When will there be too many people ?

[bilby]

Personally, regardless of the question of carrying capacity, resource usage, environmental pressure, etc, I consider the planet to be overcrowded with people. There are too many people. I'd say between one to two billion tops to allow for large areas of unused land, cities and towns that are surrounded by vast tracts of forest and bushland. As far as I'm concerned, the planet is grossly overpopulated.

^^^
THAT!

Of course it may be that everyone thinks the ideal level of global population is whatever it was when they were born. (About 2.55b when I was born... still sounds good to me.)
If that's the case, it won't be long before a world with "only" 8 billion people will sound idyllic to most.

I am sure that the laws of nostalgia imply pretty much exactly that. But reality doesn't support this kind of nostalgic claptrap - what actually affects a person is not the total population of the world, but the local population density in the places he lives (and visits).

The population density of the city of Rome in, say, 200CE, was much higher than the population density in the city of Alice Springs is today - a modern inhabitant of the Alice, if transported to ancient Rome, might reasonably complain that there are too many people there for his taste, despite a world population below 10% of today's.

What has changed in the experiences of many of us over our lives, that gives us the feeling of crowding, is not absolute population growth - which has not been particularly significant to any of us in the first world - but concentration of population locally into urban centres.

To an American, Australian, or Western European, the mean population density in their home country hasn't really changed that much over the course of their lives; But the proportion of those people who live in cities and large towns has rocketed up, and the countryside (and the smaller towns and villages) have emptied.

People are choosing to live closer to each other, for economic reasons, and are unhappy about it because they like more 'elbow room' (but not enough to put up with the hardships of living far from a large town or city). This gives the impression that there are 'too many people'; But that's an incorrect statement of the problem, which is that there are too many strangers around here.

There are plenty of places in the US, Australia, and even Western Europe (The Scottish Highlands and Islands; The Northern two-thirds of Scandinavia; The high Pyrenees and Alps), where you can live in almost total isolation. Almost all of Australia is empty of humans - as long as you stay away from the paved highways. But people don't want to do without infrastructure - so they huddle together near the roads, and then whinge about how crowded it is.

Actual measurements of population density tell the story - in the first world, it's easy to find places with population densities lower than those that were typical a century ago. But nobody wants to live there, because to do so means lack of access to infrastructure, and first world people LOVE themselves some infrastructure.

The planet isn't overpopulated - it's just that your little patch of it is crowded, and that's entirely your own fault.

 

[Speakpigeon]

The planet isn't overpopulated - it's just that your little patch of it is crowded, and that's entirely your own fault.

For a start you'd need to specify what would be the problem with 'overpopulated'. The term itself doesn't say enough. Too many people, sure, but what's the problem with that?

Maybe I can make suggestions. Overpopulated could mean overcrowded. But, technically, the world is certainly not overcrowded. I used to do long-distance walking in France, Britain and a few other countries in Europe, one the most populated region on this planet, and there's definitely no overcrowding there except in a small number of things called 'big cities'. Ah, oui.

Second idea, maybe the human population is taxing the environment too much and we've reached the limit. There's obviously some merit in that. On the one hand we could blame politicians for not implementing the right policies that would preserve the environment. It wouldn't be a problem of too many people but of bad government.

Yet, it's also clearly difficult in democratic countries, which have been by far the main source of pollution and of destruction of the environment, both at home and abroad in politically dependent countries, it's clearly difficult to reign in the appetite of the people. People want cars, individual homes, they want television sets, electronic devices, they want to travel abroad and it never ends and capitalism makes sure it never ends. You can't blame politicians in democratic countries for doing what the majority of the voters want even when it's stupid. It's systemic in that it is beyond the control of any individual or even of any determined and organised group of individuals.

So, yes, more people will inevitably mean more degradation of the environment, at least until we reach such a critical point that people like Trump will be voted out but we're clearly not there yet. So, in this respect, there are already too many people, but only because these people have been too greedy, at least on aggregate. Nine billions of environmentally friendly citizens would be no problem.

