Poll: Would you support a human Genophage?

[Comando96]

Wait... waitwaitwait... You're siting The Onion... a SATIRICAL news website... as an accurate source of information. Are you f'ing kidding me? THE ARTICLE TALKS ABOUT THE FORCED KILLING OF 2.3 BILLION PEOPLE. If you take this seriously, I feel genuinely sorry for you.

Please tell me that I've just fallen for your troll, and you're not actually this stupid. Please.

You... cited... the Onion...

You're amazing, man. I didn't think people fell for that any more.

Also, having the Onion as your first citation says very bad things about overpopulation being a problem.

That was not exactly a troll because the basic fact of the matter is... the human population needs to fall and oil keeps it high by going into fertilisers and pesticides... however if someone says [citation needed] for an issue as simple as this (rather than looking themselves)... Yeah they deserve the onion...

Sorry for combining a troll and serious comment in a single post without stating so

(if we needed to cull 1/3 of the population by 2025 what good would a Mass Effect Genophage do?)

 

[Haukur Isleifsson]

I really don't see overpopulation as a problem. If you look at the big picture the size of a population (human or otherwise) is ultimately limited by the availability of the resources needed to sustain it. And when the population exceeds those limits it culls itself naturally, war, famine and so forth. What will change is the lifestyle we can lead. The way things are going we will soon have to limit the extremely energy-expensive luxuries we enjoy today. So no we will not drive ourselves into extinction. But we very well might drive ourselves into poverty.

 

[Yopaz]

While controlling the overall population growth would probably be a good thing...There is NO WAY to do so without being biased, or without making people THINK you're biased. Even if you have a perfect and fair system, there will always be people who will be upset at the system and who will strike at it.

It would not work. It just wouldn't.

On a side note, though, It would be neat to not have to worry about needing contraceptives while having sex, if the system was implemented not too differently from the Combine's system (Half life 2)

Limiting the numbers of birth is a good idea, but I think China has the right idea. Give them a choice to get a second kid, but make sure they can afford to pay extra for it. Reducing fertility is not the way. Increasing level of education and welfare will in time reduce the birthrates and it could possibly improve our agriculture making it possible to feed more people.

Ok THIS is a good idea.

But the problem is...well...Humanity (in general) is stupid.

There are people who don't WANT to be educated, and don't WANT their kids to be educated, and who think that any social welfare systems are evil, and WANT to have 5 kids they can't support (and then demand the state help them pay for them), while claiming that birth control is the devil.

I don't see how you're going to convince those people to follow/support these rules. They will get mad. They will cry foul. They will raise holy hell over it.

Yeah, that's the sad thing in this. We need to change the minds of a lot of people with no desire to change. Stupidity will always prevent changes the world really needs.

 

[Lethos]

Ah, a thread where all the ultra-authoritarian misanthropes get to come out and touch themselves. Because instead of promoting education and development, it's much better to forcibly inflict total infertility on the human populace.

I'm just going to stop trying to remain classy for a moment and make an observation that there is probably a large concentration of frustrated virgins on this forum.

 

[TheProffesor]

No. A human genophage is a bad idea because our populations are not explosive compared to the Krogan. The Krogan bred like crazy and lived for thousands of years. Something HAD to be done. They drained fresh garden worlds in a few decades.

Humans, on the other hand, can control our population through expansion. We'll simply expand into space and find more places to live. With proper incentives to move, the population can grow safely.

 

[Erttheking]

The Krogan were a war hungry species that expanded like wildfire and sowed chaos, destruction and mass genocide wherever they went, and even then the genophage on them is considered a gray area. You can't do the same thing to Humans and call it just.

 

[Thyunda]

We've got more people than we can actually do anything with - hence the overly high unemployment levels and struggling businesses.

Yeah, its not like government officials ran the economy into the ground. Oh wait, that's exactly the case.

If you used your brain for five seconds, you would realize how stupid that sounds. The population increase means that the work force and consumers grow. The demand for workers goes up and the supply of workers goes up. Duh!

