Will human population and economic activity exceed the Planets carrying capacity?

[ruby sparks]

Your analogy fails because it equates 'reducing population' with 'keeping jews out'. 'Reducing population' is not a racist aim.

You are right. It's just a genocidal one.

So that's OK then.

Bollocks. As I keep saying, non-coercive family planning measures have a proven track record, and no genocide, or racism, involved, and they can continue on the same basis.

Population reduction measures = genocide. Lol. We're close to getting the full set of fallacies!

 

[ruby sparks]

There is nothing wrong with the underlying idea of non-coercive family planning. It has worked successfully in many places and can continue to do so.

There is indeed nothing wrong with non-coercive family planning. People, as people, deserve a genuine choice of how to live their lives, including how many children they want to have. It's a non-argument once you accept that people, which, surprisingly to some, includes women, are, well, people.

However, a lot is wrong with the idea that We (capital W) need to push family planning among Them, because otherwise both We and Them are doomed. The fact that it is based on a premise that, followed to its logical consequences, inevitably leads to the conclusion that a genocide of unseen proportions is the lesser of two evils if "non-coercive family planning" alone doesn't yield the desired result fast enough isn't the only thing that's wrong about it, but it alone should be reason enough to question your premises.

Hey, try to focus on adding to the list of fallacies that you and bilby are peddling. Leave weapons grade stupid posts until after.

No sorry. I got that wrong.

I should have said, we've already got the slippery slope fallacy in the basket, thanks to you.

 

[Jokodo]

Your position is logically and morally inconsistent.

If you accept that Everybody Dies (tm) if Africans are allowed to reach 2, 3 or 4 billion in number, restricting yourself to just those counter-measures we can all agree on is illogical and arguably immoral. After all, telling some African women that they can only have 2 children when they would have had 4 is surely a lesser evil than Everybody Dies? Sterilising them is too, isn't it? And if that turns out difficult to implement because of, say, poor infrastructure or lack of cooperation by local governments, carpet bombing the area or releasing a virus that kills 50% of the continent's population is still a lesser evil. There are times in life when you have to make tough choices, but tough as it may be, when it's 1 billion dead against Everyone (tm), a clear choice it is -- and by delaying it, you're only making things worse!

That's what the blackshirts bilby is talking about can say to you, and you have nothing to put against them: Based on the premise you share, their argument makes perfect sense. You and they will both be wrong empirically, in that there is no necessary connection between the number of Africans and our demise (short of where that number reaches well into the 12 digit range), but unlike yours, their position is at least internally consistent. "We'll all die if we don't do anything about population, but be assured that I only want to do Nice Things (tm)" isn't.

Slippery slope fallacy.

Not at all.

I am not saying "if we accept your proposed measure, what's to stop us from taking more severe measures"?

I am saying if we accept the premise your argument is built upon, those measures become are in fact what we should be doing.

Non-coercive family planning, as you like to call it, is a worthy goal in its own right, because people, and in this case foremost women, deserve a choice about their lives. Experience tells us that, when they have it, they tend to have an average of 1.5 - 1.8 children. You are free to think about that as a positive side effect in the privacy of your bathroom, but when you wag it around in public as "see, we won't have to share the planet with four billion n*****s after all, what a relieve", I will oppose you.

 

[ruby sparks]

I am saying if we accept the premise your argument is built upon, those measures become are in fact what we should be doing.

Nope. Though to be fair I'm not sure how your tortured brain even got to that this time so I can't add it to the list of fallacies. Sorry. Try for weapons grade stupid cases later maybe, or clarify which fallacy category you are submitting under.

By the way, if you get the impression that I'm not taking your daft arguments seriously, full marks for perceptiveness at least.

Hey I'd love you to guess what my premise is. That should be fun. Do that next.

 

[bilby]

Your analogy fails because it equates 'reducing population' with 'keeping jews out'. 'Reducing population' is not a racist aim.

You are right. It's just a genocidal one.

So that's OK then.

Bollocks. As I keep saying, non-coercive family planning measures have a proven track record, and no genocide, or racism, involved, and they can continue on the same basis.

Population reduction measures = genocide. Lol. We're close to getting the full set of fallacies!

OK.

Either you are pretending not to grasp my meaning in order to get a rise out of me; Or you are incapable of grasping my meaning. Either way, you are wasting my time.

