I was born in 1984, which according to Wikipedia means I'm either one of the younger members of Generation X or one of the older Millennials.
Go with Gen X. We're way cooler than Millenials.
Oh, and the world is not overpopulated.
I was born in 1984, which according to Wikipedia means I'm either one of the younger members of Generation X or one of the older Millennials.
And the whole point of the answer is to point out to you that the definition of "overpopulation" means monumentally more than whether we can create enough food paste tubes to prevent starvation. You fail to notice this point.
What is life? Why not just put people into life support incubators and let them interface via computer simulation?
What is life. An existence worth living. And your scenario does not produce one,
therefore, it describes a higher population than can be supported for "life".
Overpopulation happens long before we are living in towers with a pass to visit the local outdoor square mile once a year.
You think a voluntary move of a single person to the current sized city is the same as forced migration of all people to megacities with respect to how much of a catastrophic change it would be for society? "rollseyes"?
I think you misunderstand what a catastrophic social upheaval it would be to need clustered megacity existence for all people.
Now, Oxygen is readily available from any rocky body (say, the moon.) Hydrogen is only readily available in the outer solar system. Carbon and Nitrogen aren't so easy to come by. You're going to have to keep supplying your farm with all of these.
I was discounting the stuff that isn't viable in this case.
Sure, water turbines do well--but there's not that much hydro power available. Note, also, that there would be *NONE* available under the conditions needed--if you leave the water in the environment we turn into a Venus.
I didn't say the most efficient. I was limiting myself to what could actually be used on this scale.
No solar in this world--it's all being used to grow food.
I doubt that a single world city could ever work in practical terms. The sheer scale of infrastructure to transport food from vast areas of farmland and factories, include vast mountains of waste products, commuting, recreation and so on... it would be a nightmare. Not at all practical.
But... it doesn't. That's literally what overpopulation is about; whether or not our population outstrips the available resources necessary to support it.
The notion of overpopulation has NOTHING to do with whether or not you get to keep your giant country home and obscene (relative to that of most people) lifestyle.
You're right, I do not understand wanting that.What is life? Why not just put people into life support incubators and let them interface via computer simulation?
You may not understand; but I wouldn't be all that opposed to that idea.
Nah, I didn't tell them that. Your scenario requires everyone to become vegan and the city populations to expand dramatically. Pupulation density is one thing, but all of those current city people _can_ get to the countryside in less than a day. Make your cities huge and you take this away from them. (among many other things, obviously)What is life. An existence worth living. And your scenario does not produce one,
Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. You've just told the majority of the world's people that their existence is not worth living. Most of us are just fine with high urban density living, you know. In fact, qualify of life is considerably higher in the average western city than it is on the countryside. If people are happy to live in paris at its current density, they would be happy to live in a paris a 100 times the size but with the same overall density.
Oh, but I did. It's what people choose now.therefore, it describes a higher population than can be supported for "life".
Ridiculous. You mean, it describes a scenario which you've arbitrarily decided isn't worth living (without establishing why)
You thuink a 700Billion population will be able to go visit nature without a pass system? Our current national parks require one, why would that change when the number of people visiting them is increased?Overpopulation happens long before we are living in towers with a pass to visit the local outdoor square mile once a year.
Nobody said anything about outdoor passes; no need to be melodramatic.
I can see that you don't understand this. It still exists.You think a voluntary move of a single person to the current sized city is the same as forced migration of all people to megacities with respect to how much of a catastrophic change it would be for society? "rollseyes"?
No, but forcing people to move to the city is hardly 'catastrophic'; especially assuming that it's done for the purposes of reducing humanity's ecological footprint.
"Oh no, the government bought my rural country house and is forcing me to live in the big city where I'll have easy access to things like high-speed internet, department stores, countless entertainment venues, and so on! It's horrible!"
I think you misunderstand what a catastrophic social upheaval it would be to need clustered megacity existence for all people.
That word, I don't think it means what you think it does.
Most of us already live in clustered megacities; somehow we're doing okay. You rural hillbillies can learn to adapt if need be.
Most of us already live in clustered megacities; somehow we're doing okay.
dystopian said:It could increase a hundredfold and it would still be something we can cope with.
Actually, there are large supplies of Hydrogen on the moon. Carbon is in fact found in plentiful abundance in the solar system. You don't even need to go to the outer solar system to get it either; you could harvest it from the atmosphere of Venus. Nitrogen of course is much rarer; however, the solar system is hardly devoid of it. In fact, there's significant supplies of nitrogen on the moon itself and in various comets... and Titan is practically soaking in the stuff.
I was discounting the stuff that isn't viable in this case.
Sure, water turbines do well--but there's not that much hydro power available. Note, also, that there would be *NONE* available under the conditions needed--if you leave the water in the environment we turn into a Venus.
