Qualitative life vs quantitative death?

Question

In 1800 a billion people were sharing life on earth.

In 1900, 1.6 billion were feeling the pinch a bit and wondering where all these people were coming from.

1955 seemed strange. 2.55 billion human bodies competing for food, space, water, energy, comfort.

2.55 billion despite two world wars, a holocaust, a major influenza epidemic in 1917-18.

2006: 6.5 billion people tredding the mudball.

Humans have never achieved the ideal of spreading death of an entire population consistently. A lot of spikes and valleys happen.

Human sensibilities are offended when more than the alloted number of deaths happen during too compressed a time-span. An earthquake, 100,000 deaths raises eyebrows. A tidal wave.

But the challenge for 21st century planet walkers seems to be finding a way to keep that 6.5 billion from reaching 13 billion by 2075. Birth control hasn't approached the problem, and isn't likely to do so.

There used to be a cliché that the Chinese could march four-abreast into the sea forever without reducing the population. That was back when there weren’t so many Chinese, and there weren’t so many of the rest of us.

Is there a question of ethics here, or am I just hallucinating?

Yesterday I saw a post from an AnswersAddict explaining there’s no population problem. Everyone in the US, he said, would fit into the State of Texas. Maybe true.

But without trying to fit everyone in the US into Texas every drop of river water in the State is already poisonous. Almost every food product is imported because farm lands have been sacrificed for residential development.

I wonder how many of us would have to march abreast into the sea every moment just to stabilize it?

The sharks would love it.

woodman: yep. Thanks for the reply.

Bahpath: That's encouraging. The world population of 2050 should feel better knowing you said so. Thanks for the reply

vizny: Say the human lifespan's 70 years on average. What's ideal about 1/70th dying every year is that 69/70ths don't die in a single year, spreading the other 1/70th out over 70 years.

Thanks for the reply.

Sophist: Thanks for the reply

Sowcrates: Thanks for the reply. As a veteran myself, I tend to think you have a misplaced sense of what's owed by the many to the few. Vets did what they did. Part of the game. Nobody owes nobody nuthun on that score.

The people on the streets need an individual to hand them a can of beans and a loaf of bread. They don't need a legion of social workers to figure out what else they need.

Just my thought.

giggly giraffe: hone up on your reading skills, maybe? Or read all the way through before you draw conclusions and post answers refuting what hasn't been asserted.

Population is population is population. Hasn't anything to do with your Libertarianism. Nothing to do with what you think of some incident in Iran.

Thanks for the inane reply. thumbs up.

Sowcrates: Sorry I gave you the impression I knew, assumed, cared, what your political leanings involve.

I don't know, and I don't believe you know, a reasonable, acceptable solution to population increases of the sort happening internationally.

If it's going to be taken out of the hands of nature, seems to me it might be a good idea for someone to be thinking about it.

That's the intent, and always was the intent, of this question.

giggly giraffe: Lessee. Which part don't you believe in? The population numbers? They're official. Or do you just not believe anyone should be discussing them?

Answer 1

Birth control IS the near-term answer. The question is how drastic will be the enforcement. If we wish to decrease the population on this planet, we obviously cannot replace ourselves so, one child per couple appears to be the requirement. After one, then sterilization of both. If this is done unrelentingly the number will fall. However, it is distasteful to us.

The solution to keeping our current breeding habits is to migrate outwards. This will require the solution of FTL travel, which cannot happen for a number of years. But that is our choice short of wholesale slaughter in the form of nuclear war or pandemic.

Answer 2

I do not favor eminent domain over property, products, or my person. This "Tragedy of the commons" (Communism) leads to resources spoiling.

Did you not hear about the story in Iraq where eminent domain left mentally challenged childreen wasting away while the owners of the orpanage had stocks of food spoiling that they were trying to hord, and corruptly sell?

I'm a democratic, lasse-fair type, and against our (USA's) existing socialist programs. Really, people want me to BUY into "Social Health care" when the governments "Tragedy of the Commons" cannot handle public education, and social security? Get real. Fix what's broke before I trust the government to take ANY more control. Further, to put any trust in a governement with life is insain.

Next you'll be saying that once a person reaches the age of 65 we should kill them to keep population in line from both ends (GWF Hagel & Rousseau). In the USA we have 12.6% of the population over 65. So we could then kill 37,943,633 people. Hey, think of the retirment saving we could save (that's messed up 4 sure) ...China has 1,321,851,888 with 7.9% over 65 which under this theory means we should kill 104,426,299 people for the sake of maintaining population.

Sorry, I don't believe in this from either end ... still a lasser-fair believer.

Answer 3

There certainly is a question of ethics here. The people who still think that it is God's command to go forth and "people" the earth are now immoral people. They suppress, with a deep intellectual dishonesty, the use of birth control and condoms. This is immoral. The people that care so very much for life they cannot see, do not seem to care so much for the lives that are wasted before their very eyes. I do not understand this immorality, but it must be pointed out and contradicted. The question is not now "What are we?"; but "Who are we?". Who are we going to save and who must be allowed to starve to death. Not just in all the world, as is the case, but in the great US of A we watch as jobless and homeless veterans are not allowed to join the club of who "We" are. They serve their county and we let them suffer in our streets. Is there an ethical question here or am I hallucinating?

Oh, so it is a "big picture" problem which cannot be solved by any real actions. I happen to think you are wrong about what is owed and to whom. I think we owe it to one another to care for and value the lives we can see before us. You seem to dismiss me as, at best, a socialist. I am not. As a communist, if I was one, it would be my duty to show you that it is the few who owe the many not the many the few.

Answer 4

Live and let live.

'Humans have never achieved the ideal of spreading death of an entire population consistently'. What's ideal about that?

Answer 5

The more of us the cheaper life is. Supply and demand in a sense.

Answer 6

LIFE
We have to and we will find new energy sources, new way to produce food and to break into the space (other planets).