#overpopulation

[bemusedlybespectacled]

both "overpopulation" and "low birth rate" fearmongering are racist and xenophobic bullshit btw

I've discussed this before, but the issue with limited resources isn't that we have too many people overall, but that certain people use way more of the resources than others. "overpopulation" fears tend to be directed at countries with large populations like india and china, but per capita, those people use very few resources. americans use much, much more resources (not just per capita, but overall) despite having a fraction of the population that other countries have. not just “undeveloped” countries; americans use twice as much energy per capita as the british despite both countries having high standards of living. what this tells us is that the number of people doesn't matter so much as the distribution does. it's blaming poor nonwhite people for a crisis that a tiny percentage of people are actually responsible for.

fears of "low birth rates," on the other hand, are never actually about low birth rates in general, because overall there isn't a drop in birth rate: the global population continues to grow, not shrink. it's about too few of the "right" kind of people being born: white people (if you’re a white nationalist), Christians (if you’re a Christian nationalist), intelligent people (if you buy into Idiocracy-style eugenics), etc.

I would further argue that the fear of low birth rates from a practical/economical standpoint ("who will care for our aging population?" "what happens if there are more people drawing from social security than are contributing?" etc., etc.) is falling victim to the classic blunder of assuming that the 1950s were normal and how things had always been, and not the convergence of a bunch of different factors that are unlikely to be repeated. the baby boom was not normal. we are never going to have enough people to replace every boomer unless we get them from other countries through immigration.

tl;dr: if I see one more reddit thread or tumblr post with any population-related bullshit I am going to go apeshit.

[michaelblume]

Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, at whose behest 8 million people in India were sterilized, is now dead.

[probablyasocialecologist]

There is a strange idea in some environmentalist circles that human population is the main cause of ecological breakdown, and that humans have an intrinsically negative impact on ecosystems. Both claims are incorrect. First, human ecological impact is entirely a function of the system of production and provisioning. It depends on what is being produced, under what conditions, and how the yields of production are distributed. For instance, an economy that uses mostly public transit, renewable energy, multi-unit housing and plant-based protein can meet human needs with a fraction of the impact of an economy that produces a lot of SUVs, fossil fuels, mansions and industrial beef, and which allocates a bunch of totally unnecessary production to service the fantasies of overconsuming elites. Remember, we know it is possible to provide decent living standards (DLS) for 8.5 billion people with 30% of current global energy and material use, by ensuring efficient technologies and focusing production on socially necessary goods and services. That much is fairly straightforward. But one might say that, even so, every person will always have some negative impact. This too is incorrect. Again, it depends entirely on the production system, and specifically, what people are mobilized to do. Under capitalism, labour is mobilized overwhelmingly to produce things that are profitable to capital. But labour could just as easily be mobilized instead for regeneration. Using straightforward public finance mechanisms, we can fund massive programmes to reforest barren lands, regenerate degraded ecosystems, restore biodiversity, advance agroecological methods, etc. Under these conditions, it is possible for societies to not only have minimal negative impact on ecology, but to have a net-positive impact, actively improving ecological indicators. People buy into the myth of the intrinsic destructiveness of humans because we have come to take capitalism for granted. But it is 100% possible to organize production and labour differently. Under capitalism, we are compelled to produce whatever is most profitable to capital, even if it is destructive to humans and nature. Under conditions of economic democracy, we can produce what we know is necessary for well-being and ecology.

Jason Hickel

See this paper for the "decent living standards (DLS) for 8.5 billion people with 30% of current global energy and material use" stat

[iyuhni]

with this man, i hereby promise to worsen the overpopulation in our planet that nasa might actually speed up the process of making mars habitable.

[eternal-echoes]

At Pasadena City College, a student named Victor told me, "We need abortion. I mean, how are we going to care for these children when the world is so overpopulated?”

I began by replying, "Let's say you're right-the world is overpopulated."

Now, pro-life advocates who think the world is not overpopulated may be tempted to argue the point. I don't recommend immediately doing that. After all, you have enough to argue about without bringing up another topic of disagreement. But don't say you agree with the person on overpopulation (or anything else) if you actually don't agree with him. Instead, agree for the sake of the argument.

You can say something like, "I personally don't think the world is overpopulated. But for the sake of the argument, let's say I'm wrong." Or you could agree on some common ground between the two positions, like, "Some parts of the world are crowded, and people there may lack the basic necessities of life."

Once you've established common ground, you can then apply the pro-choice reasoning to a born person. Of course, you can always use the standard "Imagine I have a two-year-old here," but once you've practiced using Trot Out a Toddler enough, you can substitute other born human beings for the apply.

For example, I asked Victor if we should just kill the elderly and disabled people who no longer contribute to society, since some unborn children might grow up to become scientists who solve overpopulation issues. He smiled and said, "You can't do that, because ..." As his voice trailed off, I replied, "Because we shouldn't kill human beings just to ease overpopulation. If a baby in the womb is as human as you or me, doesn't he deserve the same protection you and I receive?"

-Trent Horn, Persuasive Pro-Life

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+Pregnant and need help? Click here.

+If you suffer from abortion regret, you can find postabortion healing at Rachel’s Vineyard

[questcequecestqueca]

Malé, Capital Of The Maldives

[pisceanpharies]

[melodeelaine]

I live in the South where it's really Deer Country - I'm seeing many of them this season.