I'm sorry, what? You're still talking about that cover the planet's entire surface thing right? I thought we agreed that wouln't even remotely be necessary.
I didn't say the most efficient. I was limiting myself to what could actually be used on this scale.
Bullshit, don't backtrack now. You explicitly said our most efficient powerplants were only 33% efficient. You did not qualify it by saying "only the powerplants we'd be able to use at this scale".
What was the point of me explaining how LED based farming is already far more efficient than regular sunlight? And I don't think you understand how solar works; nothing would prevent us from using using regular sunlight to both grow crops AND generate power; it's not one or the other.
And besides that, the Japanese are already working on orbital solar power plants that beam the energy back down to earth.
dystopian said:It could increase a hundredfold and it would still be something we can cope with.
Not one of us anywhere lives in a megacity of the size required for a HUNDREDFOLD population increase. That may be where you are confused by the answers you're getting. I'm looking at your earlier scenario and applying it.
List of largest cities
The largest American city is merely 1/3 the size of the largest city on the planet (either by raw population or by population density). 1/3. Not 1/100th.
A hundredfold. ?
No, most of us are certainly not living in megacity style. None of us are.
So, to expand: this hundred-fold increase in America alone (assuming no one from the rest of the world migrates here)
would establish cities with the density of approximately Miami,
from coast to coast and throughout Alaska, with no break for lakes, swamps, rivers, mountains or deserts.
It would leave no space for farming, water reservoirs, sewage treatment, or waste.
It would leave no room for parks, wildlife or wilderness. Miami. Coast to coast.
The notion of overpopulation has NOTHING to do with whether or not you get to keep your giant country home and obscene (relative to that of most people) lifestyle.
~snort~ I grow much of my own food and I have an outhouse (well, I have indoor plumbing, too, but a lady needs a place to go outside). I live on a dirt road and the house is a hundred years old.
Nah, I didn't tell them that. Your scenario requires everyone to become vegan
Pupulation density is one thing, but all of those current city people _can_ get to the countryside in less than a day. Make your cities huge and you take this away from them. (among many other things, obviously)
Oh, but I did. It's what people choose now.
You thuink a 700Billion population will be able to go visit nature without a pass system? Our current national parks require one, why would that change when the number of people visiting them is increased?
1. It means that overpopulation means a vast complexity of things and you are concerned with only a single one of them, nutrition.
2. Why force people to adapt if you don't have to?
3. "countless entertainment venues" does not solve all problems, nor meet all needs.
and make up your mind. Am I a rural hillbilly or an obscene country estate? LOL
I don't see how you can claim that is the only definition of overpopulation. If you have to change everything to sustain it, you've shown that you overpopulated your previous environment.
I don't see how you can claim that is the only definition of overpopulation. If you have to change everything to sustain it, you've shown that you overpopulated your previous environment.
By this definition, the world has been overpopulated since the widespread adoption of agriculture. If you want to use this definition, then I am forced to agree that the Earth is overpopulated; but you must equally accept that it really is not a problem at all. After all, we have been overpopulated for longer than we have had history, and yet quality of life for all has improved beyond belief for all of that time.
The question 'Is the Earth overpopulated?' is rather like the question 'Am I going too fast?'; the answer is meaningless without more context, and so the question is also meaningless without more context.
Going at 15km/h is too fast when driving around a hairpin bend in icy conditions; it is not too fast on a straight stretch of dry freeway. A half-billion people is too many if we are not allowed to change the natural environment one iota. it is not too many if we are allowed to farm.
Anything and everything is unsustainable at ANY population level, unless there is a way to re-cycle it. Some recycling happens without human intervention - such as in the water cycle; some requires intervention using various technologies - from the super simple like shovelling up the cow-pats and spreading the muck on the fields to fertilise the grass, to feed the cows; to the more complex stuff, like using solar power to convert excess atmospheric carbon dioxide into aviation fuel.
The natural recycle rates can be boosted using technology - desalination bypasses the waiting for the sun to evaporate water from the ocean, then waiting for the rain to fall where you want it to fall. Ploughing and tilling means you needn't wait for worms or pigs to turn over the soil; spreading muck means not waiting for the cows to poop where you need them to poop, and using chemical fertilisers means not waiting for the cows to poop at all - or not waiting for the legumes to fix nitrogen for your next grain crop.
Technology changes the carrying capacity of the planet. To date, it has almost always increased that capacity faster than we have increased our numbers; and now that our numbers have stopped increasing (or rather, are about to stop increasing), we need not worry about absolute population numbers - which means we are free to solve real problems, such as poverty, disease, slavery, war, and the existence of Justin Bieber.