But this may turn out to be a temporary problem. We will grow up and we will start to behave more responsibly. Yes, but meanwhile, large chunks of the biodiversity that existed no so long ago will have disappeared and the environment won't recover for a very long time after that. So, maybe the problem isn't so much overpopulation as specifically too much of the human species.

Yet, I think that this was inevitable. We're too smart and too stupid at the same time and nature ran it's course and there were not enough lions to keep our numbers down. And we like nothing like blaming everybody else so that we're not going to do anything until all the others have done something. Yeah, good strategy, Donald.

So, maybe, not overpopulation of human beings, just overpopulation of Donalds.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

As with most things human the central question is actually "Why am I so hungry?" If you are aware of others nearby who are in grinding hunger you probably feel threatened that those people will take your food. Overpopulated.

 

[Rayschism]

I personally believe there are too many people now.

There is no room to move about, and there are people the world over trying to destroy Democracy and liberty, so that there is no where really to go should they succeed.

 

[bilby]

I personally believe there are too many people now.

There is no room to move about, and there are people the world over trying to destroy Democracy and liberty, so that there is no where really to go should they succeed.

Democracy and liberty are new - they've only been about for a few hundred years, and the trend since forever has been for levels of democracy and liberty to increase at the same time that population has increased. So basically, you have this completely backwards.

If you go back in time to the days when there were only a few hundred million people, you would find almost nowhere where democracy was available to anyone. The entire world had the 'one man, one vote' principle - the local King was the man, and he had the vote.

If you go back to a time when you could simply strike out on your own to unoccupied lands, then you are going back before the dawn of agriculture; And with the technology available at the time, you would not survive doing so without a tribe of several dozen people, likely with some kind of tribal leader or shaman whose word was law.

In a very real sense, there's far more room to move about now than ever before - I was born 16,500km from where I currently live. Not many people could say that before the mid 20th Century - and none could say it before about 1400CE.

 

[Rayschism]

I personally believe there are too many people now.

There is no room to move about, and there are people the world over trying to destroy Democracy and liberty, so that there is no where really to go should they succeed.

Democracy and liberty are new - they've only been about for a few hundred years, and the trend since forever has been for levels of democracy and liberty to increase at the same time that population has increased. So basically, you have this completely backwards.

If you go back in time to the days when there were only a few hundred million people, you would find almost nowhere where democracy was available to anyone. The entire world had the 'one man, one vote' principle - the local King was the man, and he had the vote.

If you go back to a time when you could simply strike out on your own to unoccupied lands, then you are going back before the dawn of agriculture; And with the technology available at the time, you would not survive doing so without a tribe of several dozen people, likely with some kind of tribal leader or shaman whose word was law.

In a very real sense, there's far more room to move about now than ever before - I was born 16,500km from where I currently live. Not many people could say that before the mid 20th Century - and none could say it before about 1400CE.

Democracy and liberty are hard things to deal with, and so are a hard concept to grasp for some people.

To that end I often wonder of tyranny, in all its forms and guises, is actually not the default condition of the human race.

 

[fromderinside]

I'm not quite ready to agree with bilby here. Seems that with technology came radical increases in commerce and communication. Those motivated structures more aligned with people and power than with individuals and power. As social systems were required to be more and more diverse more social variables needed to be more consideration in these systems. So its social consideration rather than merely political consideration that began to be more central to power.

Many systems today are social but not very commercial, communism for instance, and others are not very social but very commercial, fascism for instance, and still others began to move in the direction of egalitarianism, western democracies for instance, while others remained more tribal, less socially permissive, and authoritarian (middle eastern, African, SE Asian. All succeed in commerce to some degree and all trend to more individual mobility and freedom at least a little.

So its hard to conclude that population arose because of democracy. One can argue that totalitarianism has captured the growth field and economic field if only recent partitioning are examined. I agree that increases in individual freedom and responsibility seem to be near the heart of recent advances in population, but, I'm, as yet, unwilling to say its because of democracy.

Bottom line its still, as I said before, if one sees grinding poverty one tends to become defensive and tribal. We're seeing eras where that condition is on the increase so calories available wind my vote for limits on population and defines the essential parameter for overpopulation.

