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Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

nytimes.com

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Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#121

Post by lutusp »

glenra wrote: post #120
lutusp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are the one that said things are worse compared to 1932. And they are -- much worse. More incidents in an absolute sense, and more incidents per capita.

>> You are the one that said things are worse compared to 1932. > And they are -- much worse. More incidents in an absolute sense, and more incidents per capita Except that there are almost certainly fewer incidents per capita compared to 1932. 1932 was near a local maximum in terms of violence rates in the US; currently we are near a local minimum. (The current homicide rate is less than half what it was in 1932.)

> Except that there are almost certainly fewer incidents per capita compared to 1932.

No, not if a reasonable moving average is performed. And per capita modifies the logic in a way that reduces the importance of population, when my point is the size of that population.

Here's a small interval graph that shows an increase per capita since 1960:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Crim...

Another graph that shows the same trend:

http://www.utahfoundation.org/img/briefs/2008_08_crime_fig4....

The above graph shows the risk of using too short a sampling interval. If you sample on the interval 1990 to the present, crime appears to have gone down. If you sample from 1960 or any longer intervals to the present, per capita crime has certainly increased.

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#122

Post by glenra »

lutusp wrote: post #117
glenra wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To make that claim, you need to define "rate". "rate" means per capita per year. By "a century ago" I meant around 1913; 1800 would be TWO centuries ago. The murder rate in the US has been in the general ballpark of 5-10 per 100,000 annually since 1910. Currently we're near the low point of the last century. Um, here: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/listening_to_the_late... Quote: "Today's murder rate is ess…

> "rate" means per capita per year. That's by no means the only meaning of "rate". The meaning of a rate depends on the two values involved -- the dividend and divisor. The identity of both defines a specific use of the term "rate". "Murders divided by years" is one example of a rate. "Murders divided by (years times population)" is another. And "(mb-ma) divided by ((yb-ya) times (pb-pa))" starts us toward a moving a…

>> "rate" means per capita per year.

>That's by no means the only meaning of "rate".

It is the standard definition when talking about a CRIME rate. Googling "define crime rate" returns things like this:

"the ratio of crimes in an area to the population of that area; expressed per 1000 population per year" http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=crime%20rate

A "murder rate", being a fair bit smaller, is almost always expressed per 100,000 people per year.

> If the population is increasing without constraint

It isn't. Population growth rates have rapidly declined all over the world. The US population would already be shrinking were it not for immigration. Even Bangladesh and India are currently reproducing at right around replacement levels.

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#123

Post by fedvasu »

glenra wrote: post #99
fedvasu wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude(I hope you are,or else Ma'am), HongKong is an urban conglomerate(yes it is independent region). It is a city you can't apply the same logic of cities to a an entire nation.My point is still valid.

> My point is still valid. WHAT point? Dude, you need to spend some time with gapminders.org . Follow the links below and press the "play" button beneath the charts. India and Bangladesh have in the last few decades had a rapidly falling birthrate (down to around replacement level) along with rapidly improving child mortality rates. Watch this in the form of blue dots marching down and to the left. http://www.bit.ly/…

> So where's the impending disaster? I don't see it in any of the relevant metrics.

The impending disaster is in its early stage and is slowed down a bit due to mass immigration of Bangladeshi citizen into neighboring countries and rapid urbanization of India (specially western and southern India) and please check the number of immigrants of bangladesh and hazardous urbanization of India.

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#124

Post by fedvasu »

lutusp wrote: post #101
fedvasu wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No that is the problem right there. The advent of good(pretty good for a 3rd world country) health care in India ensured explosive growth of population. The only humane way to control population is extensive education of the masses,strongly backed by government(military can be engaged, if required) It means breaking away from religious factions and beliefs. It is impossible in India where minority politics is very im…

> The only humane way to control population is extensive education of the masses ... Absolutely true, but for one thing. If we educate the masses, we will reduce the average fertility along with doing a lot of general good. Who could argue against that? But natural selection does perverse things with our best-laid plans. If we educate the masses, natural selection will efficiently select those who weren't educated, o…

so we are in a fix (in other words ooh! poops).any study or effort to beat nature from selecting stupidity?. I used to joke about natural selection as "survival of the dumbest"(I used to be a creationist nut, back in freshman days) I guess "dumb is the new fit!"

