The 200,000 impose themselves on the planet which means all of us. You become them. Problem not solved.
Saying the poor should just go ahead and wreck the planet because they are disabled is ridiculous. They can have less kids and hopefully organize to take control of their countries and run things for the benefit of the citizens. Less people leaving more for those who are left is the kind of economic growth that is conceivable in an era of limits. The Medieval plague provided just such a solution for the Europeans as horrible as it was. What model do you have in mind? Since you claim to know something about this major cellular shift in 3rd world financial institutions, why not share some information about it. If it's a big player on the African stage I haven't heard much on the subject. Usually when I hear about innovations in 3rd world finance it has to do with mini-loans for poor entrepreneurs and these loans are getting some bad press lately.
Why does everything always involve GIVING AWAY FREE (*)(*)(*)(*) TO POOR PEOPLE? Why does EVERY single scheme designed to "save the world" invovle transferring resources out of Western Civilization and just giving it away?? My God we sit here talkin about overpopulation, but instead of the proper attitude("Maybe we as individual nations should start to look out for oursevesl and start to be a little more competitive with eachother, maybe even adversarily so if necessary") we're trying to figure out ways to give poor people in the 3rd world free (*)(*)(*)(*).
Nobody said anyone had to give anything away for free. Maybe you should try to pay closer attention rather than hysterically jumping to baseless conclusions.
I become them? I most certainly do not become them. Why is it my responsibility to provide for them? Also, is the 200k net? Even if it is that's still roughly a 1% annual population increase. Why is that a big deal?
You share the same planet, that means the same terrestrial house and must absorb at some level the consequences of that. Is that such a toughy? So 200,000 increased population per day is no big deal to you. I see no more purpose to this conversation.
Economic development of the poor or rich has got to become qualitative. Quantity is getting played out. Gandhi was a good exponent of that view. In the long run he was right in my view. Then they are going to have to make a profound break with the industrial states. Only a broad Gandhian epiphany would bring that about. The payment structure sounds like a version of paying by credit card, no cash necessary. It would seem to me the "calling credits" would have to have some version of a bank to process the buyer-seller exchanges. I see no reason to think that these would be any less corrupt than the traditional banking approach. Of course having access a to cell phone has its advantages as it does in the industrial world. But it would it need a fairly developed infrastructure, including electricity, to get it to work, unless they are bouncing their signals off of satellites. And of course the delivery of goods and hands on services would be pretty much what they have always been.
It sure was confusing because I assure you I remain me.. Do you think that manufacturing, for example can increase output by 1% per year? I do. More people means more labor, more labor means more productivity, more people means more specialization of labor, more specialization means more productivity. You speak of these people as if they are dead weights, but I think that we will be more productive with more people. Justify your claim.
OK, I know I am butting into somebody else's discussion... Here is some data about how much productivity is already increasing due to the inclusion of relatively unskilled labor into the workforce: The question in my mind isn't whether productivity can be accomplished, but whether it is sustainable for 5 more years or 15. The world economy is overheating as population grows. link Our production rate in this century is 318% more than it was in the last century, which was 11 times as high as in the previous century. At this rate it looks like we would peak at near the end of this century at nearly twice our current levels of production. But how long can this ship hold together under that stress?
Not for very long. Increased agricultural production has gone from 3% per year to 1% per year since the 80s and is still dropping, even with all these increased hands. We're well into overshoot and we have nearly billion people around the world who are severely malnourished. And global warming and other pollution is closing in, along with resource depletion. We don't need 200,000 new folks each day, obviously. Turn those figures to a negative and I would have some hope for the future.
What if these people didn't need to eat actual "food"? What if they could be coaxed to get by on synthetic foods concocted with ingredients produced by genetically modified organisms that were fed raw feedstock inputs of human sewage, agricultural biomass and even the bodies of dead humans and road kill? Lawn clippings, garbage itself could even be a feedstock. Purina People Chow. That isn't a big step beyond our fast food nation, with our sugar cereal breakfast diets and our non stop consumption of food free soda beverages. You think people could do with that, esp if it was marketed well, addictive and voluntary? "Food" doesn't have to come from a farm!
We will start to see declining living standards before we see starvation. More people will mean more competition for land and existing houses, which will drive up real estate prices. Think about this: if the economy does not grow fast enough to keep up with the growing population, living standards will decline. More people also means more competition for jobs, which will reduce wages, even if more jobs are created- those new jobs are likely to be low paying jobs. One argument against immigration.
