Overpopulation

[Ridgerunner]

Seems you’re looking for someone to say that which nobody can reasonably respond; to speculate about how the Church would react to a speculative situation.

For that, I expect anybody’s guess is as good and as meaningless as anybody else’s.

 

[Cricket2]

you know, if animals were being extinct because we keep growing in numbers it wouold mean that we should totally stop for a while. but really i doubt it is because of that, If we respected nature over money and comfort, i think those statistics would be changing.

and yes, animals becoming extinct is normal, there have bee several extinctions like the ones of the dinosaurs and others.

Perhaps we should all pay more heed to the Biblical concept of forgiving all dept every 7 years, or 49 years, and let the land rest every 7 years. Seems like God has always had a plan for good stewardship of the earth and for us to be able to fulfill it. Just a thought.

 

[manualman]

This is frustrating, because obviously very few people even read my post. It has descended to erecting strawmen and beating them down.

Welcome to the internet. You, however, don’t seem to have digested my (name removed by moderator)ut or addressed it. Pot calling the kettle black…

There will never be a world where everybody is a faithful catholic on this side of death.

But for sake of fun discussion, it’s my contention that such a world would consist of a small total population of rural inhabitants with higher fertility rates and higher population growth rates. The “excess population” from that subgroup would move to urban areas.

The urban areas will tend to have low fertility rates and possibly a slightly negative population growth rate. Urban living is, even in a catholic utopia, much harder on bigger families, as I stated above. Since devout catholic populations produce a healthy percentage of the religious and priestly vocations, the average married couple could easily have 2-3 kids and the overall society STILL have no population growth rate.

It’s a silly myth of the contraception culture that without it everybody will have 12 kids. It’s simply not that hard to predict fertility at the population (i.e. allowing for some people who struggle with it).

 

[weller2]

So you think that less people just means empty cities?

Yes – East Germany seems to be a good example. They are razing buldings.

What’s going to happen is they will import even more immigrants who don’t care for the values of liberal democracies. They’ll bring them in because (1) they’ll keep deluding themselves that immigrants will just automatically adopt because who in their right mind wouldn’t love my outlook on life and

That was true 20 (or even 10) years ago. Public opinion in Europe has already recognized that letting in Muslim immigrants from former colonies (let’s be honest, that’s what it was all about) was a bad idea:

According to the survey, only 29 percent of French people believe the “vast majority of immigrants who have settled in France are well-integrated".

· 46 percent believe unemployment levels can only be cut by reducing immigration.

· 57 percent believe anti-white racism is quite common in France

· 77 percent believe religious fundamentalism in France is a concern.

· 62 percent say they no longer feel at home in France.

thelocal.fr/20130125/too-many-foreigners-in-france-french-say

And this is a random snapshot from the immigration debate in the EU – it’s very far from what you imagine: dw.de/eu-still-torn-on-immigration/a-17157240

Plus, scientists have already recognized that immigation CANNOT be used to prevent aging of the society. I do not have figures for Europe at hand, but someone has calculated that for Australia and found that keeping the median age constant would require immigration influx at the level of 2% of population per year. Of course this is completely unacceptable, because it would mean that you have no nation after 20-30 years.

(2) they need the numbers to keep up their great First World entitlement society.

Well, that was the original idea – that immigrants would work to keep the Europeans rich.

Turned out to be the exact opposite, however. A lot of immigrants do not come to EU to work – they come to live on welfare. So ironically, the EU can very easily solve the immigration problem if it wishes – just cut the welfare. In fact, it may be forced to do so simply for economic reasons. Once that happens, the main incentive for Muslim women to have a lot of children will be gone.

Would you live in Florence if they banned gay rights and women from driving?