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#125

Post by lutusp »

glenra wrote: post #122
lutusp wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "rate" means per capita per year. That's by no means the only meaning of "rate". The meaning of a rate depends on the two values involved -- the dividend and divisor. The identity of both defines a specific use of the term "rate". "Murders divided by years" is one example of a rate. "Murders divided by (years times population)" is another. And "(mb-ma) divided by ((yb-ya) times (pb-pa))" starts us toward a moving a…

>> "rate" means per capita per year. >That's by no means the only meaning of "rate". It is the standard definition when talking about a CRIME rate. Googling "define crime rate" returns things like this: "the ratio of crimes in an area to the population of that area; expressed per 1000 population per year" http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=crime%20rate A "murder rate", being a fair bit smaller, is almost al…

> It is the standard definition when talking about a CRIME rate.

That wasn't your claim, and it's false in any case. There's no standard definition of "rate" -- you need to define your terms, and "rate" means a measure of change, not any specific measure without additional information. In any case, the exchange below tells me that you really don't understand what "rate" means.

>> If the population is increasing without constraint

> It isn't. Population growth rates [emphasis added] have rapidly declined all over the world.

Honestly. I say population is increasing. You reply by saying that the "growth rate", i.e. the first derivative of population, has declined. Both are true. To sort this out, take Calculus. Until you understand the difference between a function and its first derivative, we won't be able to discuss this issue.

http://www.arachnoid.com/calculus/

Also, for the actual worldwide population growth rate:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth

"In 2009, the estimated annual growth rate was 1.1%."

That rate, if sustained, means the world's population will double in 63 years.

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#126

Post by fedvasu »

pdonis wrote: post #49
cnorgate wrote: post #39

The problem with this thinking is a failure to realize that we are already taxing the Earth far beyond its carrying capacity. To continue supporting even our current population will force us to devastate our planet to the point that we won't recognize it in 50-100 years. What's the point of supporting more people if we bring them into a miserable world? Certainly we COULD continue developing innovations that harness…

we are already taxing the Earth far beyond its carrying capacity And your evidence for this is? To continue supporting even our current population will force us to devastate our planet And your evidence for this is? What about raising the standard of living of all those who are already on the planet As the article clearly states, the obstacles to doing this are social and political, not environmental or technological…

I do not want to be mean, but can you not just read existing material on Human population growth, pollution and global warming.For a start you can try high school environmental science book.Then may be you can come up with some counter-evidence with hard facts (like shaking up the environmental sciences pile of data of over 50 years).

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#127

Post by fedvasu »

hannibal5 wrote: post #17

The main failure of this article is that it assumes that social problems are outside biology and that they are easy to solve. Currently world produces enough food for everyone. Then why do we have 700 - 800 million malnourished people, even more people facing food insecurity, why we are destroying farmland and why are we wasting the primary macronutrients: nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K). Overpopulation i…

In total agreement and moreover the best comment on this post(irrespective of agreement :)).

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#128

Post by fedvasu »

chr1 wrote: post #68
cnorgate wrote: post #39

The problem with this thinking is a failure to realize that we are already taxing the Earth far beyond its carrying capacity. To continue supporting even our current population will force us to devastate our planet to the point that we won't recognize it in 50-100 years. What's the point of supporting more people if we bring them into a miserable world? Certainly we COULD continue developing innovations that harness…

To continue supporting even 1/10 of our current population will force us to devastate our planet eventually, if we don't change the way we support it. More people means more science and better ways of sustaining population. And we are not stuck on our planet forever, there are more planets nearby waiting to be 'devastated'.

