Overpopulation: Fact or Myth?

[GEddie]

The issue of overpopulation is inherently the issue of enforced population control.

Simply, once you admit that uncontrolled propagation of human life has led, or is likely to lead to overpopulation, the only possible conclusion is that mandatory control measures are required.

You can try to reframe the issues in terms of ecology or endangered species (many of which are already so scarce that they would not leave a trace if they were lost); but the question is ultimately, would **you **want to live in a coercive control society, and if not, how would you deal with “overpopulation”?

ICXC NIKA

 

[Rau]

The issue of overpopulation is inherently the issue of enforced population control.

Simply, once you admit that uncontrolled propagation of human life has led, or is likely to lead to overpopulation, the only possible conclusion is that mandatory control measures are required.

You can try to reframe the issues in terms of ecology or endangered species (many of which are already so scarce that they would not leave a trace if they were lost); but the question is ultimately, would **you **want to live in a coercive control society, and if not, how would you deal with “overpopulation”?

ICXC NIKA

The experience in developed countries has been that populations have chosen to limit their growth (by embracing ABC), thus the question of enforced population controls has never arisen in those countries.

Undoubtedly, expanding populations drive technological accommodations to the challenges of larger populations. But their must be limits on a finite world.

So, one way or another, we have to arrive at a stable (or shrinking) population, which requires small family sizes on average. The only question is…how will that come about? And in the absence of ABC, could it be feasibly achieved without great social (and environmental) distress.

 

[gardenswithkids]

The increasing population is largely thanks to modern medicine and in particular, antibiotics. People live longer. Projection in growing populations tend assume that our antibiotics will continue to be very effective. Yet, antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria continue to grow. It may not be long before people of all ages once again die from illnesses we thought we had cured.

An article from the CDC says “Antibiotic resistance has been called one of the world’s most pressing public health problems.” It also says, “Antibiotic use, appropriate or otherwise, contributes to the development of antibiotic resistance.” cdc.gov/getsmart/antibiotic-use/antibiotic-resistance-faqs.html

Particularly virulent bacteria have been known to wipe out large percentage of human populations in a very short period of time.

 

[LittleDavid]

I want to see enforced population control in order to save those species even less, though.

ICXC NIKA

No one is say ANYTHING about ENFORCED population control. I’m not saying that, but teaching that a married couple can’t choose to use a condom, or the pill, is kinda like the Jehovah’s Witnesses saying you can’t have a blood transfusion because 15 men in Brooklyn New York (The Annointed/Governing Body) say so.

 

[kbachler]

Fact. Replacement rate is a misnomer, the issue is more complex than that and involves death rates and decreasing mortality rates. The fastest growing age group is 100-110. In some of our lifetimes, we will see people living to 150. There are doctors today who feel that someone alive today will make it to age 1,000 because the rate of medical advance will allow them to do so.

Growth rate mathematics has been around for some time - not sure how anyone could reasonably deny the argument. (Of course, that’s pretty much true for climate change also.)

 

[LittleDavid]

Fact. Replacement rate is a misnomer, the issue is more complex than that and involves death rates and decreasing mortality rates. The fastest growing age group is 100-110. In some of our lifetimes, we will see people living to 150. There are doctors today who feel that someone alive today will make it to age 1,000 because the rate of medical advance will allow them to do so.

Growth rate mathematics has been around for some time - not sure how anyone could reasonably deny the argument. (Of course, that’s pretty much true for climate change also.)

Even if your 5 years old and posting on this forum, I don’t think you’ll live to be 1000 years old. How about some sources for your “1000 year old in this generation” theory. And you said doctors(plural) so let us have at least 2 doctors opinions.

 

[GEddie]

Fact. Replacement rate is a misnomer, the issue is more complex than that and involves death rates and decreasing mortality rates. The fastest growing age group is 100-110. In some of our lifetimes, we will see people living to 150. There are doctors today who feel that someone alive today will make it to age 1,000 because the rate of medical advance will allow them to do so.

Growth rate mathematics has been around for some time - not sure how anyone could reasonably deny the argument. (Of course, that’s pretty much true for climate change also.)