Worrying about non-issues on a large scale is positively harmful to humanity. This is true whether the issue is whether a magic skybeast will burn you for eternity for falling in love with someone with the wrong shaped genitals; or whether it is "overpopulation".
I don't see how you can claim that is the only definition of overpopulation. If you have to change everything to sustain it, you've shown that you overpopulated your previous environment.
By this definition, the world has been overpopulated since the widespread adoption of agriculture. If you want to use this definition, then I am forced to agree that the Earth is overpopulated; but you must equally accept that it really is not a problem at all. After all, we have been overpopulated for longer than we have had history, and yet quality of life for all has improved beyond belief for all of that time.
The question 'Is the Earth overpopulated?' is rather like the question 'Am I going too fast?'; the answer is meaningless without more context, and so the question is also meaningless without more context.
Going at 15km/h is too fast when driving around a hairpin bend in icy conditions; it is not too fast on a straight stretch of dry freeway. A half-billion people is too many if we are not allowed to change the natural environment one iota. it is not too many if we are allowed to farm.
Anything and everything is unsustainable at ANY population level, unless there is a way to re-cycle it. Some recycling happens without human intervention - such as in the water cycle; some requires intervention using various technologies - from the super simple like shovelling up the cow-pats and spreading the muck on the fields to fertilise the grass, to feed the cows; to the more complex stuff, like using solar power to convert excess atmospheric carbon dioxide into aviation fuel.
The natural recycle rates can be boosted using technology - desalination bypasses the waiting for the sun to evaporate water from the ocean, then waiting for the rain to fall where you want it to fall. Ploughing and tilling means you needn't wait for worms or pigs to turn over the soil; spreading muck means not waiting for the cows to poop where you need them to poop, and using chemical fertilisers means not waiting for the cows to poop at all - or not waiting for the legumes to fix nitrogen for your next grain crop.
Technology changes the carrying capacity of the planet. To date, it has almost always increased that capacity faster than we have increased our numbers; and now that our numbers have stopped increasing (or rather, are about to stop increasing), we need not worry about absolute population numbers - which means we are free to solve real problems, such as poverty, disease, slavery, war, and the existence of Justin Bieber.
Worrying about non-issues on a large scale is positively harmful to humanity. This is true whether the issue is whether a magic skybeast will burn you for eternity for falling in love with someone with the wrong shaped genitals; or whether it is "overpopulation".
bilby, just curious. But where do you stand on the rights of indigenous peoples? Amazonia, Africa, Australia, North America, Mongolia, areas of China. These people live tribal subsistence level lives. Much of the time their land is taken to be "improved", their culture and life style destroyed, and they become a new generation of poor while they try to catch up. This is actually the way superior technology has played out many places in the world, even in Great Britain during the first agricultural revolution. What do you suggest about this human problem?
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did you not bother to actually read any of my posts? I was talking about the WORLD's population: In other words, a hundred fold increase in the WORLD's population, NOT 'america alone'. And I was not talking about this hypothetical thought-experiment city being in America, I merely compared its size to Texas.
Sigh, it would leave the ENTIRE REST OF THE PLANET for all of that. Because that's what we're talking about here; a thought experiment in which we concentrate the ENTIRE WORLD POPULATION in a city smaller than the size of Texas. We're NOT talking about increasing the population of the US to match that of the planet.
It would leave no room for parks, wildlife or wilderness. Miami. Coast to coast.
Are you suggesting that miami doesn't have any parks? Or are you suggesting that those parks aren't including in the calculations that are used to arrive at miami's urban density?
We already have huge cities, and we can get to the countryside in less than a day no matter what megacity we're in. There's absolutely no reason this would need to change even if *did* create a singular world city unless you can't conceive of a city that's anything other than perfectly circular in shape. Hell, if you created this world city using Amsterdam's 'lobe' principle, you could easily make it so anyone in the city could reach the countryside within a day, no matter how big the city becomes.
I meant they currently choose a mix. Your scenario has no mix.Oh, but I did. It's what people choose now.
Actually, it's the opposite. The majority of people are choosing urban living.
You thuink a 700Billion population will be able to go visit nature without a pass system? Our current national parks require one, why would that change when the number of people visiting them is increased?
1. It means that overpopulation means a vast complexity of things and you are concerned with only a single one of them, nutrition.
No, actually I'm not. I'm also concerned with all the other aspects of quality living. But once again; the quality of life; at least in the west; of urban populations is HIGHER than that of people in the countryside. This is a simple fact. By your rant filled posts, it seems as if you think living in Paris or Tokyo is some sort of blade runner-style nightmare, but in reality it's quite the opposite.
Well, yuh. In the experiment. Why go that route when deciding that population growth decisions can be made to avoid it (the first being to decide that it is undesirable)2. Why force people to adapt if you don't have to?
