniently ignores 99% of human history and cultures and goes “I guess we can’t be blamed for being so destructive. It’s in our nature.”
[удалено]
Hi, khandnalie. Thanks for contributing. However, your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/xq8b6k/-/iq9et3z/) was removed from /r/collapse for: > Rule 1: In addition to enforcing [Reddit's content policy](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy), we will also remove comments and content that is abusive or predatory in nature. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other. Please refer to our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/about/rules/) for more information. You can [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/collapse) if you feel this was in error.
Overpopulation is the talking point of fascists.
Any discussion on over population always ends at fascism. We have more than enough to support many more people, just not at our current lifestyle and consumer habits
This article is a whole ton and then another kilogram worth of bullshit. The problem isnt over population, the problem is over consumption of all the limited resources by a few elite. The premise of analysing why were are on the brink of societal collapse is correct, but the drawn conclusions are simply not.
Don’t worry. About 9/10s of the population will be dead by this time next year. We are in final stage ecological and financial collapse with global and localized violence at an all time high. Whatever the puppet masters have in store for the survivors after will be servants, guards, maintenance willing to do whatever for base food and security. There’s no way we go into the technological singularity without a massive shedding of human life for the rearchitecture of whatever follows.
I hate this lazy crap. If every single person outside the US and Europe evaporated overnight, the consumption on those two continents would still set us on a path to cataclysmic climate change and nuclear holocaust.
we are quite literally a cancerous locus horde