Lengthening life does not change the equation, but just adds a fixed term to it, if the reproductive years are not likewise lengthened. Foreseeably, they would not be.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

Fact. Replacement rate is a misnomer, the issue is more complex than that and involves death rates and decreasing mortality rates. The fastest growing age group is 100-110. In some of our lifetimes, we will see people living to 150. There are doctors today who feel that someone alive today will make it to age 1,000 because the rate of medical advance will allow them to do so.

The human body is only designed to last, at most, about 120-125 years of age. The figure came about taking into consideration the chromosomal damage when cells divide, and how often cells divide. Pushing age beyond that limit will have to involve naturally or artificially induced genetic modification. Exercise, eating right, better medicine won’t do it.

 

[gardenswithkids]

Lengthening life does not change the equation, but just adds a fixed term to it, if the reproductive years are not likewise lengthened. Foreseeably, they would not be…

??? The reproductive years have been and are being lengthened. As children survive to adulthood, many who would have died of childhood illnesses can go onto have children of their own now. Women are far more likely to survive childbirth now too. There are also reproductive technology that can artificially impregnate women who are past their natural childbearing years.

As to artificial reproductive technology, the Church opposes certain methods like IVF and artificial insemination. Why don’t we hear people who fear overpopulation raise more of a fuss about the large numbers of humans created through artificial means?

 

[Rau]

As to artificial reproductive technology, the Church opposes certain methods like IVF and artificial insemination. Why don’t we hear people who fear overpopulation raise more of a fuss about the large numbers of humans created through artificial means?

Note just “people”, but Church leaders as well. Bu the answers are clear:

(1) Artificial techniques don’t feature much in those countries with above replacement birth rates;

(2) Those using artificial means are unable to have children naturally and are viewed (understandably) as vulnerable and inappropriate targets to lead the charge in managing “population”. Can you imagine the backlash?

 

[kbachler]

The human body is only designed to last, at most, about 120-125 years of age. The figure came about taking into consideration the chromosomal damage when cells divide, and how often cells divide. Pushing age beyond that limit will have to involve naturally or artificially induced genetic modification. Exercise, eating right, better medicine won’t do it.

There are already answers proposed and being tested that do not induce genetic modification. The is some respected thought that the human body can last perhaps hundreds of years with better medicine without “genetic modification.” Insurance companies are already raising their maximum life expectancy to 150.

Check out en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_de_Grey - its wikipedia but a good starting place.

 

[kbachler]

Even if your 5 years old and posting on this forum, I don’t think you’ll live to be 1000 years old. How about some sources for your “1000 year old in this generation” theory. And you said doctors(plural) so let us have at least 2 doctors opinions.

Look up the SENS Research Foundation.

Consider the difference in medicine today versus 300 years ago, or even 150 years ago.

The thought is that there are children today who will live into their mid-100’s.

By that time, medicine will be so improved that some will make it to their 300’s.

By that time, medicine will be so improved that some will make it to their 600’s.

By that time, medicine will be so improved that at least one will make it to 1000.

 

[kbachler]

Lengthening life does not change the equation, but just adds a fixed term to it, if the reproductive years are not likewise lengthened. Foreseeably, they would not be.

ICXC NIKA.

It’s not just adding a fixed term. Population growth is an exponential function. You might be changing a functional (name removed by moderator)ut by a fixed amount, but it then combines exponentially.

 

[gardenswithkids]

…Those using artificial means are unable to have children naturally and are viewed (understandably) as vulnerable and inappropriate targets to lead the charge in managing “population”. Can you imagine the backlash?

Not all who use reproductive technologies are infertile—the recipients are but not the donors or others involved. Egg donors and sperm donors sometimes reproduce unnatutally huge numbers of biological offspring. Numbers like 80-100 people have been documented as sharing the same bio-dad! Beyond donors, the doctors and staff at the clinics are involved in the process.

 

[TheWarriorMonk]

There are already answers proposed and being tested that do not induce genetic modification. The is some respected thought that the human body can last perhaps hundreds of years with better medicine without “genetic modification.” Insurance companies are already raising their maximum life expectancy to 150.

Check out en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_de_Grey - its wikipedia but a good starting place.

That looks like a lot of talk with no research or results.

