If you think the earth is over-populated, would you rather...

[4321lynx]

Are we still discussing over population?

We've been telling you that it's not an issue, and backing that up with data. You can choose to accept and move on, or continue to be wrong. Your call.

Your data are probably right, I have not checked, and will not check the figures.

The way you use them is biased. It all depends on what you see as "improvement", and from what level to what other level that improvement takes p[lace.
I would not want to live in places where statistics show "vast improvement" in the levels of standards of living. Many are improvements from abysmal life threatening levels of starvation, malnutrition and disease to a level of malnutrition which is tolerable, and tolerable mainly to the richer ruling class in the country concerned, and to visitors and tourists there, and to observers and statisticians from afar or statisticians from the ruling, well-fed classes. Thus I find the standard of living in the poor parts of New York, LA, Chicago, Bangladesh, London, Iraq,Turkey, Afghanistan, India and rural China, all of Africa and even parts of Toronto quite tolerable as long as I am "assured" by statistics that they show improvement, vast or only slight or only imaginary, but backed by research and more statistics, and their sophisticated, educated interpretation which the stupid among us, like me, obviously do not believe or cannot understand.

Our bias is that of Europeans, by that I mean those of the popularly so-called white, so-called race, who in times past have conquered and colonized successfully much of the world, whether the conquest was achieved physically, or financially, or by exploitation of the world's resources for our benefit. We started this by exterminating, willy-nilly, the Neanderthals in Europe
I wonder if you and others here would advise China and India to simply wait until the standard of living of the majority of their people reaches the levels of the "white" inhabited parts of the world (even levels common in, say, Eastern Europe in the latter half of the 20th century, and in the meantime let "nature" take its course, as counseled or enforced by the Roman Catholic church and the Muslim world.

"Nature" was partially destroyed in most of the world by HUMAN overpopulation after the Industrial Revolution, and the destruction continues. That we are now facing catastrophic human overpopulation and wild plant and animal underpopulation is glaringly obvious to idiots like me, though obviously an idiotic allegation to wise men like you, equipped as you all are with the latest glare-proof eyeglasses of statistics.

It maybe that people think that the standards in the poor places I mentioned above are inevitable. "The poor will always be with us" and "Let them eat cake" are not original thoughts. Maybe the motto in this thread should be "Let's wait till they all can eat cake", then all the world's problems will be solved and follow Islam and the RC church. (With a diamond medal to be given to the 10-Billionth child to be born into this world, and, of course, irrefutably confirmed to be so by statistics).
Note, too, that it's always "they" and "the world's" ie "their" problems, not ours.

Have a good day. Don't worry, be happy. All's well in the best of possible worlds.

 

[Jokodo]

Are we still discussing over population?

We've been telling you that it's not an issue, and backing that up with data. You can choose to accept and move on, or continue to be wrong. Your call.

Your data are probably right, I have not checked, and will not check the figures.

The way you use them is biased. It all depends on what you see as "improvement", and from what level to what other level that improvement takes p[lace.
I would not want to live in places where statistics show "vast improvement" in the levels of standards of living. Many are improvements from abysmal life threatening levels of starvation, malnutrition and disease to a level of malnutrition which is tolerable, and tolerable mainly to the richer ruling class in the country concerned, and to visitors and tourists there, and to observers and statisticians from afar or statisticians from the ruling, well-fed classes. Thus I find the standard of living in the poor parts of New York, LA, Chicago, Bangladesh, London, Iraq,Turkey, Afghanistan, India and rural China, all of Africa and even parts of Toronto quite tolerable as long as I am "assured" by statistics that they show improvement, vast or only slight or only imaginary, but backed by research and more statistics, and their sophisticated, educated interpretation which the stupid among us, like me, obviously do not believe or cannot understand.

Our bias is that of Europeans, by that I mean those of the popularly so-called white, so-called race, who in times past have conquered and colonized successfully much of the world, whether the conquest was achieved physically, or financially, or by exploitation of the world's resources for our benefit. We started this by exterminating, willy-nilly, the Neanderthals in Europe
I wonder if you and others here would advise China and India to simply wait until the standard of living of the majority of their people reaches the levels of the "white" inhabited parts of the world (even levels common in, say, Eastern Europe in the latter half of the 20th century, and in the meantime let "nature" take its course, as counseled or enforced by the Roman Catholic church and the Muslim world.

