The world is not overpopulated

@BlueVeins Yeah, none of us want to be living crammed like cockroaches like they do most Asia.

@BlueVeins Just to pick at a single thing you wrote, we could just build trains and take cars off of the road rather than just wish a bunch of people would die.

@CountScrofula Saying that there are too many people in the world is very different from saying that more people should die. Deaths/year is only half the equasion.

It's true reducing the number of cars (realistically, we'd still need some for short-distance distribution of goods) would reduce our environmental footprint, but trains still consume electricity, require mined materials to produce, create noise pollution, and displace wildlife. Having fewer people would still be closer to ecologically sustainable even in a world where trains (and I assume bikes) were a predominant mode of transit the world over.

@BlueVeins I don't understand what you're proposing here. So it's not worth it to try and reduce the number of cars, which I imagine means that its not worth it to make our lives more sustainable in any meaningful way.

Obviously mass killing is off the table and good luck in lowering the birth rate without a lot of guns pointed at people.

So this just sounds like "do nothing and complain about overpopulation".

@CountScrofula
None of what I just said is proposing anything; all that shit is descriptive, not prescriptive. As for what I should do, the answer is both. Building more trains in car-centric shitholes will reduce the number of cars on the road. Reducing the population will also reduce the number of cars on the road. Building more trains in car-dependent shitholes and reducing the population will do both.


Why though? Birth rates are affected by a shit ton of stuff we can control such as human development, education among women, access to contraception, and religiosity. You're talking about this as if everyone makes these decisions free of constraints as it stands, but the reality is that a ton of social, political, and economic constraints are currently limiting people's freedom to live child-free.

@BlueVeins


Alright now we're getting to what I'm talking about it. No, it won't. And I can prove it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/birth-rate-by-country

The highest birth rate countries have the fewest cars per capita

Canada and Angola have equivalent populations. Angola has around 1 million cars total, Canada has around 27 million.

Angola has a birth rate of of 43.7, Canada has a birth rate of 10.2.

You see where this is going? If you take your personal quest to reduce the number of brown people on this planet (and yes, this is what you are arguing in substance I don't care how antiracist you are) you're not going to put a fucking dent in the number of resources consumed because they are overwhelmingly consumed by a very small part of the population.

@CountScrofula I think the key here is reducing consumption. We don't need to consume as much as we do in the West. One American consumes as much as I don't know how many, but multiple Angolans. The other issue is that climate change will force redistribution of population. We can't keep having millions of people living in a desert with dwindling water resources. Eventually something will change. So rather than focus on reducing the population, let's focus on reducing poverty (which will have the side effect of reducing birth rates), reducing consumption, and shifting populations out of areas with dwindling resources.

@SW-User Yeah exactly. The vision I have is of a planet where we're reducing the enormous waste and resource hoarding in our part of the world, and particularly by the ruling class, and we use that wealth to improve the lives of everyone else.

Birth rates drop naturally when children don't have to work and the fact that we can all eat, get from point A to point B, and probably live comfortable lives without killing the planet is to me - completely achievable.

Or at least WORTH TRYING FOR.

@CountScrofula
Are you unable to imagine any possible confounding variables there? You know, like poverty? I mean I guess we could all make ourselves so desperately poor that we can't afford cars to begin with, but that seems like a profoundly unmarketable position. Also, what you're looking at is cars per capita, not total cars. If you look at a graph of population vs total cars, I can guarantee you there'll be correlation there.


If you're going to start with the axoim that I want to reduce the number of brown people, specifically no matter what I say, I don't think we can have a productive discussion here. And frankly, it's a ridiculous claim to make in the first place, considering that white people are the ones who consume by far the most resources, head for head, on account of the fact that most of the countries we inhabit happen to be highly developed.

@BlueVeins Well it seems like you have the same goal as the others in this thread. I think he talked about reducing the number of brown people, because you talked about birth rates and population and it's really only impoverished countries (i.e. "brown" ones) that are seeing high birth rates and high population growth. Developed countries are seeing slowing birth rates, which seems to be in line with your goal. I don't really think slowing the growth in say, Angola is particularly important--what is important is stopping the poverty and more fairly distributing resources.

Certain things I don't think are reversible: like obviously there was less pollution when we didn't feel the need to drive around everywhere, but we can't go back to a time where we all live in a small village our whole lives and are less mobile, even if it would be better for the environment.

@SW-User I mean, birth rates are declining in the developed world, but not by as much as they could be. If I had a magic wand, I'd cut the birth rate to 0, accept a shit ton of immigrants from the developing world, and my country's colossal economic capacity to fund human welfare projects abroad.

I agree that cutting population growth in Angola probably shouldn't be priority #1, but it's kinda a catch 22. Angolans don't hurt the environment right now because they're poor. But we don't want them to be poor forever, we want them to be rich. If they were rich, they'd hurt the environment more per person, and thus their population size will matter more. I don't really see birthrate reduction and poverty reduction as competing solutions; I think they work best in tandem for improving the lives of everyone.

And keep it real, all of the things we need to do in order to fight overpopulation are things we ultimately should be doing anyway. Overpopulation is really just another reason for the pile.

@BlueVeins Dude get over being offended and examine your arguments I'm not name-calling I'm actually point out why what you're saying is unbelievably problematic.

You cannot argue for access to birth control, changing religious views, and increasing education as a means for reducing population without including race as a component. This is explicitly and absolutely about applying your political views to post-colonial countries because once again, whitey knows best and their high birth rates are scary to you.

Of course poverty is the cause here. That's what I've been saying this whole time it is foundational to everything I am talking about.

Ludicrous, unsustainable wealth is killing the planet and the more we talk about population, the more we decide to punch down instead of punch up.

@CountScrofula
Ah yes, the colonialist political view that women are people, everyone should decide when to start a family, and God isn't real. What you're doing is the international equivalent of using state's rights to oppose the nationwide abolition of slavery.


Yeah, there would also be less ludicrous, unsustainable wealth if there were fewer people. The upper class derives that wealth from skimming labor value off the rest of the population, and the middle class derives wealth from selling high-end services to all classes of people (though, disproportionately the upper class).

If your point is that overpopulation shouldn't be the main focus, I generally agree, but that's completely different from saying it's not even real.

@CountScrofula Wasn't offended, btw. But if I have position X and you tell me that I actually have position Y, idk how to convince you that I actually have position X. That seems like a rhetorically difficult position on my end.