overpopulation of earth?

Question

if you think about it, if scientists find the cure of all diseases (which is reasonably likely to happen) and the average life expectancy continues to increase and melting ice caps continue to make countries smaller in size, wont the world become overcrowded in 100 years or so? there would be no ethical way of deciding who lives or dies.china has a law whereby you can only have 1 child. do you think other countries should do the same to stop the world from becoming overpopulated?

Answer 1

first of all, it is unlikely cures will be found for every disease. There was an antibiotic treatment for tuberculosis, however that changed when a mutated resistant TB showed up and it couldn't be treated. There is no guarantee that diseases will stay the same; even the bird flu is feared because of possible mutations so that humans can be infected.

Second, although that is somewhat likely, it is more likely that a conflict or war will occur in the next 100 years rather than full time peace, which will probably considerably reduce the number of people, which in turn solves our population problem

Answer 2

If scientists could cure all diseases, then I think they would have no problem solving the over population of the earth dilemma. On the other hand, scientists already know ice caps are melting too fast and nobody seems to care...Even if scientists could cure all diseases, the government would never allow it. Think about it...if we were all healthy then there would be little need for doctors, medications and health insurance.

Answer 3

For one thing increasing life expectancy would actually decrease the number of children people have. If you think about it (lol) if someone in Nepal needed 5 kids to help on his farm and on average 1 in 4 dies he will need 7 to 8 kids. And if none of the pass away then he has that many more. This is how overpopulation occur. The problem with a cure for every disease is that diseases change. Because they asexually reproduce, any abnormality that benefits them would be directly passed on to their children and that species will prosper. I wish I had to worry about that problem.