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Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

nytimes.com

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Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#71

Post by seclorum »

lutusp wrote: post #60
fiter wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that neither of the historical trend models are going to be realistic except by chance. Past performance doesn't guarantee future returns. Basically, I'm not sure that the past situations and solutions will be the same as the future situation and non-/solutions. Also, this misses a big part of what's important to me. The standard of living should also be considered. Given that we can support 9 billion people,…

> I'm not sure that the past situations and solutions will be the same as the future situation and non-/solutions. The future will be completely different than the past, but in the same way -- consistent with the Logistic function and its description of the relation between species and environment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function There are any number of unpredictable aspects to how events unfold, but p…

We've already demonstrated that we can bend physical laws to our needs, or have you missed that point in your rush to cast away any faith in the human species' ability to manage its resources? Because: managing our resources is what makes the difference, entirely, between extinction and survival, and we've been doing precisely that for 200,000 years so far.

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#72

Post by IsThisObvious »

pyre wrote: post #63
IsThisObvious wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some other species: things like raccoons, crows, cows, pigeons, rats, mice, dogs, house cats, etc are all likely to thrive.

Depends on what you mean by "thrive." Many of them will "thrive" in conditions that it would be illegal to put a human into. I'm not sure if I call that "thriving."

Many humans "thrive" in conditions that are illegal to put humans in to.

I don't really see your point, since it doesn't even remotely talk about the relative rates of the two populations or compare what would happen with humans to what would happen without for any of the species.

It seems to be contentless objection to what I said, despite the fact that humans are known to greatly increase the prevalence of all of those species, many of which seem to be getting by just fine for many of their members.

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#73

Post by fedvasu »

glenra wrote: post #67
fedvasu wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I curse you to live in a country like India or Bangladesh for rest of your life. I hope you survive that environment and die a natural death.These are the places where population increase is severely under-checked due to various political,religious and plain-old(which are not any of the former) dumb reasons. I am not going to predict anything but I believe these two countries will be the example of hazards of overpop…

The population density of Fremont, CA is about the same as the population density of Bangladesh, and it's not a bad place to live. The population density of Hong Kong is much higher still, and it's also a pretty nice place to live. In short, the countries you name have a poverty problem, NOT a population problem. And the poverty problem is generally declining, last I checked.

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.

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#74

Post by tgb »

What a ridiculous article. Not because it doesn't make some reasonable points, but because it assumes these points are so unique and unknown. Doesn't everyone hear the classic Malthus-versus-technological-advancement argument in highschool? I certainly did multiple times.

I mean, it's more-or-less the basis for all Sci-Fi: stories fall under either A) rich-get-richer and pending disaster as the Earth is overburdened, B) technology makes everything wonderful, C) Humans explicity inhibit their population, or D) humans find new land on other planets (usually also coupled with A,B, or C or Earth)). This isn't some debate that hasn't happened. This isn't some revelation that one comes to as an ecologist, this is an often-rehashed discussion. A worthy discussion, certainly, with points on both sides. But not one which the author has just now discovered a barely-known side of.

Now if the author had done some serious research and presented actual evidence for his side, I'd be all ears. Too bad there wasn't anything new in the article.

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#75

Post by IsThisObvious »

lutusp wrote: post #35
IsThisObvious wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The child's parents were, a fact you seem to be ignoring in your analysis; I expect we'd see international headlines at the kidnapping of Michael Jackson's child or the kidnapping of the new son of the Duke of Cambridge. Do you really contend that we wouldn't?

> The child's parents were, a fact you seem to be ignoring in your analysis ... Comparable modern stories don't get the same coverage, because they're now too common. That was my only point.

So you honestly believe that if someone kidnapped the Duke of Cambridge's newborn son, it wouldn't be international news, because "it happens too often"?

I routinely get stories about single families in China who have had their kids kidnapped for organ theft, even if it's not all of them. I find it HIGHLY unlikely that an international celebrities child would be kidnapped without it being major news.

You're going to have to do better than bald assertion for me to be convinced of that.

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#76

Post by lutusp »

pdonis wrote: post #58
lutusp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The logistic model especially assumes that the carrying capacity is constant. Yes, but the model easily accommodates scenarios in which more and more sustenance is squeezed out of the environment, which is the primary argument of the deniers. Finally, though, because big loaves of bread don't give birth to little rug-rat loaves of bread, the Logistic function predicts the same outcome -- mass birth balanced by mass…

I'm not saying there's a solution to this problem -- there isn't It seems to me that you actually agree with the article's claim that the primary problem is social. You just don't agree with the article's claim that the problem can be solved; basically you don't think humans will be able to come to grips with the social changes that would be required to manage ourselves as a species responsibly. Is that a fair statem…

> You just don't agree with the article's claim that the problem can be solved ...

That's correct. The article relies on a common logical error, to wit: catastrophe hasn't overtaken us yet, and that stands as evidence that it cannot ever happen, i.e. the past predicts the future.

It's one thing to accept that we can't solve population problems by pointing fingers at other people. But it's quite another to try to claim the problem doesn't exist at all.

