> Actually, an equilibrium need never be reached. The typical model for
> uncontrolled breeding involves a massive die-off, followed by a return
> to uncontrolled breeding. It is a cycle with no natural equilibrium,
> particularly when age and disease are the primary killers.
I suppose equilibrium wasn't the word I was looking for. I don't mean
so much a stable, balanced state so much as a dynamic, constant
balancing.
The reason the planet is becoming overpopulated is because it has the
capacity (at least in the short term) to sustain that extra
population. When either too many people are made, or the planet's
capacity to sustain the people that we already have changes, either
people will die or more people will be made.
I'm guessing this has something to do with this massive die-off you're
predicting?
> > Those elders didn't have 2-3 children, I'd wager; they had 8-12.
>
> If I have 5 children (like my father did, and my wife's parents did)
> and each of those 5 children have 5 children then I have 25
> grandchildren. If those 25 grandchildren have 5 children a piece,
> I have 125 great-grandchildren.
*sNiP math*
> However, the numbers look much worse when you plan for the future,
> by which I mean 7 generations or about 140 years. Heck, plan for one
> near-future life expectancy of 100 years and 5 generations and the
> numbers are bad enough.
Both of my parents are the eldest of eight.
However...
My mother had 3 children, my father had four. I have four siblings,
and I'm the youngest at 24 (my oldest brother is 45). Of the five of
us, I have a niece and a nephew.
So, yes, if you and all of your siblings had five kids apiece, and
they had five kids apiece, etc...but I wonder how many nieces and
nephews you have.
> > You might like Orson Scott Card's Ender saga. The solution to
> > over-population in that is to hurl great big chunks of our population
> > out to the stars (of course, we happen to know where to send them,
> > which helps).
>
> Resource scarcity becomes a greater concern the greater the population
> becomes. With insufficient resources there is little anyone will be
> able to do to get off the planet.
Well, those people landed on other planets and started taking
advantage of those resources.
> > My fiancée and I are likely to adopt children; she herself was adopted.
>
> My wife and I are thinking that we may eventually adopt, too.
> There are plenty of children out there that need loving, caring
> families.
The numbers are insane, and the process of adopting a difficult tangle
of red tape. There are actually a huge number of willing families not
allowed to adopt for such genius reasons as "Sorry, you're gay".
> My wife is less dead set against breeding than I am. However we
> both have family histories with unfortunate diseases and disorders.
Also a valid reason to go childless.
> I believe humans should be extinct on Earth. The Earth was a nice
> place to get started, but once we have the technology to live
> sustainably off-planet it is our duty to the biosphere to leave it.
Ack, I can't agree. We're as natural a part of this planet as any
other living being. We simply need to be more responsible stewards.
> That would be a nice goal. I fear that while there remain radical
> religious groups promoting uncontrolled breeding (and not kept at
> bay with legislation) the world will continue to have
> over-population issues.
Legislation? I suppose it may come to that (in that Orson Scott Card
series I mentioned, it does), but before we propose legal restrictions
on personal liberty why don't we see what happens when we, say,
improve the economic situation and the literacy rates of poorer areas
of the world (including poorer areas of our own cities).
> > When there are no more empty spaces, we'll have killed the planet's
> > ability to sustain us. It's as simple as that, as I see it. If we
> > manage to deforest and pave the world, we're done for.
>
> Heh. A place isn't empty if it can't be accidentally destroyed in
> an experiment gone wrong. Such a place may be an oxygen farm or
> what-have-you. However when I talk about empty spaces, I'm talking
> about places that *can* be destroyed when a ship falls out of the
> sky during a test process. (Or better, places empty of even anything
> that can be destroyed.)
I dunno, I think we'll figure getting off-planet out in the
not-too-distant future, and any "learning experiences" with
inter-planetary or inter-stellar travel probably won't land on Earth.
> > However, I think we'd have to pretty much want "voluntary human
> > extinction" to hit that extreme, because it's not like we wouldn't
> > notice the massive consequences of such action happening as we moved
> > toward it.
>
> The key word is "voluntary". If it is a die-off it is involuntary.
Well, if you know the consequences of something like destroying the
rainforests, or pulling the trigger of that gun pressed against your
forehead, and you do it anyway, that's voluntary. That's all I mean.
> Voluntary means having a few children you can take care of well.
Voluntary extinction == suicide. Or is there some sort of linguistic
subtlety I'm missing? What you're describing is more like voluntary
population control.
> Involuntary means having so many children that they all go hungry and
> none of them have clothes that fit. Then they all die when you don't
> have the money to take any of them to a doctor.
Interestingly enough, in that situation people tend to have MORE
children, so they'll have better chances of one of them making it to
adulthood.
> Cheers, (morbid it may be, but we're all friends :)
> Steven
Well, then, cheers!
Simón
> > P.S. I think the only Linux-related thing about all this is that I'm
> > typing it up on Ubuntu...
>
> I believe open source software should be used in the process to get us
> colonizing other planets. Linux is well suited for such a task. :)
Well, that, and Linux is the most efficient user of available resources...
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