You also appear not to know what a fallacy is.

Goodbye.

 

[ruby sparks]

OK.

Either you are pretending not to grasp my meaning in order to get a rise out of me; Or you are incapable of grasping my meaning. Either way, you are wasting my time.

You also appear not to know what a fallacy is.

Goodbye.

You forgot the 3rd option, that your argument is weapons grade stupid, and has been ever since the start of the thread.

Bye.

Maybe jokodo will go away soon too (crosses fingers and hopes).

 

[Jokodo]

I am saying if we accept the premise your argument is built upon, those measures become are in fact what we should be doing.

Nope. Though to be fair I'm not sure how your tortured brain even got to that this time so I can't add it to the list of fallacies. Sorry. Try for weapons grade stupid cases later maybe.

By the way, if you get the impression that I'm not taking your daft arguments seriously, full marks for perceptiveness at least.

Hey I'd love you to guess what my premise is. That should be fun. Do that next.

I'm not getting the impression that you aren't taking my arguments seriously.

The impression I'm getting is that you aren't even reading them.

That, or just too stupid to grasp them, so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here.

(A third possibility is that my non-native English is too poor to make myself understood, but then again, if you're interested in an exchange of ideas, you could always ask for clarification. We shall have to ask bilby to weigh in on whether or not the way I string words together makes for intelligible English sentences (copy-paste errors and incomplete revisions excluded).)

 

[ruby sparks]

I am saying if we accept the premise your argument is built upon, those measures become are in fact what we should be doing.

Nope. Though to be fair I'm not sure how your tortured brain even got to that this time so I can't add it to the list of fallacies. Sorry. Try for weapons grade stupid cases later maybe.

By the way, if you get the impression that I'm not taking your daft arguments seriously, full marks for perceptiveness at least.

Hey I'd love you to guess what my premise is. That should be fun. Do that next.

I'm not getting the impression that you aren't taking my arguments seriously.

The impression I'm getting is that you aren't even reading them.

That, or just too stupid to grasp them, so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here.

(A third possibility is that my non-native English is too poor to make myself understood, but then again, if you're interested in an exchange of ideas, you could always ask for clarification.)

I can assure you that it's because I'm not taking them seriously, because they're crap arguments. Sorry.

In the most recent case, you seem to be attributing a premise to me that I don't recall actually having. Which if true would be a straw man argument on your part.

 

[ruby sparks]

Something about 'otherwise (without population reduction presumably) We and Them are doomed' as I recall.

That's not my premise. It might be yours, I'm not sure, but it's not mine.

Or correct me if I'm wrong. Tell me what you think my premise is.

I'll tell you what it is, although if you read back you'd find it numerous times.

It's that we are in trouble.

Therefore need to do something about it if we want to help the situation.

So we should try to use a broad portfolio of potential countermeasures, which includes amongst others and not by any means chiefly, non-coercive population control (and I'm not convinced the options are an either or, so don't see the point of discounting one or the other).

Because that way we will potentially improve our chances of mitigating what is to come.

Nothing is guaranteed of course. One or more measure could go awry and lead to worse outcomes. I accept that. I'm not convinced that voluntary population control is one of them, because it has a proven track record of success and can predict benefits. And it can be applied to people and societies almost everywhere on the planet, in different ways, so it's not inherently racist, post-colonialist, imposed by the 'west' on others, genocidal or what have you. Almost any or at least many worthy human endeavours have potential downsides. It is possible to deploy worthy measures while guarding against their downsides. Just as with a lot of things. And it has been proven to eminently possible with non-coercive family Planning policies, when they have been instigated, which is often enough to demonstrate that it is perfectly feasible. It can and has worked. And apparently it is cheap compared to several if not most other countermeasures, using already-existing methods and requiring no new technologies. And it is already in place, up and running. We only have to continue with it. That it has other potential benefits males it a potential win-win on several fronts. And many want it or are glad of it.

 

[Jokodo]

Sorry to warm up an old post, but...

From Psychology Today:


Can evolutionary psychology provide insights to aid in our survival?

''Can humans be "smarter than yeast?" Can we be the only species that can successfully anticipate and avoid ecological overshoot and collapse? Issues of sustainability are psychological problems. Are we sufficiently psychologically sophisticated to manage our own collective behavior to achieve sustainability on a finite planet?

One sobering answer provided by evolutionary psychology is that we, like all other species, have no evolved psychological adaptations designed specifically to perceive, anticipate and avoid ecological overshoot. In fact, we have just the opposite.

One problem is that inclusive fitness, the "designer" of psychological adaptations, is always relative to others; it is not absolute. That is, nature doesn't "say," "Have two kids (or help 4 full sibs), and then you can stop. Good job! You did your genetic duty, you avoided contributing to ecological overshoot, and you may pass along now..." Instead, nature "says" (relative inclusive fitness): "Out-reproduce your competitors. Your competitors are all of the genes in your species' gene pool that you do not share. If the average inclusive fitness score is four, then you go for five... "In other words, our psychological adaptations are designed to not just "keep up with the Joneses" but to "do better than the Joneses." This is in whatever means that may have generally helped to increase inclusive fitness, such as status, conspicuous consumption, and resource acquisition and control.''

Thanks for this excellent reminder that most of what flies under the banner of "evolutionary psychology" is pseudo-science with very little regard for either evolution, or psychology.

Evolution doesn't care about about what you want. It only "cares"* about outcomes, and that is speaking very loosely. It doesn't care* whether you're happy spreading your genes, it only cares* that you do. In an environment that doesn't include reliable contraceptives, that is in the environment in which all of our ancestors grew up (up to and including our grandparents), a healthy sex drive combined with a disinclination to kill or neglect your offspring once born, was perfectly sufficient to ensure that you'd end up with a bunch of kids. A desire to have many kids was thus an unnecessary luxury and as such not subject to selection. That's the "no regard for evolution" part.

As for the "no regard for psychology" part: People tend to find normal what they see around them, and they tend to find the normal desirable. So people expressing a desire for large families is no evidence at all for an evolutionarily instilled instinct to want large families.

But what does more to make your article pseudo-science than both of those shortcomings combined is its disregard for empirical evidence. Human populations do not, in fact, grow exponentially. If your theory predicts that they do, that human nature is such as to make this inevitable, you can throw it out the window right away (even if we didn't know where it went wrong, which we do, see my second paragraph above). The empirical evidence is clear and unambiguous: the psychological makeup of extant humans, the way we've evolved over the last 199,950 years, is such that, in an environment were reliable contraceptives are available, the average number of children per woman will be something between 1.5 and 1.8.


--

Now of course, evolution is still ongoing, and given our new environment, an instinct to want many kids, absent as it obviously is in today's population, may well emerge in a matter of millennia. In an environment where liking a good fuck and being disinclined to commit infanticide are no longer good enough, there now is a selection pressure towards it. Then, and only then, overpopulation might become a problem reasonable people should worry about - until then, if anything, underpopulation is a valid concern: At 1.5 children per woman, assuming a sex ration close to 1:1, every generation is 75% of the last - in a mere 10 generations, this represents a 95% drop. Even if fertility stabilises at 1.8, the same effect will only be delayed by a few short centuries - at a reproduction factor of 0.9, the same 95% reduction will take a mere 28 generations. It is doubtful that this is enough time for an adaptation to this new environment of ours to kick in before society as we know it collapses from a shortage of people.

* Only figuratively of course. It doesn't "care" at all, it only produces some outcomes more often than others. A desire for large families, though isn't an outcome that it can be predicted to produce (though it is a possible outcome of cultural evolution, if only because people tend to idealise what they have to live with anyway).

 

[Jokodo]

Also a little numbers game, since someone brought up that TFRs are unlikely to drop because in studies conducted in High fertility countries, einen expressis a desire for even larger families than the average of their countries (may have been in a linked article): this is prrfectly compatible, indeed predicted, by what I just said about desires being shaped by perceived norms. If one Woman has 11 kids and the other 4, the average number of children per Woman is 7.5. The aberage family size a Child experiences growing up, however, is above 9.

 

[Jokodo]

Well, apart from being the very core of the argument I have been making, and you appear to have been trying to rebut, for the entire thread, there's no point to it at all.

I was right - you are wasting blth my time and yours, trying to show that my position is wrong when you haven't even grasped what it is.

So what if there are measures such as voluntary family planning which are not immoral but are worthwhile in other terms as well as in reducing population?

I didn't ask if there were any such measures. I asked whether there were any measures that did NOT meet that criterion, but which were nevertheless morally acceptable.

Do try to keep up. I'm not using many long words here.

You haven't explained why any answer to your (at this point apparently daft) question matters.

You have an argument? Who knew?

He has. Multiple times.

 

[Jokodo]

Something about 'otherwise (without population reduction presumably) We and Them are doomed' as I recall.

That's not my premise. It might be yours, I'm not sure, but it's not mine.

Or correct me if I'm wrong. Tell me what you think my premise is.

I'll tell you what it is, although if you read back you'd find it numerous times.

It's that we are in trouble.

I happen to agree with that.

Therefore need to do something about it if we want to help the situation.

I agree with that too.

So we should try to use a broad portfolio of potential countermeasures, which includes amongst others and not by any means chiefly, non-coercive population control (and I'm not convinced the options are an either or, so don't see the point of discounting one or the other).

I disagree with that. I agree that we should pursue a "broad portfolio of potential countermeasures", but I disagree that "non-coercive population control" is among them. The problems we have aren't going to go away if the population peaks a decade earlier, or at a billion fewer people.

We should be pursuing the goal of making modern contraception more available to people who currently lack access to it. But that goal does not require crying about how there are too many Africans already.

 

[DBT]

Here it is being expressed as a population 'spurt' in Africa.

Yes, a population spurt, arguably, but not a population growth spurt.

That's right. My original remark was ''Population growth is expected to surge in developing nations, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa'' which makes no mention of growth rate spurt.

All this arguing about terms is missing the point. Rapid growth, set to continue, partly because of population momentum and still comparatively high fertility rates (in terms of exceeding replacement levels) mean that the issue of population growth is still relevant. You two should stop haggling over terms and you DBT, though I agree with and support many things you say, should accept that population growth surge was the incorrect term. To do otherwise leaves you wide open to the charge of now deliberately overstating the problem.

That's right, it is beside the point. But my remark was clearly in reference to population growth, not growth rate. I provided the relevant growth rates for Africa and the World as a whole, making no claims about rising growth rates than what was in the links and graphs. Population increases, not rising rates. Projected spurts or surges in populations in developing nations based on birth rates and other factors.

 

[bilby]

I am saying if we accept the premise your argument is built upon, those measures become are in fact what we should be doing.

Nope. Though to be fair I'm not sure how your tortured brain even got to that this time so I can't add it to the list of fallacies. Sorry. Try for weapons grade stupid cases later maybe.

By the way, if you get the impression that I'm not taking your daft arguments seriously, full marks for perceptiveness at least.

Hey I'd love you to guess what my premise is. That should be fun. Do that next.

I'm not getting the impression that you aren't taking my arguments seriously.

The impression I'm getting is that you aren't even reading them.

That, or just too stupid to grasp them, so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here.

(A third possibility is that my non-native English is too poor to make myself understood, but then again, if you're interested in an exchange of ideas, you could always ask for clarification. We shall have to ask bilby to weigh in on whether or not the way I string words together makes for intelligible English sentences (copy-paste errors and incomplete revisions excluded).)

I don't see any problem with your English; the communication problem stems from the absolute and unhesitating certainty of the other person in the conversation that he knows everything possible about the subject, and that therefore any contradictory claims need not be read at all, much less given any thought or consideration.

There's no point in trying to explain reality to the faithful. I have added him to my ignore list for now. Life's too short to waste on someone who is determined not to listen to you.

 

[DBT]

Erm, no. The sentence I quoted presents it as a problem that's specific to the developing world and most expressed in Africa.

That aside, it is a demonstrably False claim even for Africa alone. A constant growth, even a constant high growth, is not a surge in growth.

Hardly false if the very people who wrote the article call it a spurt and what they refer to is clearly a steep increase in population in Sub Saharan Africa. A projection of additional 2.2 billion added to the world population, with roughly half that coming from Africa is not a trivial figure.

But call it whatever you like. It doesn't change the statistics.

'By 2050 around 2.2 billion people could be added to the global population and more than half of that growth will occur in Africa.

Africa will account for the highest population spurt with an additional 1.3 billion people on the continent, a new UN population report shows.

And if a car is slowing down from 80 to 50 km/h as it approaches a bend, it still has multiple times the speed of a pedestrian, yet it is false to say that it's accelerating.

I think your analogy is off. We are talking about population growth. If a car is cruising at 50km/h, then accelerates to 80km/h, this could be called a spurt or surge in velocity. My comparison was meant to highlight the sheer number people that 83 million represents. Which adds up to whole nations of people being added to the World population each and every year.

Not to mention that 1.09% growth rate in relation 12 billion represents far more people being born than 1.09% growth rate in a population of 7 billion.

 

[Jokodo]

Erm, no. The sentence I quoted presents it as a problem that's specific to the developing world and most expressed in Africa.

That aside, it is a demonstrably False claim even for Africa alone. A constant growth, even a constant high growth, is not a surge in growth.

Hardly false if the very people who wrote the article call it a spurt and what they refer to is clearly a steep increase in population in Sub Saharan Africa.

A spurt in population is hardly the same as a surge in population growth.

A projection of additional 2.2 billion added to the world population, with roughly half that coming from Africa is not a trivial figure.

I have made no claim about whether or not it is a trivial figure.

But call it whatever you like. It doesn't change the statistics.

'By 2050 around 2.2 billion people could be added to the global population and more than half of that growth will occur in Africa.

Africa will account for the highest population spurt with an additional 1.3 billion people on the continent, a new UN population report shows.

And if a car is slowing down from 80 to 50 km/h as it approaches a bend, it still has multiple times the speed of a pedestrian, yet it is false to say that it's accelerating.

I think your analogy is off. We are talking about population growth. If a car is cruising at 50km/h, then accelerates to 80km/h, this could be called a spurt or surge in velocity. My comparison was meant to highlight the sheer number people that 83 million represents. Which adds up to whole nations of people being added to the World population each and every year.

Not to mention that 1.09% growth rate in relation 12 billion represents far more people being born than 1.09% growth rate in a population of 7 billion.

That is, of course, trivially true. What it also is is irrelevant. You seem to believe that you're the only one with a grasp of basic math, that people disagree with you because they don't understand the numbers.

I understand perfectly well that a constant above zero growth rate means a growing base, and thus a constantly rising pace of the increase in absolute terms. We understand that even a growth rate of 1.09% means an increase to 100 times the current value in just over 423 years.

What we don't understand is why anyone would assume a constant growth rate when for that to happen, people would have to stop aging. The growth rate is going to decline (at least for a while) even if people don't change their behaviour: It's only as high as it is because not enough old people are around to die and thus offset a relatively modest number of births.

 

[Jokodo]

Also, population growth rate doesn't translate as the number of people being born. It's that minus the number of people dying.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Also, population growth rate doesn't translate as the number of people being born. It's that minus the number of people dying.

 

[DBT]

A spurt in population is hardly the same as a surge in population growth.

The spurt or surge I referred to being specifically Sub Saharan Africa. A remark I justified by supplying the stats and graphs.....which show a steep growth in population in the coming decades.

It is there for all to see.

I have made no claim about whether or not it is a trivial figure.

It was I who pointed out that it is not a trivial figure, and why. 1.09% is adding the equivalent of the population of some nations each and every year.

That is, of course, trivially true. What it also is is irrelevant.

It is not trivially true. It is true. It is not irrelevant because it is adding millions of consumers to a planet overburdened by human consumption, destruction of habitat, etc.
For example;
"We've gone past the point where we can do it easily, just by the sheer magnitude of the population, what we call the demographic momentum. We just can't stop it fast enough," said Prof Corey Bradshaw from the University of Adelaide.

"Even draconian measures for fertility control still won't arrest that growth rate - we're talking century-scale reductions rather than decadal scale, because of the magnitude."

In their paper, the researchers also look at the impact on numbers of a global catastrophe in the middle of this century. They found that even an event that wiped out two billion people would still leave about eight and a half billion in 2100.

"Even if we had a third world war in the middle of this century, you would barely make a dent in the trajectory over the next 100 years," said Prof Bradshaw, something he described as "sobering".

'Difficult to tackle'

The scientists said the issue of population and its impact on global consumption was often described as the "elephant in the room" - a problem that the world ignores as it is politically and ethically difficult to tackle. ''

You seem to believe that you're the only one with a grasp of basic math, that people disagree with you because they don't understand the numbers.

They are not my numbers, my maths or my stats. What I happen to use is taken from studies by the UN and other organizations. I merely use what is available. The graph posted above, for example.