> basically you don't think humans will be able to come to grips with the social changes that would be required to manage ourselves as a species responsibly.

It's a bit more complicated than that. In a mixed population of people who can grasp the nature of biological limits, and others who cannot, those who cannot eventually become the entire future population -- people congenitally indisposed to act intelligently. It's the inevitable outcome of natural selection.

That's an easy problem to state, but impossible to do anything about without abandoning all civilized standards of behavior. If we do nothing, mass death becomes the problem. If we try to "solve" the problem, fascist and eugenic political measures become the problem. That's not any kind of choice.

My point? This isn't a movie in which everything gets resolved in the third act. All our choices are bad ones, but the worst is to imagine the problem doesn't exist, as the author of the linked article tries to do.

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#77

Post by fedvasu »

IsThisObvious wrote: post #16
lutusp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While I'm all for keeping resource-consumption in check and keeping sustainability in mind, I don't like what people say about overpopulatiion. That's your argument? That you don'e like it? I don't like it either, but mass death is how nature deals with species who exceed the carrying capacity of their environments. > Sometimes I would hear people hoping that population numbers would decrease by natural catastrophi…

> We're already seeing the first stages. Can you support this? We're not seeing any mass deaths which are sufficient to even slow the population growth rate, and instead, seem to simply be seeing more statistically unlikely events as the population grows larger - which is what we would expect.

I am pretty sure you are living in a first world. No I am not a political nutjob. I was born in and live in a 3rd world country, I have seen all the problems, Just type Indian food security bill in Google. I mean come on,it is not even funny how the situation is in south Asia.

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#78

Post by bayesianhorse »

lutusp wrote: post #18
bayesianhorse wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The logistic model especially assumes that the carrying capacity is constant. Which it's not, for humanity.

> The logistic model especially assumes that the carrying capacity is constant. Yes, but the model easily accommodates scenarios in which more and more sustenance is squeezed out of the environment, which is the primary argument of the deniers. Finally, though, because big loaves of bread don't give birth to little rug-rat loaves of bread, the Logistic function predicts the same outcome -- mass birth balanced by mass…

"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.

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#79

Post by fiter »

seclorum wrote: post #38
fiter wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that neither of the historical trend models are going to be realistic except by chance. Past performance doesn't guarantee future returns. Basically, I'm not sure that the past situations and solutions will be the same as the future situation and non-/solutions. Also, this misses a big part of what's important to me. The standard of living should also be considered. Given that we can support 9 billion people,…

> Past performance doesn't guarantee future returns. You might want to consult the factual record of tens of thousands of years of farmers on that particular point of view. ;) You are right that it doesn't guarantee anything, except to those who carefully apply scientific principles to their management of resources, folks otherwise known as 'farmers'. >he standard of living should also be considered. Given that we ca…

> You are right that it doesn't guarantee anything, except to those who carefully apply scientific principles to their management of resources, folks otherwise known as 'farmers'.

Wouldn't science suggest we model based on the systems as they are instead of past performance? Let me hypothesize for a moment here to create a situation where the past performance may fail for predicting the future: (1) Assume that plants have traditionally been nutrient limited. (2) We are no longer nutrient limited. (3) We are now insolation to stored energy limited. We don't have a good way to increase insolation, so we'd better come up with a way to increase the efficiency of photosynthesis. (Not to say that there aren't plenty of ways around this. Maybe we'll use solar cells to power chemical sugar making plants.)

> For at least the last 200 years, the standard of living of hundreds of millions of people has been raised, again and again, over and over.

You quoted me, but I'm having a hard time interpreting your response in the context of you understanding me. I was stating that we might be better off with less population, not simply that the standard of living can increase with an increasing population. To state it again, we could have X% increase with double the population, but with our current population we might have Y%. Is Y > X?

Re: Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

#80

Post by lutusp »

glenra wrote: post #57
lutusp wrote: post #4

This is the most purblind, misguided editorial opinion I have read in weeks. It repeats an old saw often repeated by people who don't understand the Logistic function and its role is describing biological systems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function The Logistic function concisely describes the behavior of biological systems that don't have any control over their numbers, as humans most certainly do not. A…

The rate of both mass killings and individual killings is WAY down from what it's been historically. One interesting thing about news coverage is it covers NEWS - stuff that is new or that happens rarely. Once you've seen something happen a thousand times before, it stops being news. Auto accidents, being common, don't get national news coverage. High-profile kidnappings and large-bodycount school shootings, being mu…

> The rate of both mass killings and individual killings is WAY down from what it's been historically.

You're making a common statistical error, one that climate change deniers use daily -- if you perform a moving average using a long averaging interval, the climate is warming up. If you perform a moving average using a short averaging interval, the climate is cooling off.

The second measurement is an error because it can only predict the future if the future is limited to a year or two in duration. But the long averaging interval is a more honest and reliable predictor of the future. That predictor shows a warming of the climate, and it also shows that eventually, population growth will collide with mass death.

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