Over population

Over population is a major subject nowadays and much is blamed on growth in Africa.

But if you live in a country as under populated as Africa and depend on having a large family to survive, can you really be expected to carry the job of population control on your shoulders without any help?
And why should you?

 

ebola. covid. malaria. famine. at work in africa.

in the more developed world, the attraction of covid to conservative governments is that it will allow them to clear their social security and health care rolls and allow further tax cuts for their job creators.

 

AFRICA IS NOT A COUNTRY, It's a CONTINENT.

 

Within the African continent are some cities far more modern than many of ours.

 

OUR population problem is one of a SHRINKING population not a growing one. Our birth rate is historically low, our over age 65 population is growing far faster than the under age 18 population. We need immigrants far more than they need us. We right now have over 100 million working age 16-64 year olds who are voluntarily staying out of our workforce despite critical labor shortages. We have job openings in every part of our economy and no one filling them.

 

Gosh, well done you.

 

A little education never hurts anyone.

 

That's not what this thread is about.

 

If you read recent data on the subject of population growth in Africa you will also find their growth has slowed to a crawl recently including Nigeria which a few years go was the fastest growing country on the continent.

 

I think "blame" is the wrong word. It's a simple sociological fact that less developed regions tend to have higher birth rates. This just in parts of Africa of course.

Of course, but I don't think anyone has suggested they should. The international focus on such regions is all about aiding and supporting them so that they can improve their civic and social infrastructure to bring a range of benefits, more stable population being just one of them (largely as an indirect consequence of other improvements).

 

I agree, but when considering this we rarely look at population density or survival rates.

From a governmental point of view, again I agree. But public opinion is often that they should stop breeding like rabbits.

 

Speak for yourself.

The public are largely idiots so you shouldn't take much note of public opinion.

 

MOST countries in the worlds p[opulation are shrinking not growing !! Japan is shrinking dramatically they have hundreds of empty decaying homes,China's popultion is decreasing also, as are most European countries.

 

Nice to meet someone who has considered the bigger picture.

Well this forum is public, not governmental so I guess I'm talking to the public.

 

Yes, predictions are that population growth will stall by 2030. Its interesting how many posts on this subject (so far) are measured and accurate.

 

And I thought I was a cynic!

 

Resource scarcity is manufactured. We're a long long long way off from overburdenning the space and resource available on planet earth required for humans to thrive. The problem is most of the space and resource is being held in reserve, unused, by both the wealthy elites and the governments of the world. Concerns about overpopulation at this point are political- its too difficult to exert forceful control over so many people. Someday overpopulation (as in too many people to sustain on the planet) will be a concern, which is why we should be investing more in offworld technology and infrastructure now. But for the time being and forseeable future, we're just dealing with small groups of elitist control freaks that are trying to wall of the bulk of 'their world' from we common folk whom they see as unworthy of sharing a world with (yet whom they still need to labor to keep civilization going because they sure as hell aint going to). So they have to keep our numbers manageable.

 

Perhaps we should start with the fact that Africa is not a country.

 

Well there goes the plot to most dystopian SciFi.

 

Nothing threatens a true capitalist form of government like ours more than a shrinking population.

 

Why would that threaten capitalist countries but not communist ones?

 

any idea that this planet can sustain a human population over 7 billion people should include discussion of the sacrifices we will all have to make.

i propose that 500 million (the number on the georgia guidestones) is a more reasonable number.

while expansion into space is an important project, and one that i support, only a small fraction of humans will ever have the means to leave earth. for most of us this is it. lets make wise use of it.

Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth: Buckminster Fuller, R., Snyder, Jaime: 8601400798959: Amazon.com: Books

 

related thread, examining how the issue of global overpopulation is related to immigration:
Overpopulation in an age of open borders

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Because our economy is based on ever growing economic growth which translates to customers.

 

And yet...Japan and Western Europe have either stable or decreasing populations, and are still capitalist.