Everyone currently on the planet could live in an area of 250,000 square km (that isn't even one fifth a percent of the non-polar land on Earth). I think we have enough space. There are enough resources on this planet to sustain fifteen times the world's population indefinitely (that's adjusted with comfort in mind). And let's not forget that technology will advance in ways that will reduce some resource usage long before our population quintuples.

Replicators for example:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091110071535.htm

I don't think you understand how the economy works. Overpopulation leads to more people than jobs. More people that jobs leads to a greater percentage of tight-fisted 'consumers'. Businesses then start struggling and have to make cutbacks. More people are unemployed. More of the consumer base have no money. Less people spend. More businesses shut down.

Christ. No wonder we're in such dire straits.

When did overpopulation become a problem? I don't remember widespread food shortages. We're not running out of space to farm or build cities. We're not cramped into communal housing. It's not like someone in a crowded city can't move somewhere else.

This is a stupid idea, we're not going to consume earth any time soon.

Overpopulation is a major problem. We've got more people than we can actually do anything with - hence the overly high unemployment levels and struggling businesses. The problem isn't that there isn't enough business, it's that there are too many people. And that's the very best of it. This doesn't include the mass starvation in third world countries. To deny overpopulation is to deny that fire is hot.

While I don't agree with what you're saying, I respect you for having Zee Captain as your avatar.

I maintain that overpopulation isn't the real problem, I think it comes down to money. It's not that we have too many people, it's that it's that there just aren't enough jobs being made for them. Billions of dollars are sitting in rich folk's bank accounts doing fuck-all, when that money could be invested or spent somewhere else. Invest in a business, invest in the government, do something humanitarian. The planet is sustainable, we sure don't need to start chemically castrating people. We just need to get the rich fuckers and governments doing their part instead of lining their own pockets.

Even then, I won't deny the mass starvation in third world countries. But that could still be helped with a more determined aid program from the wealthier nations of the world. These countries could be developed into self-sustainability, but not enough people out there can find the money to put forward.

Distribution of wealth is indeed the biggest problem in third world countries and such. Bigshots have all this money. Other people do not. However, in more condensed areas with our economic struggles, that's where overpopulation is the bigger problem. A billionaire could do wonders for South Sudan. He couldn't help me in the same way. Well, he could, but it's not really practical in the long term.

 

[SD-Fiend]

nah, we just need to rid the world of religion, that would result in birth control and boom smaller families

1:that's not even clever
2:there's more than one religion(I'm geussing you think all religions are Christianity/catholicism]
3:that's not how anything in the world works.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

No? Ethics people, fucking ethics. The birth rate is higher in underdeveloped countries, so, in my opinion, the fairest, most ethical way of sorting out overpopulation is to develop these nations. This genophage is the lazy man's option.

 

[Raddra]

Genophage? No.

The governments growing a backbone and introducing sensible laws on birth control designed to combat this? Yes.

 

[rekabdarb]

No, and for a specific reason.

Krogan reproduced at 200 at a time.

Humans do it usually 1 at a time.

 

[chadachada123]

NO. Absolutely not.

If, however, the 40% of you in favour want to sterilize yourselves and achieve it that way then I have no complaints.

No can do. I've got damn-fine genes. It'd be a disservice to humanity.

 

[cookyy2k]

The nukes will be a problem in WW3, as they will be used eventually. Humans lack the common sense to not use them. But if we're lucky fission bombs would have gone out of style by then. Which leaves us with nice clean fussion bombs (no fallout). If we're starting with those then the population might actually be significantly reduced to say a billion or so. (Only the cities will be bombed, because the bombs could be intercepted before impact, therefor bombing anything that isn't a city is too much of a risk)

Go look up a fusion bomb, you'll find they're known as hydrogen bombs. The trigger for a hydrogen bomb is a fission bomb. Also whilst on this topic, Hydrogen bombs are the ones that have actually fallen out of fashion as they're way too big to be practical, since the cold war the trend has been making small fission bombs for surgical strikes as opposed to mass destruction. A trident for example carries 12 fission warheads, independently targeted with yields ranging from 10-100 kilotonnes. The general aim of western research is towards smaller and smaller yields.

OT hells yeah it's a good idea, some technicalities would need to be worked out but it has a good goal.