Once again, this whole thing is a thought experiment. Nobody's forcing anyone to do anything.
We got all that. Our fire department has saved 4 cellar holes this year alone.3. "countless entertainment venues" does not solve all problems, nor meet all needs.
I could've easily added in things like 'schools', hospitals, general emergency services, libraries, supermarkets, well-kept parks, marinas, or any number of things you won't find in plentiful supply on the countryside.
Compared to the average? I'm not sure it'd be "obscene" Definitely western-privileged, but I'm curious what factors do you think are present to make it "obscene"? I mean, yeah, my outhouse is a two-holer, and the seats are made of local cherry, but it's still an outhouse.and make up your mind. Am I a rural hillbilly or an obscene country estate? LOL
When I say "Obscene", I mean in a global context. The footprint of a rural american hillbilly indeed *is* obscene compared to that of some living in say, Kenya; or indeed, just the average human being.
Yes, I got that. It makes sense as a thought experiment. Then, as part of the experiment, one imagines it trying to work. One tries to picture it given the resources and all. So that's where my extensions came in. So, *IF* we're going to make these megacities, what will that really be like, given all that we currently know. IF one looks at your idea of 100x, and does not _even_ try to cram it into the state of Texas-sized spots, just take the current countries, their current populations and their current densities and multiply them 100x, how does this extended thought experiment LOOK and FEEL in context?
That's what I was saying in reply.
I'm saying, okay, take that 100x. I won't suggest making it a single city because it wouldn't be. Just take each country and 100x it. The USA should be a relatively easy one, since it ranks 182 on the list of population densities (80ppl/mi^2), especially compared to, say, the Netherlands which ranks 30th at 1000 ppl/mi2. So IF it can be done, it can be done here in the USA, no sweat.
So IF (this is a thought experiment, as we all agree by this point) population went 100x here, one wonders, what would that look like? One can bracket this by saying, "what would it look like evenly spread out?" That's Miami coast-to-coast. But in the thought experiment, of course, one KNOWS that one must subtract land unfit for cities. Like lakes, deserts (maybe not! Tatooine here we come!) and mountain peaks. One also knows, that even in a thought experiment, one needs space for garbage, sewage treatment, oh, and to grow food.
One can think, if one has read enough science fiction, about "Public Square Mile" nature preserves, and getting to go once per month and the rest of the time in artificial light below levels. One can think about what kind of food can be grown in the least possible space and whether it's diverse.
One can also think, "they are having water battles already over much of that space what will happen at 100x?"
So, that Miami population density is merely the BEST possible unrealistic case and only for one of the least populated countries on the planet. So that's why I did that. That's the brack. You can't get any _better_ than that outside of Australia and Russia (as examples; see the list for more). But you can't get any better than that for 182 countries.
And of course, even that is unrealistic because of the other space subtractors I've covered.
Sigh, it would leave the ENTIRE REST OF THE PLANET for all of that. Because that's what we're talking about here; a thought experiment in which we concentrate the ENTIRE WORLD POPULATION in a city smaller than the size of Texas. We're NOT talking about increasing the population of the US to match that of the planet.
IF we made a city more dense than Singapore (by 25%) and made it 700 miles across the thought experiment again asks, and this would not cause major upheaval? But this part of the thought experiment was only a step to the larger population, the 100x. So now you need a land area of 7 USAs to keep with this density that is all hunkey-dorey and... shit. We are at 46% of the planet's surface, and we still haven't subtracted out the swamps, mountains, lakes, volcanoes, glaciers, garbage dumps and sewage treatment plants.
It would leave no room for parks, wildlife or wilderness. Miami. Coast to coast.
Are you suggesting that miami doesn't have any parks? Or are you suggesting that those parks aren't including in the calculations that are used to arrive at miami's urban density?
I am _definitely_ suggesting that Miami's parks (and Paris' and Manilla's) are not what I think of when I think "Parks" I'm thinking everglades, Tetons, Glacier, Badlands, Yellowstone, Denali and Big Bend.
.
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So I'm just working on your thought experiment, and it's coming up short, from what I can see.
I don't see how you can claim that is the only definition of overpopulation. If you have to change everything to sustain it, you've shown that you overpopulated your previous environment.
By this definition, the world has been overpopulated since the widespread adoption of agriculture. If you want to use this definition, then I am forced to agree that the Earth is overpopulated; but you must equally accept that it really is not a problem at all. After all, we have been overpopulated for longer than we have had history, and yet quality of life for all has improved beyond belief for all of that time.
The question 'Is the Earth overpopulated?' is rather like the question 'Am I going too fast?'; the answer is meaningless without more context, and so the question is also meaningless without more context.