For reasons outlined above, it doesn’t look like Europe at large will be Islamic in, say 2050. It may however have certain isolated enclaves where Muslims are majority – that is already the case. This will probably lead to some… interesting events in the future. But, as I said, large-scale Islamization is unlikely. The backlash has already started:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minaret_controversy_in_Switzerland

It is also worth noting that the Catholic Church has repeatedly stated its opposition to such anti-Muslim legislation, denouncing it as a threat to religious freedom (and to itself). I believe that a hundred years from now this approach – which stems from JP2’s view that a secular state is the greatest enemy of the Church – will be regarded as one of the greatest errors of all time. The 21st century in Europe will be (or already is) an era of conflict between a secular state and sharia state – and the Church has chosen a lose-lose strategy in that conflict.

Don’t see the world in such black and white American left-wing talking points.

For the record, I am an EU citizen and I travel extensively over Europe for professional reasons.

 

[weller2]

Perhaps, but this [extinction of wild species] has pretty near nothing to do with the human holding capacity.

Quite the contrary. The simplest definition of holding capacity is:

max_number_of_people = total_surface_of_farmland / farmland_surface_needed_per_person

As the number of people is increasing, we keep increasing the surface used for farming. So we are converting wildlife habitat (e.g. forests) into farmland and killing off wild species in the process. Amazon today is a great example of this process. Of course Brazil probably could increase food production by increasing yields on existing farmland, but apparently it is cheaper to cut down forest to add farmland. So without either a technological breakthrough to make increasing yields cheaper than adding farmland (which seems unlikely, as GMO seeds are more expensive!) or a government intervention they’ll keep cutting down the rainforest.

Now, of course we can convert everything into farmland – but I’m not convinced we should do that. Good stewardship and all.

Also, I don’t like fish. Now, if you find a graph showing that cows, wheat, and potatoes are going extinct, you may be able to get me concerned.

What about honeybees? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder

 

[weller2]

An incredible number of younng Japanese (Fully 40% of the marriageable women and 60% of the men between the ages of 18 and 34, have never even had a date), and very substantial numbers report that they have no interest in sex whatever. Nobody knows why.

Back into 1970s, someone did an experiment on mice which started to exhibit exactly such behavior when population density exceeded a certain threshold:

Past day 315, population growth slowed. More than six hundred mice now lived in Universe 25, constantly rubbing shoulders on their way up and down the stairwells to eat, drink, and sleep. Mice found themselves born into a world that was more crowded every day, and there were far more mice than meaningful social roles. With more and more peers to defend against, males found it difficult and stressful to defend their territory, so they abandoned the activity. Normal social discourse within the mouse community broke down, and with it the ability of mice to form social bonds. The failures and dropouts congregated in large groups in the middle of the enclosure, their listless withdrawal occasionally interrupted by spasms and waves of pointless violence. The victims of these random attacks became attackers. Left on their own in nests subject to invasion, nursing females attacked their own young. Procreation slumped, infant abandonment and mortality soared. Lone females retreated to isolated nesting boxes on penthouse levels. Other males, a group Calhoun termed “the beautiful ones,” never sought sex and never fought—they just ate, slept, and groomed, wrapped in narcissistic introspection. Elsewhere, cannibalism, pansexualism, and violence became endemic. Mouse society had collapsed.

Sounds familiar, eh?

And:

But in fact the full span of Calhoun’s research had a more positive slant. The misery of the rodent universes was not uniform—it had contours, and some did better than others. Calhoun consistently found that those animals better able to handle high numbers of social interactions fared comparatively well. “High social velocity” mice were the winners in hell. As for the losers, Calhoun found they sometimes became more creative, exhibiting an un-mouse-like drive to innovate. They were forced to, in order to survive.

cabinetmagazine.org/issues/42/wiles.php

 

[edgarallanpo]

Seems you’re looking for someone to say that which nobody can reasonably respond; to speculate about how the Church would react to a speculative situation.

For that, I expect anybody’s guess is as good and as meaningless as anybody else’s.

You’re right, I guess that I’m asking a question that nobody can reasonably respond to. I think it merits a coherent, thoughtful explanation from the church though. A speculative situation is everyone practicing Catholicism?

