Over population. What's your solution?
I spoke to a doctor recently; I asked him why cancer and several other diseases were not being cured but instead treated. He looked me in the eyes and said "Because if we cured people then there would be no population control, and we can't have that." He went on to say that the medical industry is very aware of the problems that are created by the foods people eat, and then stated it was also in fact intentional to some degree.
So why is this happening? The answer is simple, we're over populated.
The food demand has vastly exceeded the supply so companies such as the FDA have passed laws, rules and regulations that allow certain products to be "injected" into the foods we eat. This has become allowable because the injected product(s) give longer shelf life and better taste to foods that normally lack nutrients, value and sustainability.
I’ve asked myself the question over and over “where is the solution” and the answer, as I see it, is simple “Educate people on the pro’s and con’s of having children” If people slowed the breeding patter by 1/3 for 3 years we could regain the value of everything we have already lost in the foods we eat.
Is this even possible? Can people set aside their needs and wants of having a child for 3 years? No, this has already proven impossible, and they don’t have to, they just need to thin their litters. Instead of having 2-3 kids they can have one.
I have more to say, but would enjoy hearing everyone’s view on this first.
As always, thanks for your input, and feel free to say what’s on your mind.
So why is this happening? The answer is simple, we're over populated.
The food demand has vastly exceeded the supply so companies such as the FDA have passed laws, rules and regulations that allow certain products to be "injected" into the foods we eat. This has become allowable because the injected product(s) give longer shelf life and better taste to foods that normally lack nutrients, value and sustainability.
I’ve asked myself the question over and over “where is the solution” and the answer, as I see it, is simple “Educate people on the pro’s and con’s of having children” If people slowed the breeding patter by 1/3 for 3 years we could regain the value of everything we have already lost in the foods we eat.
Is this even possible? Can people set aside their needs and wants of having a child for 3 years? No, this has already proven impossible, and they don’t have to, they just need to thin their litters. Instead of having 2-3 kids they can have one.
I have more to say, but would enjoy hearing everyone’s view on this first.
As always, thanks for your input, and feel free to say what’s on your mind.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Charles on -
I'm frankly astonished that your doctor would have the balls to admit something like that.
I disagree, however, with how you framed the debate. I don't think the problem is overpopulation. It's more like allocation of resources. Let's not forget that many people in impoverished countries have multiple babies because the children can ultimately bring in more for the family when they begin to work. Societal reasons are a major reason for the population boom.
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Permalink Reply by Burke Bryant on -
1. The doctor is actually a close friend of mine.
2. I'm referring to the US not impovershed countries.
3. Please also note that most countries currently impovershed are that way due to an increase in demand that cannot properly be supplied. Whether it's a city of 12 of a city of 12000.
4. You mention an allocation of resources. Is it not easlier to allocate resources for 20 than it is 200?
5. You talk about children in terms of a work force. The more children the more brought in.. The problem is there are not enough jobs due to over population, so a family is extremenly fortunate if 1 of the 5 members is working.
Please correct me if I completely misread your point above, and I'm sorry that you see this as a framed debate, It was not meant as such.
-Burke Bryant
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Permalink Reply by Gil on -
I don't think Charles meant to say that this is a framed/contrived debate. What I took away from his comment is that maybe the assumption that the allocation of resource problem is due to overpopulation may not be entirely true. While I agree that resources are easier to allocate among 20 than 200...it doesn't automatically mean that you CAN'T allocate current resources among the 200 if you planned and adopted a better approach. In which case, the shortage is due to lack of planning and not number of mouths.
I agree that family planning, emphasis on planing, needs to be promoted but I think the core issue comes down to those terms you used: needs and wants. We have wasteful behaviors as a society. We buy more than we need and want more than we have. I don't know if that will change for the better with less people around. Will those desires just translate into "yippie! more for me"?
I guess in that sense, I can see Charles' point. Although allocation and population maybe correlated somehow, the relationship isn't necessarily direct enough to see causality or say that decreasing one variable, in this case population, will increase everyone's share proportionally. I think some look to population-culling as an easy out that doesn't address the real problems of distribution.
Lastly, I know this was intended to be about the US but I find it despicable that people should starve to death in any country, when we have resources to throw away. I know I am not the only who got parentla speeches about not wasting food because of the starving children in Africa. Are those people starving simply because there are too many mouths to feed or because no one cares to give up resources that they will likely throw away or waste? IDK the answer...
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Permalink Reply by Finnegan Kelley on -
I agree with Balcer. Over population in general is not an issue. People crowding to cities to find work instead of creating work by expanding is the issue. Crime and corruption, due to city over population and under-education lead to starving people, not a lack of agriculture ready land. Well, that and warlords. Also locusts.
Your doctor is talking out of his ass. I'm sorry, but what is this guy, the go between for "the powers that be" and every shmuck that walks into his office? Just because he has a degree and a license to practice doesn't mean he is any more informed than anyone else. That was his opinion, pure and simple. Everyone has 'em; for all you know his "medical industry" reference was nothing more than a water cooler powow between a bunch of self-important douchebags. He's not admitting anything, he's just got a goatse problem in his northern most bits.