"Nature" was partially destroyed in most of the world by HUMAN overpopulation after the Industrial Revolution, and the destruction continues. That we are now facing catastrophic human overpopulation and wild plant and animal underpopulation is glaringly obvious to idiots like me, though obviously an idiotic allegation to wise men like you, equipped as you all are with the latest glare-proof eyeglasses of statistics.

It maybe that people think that the standards in the poor places I mentioned above are inevitable. "The poor will always be with us" and "Let them eat cake" are not original thoughts. Maybe the motto in this thread should be "Let's wait till they all can eat cake", then all the world's problems will be solved and follow Islam and the RC church. (With a diamond medal to be given to the 10-Billionth child to be born into this world, and, of course, irrefutably confirmed to be so by statistics).
Note, too, that it's always "they" and "the world's" ie "their" problems, not ours.

Have a good day. Don't worry, be happy. All's well in the best of possible worlds.

Best as I can tell, your argument is a big non-sequitur.

You seem to be saying "many people's lifes are crap, therefore overpopulation". For this to be a valid argument, you'll have to make the assumption that overpopulation is the only possible cause of crappy lifes.

Indeed, neither I nor bilby have been saying that we live in the best of all possible worlds. We're not denying the world's woes, we are only denying the specific hypothesis that those woes are caused by overpopulation. This hypothesis make predictions that go beyond a woeful world, and those predictions aren't borne out in reality. The hypothesis thus fails on empirical grounds. One such prediction is that the woes of the world should increase with an increasing population. They don't. The world is, in fact, getting a better place. This isn't good enough to lean back and call it a day, but it is certainly good enough to dissmiss your hypothesis.

 

[Jokodo]

A very quick primer on the scientific method, step by step:

1) Make observation
2) form hypothesis (i.e., speculate about causal factors leading to your initial observation)
3) derive testable predictions (i.e., work out what further observations other than the one that triggered your hypothesis you should be able to make if the hypothesis is correct)
4) check whether predictions match reality
5b) if no: dismiss hypothesis and go back to (2)
5c) if yes: Good job!

Applied to the problem at hand, this means:

1) observe that many people in many countries are living in poverty
2) hypothesise that this is because there's simply to many people
3) predict that poverty should continuously increase
4) observe that poverty levels are declining
5) reject hypothesis

It is the hallmark of pseudoscience - creationists, climate change deniers, and overpopulation fearmongers alike - to never go beyond step 2.

 

[4321lynx]

A very quick primer on the scientific method, step by step:

1) Make observation
2) form hypothesis (i.e., speculate about causal factors leading to your initial observation)
3) derive testable predictions (i.e., work out what further observations other than the one that triggered your hypothesis you should be able to make if the hypothesis is correct)
4) check whether predictions match reality
5b) if no: dismiss hypothesis and go back to (2)
5c) if yes: Good job!

Applied to the problem at hand, this means:

1) observe that many people in many countries are living in poverty
2) hypothesise that this is because there's simply to many people
3) predict that poverty should continuously increase
4) observe that poverty levels are declining
5) reject hypothesis

It is the hallmark of pseudoscience - creationists, climate change deniers, and overpopulation fearmongers alike - to never go beyond step 2.

I reject your and other pseudo-scientists' observation in 4) based as it is on the pseudo-scientific faith in social statistics in overcrowded underdeveloped countries. People are victims of poverty, statistics are not.
One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic -- JVStalin. -- Good old Joe to many social scientists and statisticians at the time he, unknown to them, said this.

 

[Jokodo]

A very quick primer on the scientific method, step by step:

1) Make observation
2) form hypothesis (i.e., speculate about causal factors leading to your initial observation)
3) derive testable predictions (i.e., work out what further observations other than the one that triggered your hypothesis you should be able to make if the hypothesis is correct)
4) check whether predictions match reality
5b) if no: dismiss hypothesis and go back to (2)
5c) if yes: Good job!

