And run the machines, and farm the land, and make the next generation and on and on and on.
Except the need for this is in proportion to the population #1, and #2 diminishes every day with automation and machines. If there are less people, you need less workers, so there is no issue no matter what, and when you throw in robots, computers, factories, etc., it’s even less of an issue.
Did you know that most bricks in America are made today without ever being touched by a human being? People drive the machines that mine the clay, then they dump the clay in a location at the factory, and from there the clay is processed, made into bricks, packaged, and loaded onto trucks 100% by machine, run by a computer control room that 1 person operates.
Things that used to require hundreds of people to do can now be done with 1 person. In 50-100 years most jobs will be done by computer and robot.
Please now responsibility is also a genetic trait?...no evidence of course just wild speculation and “belief.”
Not exclusively. Like all things it is a mix of both genetics and environment. Things like attention span, however certainly have strong genetic components. Things like tendency to follow leaders or be independent thinkers, etc., has genetic components. It’s all a mix of course, but again, families are going to have both a genetic and environmental effect. People learn the habits and practices of their parents.
Not always, of course. Due to a huge range of factors sometimes people turn out much different than their parents. Usually, however, they don’t.
People have been claiming we are at the ends of our means, that the resources are running out forever, and yet we keep finding more and better ways, and we keep on growing in prosperity. How is that so? That is so because the only “natural” resource is human ingenuity.
Tell that to people in Africa and India, and even parts of China. Yes, advances in farming technology have been able to make more food available, and this may be able to advance even more. I suspect that we will be able to advance technology in ways to make it technically possible to double the population of the planet. Engineered foods, and materials are advancing and this will certainly make it possible to feed more people, but food isn’t the only issue.
Land is an issue. There is only so much habitable space. Things like terra-forming and a total weather control and nonsense like this is going to probably be technically possible within 200 years, but extremely costly and destructive to natural habitats. Do other animals have any right to exist?
We may be able transform things like the Amazon rain forest into habitable space for humans by totally destroying it, but is this a good idea?
You mean Hong Kong with one of the highest standards of living in the world? Hong Kong one of the greenest places in the world with nearly 80% of its land reserved for country parks? You mean Hong with one of the highest population densities in the world? You mean Hong Kong who’s only resource is its wonderful people? Yeah we are too cool, and proof (along with almost any other major metropolitan area) to the pudding that the hysteria of overpopulation is just that.
As someone who likes to live in the country, I’d certainly never want to live there.
Also, most of the wealth of Hong Kong comes from mainland China. If you weren’t simply a hub through which resources produced in other places was funneled your standard of living wouldn’t be high at all. Hong Kong is not self-sustainable, it relies on other areas to supply its wealth and needs.
The entire planet can’t be turned into Hong Kongs and New Yorks, it doesn’t work that way.
So then you agree? Birth rates are declining, on their own, without central planning? :? :? :?
They are declining among certain demographics, but not all. I never said that they weren’t, no one here did. Birth rates are declining most among well educated, responsible, intelligent people, and staying the same or going up among non-educated, less intelligent, less irresponsible, poor people.
First reality does not bear out your second statement but…What you just said it is going to get better and worse at the same time! Consistency please.
I’m saying that with increases in automation, declining growth rates, even in the face of caring for the retirement of boomers, is less and less of a problem. The Japanese are proving this with their advanced development of robots. The only real potential problem with population growth rate declines at this moment is one of relative numbers of retirees to workers.
This is only because there was a huge spike after WWII and because life spans are increasing. Automation and mechanization, which increases productivity, can of course make-up for this problem, because fewer workers can produce more, thus you don’t need as many workers per retiree anyway.
At the same time, as automation and mechanization advances, there will be increasingly less need for workers overall, especially low skilled workers, which is the segment of the population that is growing the fastest.
Yes indeed, some men have been crying about this particular sky falling since we stopped being hunter gatherers. And yet we work longer hours now that we ever did as hunter gatherers.
There is an ebb and flow of course. We have never been on the verge of creating computers more intelligent than humans before. We are on that verge now.
Hmmm and you add science fiction Bogey men as well? Plus the quality of life on this planet for most in this planet is better than ever before, we have better nutrition, better health care, better technology to fight off brutal inhumane nature, longer lives and healthier babies. That is why our population has grown.
Of course, but you do realize that the earth is finite right, and that at some point, there simply isn’t any more room or resources right? How many people can the earth hold? 12 billion? 20 billion? 50 billion? 100 billion?
In what capacity? We each live in 10X10 apartments and eat soy wafers? No forests left, no animals, just people, asphalt and bioengineering labs? At some point there is a limit to how many people this place can hold. As people live longer, that just makes the population problem worse.
Hyperbole and not one shred of fact or evidence to support your hypothesis.
I present generations of trailer park trash as my evidence
None of what you say explains the reality of what we see. And if it were true then in history all people were religious. What explains the 10% in America or nearly half of the UK being non?
All people in history were never religious. Indeed major organized religion is a relatively recent phenomenon, arising only within the past 4,000 - 3,000 years, and only in a few places. It has then been spread from those few places to everywhere else, and there has been resistance from the very beginning.
There have been times of more and less religiosity in various cultures, and in Europe now we see waining religiosity, while in America it is sustaining generally, or only perhaps very slightly waning.
Nevertheless, its obvious that growing up in a religious family increases the chance that you will be religious vs. growing up in a non-religious one.
It is awesome (in the scary me **itless sense) that with cobble together pseudo factoids and beliefs, one can generate such a brutal and totalitarian ideal of governance. But then Stalin, Hitler, Mao, many many Churches, all did the same, I shouldn’t be surprised.
More hyperbole and nonsense.
Population density has a direct effect on freedom and the need for other forms of social regulation. As population density goes up, the need for regulation every other aspect of society increases.
Take drinking and driving, or any traffic issue, for example. In the 1950s in America drinking and driving was hardly an issue, and in rural places it still isn’t a huge deal. If you get drunk and drive out in the farmland the biggest risk is that you will hurt yourself. In a city though you will almost certainly kill innocent people.
As population density goes up, risks go up and the need to regulate behavior goes up.
I think that a large part of the quality of life in America comes from the relatively low population density. We can still relatively easily own land here, own large homes, go out into places where there are no cops and do whatever you want, etc.
Look at England now, plastered with video surveillance, fees for driving into the city, etc.
There are definite compromises that come with population density.
Some population data:
Relative population per country:
Population growth projections: