[Golden Legacy]

I find it somewhat odd that this issue hasn't been considered more. The world's population is well over six billion by now, with some projections reaching nearly nine billion by 2050.

It's also interesting because, ironically, much of that is attributed to advances in medical science, especially in developing, third world countries.

[Platinum Sun]

I have a solution:
Cannibalism!
Think about it, you'd solve all the crises over hunger, overpopulation, abortion, obesety, orphans, wildlife depletion, and rampant agriculture all at once!
Three cheers for soylent green! [/sarcasm]

Honestly I don't really see what can be done about it. China tried the army-enforced one-child-per-family law, but China still has one of the fastest growing populations of any country in the world. We'll just have to hope that we colonize Mars by 2049 so we can move everyone there.

[Eugine]

Yeah I agree, China currently has a youthful population and a darn high number of women in the reproductive age so it's expected. Even with the one child policy the Chinese population base is extremely large so births will be high.
Developing countries are the main cause of overpopulation ( Some of Asia (India), Africa, the Caribbean are the main culprits (though I must say Grenadians doesn't seem to make alot of Children for some reason >.<)

[Toasty]

Personally, I'm not that worried. But I do think that finding suitable planets to colonize is a good solution to this. The one child per family law is just be stupid. And if anyone's read the book "Among the Hidden" or any other book in it's series, then you have a good picture of what it'd be like to have it in your country.

[TheEnglishman]

I guess it is a problem, but we can't do too much about it. Still I'd rather have too many people than have less but not have medical advances.

[My Best Wishes]

There is still room. Countries like Australia are clustered together. Almost no one lives in the center, still lots of room. If not, just wait untill the next war.

[Ravenblade]

The one child policy in China is a bit upsetting really - i spoke to loads of chinese people who wished they had brothers or sisters but i think it had to be done. Its stabilising the population growth too, they reckon in 20 years it'll be made 2 children instead.

It is a bit worrying though as although there is still room on earth for a lot more people, this would only be done by destroying areas of natural beauty and hacking away at animal environments.

I dont think we'll have Mars colonised by 2050 either, wouldnt it take years and years to terraform?

What will probably happen, is another World War which could end up wiping about a billion people off earth.

I dunno though, i guess we have to bide our time and wait and see.

[I'm Always BROKE]

I wouldn't want if my childeren or grand childeren would have - just as in China - a one child policy. Ofcoarse, it seems as the best decision to prefend over population... But Im myself come from a family with 4 childeren, and Im the oldest one. And I can say, I think my life at home would be alot more boring without them.

There already is sort of overpopulation in countries as Java and in big cities as Paris, LA or New York. But is there are gonna be 3 billion more people in the world, I think it would be best to built more appartements. In just one appartement -which takes place for +/- 2 normal sized houses if we talk about ground- are living around 6~8 families.

Or ofcoarse, they could make Antartica suitable for human living.
Without ofcoarse, taking away too much natural beauty and animal envoirments.

[Caael]

Hopefully I wont be around when the world 1 child law is in place. As for what Watch said. Deforestation is the only way to make more land space, yet they want to stop it. It cant really be stopped, so I guess the efforts are for nought. Animals will suffer, yes, but it cant be helped.

Unless we create floating environments.

[TheEnglishman]

I guess floating environments would be useful. 70% of the Earth is water so they're would be a lot of room. Only problem is that they could sink. Colonisation of other planets is something that's been talked about in this topic, but would you really want to be on a different planet? Even if it became possible, people wouldn't move.

[l3lueMage]

MOVE TO TEH MOON, The moon can fit atleast 1 billion people :P

DAMMIT RAVENBLADE U BLOCKED ME ON MSN T_T

[Caael]

Well, if its about 1 3rd of the size of Earth, but it has no water, thats about the same size as the Worlds land mass, so I guess it could fit about the same amount. Not including underground.

[TheEnglishman]

There's also the change in gravity. Jump too high and you won't stop.

[Platinum Sun]

Ravenblade, on Oct 18 2006, 03:26 AM, said:

I dont think we'll have Mars colonised by 2050 either, wouldnt it take years and years to terraform?

Yes, turning Mars into an Earth-like planet would take centuries, but that's not what we have to do really. We'd just have to seed the atmosphere with Carbon Dioxide to get some global warming started and build up the atmosphere enough so that astronauts won't need pressure suits anymore. That would make the planet reasonably habitable. However, 2050 is quite a rediculous deadline for all this to happen. We'll have to wait until Earthen affairs are a little less screwed up before we can pull together what is sure to be a planet-wide effort for a manned Mars mission.

Caael, on Oct 18 2006, 12:49 PM, said:

Well, if its about 1 3rd of the size of Earth, but it has no water, thats about the same size as the Worlds land mass, so I guess it could fit about the same amount. Not including underground.

For the sake of accuracy, the moon's surface area is about equal to the area of North and South America combined.

[My Best Wishes]

Really guys, do you think it's even possible to sustain human life on another planet? Has a man crewed ship even been to mars yet?

[Platinum Sun]

Platinum Sun, on Oct 18 2006, 01:36 PM, said:

We'll have to wait until Earthen affairs are a little less screwed up before we can pull together what is sure to be a planet-wide effort for a manned Mars mission.