The problem isn't with people having children, the problem is with stupid people having children. Statistically, the higher the I.Q. the less the desire or logical imperative to pop out some chubby drunken monsters. And if intelligence is truly genetic, we're all fucked.
So to sum: If you smart asses don't start shitting out kids like skittles, the world will be one big Glenn Beck clusterfuck within but a few generation. But, if you do it'll be awesome. And everybody can stop dying because a diet of cheetohs and red bull seemed like a good idea at the time; and, you know, time travel and stuff.
Gaugh, time travel.
Also, your chubby drunken doppelgangers could probably send you to a retirement home like this:
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Permalink Reply by Burke Bryant on
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Finnnegan, I've read your post a few times just to make sure I get it correct. I quote you.
1. "Over population in general is not an issue" then you state --> " People crowding to cities to find work instead of creating work by expanding is the issue. Crime and corruption, due to city over population and under-education lead to starving people, not a lack of agriculture ready land.
It seems that you are complaining about over population in the above paragraph. Whether it's due to people crowding into cities instead of expanding agriculture, it still remains a population issue any way you want to look at it, yes?
2. Outside of that I feel your view on "popping children out like skittles" aligns you with the same type you dispise "stupid people". Let me try and explain. Lets say you have 4 cans of corn, and you decide to push kids out like skittles. Now you have 6 kids and 4 cans of corn, no source of income and everyone is hungry... what happens now? That type of mentality to me is 1096, and don't be fooled, it's not a space problem its a supply problem. If people only want to grow food on 4 acres when they have 10 then so be it, the problem reamins the same the demand is higher than the supply, thus a population problem any way you decide to look at it.
-Burke Bryant
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Permalink Reply by Jef on -
We could make all the rich people who live on 3 acres of lawn around here plant greens instead. There is tons of land around my parts where people mow and poison 2-3 acres regularly. If you need a stress reliever, do some yoga and stay off the lawnmower!!
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Permalink Reply by Finnegan Kelley on
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The world doesn't have too many people, cities do.
Also, I appreciate the extra "n," I read it as though you were sighing my name in exasperation. Nice.
I get the point you're making. Trying to make, whatever. Thing is starvation and malnution is just as - if not more - rampant in regions of relatively low populations, sitting on some of the most farming friendly soils and climates in the world. Africa, China, South America: Google. Almost everyone else sits on oil, so screw them, they can import.
I know you live in the land of the orange and vapid, but if you've ever been to the east coast (land of diners and factories and all that is good and just in the world aka Wawa) you will notice that we have a lot of trees. Trees that just kinda sit there, looking all deciduous (unless you're in NE, in which case, coniferous - at least mostly. I think. I haven't been in a while.) We could probably do something about that, something like replacing 1/4 with fruit or nut bearing. Maybe throw in a few berry bushes. Johnny Appleseed the place up.
So what happens then? Well, then you have government (most likely) owned produce. Who knows, maybe they could be free-use, otherwise, resonably priced. (We could get into how that could fund socialized health care without raising taxes or restricting on a case-by-case basis, but that's a different discussion.)
So say then we have a country covered in free (or otherwise) produce. It's everywhere. Apple trees in the suburbs, people fencing their lawns with berry bushes sans shrubbery. Forests of diversified fruits and nuts, and the equivalent for the South, Midwest, and West Coast. Maybe replace a few soy and corn fields with something edible.
My point is, the solution to "over population" is not restriction (and I still stand by encouraging higher IQs to procreate) or culling by disease (a notion which is such bullshit, I'm surprised you weren't on Suvine's threads this weekend, handing out build-a-bunker fliers.) The solution would be to create the crop equal to the demand.
Easy-peasy.
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Permalink Reply by Finnegan Kelley on
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Me too, but most of the stuff they grow is inedible ^_^
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Permalink Reply by Ian on -
And let's not forget that agriculture itself may be the actual problem and not the solution, as subsistence economies who do not align themselves with a division of labor, nor ones that utilize stagnant land for growing food do not face nearly the shortage of supply that modern societies do. But to hear modern-day wankers and "futurists" speak of our progress, one often wonders just how mankind was even able to stumble into the 21st Century without the endless array of technological wonders we currently have.
In order to move forward, it seems, one must look towards the past.
Finnegan's assessment is very much along the lines of your modern pre-20 college student who has already experienced everything in life already: big on "issues" that face us, but little on actual solutions to them ...... which is all the "real world" even wants, anyway ;-)
Ian
"not enough answers, and cash paid for questions
waste-paper baskets filled with good suggestions"
- Martin Walkyier (Skyclad) - 1997
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Permalink Reply by Finnegan Kelley on
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Nope :)
But I imdb'd, looks nifty.
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