Applied to the problem at hand, this means:

1) observe that many people in many countries are living in poverty
2) hypothesise that this is because there's simply to many people
3) predict that poverty should continuously increase
4) observe that poverty levels are declining
5) reject hypothesis

It is the hallmark of pseudoscience - creationists, climate change deniers, and overpopulation fearmongers alike - to never go beyond step 2.

I reject your and other pseudo-scientists' observation in 4) based as it is on the pseudo-scientific faith in social statistics in overcrowded underdeveloped countries. People are victims of poverty, statistics are not.
One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic -- JVStalin. -- Good old Joe to many social scientists and statisticians at the time he, unknown to them, said this.

You seem to be repeating your earlier mistake of confusing the claim "poverty is, on the whole, declining" with a claim no-one in this thread made - that poverty isn't an issue, or that it will sort itself out.

Poverty is a problem. It is a big problem, and we really should be getting off our asses to do something about it. It's just not a problem that is caused by "overpopulation", and knowing that is instrumental if we need to decide what to do about it.

 

[angelo]

Are we still discussing over population?

We've been telling you that it's not an issue, and backing that up with data. You can choose to accept and move on, or continue to be wrong. Your call.

Your data are probably right, I have not checked, and will not check the figures.

The way you use them is biased. It all depends on what you see as "improvement", and from what level to what other level that improvement takes p[lace.
I would not want to live in places where statistics show "vast improvement" in the levels of standards of living. Many are improvements from abysmal life threatening levels of starvation, malnutrition and disease to a level of malnutrition which is tolerable, and tolerable mainly to the richer ruling class in the country concerned, and to visitors and tourists there, and to observers and statisticians from afar or statisticians from the ruling, well-fed classes. Thus I find the standard of living in the poor parts of New York, LA, Chicago, Bangladesh, London, Iraq,Turkey, Afghanistan, India and rural China, all of Africa and even parts of Toronto quite tolerable as long as I am "assured" by statistics that they show improvement, vast or only slight or only imaginary, but backed by research and more statistics, and their sophisticated, educated interpretation which the stupid among us, like me, obviously do not believe or cannot understand.

Our bias is that of Europeans, by that I mean those of the popularly so-called white, so-called race, who in times past have conquered and colonized successfully much of the world, whether the conquest was achieved physically, or financially, or by exploitation of the world's resources for our benefit. We started this by exterminating, willy-nilly, the Neanderthals in Europe
I wonder if you and others here would advise China and India to simply wait until the standard of living of the majority of their people reaches the levels of the "white" inhabited parts of the world (even levels common in, say, Eastern Europe in the latter half of the 20th century, and in the meantime let "nature" take its course, as counseled or enforced by the Roman Catholic church and the Muslim world.

"Nature" was partially destroyed in most of the world by HUMAN overpopulation after the Industrial Revolution, and the destruction continues. That we are now facing catastrophic human overpopulation and wild plant and animal underpopulation is glaringly obvious to idiots like me, though obviously an idiotic allegation to wise men like you, equipped as you all are with the latest glare-proof eyeglasses of statistics.

It maybe that people think that the standards in the poor places I mentioned above are inevitable. "The poor will always be with us" and "Let them eat cake" are not original thoughts. Maybe the motto in this thread should be "Let's wait till they all can eat cake", then all the world's problems will be solved and follow Islam and the RC church. (With a diamond medal to be given to the 10-Billionth child to be born into this world, and, of course, irrefutably confirmed to be so by statistics).
Note, too, that it's always "they" and "the world's" ie "their" problems, not ours.

Have a good day. Don't worry, be happy. All's well in the best of possible worlds.

You really should blog this excellent post. All I wanted to say but with finesse.

 

[angelo]

A very quick primer on the scientific method, step by step:

1) Make observation
2) form hypothesis (i.e., speculate about causal factors leading to your initial observation)
3) derive testable predictions (i.e., work out what further observations other than the one that triggered your hypothesis you should be able to make if the hypothesis is correct)
4) check whether predictions match reality
5b) if no: dismiss hypothesis and go back to (2)
5c) if yes: Good job!