Note the passive future tense. No, there have been no manned missions to mars, and relatively few unmanned ones. Yet I fail to see more viable options coming up here.

[Toasty]

If composites were more widely used, we could probably make buildings twice as tall as the Empire state building, and have people live in them. That would more than double New Yorks capacity.

[l3lueMage]

just have glass domes onthe moon like on the futuristic movies D: That way if u jump too high u land on teh glass and u can jump back down o.O

[Platinum Sun]

Me111, on Oct 18 2006, 01:25 PM, said:

There's also the change in gravity. Jump too high and you won't stop.

OK. I need to squash this one now too. You can not jump off the moon. Period. Semicolon; No. not ever!

[My Best Wishes]

l3lueMage, on Oct 19 2006, 09:17 AM, said:

just have glass domes onthe moon like on the futuristic movies D: That way if u jump too high u land on teh glass and u can jump back down o.O

:P

Can the moon even sustain human life?

Have we even been to the moon <_< (cue conspiracy music) But really, is looking to other planets a possible solution?

[Toasty]

Yes, but not for now. It would take too long (like PS said), but I doubt it would take centuries. It might take a few years to pump the atmosphere full of gas, and then a while for weather systems to develop, but after that, just plant a few hundred plants and you'll have all the oxygen you need in about ten years. Overall, mabey 80 years? But I'm guessing. I havn't read up on this much.

[Eugine]

Number of plants on earth is inversely proportional to development ^^... Basically, plants won't be planted here again on a net.

[lphantoml]

I think a huge war will wipe out alot of us. =/

[TheEnglishman]

I guess war is our own version of crowd control. It's unfortunate, and I'm not a supporter of war, but it would cut down on the overpopulation issue for awhile.
I just hope that wouldn't be the case until we were long gone.

[Sea of Time]

It would have to be a pretty big war. A nuclear war. Which will probably happen eventually anyway. That North Korean guy is craaazy.

Another planet? Yeah right. What are we going to do, ship off humans by the millions to one of Saturn's moons? I don't care how fast technology progresses, we're at least a hundred years away from a solution like that. And it's still wouldn't be practical then.

[TheEnglishman]

He is a bit nuts. I wonder how long he'll last whilst he's doing all this.
Anyway going to a different planet is unlikely. Do you really want to leave Earth? I know I wouldn't.

[Toasty]

^ You have a point, but some people would be willing. And SoT, I agree it's a long ways off, but just a few years back, a guy (who entered a contest held by NASA), created a personal spaceshuttle. It's about the size of a small corprate jet, and it's launched from a bigger airplane. When it gets high enough, it detaches and the user can fly into space with rockets. It's also much easier to use than a NASA shuttle. It's a long ways off, but I wouldn't be surprised if it only took 'till 2100.

[Eugine]

Instead of concentrating on that, those developed countries should be concentrating on the developing countries, but no, national pride is better...

[Toasty]

We are. That's why we've tried so hard to give Iraq a good govenment. But We still need to find more space to put everyone.

[Eugine]

That Iraq thing has been discussed to death, so I'll ignore that... I hope everyone does too ;_;

But anyway, you don't know what concentrate mean.

[Toasty]

Yes, I do. And you don't know how to use proper grammar. And I know it's been discussed to death, but it doesn't mean I can't point out a fact.

[My Best Wishes]

Don't get started on grammer or spelling guys. Please.

There is still space. Just think 3rd world countries, Africa for example. There is no shortage of space, maybe we'll just have to slim down our suburbs.

[Eugine]

Blah, I didnt want to discus this, but w/e. WTF does establishing a "good" state have to do with overpopulation? NOTHING. Gosh, you use things out of context.

When I say concentrate, I was refering to concentrating on the population on Earth rather than funding expensive research. I atleast thought you would have recognise that. In the Caribbean China and Taiwan are the ONLY countries who practically care about this issue, and they have their own problems at home.
You fund birth control centers, educate the people, help them with recreational activities, and a hell lot more. Trying to give Iraq a democratic government does any of this? Nope... I'd say it can cause an increase in the population in Iraq. Why? During wars, most civilians stay inside, when they're inside what other recreational activities they have besides having sexual intercourse? Especially in countries like Iraq... Think...
ALSO, the foreign soldiers actually have sex with the locals as recreation, it's happened in practically every war. I'm sure it's happening in Iraq. Wars doesn't always decrease population fyi.
If you check it out places like Vietnam had a population spurt after a War. What caused it? Use your imagination.
And if you can't understand my sentence having sex usually leads to pregnancy which leads to child birth which leads to population increase >_<

[Toasty]

Yeah, go that the first time. FYI, wars usually kill people, not make them. Name one war where the people born outnumbered the people killed, even after one year of the end of the war? I do not believe, though, that a war, or a one child per houshold law is the right solution, though it might work.

[Eugine]

yeah, plus during wars people usually remain home, so sexual intercourse increases, plus foreign soldiers (with their lust) look for local women.
So about a year after the war ends there's a population spike, so in the log run population increases.

[Platinum Sun]

With conventional war maybe, but we're talking full-fledged nuclear holocaust. That'll keep those numbers down for a good long time!

[Platinum Sun]

JoJo, on Nov 2 2006, 07:40 AM, said:

Is there such thing as conventional war, though? ;)

Just so you know:

Nuking the entire planet=not conventional war.