>>> And we are not stuck on our planet forever, there are more planets nearby waiting to be 'devastated'.

Yeah right! We can have a movie on that planet with Cameroon directing,can't we?.

All snark aside, there is only one planet which is nearby and can be terra-formed, Mars. Our Solar system is huge as we go far from our sun, we loose precious energy we get from sun which is very important to sustain any kind of flora or fauna.And no the big moons of Jupiter are quite hostile and cold, one the moon has liquid methane raining from it's atmosphere. How can you terra-form that? Anything further than asteroid belt is just too damn cold.

Now coming to other solar systems, I learnt in my high-school that our near star Alpha Centauri (I know proxima centauri is the nearest, but alpha was mentioned in our textbook, but doesn't matter same system) is more than 4 light years away and no planet in the habitable zone.However if anyone builds a machine which enables us to travel to alpha in say a couple of months. I will immediately marry and procreate(May be in 10 years have 5-7 kids).

I hope Elon Musk(or someone else) succeeds and dies a natural death on Mars. It is important for humanity.

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#129

Post by fedvasu »

seclorum wrote: post #114
lutusp wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's too bad that you can't locate any evidence for your opinions. I posted scientific evidence, you replied with opinion. > ... scientifically described but nevertheless: still superstition. This isn't a creative writing class.

You didn't post any evidence, but lots of theory, whereas there is plenty of evidence that the human species does indeed manage to survive .. in spite of ones best efforts.

please post enough evidence, which conclusively says we are not even scratching the surface of earth's resources and it is cool to increase population to 15 billion by mid 21st century and pollution is not due to humans and global warming is a sham created by Neo-hippies.

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#130

Post by glenra »

lutusp wrote: post #84
bayesianhorse wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Squeezing out more resources" isn't exactly what's happening. Agricultural technology is still progressing and we could probably feed any population growth beyond any current prediction of human population.

> Agricultural technology is still progressing and we could probably feed any population growth beyond any current prediction of human population. We already can't feed our present numbers, or haven't you been paying attention? http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20f... Quote: "The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly 870 million people of the 7.1 billion people…

[I apologize in advance for having to go "meta" on this one; given the rest of the discussion I don't think it can be helped.]

lutusp: Do you care whether the statements you make are true? Or do you just want to not seem wrong, no matter what arguments are required to accomplish that?

When you give a link supporting your views, do you read the link first and check that it supports the argument you're making? Because it seems like you're not doing that.

In this case, the link you gave says that using the "new estimate method", there were 1 billion hungry people in 1990-92 (out of a world population of 5.370 billion) and there were 870 million hungry in 2013 (out of a population of 7.095 billion). So world hunger didn't just decrease as a percentage of population (from 18% to 12.3%), it decreased as an ABSOLUTE NUMBER. As the population went up, the total NUMBER of starving people DECLINED.

Your link also says this:

> "The world produces enough food to feed everyone. World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. This is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day"

So as you said, a bit snottily, "We already can't feed our present numbers, or haven't you been paying attention?", the link you provide in "support" actually said we CAN feed our present numbers and also says we're getting ever-better at actually doing so.

In short, your link does not in any way support your argument. So the "environmental deniers" you refer to are probably correct; you are wrong. As this is starting to seem like a trend, you might want to re-evaluate your information sources; they are not serving you well.

Here's a useful tip: most people are not complete idiots. If your sources give you the impression that everybody in some huge ideological grouping (say "environmental deniers", or even "climate deniers") IS a complete idiot, then they might not be showing you the whole picture. Try to seek out the MOST credible arguments against your position - and strengthen them if you can. Don't just harp on the relatively few stupid people making stupid, easily debunked arguments and assume that the opposite of what they believe must be true - "reversed stupidity is not intelligence". Give the other side some benefit of the doubt. Otherwise you can't learn anything.

Feynman said some of the necessary stuff better than I could:

http://neurotheory.columbia.edu/~ken/cargo_cult.html

Good luck to you!

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