Ways to deal with overpopulation

[Kiju]

No laws required.

No strict enforcement.

All that's needed is for the information to be spread around and shown that it is important, and most importantly: true. Then, we leave it to the people. If they want to do the intelligent, mature thing and stop popping out children by the baker's dozen, then cool!

If they don't (the more likely option)...then there is going to be overpopulation problems.

 

[Tselis]

I would go with something akin to China's One Child Policy, with increased access to contraception and more strictly enforced child limits (forced sterilizations for those who want 18 kids). Enforcement of sound policy and prevention, I think those two combined would be effective. Also, intro-fertilization would be outlawed and replaced with strict adoption protocols. You want kids and can't have your own, well guess what, there are more than enough orphans who need a good home.

 

[minimacker]

Or we, you know, colonize the parts of the earth that's pretty untouched. Siberia, Antarctica and countries with scarce population to area.

 

[Alaster Angelo]

Eh, more like Complete. GLOBAL. MASTURBATION.

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[SinisterGehe]

Education and birth control, medical-care and increase amount of jobs in the poor rural areas... Honestly, there is no other humane way.
If you want to find a morally questionable way, inhumane ways... Well just take a lesson from Nazi Germany or from the book of mass-destruction. There is plenty of inhumane ways to lower the population, but very few humane ways.

But the question is, if you choose the inhumane way, who you going to kill? African people? Chinese? Indians? I am sure you see the western countries to be something of too sacred to even kill a puppy in.

So. "Education and birth control, medical-care and increase amount of jobs in the poor rural areas" And not in the form of a church... Please, we all know where that can lead to. Basically we need to make sure that in the poor rural areas families do not need to get 10 children to guarantee their income when they can not work the fields. And by jobs I do not mean sweatshops, shoestring facilities or such, but good jobs that can self-sustain the country and give them a change to get to the international trade.

 

[Keepeas]

1. Make euthanasia legal, and where it already is make it easier.

2. Pour money into space exploration.

3. Further promote contraception, especially in developing nations.

4. Retirement-age extreme sports holidays.

I like the way you think.
That last point made me lol.

Seriously though, those are great points.
People need to stop having so many kids...

 

[brainslurper]

Have gaben announce that episode 3 has been canceled. Solution!

 

[winginson]

1) You get to have one child 'free', you want any more you have apply to the government for them. The government can refuse.

2) No child benefit after the first. So if you can't afford it, you can't have it.

3) Some way to stop people gaming the system. I dunno take unlicensed ones away and Sparta-ise them JOKE.

 

[crudus]

I did a little research on the projected population growth world wide and found the numbers to be quite disturbing.

Quick question: did you research or crunch the numbers yourself? Quite a few of those projections are done terribly and don't really take into account that people stop breeding when they can't eat. Last I check our population is just barely starting to level off(3-4 years ago).

No, no, and again no.
As a secular Humanist, the notion of selective breeding in humans (for example, eugenics) is disgusting and the notion that some deserve to live more than others is plain wrong.

For some reason it is making me smile that we have the exact opposite view points on this.

About a third of the world's population lives in Asia, mostly China and India. Overpopulation is an immediate problem for them, sure. But Europe, America, Australia and Africa have plenty of room to grow for now, though for the Aussies I guess it's a bit tougher to move out from the major cities because 99% of everything in Australia will eviscerate/poison/lay eggs in you if you so much as look at it.

Doesn't that still happen in major cities anyway?

 

[Snotnarok]

Easy solution, resurrect the nazis as zombies, we have a great big world war, America comes in to save the day (trolol). Population goes down, America won (trolling! KIDDING!!) did I mention fuck yeah?

In the case the Nazis can't be made into a zombie army, well, we could all drop our pants, moon space and hope for an alien invasion?

 

[Pandabearparade]

I dispute the notion that we're nearing population capacity. We're not. There is a -lot- of untapped arable land. Humans actually don't take up that much space, just yet. So... do nothing. The 'problem' isn't large enough to warrant inhibiting personal freedoms.

 

[Lukeje]

It's not really 7 billion. It's only about 7,000,000,000 people (i.e. seven thousand million). I still don't understand why Americans use the short scale...

I'm not following you, a billion is a thousand millions, so those two are the same thing?

