Is the world overpopulated?

Poll

Is the world overpopulated?

I think it is, the current rate of consumption by humans is too high to carry on indefinitely.

IMO this is only going to get worse as the Middle East and Africa start to become more developed like a lot of Asia (China and India specifically) and to an extent, Latin America has in recent years. All these people are going to expect a life similar to the ones we have in developed nations, which is going to put even more strain on the world.

What are your thoughts on this?

Reply 1

Alexion

17

'tis. There simply isn't enough land space and resources in the world to provide for so many people, definitely not if they all had an affluent lifestyle such as we live here in the UK...

Reply 2

thecatwithnohat

20

I think in less economically developed countries tend to be overpopulated simply because of the fact that there aren't enough resources to be shared around and it's difficult for everyone to get the same quality of living.

Reply 3

Zargabaath

OP

21

Original post by thecatwithnohat

I think in less economically developed countries tend to be overpopulated simply because of the fact that there aren't enough resources to be shared around and it's difficult for everyone to get the same quality of living.

I meant the world in general, China is a pretty economically developed country but they're overpopulated af

Reply 4

thecatwithnohat

20

Original post by Zargabaath

I meant the world in general, China is a pretty economically developed country but they're overpopulated af

Isn't that why they introduced the one-child policy? Hasn't that helped to perhaps cut the numbers down just a tad?

I don't understand how they've managed to get in that state though, and the gap between the poor and the rich there is quite a significant one.

Reply 5

Zargabaath

OP

21

Original post by thecatwithnohat

Isn't that why they introduced the one-child policy? Hasn't that helped to perhaps cut the numbers down just a tad?

I don't understand how they've managed to get in that state though, and the gap between the poor and the rich there is quite a significant one.

Yeah, they're still overpopulated though.

After WW2 it was encouraged to have lots of kids in the belief a higher population would lead to more income for the country, a stronger military and better food/water resources for the country. They thought it would make China a stronger country and I suppose it sorta worked. Just with some unforseen concequences.

Reply 6

username2228735

15

Interestingly, the UN has predicted world population will drop between now and 2300 (even though it is projected to increase more before falling): http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/WorldPop2300final.pdf

Reply 7

Zargabaath

OP

21

Original post by Aceadria

Interestingly, the UN has predicted world population will drop between now and 2300 (even though it is projected to increase more before falling): http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/WorldPop2300final.pdf

I suppose that's likely due to the scarcity of resources by that point. We should probably start working towards ensuring our society is one that survives the population decline, while we're still in a position to do so

Reply 8

z33

21

yeah it is, why do you think we're tryna find life outside of Earth X'D

Reply 9

Zargabaath

OP

21

Original post by 雷尼克

Maybe if the government spent more money into science and research funding, we would have better technologies which could easily support 7 billion people on the Earth

Agreed, I really wish more was spent into researching nuclear fusion.

Yes.

I'd say it is yes. But rather than looking at the population, I think the problem lies in our consumption. We could do it all so much for efficiently :smile:

unfortunately though, that'd take a lot of change with a lot of people that don't even care or open enough to think about this stuff

Reply 12

user73867

19

This scaremongering has been around for hundreds of years. Thomas Maltheus argued about overpopulation when comparing the current rate of growth to predict huge famines and starvation in England in the coming years.

Yet, they never materialised and the population and wealth of the UK continued to grow.

Why was Maltheus so wrong? He didn't take into account the ingenuity of the human race to come up with solutions.

It's a well-documented fact that the population of Europe is in terminal decline. We are extremely dependent on immigrants to provide the young workers that keeps our economies growing.

The fact that so many people have voted "yes" is very surprising...

Wtf are you on about

It's not that there are too many people on the planet, it's that resources are misused and unequally allocated among the world's population.

Reply 15

user73867

19

Original post by Silver Arrow

It's not that there are too many people on the planet, it's that resources are misused and unequally allocated among the world's population.

And then the people with the most resources develop a narrative about how there's not enough of everything, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, allowing them to keep everything.

This has been driven home by the huge drop in oil prices recently. You start off with a narrative about scarcity of resources, limit them a bit to make your point, drive the prices way high. Then people believe you and they start driving the price even higher.

And then you find out it's all a load of *******s and the price of oil drops to $26.