 

[bilby]

I'm not quite ready to agree with bilby here. Seems that with technology came radical increases in commerce and communication. Those motivated structures more aligned with people and power than with individuals and power. As social systems were required to be more and more diverse more social variables needed to be more consideration in these systems. So its social consideration rather than merely political consideration that began to be more central to power.

Many systems today are social but not very commercial, communism for instance, and others are not very social but very commercial, fascism for instance, and still others began to move in the direction of egalitarianism, western democracies for instance, while others remained more tribal, less socially permissive, and authoritarian (middle eastern, African, SE Asian. All succeed in commerce to some degree and all trend to more individual mobility and freedom at least a little.

So its hard to conclude that population arose because of democracy. One can argue that totalitarianism has captured the growth field and economic field if only recent partitioning are examined. I agree that increases in individual freedom and responsibility seem to be near the heart of recent advances in population, but, I'm, as yet, unwilling to say its because of democracy.

Bottom line its still, as I said before, if one sees grinding poverty one tends to become defensive and tribal. We're seeing eras where that condition is on the increase so calories available wind my vote for limits on population and defines the essential parameter for overpopulation.

I didn't say that population rose because of democracy.

I said that increased population has not been the cause of reduced democracy, nor of constraints on liberty.

 

[Elixir]

I'm not quite ready to agree with bilby here. Seems that with technology came radical increases in commerce and communication. Those motivated structures more aligned with people and power than with individuals and power. As social systems were required to be more and more diverse more social variables needed to be more consideration in these systems. So its social consideration rather than merely political consideration that began to be more central to power.

Many systems today are social but not very commercial, communism for instance, and others are not very social but very commercial, fascism for instance, and still others began to move in the direction of egalitarianism, western democracies for instance, while others remained more tribal, less socially permissive, and authoritarian (middle eastern, African, SE Asian. All succeed in commerce to some degree and all trend to more individual mobility and freedom at least a little.

So its hard to conclude that population arose because of democracy. One can argue that totalitarianism has captured the growth field and economic field if only recent partitioning are examined. I agree that increases in individual freedom and responsibility seem to be near the heart of recent advances in population, but, I'm, as yet, unwilling to say its because of democracy.

Bottom line its still, as I said before, if one sees grinding poverty one tends to become defensive and tribal. We're seeing eras where that condition is on the increase so calories available wind my vote for limits on population and defines the essential parameter for overpopulation.

I didn't say that population rose because of democracy.

I said that increased population has not been the cause of reduced democracy, nor of constraints on liberty.

It occurs to me that even when Adam and Eve were the only people on the planet, there was liberty. Of course there was a chain of command: God>Eve>Adam, but everyone could pretty much do what they wanted. God, being imaginary, couldn't do anything about it, and Eve could only withhold favors. But there were plenty of sheep around, so ...

 

[fromderinside]

I didn't say that population rose because of democracy.

I said that increased population has not been the cause of reduced democracy, nor of constraints on liberty.

...and your comment is relevant to my post how? All I said as part of my post is that it is hard to conclude population rose because of democracy which is not disagreeing with you I think.

Anyway this thread is about is the size of population too large paired with a follow up as to what is too large a population of humans.

My answer there is population is too large is when enough see grinding hunger to become fearful there are not enough calories available for all of us which would lead us back in the direction of tribalism.

 

[bilby]

I didn't say that population rose because of democracy.

I said that increased population has not been the cause of reduced democracy, nor of constraints on liberty.

...and your comment is relevant to my post how?

I'm not quite ready to agree with bilby here. [...] So its hard to conclude that population arose because of democracy.

I would say that my comment is not just relevant to, but in direct response to, your post.

If you don't disagree, perhaps you could have made that fact clearer by (for example) not starting your post with "I'm not quite ready to agree"?

 

[another1]

This is what I've come up with. I think I have a year.