 

[kbachler]

That looks like a lot of talk with no research or results.

If this is your sole response, then you’re not understanding what you are reading and/or you’re missing the point.

First, I was asked to provide documentation that at least more than one doctor felt the way I described. The first point is that I could do that by quoting only one such research project, so I noted SENS. There are other such projects. So that objection was answered with a single example.

Second, SENS in particular is of interest because* i) It claims that the fundamental technologies are already available* and ii) That the resulting increases in life-span are significantly increased. What is needed according to SENS is better problem definition, better solution definition, and development of technology technique.

The argument is akin to this: Suppose that it is 1985, and I claim that the fundamental technology exists today (1985) to provide automobiles that will average 2-4 times greater equivalent MPG compared to then modern gasoline engines – and the response you gave me is “that looks like a lot of talk with no research or results.” That’s missing the point. The point is that some of the research already exists, and other is ongoing and the “talk” is pointing out how that research can be used. Today those cars exist, and are being sold to the public. There are still issues in that for the average consumer the relative cost is still too high, but they are fundamentally more efficient and are fundamentally better for the environment and MORE technology is on the way.

Suppose that is 1960 and I claim that the fundamental technology exists today to land a man on the moon and return him to Earth in 10 years, and your response is “that looks like a lot of talk with no research or results.” That’s what this situation is. When peer reviewed, peers are not saying that the approach is definitely right - but neither are they able to find a fundamental flaw with the approach.

And again, this is only ONE such project.

The advance of medicine has not been as fast as the advance of microtechnology (although it is somewhat tied to it.) But it has been significant over the past several hundred years. And given another several hundred years, its not unreasonable to expect that medicine in 100-200 years may look significantly different from medicine today.

Life expectancy in 1800 was about 45. Today it is about 80 (depending upon population group.) Based on current improvements, in approximately 10-20 years that should be about 90. If we better address obesity and smoking alone, that may extend it past 100.

I think a handwaving dismissal is an inappropriate response to what is happening in this field today.

I work with corporations in an area of finance in which employee mortality is important. I am often asked serious questions about increasing life span or the total delay of mortality and how they will need to respond to it. Clearly corporations are at least beginning to get the concept.

 

[white_sheep]

You’re basing your hypothesis on faulty information. Saying the average life expectancy 200 years ago was 45 is ignoring a few important points. People are not living longer, they are simply not dying younger due to our ability to cure diseases that were previously fatal. There’s a big difference. We might have stretched a few years out of it, but that is it.

The Bible said 2500 years ago that the days of a man are 70 and that a strong man may have an extra 10 and that beyond that is hardship and toil.

If we had stretched the life expectancy by 33 years, we would be saying today that the days of a man are 100, and that strong men will see 110, and beyond that is frailty and old age, but that isn’t what we see. The average life expectancy is 78 because we have eliminated most premature deaths.

It is still very exceptional for people to live that long. “Medicine” is not currently doing ANYTHING to prolong people’s lives, so it would seem a complete fantasy to believe that children born today would live to be 150. All they are doing is preventing death and curing illness, which does nothing to actually prolong life on the back end. People reach an age where it is simply time to die. I have kids and no one offered to give them the “stay young for an extra 50 years” shot. There is no vaccine against aging.

When people get to 70 their hearts start wearing out and cancer and other infirmities take hold. We can often fix those problems and give them another 10 years that they wouldn’t have otherwise had, but their aging continues.

 

[kbachler]

You’re basing your hypothesis on faulty information. Saying the average life expectancy 200 years ago was 45 is ignoring a few important points. People are not living longer, they are simply not dying younger due to our ability to cure diseases that were previously fatal. There’s a big difference. We might have stretched a few years out of it, but that is it.

I’m sorry, you are mistaken. I’m actually a trained mathematician that works with mortality rates on a regular basis. The statement “People are not living longer, they are simply not dying younger due to our ability to cure diseases that were previously fatal.” is nonsense. If you are not dying younger, of course you are living longer.

Yes, there were more diseases and industrial accidents that brought the average way down. As I mentioned earlier, the fastest growing segment of the population today, is from 100-110.

Compared to the idea that people live to the age of 70, that’s about a 50% improvement.

