Bryant:
A bit convoluted, but there’s a question in there…
Q1) when will all this population control slow down?
A1) I don’t think there’s much population control happening now! Perhaps you want to know when the population growth will slow down. In either case, here’s what I think about population growth and control… we’re screwed.
Hans Rosling gave a good TED talk on this. In short, earth’s population will hit 9 billion within 50 years. It turns out that the higher the standard of living, the fewer children people have. Perhaps it’s because they want lots of kids in the hopes that those children will support them when they age. Or maybe it’s because they’re really poor and the only entertainment they have is… well, you know. Or maybe it’s because they can’t afford birth control. Personally, I think it’s mostly that they have little else to do but reproduce but I could be wrong.
So, he figures that the only way to stop the population growth is to increase the standard of living of people. But the trouble is… we don’t have the resources to do that. We’re going to run out of oil and coal and natural gas about the same time we hit 9 billion. So we’re screwed.
Okay, maybe some miracle energy source is found and we magically raise everyone up to the standard of living currently experienced in civilized places like, Europe or the USA/Canada. We’re still screwed. How come? Because we’ll run out of water. And arable land (without irrigation, much of which comes from aquifers, we have less arable land).
Q2) So why not just send some nukes on some overpopulated cities.
A2) Oh, it will happen. If not nukes, then bio-weapons. Or maybe plain old war. Back in the late 1930’s a German leader named Hitler (you may have heard of him) made Lebensraum a key Nazi policy. What’s Lebensraum? It’s literally “living space” — they wanted space and raw materials. It didn’t work for Hitler, but he didn’t have nukes or bioweapons. Somebody will try it, you can be sure.
Everybody wants control. Everyone wants to be in charge of the world — and they figure that the best way to get it is to outnumber every other group! The Catholic church is not big on birth control… the more Catholic babies are born, the more Catholics there are; other religions do the same, even if they’re not as up-front about it. Heck, in Canada people still get “baby bonuses” ($100/month per child). In 1988, the province of Quebec started writing cheques for $8,000 per baby (they were worried that English Canada would out-populate them).
Q3) You seem to imply that there is a slow pace of trying to kill people off so as not to draw attention to what’s happening. Leading me to believe that you really think we are successfully slowing down population growth!
A3) I like conspiracy theories as much as the next person (maybe more!). I hope that the BP Gulf oil disaster won’t kill the planet, but even if it does, I doubt that it was done on purpose. I don’t believe that the oil spill in the Gulf is an intentional attempt to kill millions of people in the Southern USA.
Population will increase until two things happen: we run out of resources (and many people die) or we pollute our environment and drown in our own waste products (and many people will die). Just like bacteria: unlimited growth while food is available and while their waste products don’t kill them. Life really is that simple at some level.
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