Applied to the problem at hand, this means:

1) observe that many people in many countries are living in poverty
2) hypothesise that this is because there's simply to many people
3) predict that poverty should continuously increase
4) observe that poverty levels are declining
5) reject hypothesis

It is the hallmark of pseudoscience - creationists, climate change deniers, and overpopulation fearmongers alike - to never go beyond step 2.

I reject your and other pseudo-scientists' observation in 4) based as it is on the pseudo-scientific faith in social statistics in overcrowded underdeveloped countries. People are victims of poverty, statistics are not.
One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic -- JVStalin. -- Good old Joe to many social scientists and statisticians at the time he, unknown to them, said this.

You seem to be repeating your earlier mistake of confusing the claim "poverty is, on the whole, declining" with a claim no-one in this thread made - that poverty isn't an issue, or that it will sort itself out.

Poverty is a problem. It is a big problem, and we really should be getting off our asses to do something about it. It's just not a problem that is caused by "overpopulation", and knowing that is instrumental if we need to decide what to do about it.

Your solution is what? Don't worry about overpopulation because the figures for poverty are improving, instead of 1000 people dying of starvation last year, this year only 990 people died of starvation, so this problem is sorting itself out, no need to worry about it, let the catholics and moslems breed as they like.

 

[Jokodo]

A very quick primer on the scientific method, step by step:

1) Make observation
2) form hypothesis (i.e., speculate about causal factors leading to your initial observation)
3) derive testable predictions (i.e., work out what further observations other than the one that triggered your hypothesis you should be able to make if the hypothesis is correct)
4) check whether predictions match reality
5b) if no: dismiss hypothesis and go back to (2)
5c) if yes: Good job!

Applied to the problem at hand, this means:

1) observe that many people in many countries are living in poverty
2) hypothesise that this is because there's simply to many people
3) predict that poverty should continuously increase
4) observe that poverty levels are declining
5) reject hypothesis

It is the hallmark of pseudoscience - creationists, climate change deniers, and overpopulation fearmongers alike - to never go beyond step 2.

I reject your and other pseudo-scientists' observation in 4) based as it is on the pseudo-scientific faith in social statistics in overcrowded underdeveloped countries. People are victims of poverty, statistics are not.
One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic -- JVStalin. -- Good old Joe to many social scientists and statisticians at the time he, unknown to them, said this.

You seem to be repeating your earlier mistake of confusing the claim "poverty is, on the whole, declining" with a claim no-one in this thread made - that poverty isn't an issue, or that it will sort itself out.

Poverty is a problem. It is a big problem, and we really should be getting off our asses to do something about it. It's just not a problem that is caused by "overpopulation", and knowing that is instrumental if we need to decide what to do about it.

Your solution is what? Don't worry about overpopulation because the figures for poverty are improving, instead of 1000 people dying of starvation last year, this year only 990 people died of starvation, so this problem is sorting itself out, no need to worry about it, let the catholics and moslems breed as they like.

You really need to work on your reading comprehension. The fact that the figures for poverty are improving doesn't mean that poverty is not a problem, or that it will sort itself out. It is relevant to this discussion insofar as it is an indication that poverty is not causally linked with too_many_people. The figures for poverty could be rapidly deteriorating, but if we had independent confirmation that their poverty is not caused by there being too many people, overpopulation still wouldn't be something to worry about.

We agree that poverty is a problem. But unlike you, who seems to be happy to exploit that fact as an argument that we must reduce the number of Others, I actually care about solving the problem, for which understanding its actual causes is imperative.

 

[angelo]

It's causes?? Too many people to feed!! Besides the corruption at all levels.

 

[Jokodo]

It's causes?? Too many people to feed!!<snip>

This is a hypothesis. You can test it by looking at data other than the original observation that led you to postulate it, i.e. the existence of poverty itself. When you do so, it fails spectacularly. If you want to be rational about this topic, you'll thus have to reject it and come up with an empirically more adequate hypothesis.

 

[angelo]

Let me guess. You lean towards Green/left ideology, right?

 

[Jokodo]

Let me guess. You lean towards Green/left ideology, right?