1. Planet has a surface size
2. Buildings can go how high
3. Mole people are gross
4 Can't live on or inside the water (against rules)
5. Antarctica is largely uninhabitable
5. Five is a cool number

How many people can fit in there, and how many cubic feet will each person get? Space-wise there is an answer. There WILL be too many people. But it is more about time than space if you ask me. Was thinking that maybe people should be breeding more because cataclysms and man's faults will keep wiping them out. Faster.

Recomposition of corpses could actually save the species. With enough corpses and soil products the world could be fed 100x over. I thought about that when I saw a website called urban death project. If that project was 5,000x bigger and mandatory I bet the human race could hold out as long as space on the planet holds. About 700 years if giant masses aren't randomly wiped out and people keep breeding at this rate.

This goes assuming they have the ability to build the metal skyscrapers millimeters apart and make cities on top of them. And maybe build even higher (fate worse than hell). Yeah, 700 is the number I'm stamping on it, glad you agree. The space will be gone in 700 years, and the soil growing atop cities will be rich with human remains. That is the most positive scenario I can think of for the 700 mark.

After 700 years (when every centimeter of space is gone) it will become more logical to kill. Killing is bad of course but what is one out of hundreds of billions? The logic will be "if they aren't even five minutes old, how valuable are they really?" Babies will probably be traded like cattle. They have mineral value to start with, or (if fed human remains) they can start menial labor within a few years. Oh man the slavery that will go on in 700 years. Oh dear. The upside is that these people will never know anything but slavery, so to them, life won't be that bad.

The wealthy and unenslaved may choose to live in a virtual abyss. No need for them to know where they actually are. Win-win situation for everybody. So yea, 700 is the year but I don't know exactly how many people that means. Factoring in slave-babies makes the numbers jumble. Technically you could have billions of slave-babies. Add that to the hundreds of billions inside the abyss, living holographic lives.

And there is the old notion that it is 700 years into the future right now, and there could be no differentiating because I'm sure our "current times" are thoroughly recorded for excellent simulation. So the number may actually be -700 years if you consider that, which you probably should. Your emaciated body (with tubes crammed into every hole) could be sitting in a capsule, surrounded by hard working slave-babies and toddlers. God did say that the meek will inherit the earth or something like that. Maybe the slaves doing upkeep on our machines are just that. Had to throw that part in because it is a good possibility. Trying to cover all of the bases and the score is 700. Or a negative number if you want to go in this direction.

 

[fromderinside]

If you don't disagree, perhaps you could have made that fact clearer by (for example) not starting your post with "I'm not quite ready to agree"?

I know you read my post in which I presented several indications that democracy may not be the impetus of population growth as well as several indications that suggested a relationship between democracy and growth. Then there''s your "the trend since forever has been for levels of democracy and liberty to increase at the same time that population has increased." In this case you seem to be a pin looking for a haystack. Enough said.

But just increase I'll repeat my actual position. Humans are tribal as a consequence of being social beings and individuals at the same time. Because they act on fear they will notice more than ordinary numbers of humans suffering abject hunger. Consequently humans will act to protect themselves from becoming one of those suffering such circumstances by both protecting their own food sources and eliminating others who threaten their food sources. The bolded are my basis for computing recognition of overpopulation.

 

[bilby]

If you don't disagree, perhaps you could have made that fact clearer by (for example) not starting your post with "I'm not quite ready to agree"?

I know you read my post in which I presented several indications that democracy may not be the impetus of population growth as well as several indications that suggested a relationship between democracy and growth. Then there''s your "the trend since forever has been for levels of democracy and liberty to increase at the same time that population has increased." In this case you seem to be a pin looking for a haystack. Enough said.

I pointed out a correlation that demonstrates that there is not likely an inverse relationship between democracy and population.

If you imagine that correlation implies causation; or if you assume that I am making that basic error, then that's an understandable mechanism by which you have become so confused; but it's also entirely your problem.

 

[fromderinside]

I didn't presume anything other than that. My present problem is you continuing to insist on something that's not an issue.

What I do presume are that humans are social and tribal in nature, that those two attributes are likely what lead us to suggest overpopulation under many different conditions.