Manualman:
Welcome to the internet. You, however, don’t seem to have digested my (name removed by moderator)ut or addressed it. Pot calling the kettle black…

Haha, yea, this is why I don’t generally use forums. I did read your post though, it was articulate and thoughtful, thank you, but I felt like it was missing the heart of my questions. Your argument also depends on me agreeing that an urbanized Catholic world would have lower fertility rates, which I don’t believe is true (see figures for average family size in cities undeveloped Catholic nations).

 

[Ridgerunner]

You’re right, I guess that I’m asking a question that nobody can reasonably respond to. I think it merits a coherent, thoughtful explanation from the church though.

Why should the Church do that when any particular set of underlying assumptions could be extremely wrong?

 

[weller2]

Why should the Church do that when any particular set of underlying assumptions could be extremely wrong?

Which ones – the basic properties of the exponential function?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Which ones – the basic properties of the exponential function?

No more than the ability of microorganisms to “borrow” snippets of DNA and create new diseases. Neither one tells us what the future of human populations will be.

 

[manualman]

… Your argument also depends on me agreeing that an urbanized Catholic world would have lower fertility rates, which I don’t believe is true (see figures for average family size in cities undeveloped Catholic nations).

Family sizes in Undeveloped catholic nations is not applicable to circumstances in first world catholic populations. That is looking to group 2 populations and attempting to use that data to predict group 3 behavior. For REAL group 3 catholic data, I suggest you look into European fertility rates in relatively wealthy, urban areas circa 1880-1915. Such a population would place them in the group 3 demographic category, but decidedly preceded the modern contraception movement. You’ll find that already those populations had 2 - 2.5 TFR. It really is the nature of the human beast in industrialized, wealthy, stable, urban populations. No contraception required. Add contraception and you get TFRs down around 1.5-1.7 in a similar population.

 

[edgarallanpo]

Family sizes in Undeveloped catholic nations is not applicable to circumstances in first world catholic populations. That is looking to group 2 populations and attempting to use that data to predict group 3 behavior. For REAL group 3 catholic data, I suggest you look into European fertility rates in relatively wealthy, urban areas circa 1880-1915. Such a population would place them in the group 3 demographic category, but decidedly preceded the modern contraception movement. You’ll find that already those populations had 2 - 2.5 TFR. It really is the nature of the human beast in industrialized, wealthy, stable, urban populations. No contraception required. Add contraception and you get TFRs down around 1.5-1.7 in a similar population.

Haha, aren’t you the one citing Japan as group 2 to predict group 3 behavior? We don’t have any pure examples of the urbanized Catholic first world, that’s why you cite the unCatholic urbanized 1st world, and I cite the Catholic urbanized 2nd/3rd world. We can’t really take this further because of the speculative nature, the evidence points us different directions. I respect your conclusions. But one other thing, before the modern contraception movement there were other means of getting that job done. Nothing new under the sun, it’s just easier and more accessible and effective.

 

[manualman]

Haha, aren’t you the one citing Japan as group 2 to predict group 3 behavior? We don’t have any pure examples of the urbanized Catholic first world, that’s why you cite the unCatholic urbanized 1st world, and I cite the Catholic urbanized 2nd/3rd world. We can’t really take this further because of the speculative nature, the evidence points us different directions. I respect your conclusions. But one other thing, before the modern contraception movement there were other means of getting that job done. Nothing new under the sun, it’s just easier and more accessible and effective.

I don’t think so. I don’t know anything about Japan’s demographic transition during the phase 2 period, though they are obviously today in what I’d call group 4 (i.e. 3 plus contraception).

You don’t think late 19th century, early 20th century had any predominantly catholic wealthy urban societies? Really? Italy, catholic portions of Germany, Austria, Spain… Not these countries as wholes, but their urban populations (those in Phase 3) would be great data for you to look into. You’ll find they had quite low TFR’s. Nature of the beast.

But when you insist on characterizing catholic cultures using Phase 2 examples (developing world), you are either missing the point or being stubborn.