The Bible said 2500 years ago that the days of a man are 70 and that a strong man may have an extra 10 and that beyond that is hardship and toil.

If we had stretched the life expectancy by 33 years, we would be saying today that the days of a man are 100, and that strong men will see 110, and beyond that is frailty and old age, but that isn’t what we see. The average life expectancy is 78 because we have eliminated most premature deaths.

Again, that’s incorrect. The average life expectancy for a broad group of generalize population is around 79. If you start, however, with people who are 65 - so that they were not killed by disease, early accident, etc. - the average life expectancy is approaching 85. And that is AVERAGE. There are a large number of people in the 90’s and 100’s. This is one of the reasons why Social Security is so strained.

It is still very exceptional for people to live that long. “Medicine” is not currently doing ANYTHING to prolong people’s lives, so it would seem a complete fantasy to believe that children born today would live to be 150.

First, its not at all exceptional for people to make it to 80. That’s about AVERAGE. Eliminate youthful deaths and the number goes up. Of course medicine has prolonged life, by helping people to survive illness and accident that the previously did not. We take medicines to control blood pressure, cholesterol, and increasingly other degenerative conditions. Your thesis that medicine is doing nothing is obviously incorrect.

All they are doing is preventing death and curing illness, which does nothing to actually prolong life on the back end. People reach an age where it is simply time to die. I have kids and no one offered to give them the “stay young for an extra 50 years” shot. There is no vaccine against aging.

And what you state simply isn’t true. Medicine has shown us how to improve health and increase vitality. How many 80 year olds ran marathons 100 years ago?

Moreover, in terms of cutting edge technology, yes, there have been breakthroughs that have been tested on cells and animals that haven’t (yet) made it to people that show significant change in lifespan. I could find many such articles for you (it doesn’t take much research) but here is one for example: nature.com/news/2010/101128/full/news.2010.635.html

When people get to 70 their hearts start wearing out and cancer and other infirmities take hold. We can often fix those problems and give them another 10 years that they wouldn’t have otherwise had, but their aging continues.

Well, with better diet, better exercise, an aspirin a day, anti-cholesterol, etc., their hearts do last longer.

What these scientists are now noting is that there is much more of the aging process that is understood and that is beginning to become controllable, in addition to controlling disease, treating accidents, etc.

Many research scientists are now beginning to think of aging as a treatable chronic illness, and tests are beginning to bear this out. That’s the point.

There’s another good overview article here for starters, in which David Gems, a British biogerontologist and Deputy Director of the Institute of Healthy Ageing at University College London notes “…It is possible to slow aging in laboratory animals. In fact, it is easy. Work in my own lab focuses on the tiny nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, which is widely used in genetic studies. Even under optimal culture conditions, these creatures age and die within two to three weeks. In the early 1980s the American geneticist Michael Klass first discovered that by altering their genes, one can slow aging in C. elegans. The result is that the worms live much longer and they remain youthful and healthy longer. The current record for enhancing C. elegans longevity is an astonishing tenfold increase in lifespan, produced by a group at the University of Arkansas. It has now been shown that genes that influence aging in the worms also influence aging in mammals (in mice, to be precise). Humans also carry these genes.”

In summary, a great deal of what you argue above is not currently considered correct by scientists or mathematicians. I respectfully suggest that there is much information to learn on the subject.

 

[LittleDavid]

THIS is your quote that I’m at odds with…“There are doctors(plural) today who feel that someone alive today will make it to age 1,000 because the rate of medical advance will allow them to do so.” Now all of a sudden you are talking about living to 150! I went to the SENS website and saw nothing like the above quote. Please direct us to the direct source that says this if you expect us to say, “ah, yes, you are so right”.

 

[white_sheep]

People living to be over 100 is not new. When we start hitting 150, let me know.

The fact is that medical treatments simply allow more people to reach, or near, maximum age. People just wear out after a while and there is currently no cure for that. There may be in the future, but I don’t live in a science fiction movie. There may be hundreds of things that various scientists think may allow us to live forever, but I have done a lot of things in my life that I really thought were going to work out and then didn’t.

The example in the link above is just one of those, and it happens all the time. Take this stuff and we can reverse aging! (but you die from cancer)