What is 7 billion to you then if not the same as seven thousand million?

7 x 10[sup]12[/sup].

 

[Dfskelleton]

Anyone else think of this first?

I know! We just bulldoze everyone!

 

[Rainforce]

No, no, and again no.
As a secular Humanist, the notion of selective breeding in humans (for example, eugenics) is disgusting and the notion that some deserve to live more than others is plain wrong.
These days a man can live for two lives, two generations - literally, the average age in the western world is somewhere between 65 and 70, which means one could live through two lifetimes and accomplish twice more than his counterpart a century ago.
.
A solution?
Colonize Mars.
.
To tell you the truth, soon the price of food will rise, the availability of food will decrease... You will see bread riots in Seattle in a decade or two. That is how regimes are toppled and people die. A grim future indeed, but a future we cannot avoid.

so you want us to be the disease that spreads through the solar system and later all of space, huh.
always hungry for power, always expanding.

No way man, no EFFING way. We can keep ourselves under control.
you yourself think that we're no animals no more.

we really should rather keep our numbers under control with the little ressources we have.
I mean it's one entire fucking planet, how much more could we need.
Also, why are you giving nonexisting people rights, that's plain retarded. It's not even certain that said people will ever exist.
There's also enough food for everyone, just the way capitalism handles it wastes it en masse.
"A grim future indeed", huh. Well, "you ain't seen nothing yet"

@op restricting reproduction seems to be a good way, but I don't really want to trade in our longevity D:

 

[orangeban]

I support what I call "positive" population control, as opposed to "negative" population control.

Basically, "positive" control is stuff like more contraception, helping developing countries, better sex education.

"Negative" control is things like eugenics, killing off old people, stopping people from breeding.

 

[orangeban]

No, no, and again no.
As a secular Humanist, the notion of selective breeding in humans (for example, eugenics) is disgusting and the notion that some deserve to live more than others is plain wrong.
These days a man can live for two lives, two generations - literally, the average age in the western world is somewhere between 65 and 70, which means one could live through two lifetimes and accomplish twice more than his counterpart a century ago.
.
A solution?
Colonize Mars.
.
To tell you the truth, soon the price of food will rise, the availability of food will decrease... You will see bread riots in Seattle in a decade or two. That is how regimes are toppled and people die. A grim future indeed, but a future we cannot avoid.

so you want us to be the disease that spreads through the solar system and later all of space, huh.
always hungry for power, always expanding.

No way man, no EFFING way. We can keep ourselves under control.
you yourself think that we're no animals no more.

we really should rather keep our numbers under control with the little ressources we have.
I mean it's one entire fucking planet, how much more could we need.
Also, why are you giving nonexisting people rights, that's plain retarded. It's not even certain that said people will ever exist.
There's also enough food for everyone, just the way capitalism handles it wastes it en masse.
"A grim future indeed", huh. Well, "you ain't seen nothing yet"

@op restricting reproduction seems to be a good way, but I don't really want to trade in our longevity D:

Why can't we expand through space? We'll settle on some hunk of rock, devoid of life (the chances of us running into aliens is incredibly slim), and we use that useless boulder to improve all our lives. Surely that is something worth attempting?

 

[El Poncho]

Dig a really big cave and set up towns underground.

We may need a lot of dwarves to get it done properly though.

 

[gellert1984]

The Birth Lottery system in Larry Niven's Known Space universe seems to work well-
Every family can have two children, but you need to have a license for any more, which is achieved through a lottery.

Which work right up until a bunch of two headed space cowards turn up and start fiddling with the lottery trying to create lucky humans, only to discover that whats lucky for them may not be lucky for anyone else.

On Topic: Soylent green is people.

 

[orangeban]

2) No child benefit after the first. So if you can't afford it, you can't have it.

Here's the issue with this one, why do the rich deserve children, while the poor don't?

 

[Rainforce]

Why can't we expand through space? We'll settle on some hunk of rock, devoid of life (the chances of us running into aliens is incredibly slim), and we use that useless boulder to improve all our lives. Surely that is something worth attempting?

it's a good thing, if you put it like that. but it's a bad thing if we chew through planet by planet because our own one get's too small. I have no problems with outposts for explorative reasons, etc.. just the second we degrade into something primitive I'm kinda off the boat.