I lean towards taking evidence seriously. If that makes me appear close to "left ideology" from where you are looking, this tells us more about you than about me.

 

[angelo]

The only ones saying population growth is not a problem are the progressives who also are dead against GM crops, nuclear power and leave natural resources in the ground brigade, yet fail to explain how they would feed all these people.

 

[Jokodo]

The only ones saying population growth is not a problem are the progressives who also are dead against GM crops, nuclear power and leave natural resources in the ground brigade, yet fail to explain how they would feed all these people.

This is demonstrably wrong. Paul Ehrlich, author of the 1968 book "The Population Bomb" in which he predicted 100s of millions would die of famine in the 1970s and 1980s including in the first world, was an icon of the nascent green movement, and some of his most vocal opponents were libertarian-leaning economists.

This still holds today. It is easy to find conservatives who will say that population growth is not a problem and indeed attempt to taint progressives as "anti-human" for the real or alleged fixation on over-population in some quarters of the green movement, with headlines such as "The radical misanthropy of the environmentalist movement" or "The Green Superstate".

Here's an opinion poll that asks Britons, among other things, "Which, if any, of the following ways of limiting Britain's population growth would you find acceptable? (Please tick ALL that apply.)" Turns out that "Encouraging people to have fewer children" is least acceptable to Conservatives.

In short, there are people who subscribe to the overpopulation myth on both end of the political spectrum. Sadly, as a leftist, and although I do believe that the argument for overpopulation is intrinsically a right-wing one, if had to make a guess I would have to say that the myth is probably more entrenched among self-identified progressives than among self-identified conservatives.

 

[bilby]

The only ones saying population growth is not a problem are the progressives who also are dead against GM crops, nuclear power and leave natural resources in the ground brigade, yet fail to explain how they would feed all these people.

I have no problem with GM crops, and oppose the anti-GM nutters; I am an active supporter of nuclear power (both of which you can see from many recent and historical threads on FRDB); The only natural resources that I want left in the ground are fossil fuels, and resources situated under people who don't want to sell up and move out.

"All these people" is NEVER going to exceed about 10 billion. We can feed that many. Famine was a MASSIVE issue in the early 20th Century, killing hundreds of millions, when population was below 3 billion; it was a major issue in the late 20th Century, killing millions with five billion population; and it has been a big problem in the last few decades, killing a hundreds of thousands with 7 billion population.

Oh, and in the days when world population was under a billion? It was commonplace for double-digit percentages of the entire world population to die of starvation.

Tell me again how sheer population numbers lead directly to famines... because the actual facts suggest the exact opposite. Plot the number of famine deaths per decade against the population of the world in that decade, and you can see an inverse correlation for at least the last two centuries.

Your hypothesis is in direct contradiction to the observed data. It really doesn't matter how strongly you believe in it; it is wrong nonetheless.

It is a good, plausible sounding hypothesis. It makes a lot of sense. It rings true. It is also completely wrong.

 

[angelo]

This is demonstrably wrong. Paul Ehrlich, author of the 1968 book "The Population Bomb" in which he predicted 100s of millions would die of famine in the 1970s and 1980s including in the first world, was an icon of the nascent green movement, and some of his most vocal opponents were libertarian-leaning economists.

Actually I read that book in the early to mid seventies. With the information available to Paul Ehrlich at that time his conclusion he reached was thus. It turned out to be wrong. That's how science works, it must be falsifiable.

Now we have another guy similar to Mr Ehrlich, a Mr Lovelock who has put forward the Gaia theory in a book/s and lectures.

 

[Jokodo]

This is demonstrably wrong. Paul Ehrlich, author of the 1968 book "The Population Bomb" in which he predicted 100s of millions would die of famine in the 1970s and 1980s including in the first world, was an icon of the nascent green movement, and some of his most vocal opponents were libertarian-leaning economists.

Actually I read that book in the early to mid seventies. With the information available to Paul Ehrlich at that time his conclusion he reached was thus. It turned out to be wrong. That's how science works, it must be falsifiable.<snip>

Being falsifiable is one requirement for a good hypothesis. Accepting when it has been falsified is another. You don't seem to be strong on the latter.