Singapore manages to do all sorts of surprising things. It's the counter-example to all arguments. Singapore is magic.

200-300 years ago, many intellectuals thought we would never be able to sustain 6-7 billion people on this planet. Yet, here we are.

Technology and innovation has kept up with population up to now and for some reason it won't in the future?

As someone has already pointed out, developed countries have lower population growth. If undeveloped countries can grow and develop economically, population growth should decrease substantially.

Population growth has never proven to be a problem. People are concerned about overpopulation based on a faulty understanding of Economics and scarcity.

Careful, son. You might get Disciplined.

This thread is pretty funny. I'm going to assume that pretty much everyone reading this thread is from the US, Canada, Europe, or Australia. Given that (and if I'm wrong I apologize), my is question for those people who want to use the government to control the population. Given some easily found data.

The total fertility rate in the US is 2.05
Canada is 1.63
Iceland is 2.07 (the highest in Europe)
Australia is 1.9

The replacement rate is 2.1 children per woman

Who exactly do you want to prevent from having babies? Do we need to go into South America, Asia, and Africa and start sterilizing people? Or would you prefer we drop the fertility rate in the west even more?

Population growth has been a problem (in terms of mass causalities) millions and millions of times over in the evolutionary history of the planet. Those that think humans are magically exempt don't understand what an exponential function is.

If you don't think mass casualties counts as a problem then obv nothing really matters including forced sterilization etc.

If nearly all developed nations used birth control so that each couple had less than 2 children would you consider this magic?

No. It is a possible solution. Magic would be unfettered exponential growth forever.

Tell that to the accelerating expansion of the universe, bro.

The sterilizers seem to be targeting pretty anybody who isn't middle class in an industrialized western country. It's not bigotry, you see, because they are basing their decisions on something other than race.

You act like your unsubstantiated notion that more people give than take magically means there's always going to be enough resources in the world.



I'm aware population is not the main cause of recession, thank you very much. But it's certainly a part of the problem.

Magic is a pretty fair description of that since nobody has any idea how it is possible.

We can't sustain 7 billion people now. If the rest of the world wasted resources like Americans it would required 5 or 6 earths to sustain the current population.

as Peter Schiff puts it, imagine the world as some island with different people working, etc. in the Keynsian paradigm, the American's job (to endlessly consume) is the most important job on the entire island, because without this endless consumption, the rest of the islanders wouldn't have jobs. the reality is the opposite, and everyone else on the island would be better off if they kicked the American on the island. at some point, Americans will be cut-off as the rest of the world realizes this and stops buying u.s. treasuries. it may even be the end of the dollar as we know it.

So how are they alive?

The reason so many people are starving is because trade is restricted and property rights are not enforced. Much of this is due to poor governing. The problem right now is not do we have enough resources. We have plenty. It's how do we distribute it.

You must be one of those people who thinks that the fact that everyone on the planet could live in a giant city the size of Texas is a show-stopper.

I bet that with the right technology we could fit everyone into New York City. I mean, look at how many chickens we can fit on a modern poultry farm. I personally believe that our policymakers are out of touch with the state of the art--what we need is a more open dialogue between civil engineers and poultry farmers.

On a serious note, I hope that I'm dead before people like you get their way, and I think that you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

americans are being subsidized by the rest of the world based on a phony wealth system. they buy t-bills, the us pays them back in devalued currency. it's called monetizing the debt. gold's not going through the roof. it's the dollar, and the euro that are in trouble. it's not sustainable long term, and it'll be a lot of pain. the pain though is the solution. the consumerism Nixon floated to the rest of the world by severing the u.s. dollar from the gold standard is the problem. perhaps it is true that only Nixon can go to China.

of course, predictably americans are in denial, and as they eat in front of their televisions they are told that the chinese are guilty of "currency manipulation". what this means is that the chinese aren't buying as many devalued t-bills as they are use to, and americans are butt hurt. the paradigm of america was doomed from the start.

Seriously, how do you propose we control the population? Every developed country I have looked up has a total fertility rate that is less than the replacement rate. If it wasn't for immigration, the population in the US, Canada, Europe, ect. would be falling. So what should developed countries do?

the first step to rehabilitation is to admit you have a drinking problem. americans will never get to this step, lol.

I'm not talking about the sustainability of U.S debt. I'm talking about over population and the scarcity of resources. I don't know why you are combining the two issues. American government debt is not causing starvation in the Sudan or Somalia.

What exactly should I be ashamed of? You lost me.

I obviously don't agree that it's an overpopulation problem, but jogsxyz is meandering towards a point in my mind. americans are going to have to economize in the future when they are not propped up. this is part of how the global economy will re-level in my mind.

Everything is connected.



I don't know how else to put it.

Just tell me how it's connected. That's all I'm asking.

Just for the record, I don't care if people want to live in cities or farms. The U.S for the most part lets its citizens eat where they want and what they want. Firms have to compete for that demand and there are many of them. This competition encourages the growth of an ever evolving and growing distribution network.

Undeveloped nations have little to no property rights and trade is restricted either by war, governments, or poor infrastructure.

my posts are more pertaining to sustainability rather than population, but what I agree with Discipline is the sustainability of the current system.

it's just my opinion, me flapping my gums. but I think americans have only been able to sustain their way of life because of this paradigm of america as the world consumer. it's the idea that the chinese and the rest need to buy u.s. treasuries so americans will consume their goods boosting their economies. it's the keynesian paradigm that you need the fatty on the island to put everyone to work. as soon as people realize that doesn't work long term, and it's not in their short-term interest either, the markets will re-level in a highly painful way. they'll stop selling the goods to us and buying treasuries, and start making goods for themselves boosting their own economies. I mean, do the chinese really need devalued paper for them to socially organize? it could mean even more war in the future if americans are desperate to maintain themselves in this way.

add: the debt and the fiat system is like one big giant subsidy, not a free market.

Well......hopefully the chemtrails will weed out some of those wasteful Americans.