Recycling of wastes is pretty common right now and inevitable in an earth system. The biosphere already is half devoted to humans right now I understand. Your approach would seem to be only shortening the life circle, not increasing the ultimate food stocks for the most part. On the business of genetically engineered organisms for short waste-food cycles, I have a couple of thoughts. I remember Buckminster Fuller wanted us to go into long term space flight beyond what could be sustained by included food supplies. He felt once that commitment was made then they would have to develop a "black box" for the space ship that would be able to convert wastes back into food. Then that technology could be supplied to earth and famine would be history as practically anything organic would be made into food by a little extension. I guess you could even apply it to fossil fuel but of course that contributes to the problem indirectly of ghg. I guess it's possible. You get into biotech. nanotech. and that has its own hazards. A designer nanobacteria organic chomper converter has implications that gives some folks nightmares. Bill Joy is one of them. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html
Funny, real estate prices keep dropping overall in this country. My hunch is there is going to be a lot of downsizing, with houses designed to be energy efficient and I think good public transportation, short distance from work, schools, shopping and generally decent public infrastructure will be important considerations. Many of the rest may drift toward slums, even formerly "nice" communities that have priced themselves out of the new economic picture.
well it should give everybody nightmares. If you could develop a low tech machine that converted biomass to diesel fuel we would denude the planet in about 10 years, killing nearly everything in our path. You wouldn't be able to keep poor people from turning the biosphere directly into fuel. But I am not at all sure that we won't extend the path we began by creating junk food a few steps further into the creation of Purina People Chow.
No, this is all done without formal banks. All transfers are in cash handled by local cell company agents. Cell phone credits are converted into and paid out in cash. Because there is a high level of fierce competition no cell phone company can afford to try to screw its customers, they would just walk away. No, the cell phone network has been proven to function effectively in areas where no other modern infrastructure exists. Electricity comes from solar panels and generators. The cell sites move calls between each other rather than over land lines or satellites. Phones and cell equipment are often delivered by camel or canoe or even human porters where roads are non-existent. The need for a developed infrastructure to have a functioning cell phone network has proven to be vastly overblown when compared to reality. The only real limitation is that a new cell site must be within line of sight communication distance of an existing site.
With a properly engineered self-replicating nano-machine we could convert the entire surface of the planet into edible grey goo.
Proving irrefutably that perpetual population and economic growth is not only possible, but it is our manifest destiny!
I really don't think this is true. Increased standard of living inevitable leads to lower birth rates. Almost all industrialized countries have stable or negative population growth. This is because once women have economic and political power they tend to stop letting insecure men control their reproduction. This pattern has been repeated over and over again, so it's pretty well established. Therefore, as prosperity increases in the undeveloped countries we'll see decreasing population growth and increased per capital wealth. The key is to make sure wealth is dispersed to the poor here and around the world. Proving once again that redistribution of income is the best idea progressives ever came up with and it needs to be defended and propagated. The only thing that's going to save us from a Malthusian future, is prying capital out of the hands of the few and putting it into the hands of the many.
This is pure conjecture. Or rather a case of assuming that correlation = causation. It also appears as if higher educational status confers a lower reproductive rate among women, but that is also just conjecture. The fact is we really don't know what exact factor drives down fertility rates in western nations or developed nations. It could be culture and nothing more. It could also be that working women can't afford to get knocked up. Or that birth control was suddenly an option. Or that they were suddenly not as much under the influence of religion. Nobody knows, and not even econometrics can sort out the causation.
Birth rates declined before large numbers of women entered the workforce, before birth control became widely available, and before people turned away from religion in large numbers. Correlation may not equal causation for you but it is difficult to refute the long chain of evidence that economic development generally leads to higher and then lower rates of population growth. Fertility rates do not mean much when the number of births stays the same while survival to adulthood increases precipitously. Health improvements come first from economic advance through increased food and nutrition which creates a population boom because child mortality declines, often very quickly. From the many historical studies of population dynamics one thing stands out clearly as a common factor in both the explosion and subsequent decline in population growth, economic development that brings widespread greater wealth and economic opportunity. Since almost all developing nations are well into the first stage of economic advance with their population booms it would make sense to hurry them along into the next phase which will bring population growth down. In nations where all economic gains are concentrated among a few or sequestered overseas or non-existent, population growth does not decline. Where economic gains are widespread population growth tends to slow rapidly.
No, it's a well researched correlation that is easily explained. If women have a choice they prefer not to have lots and lots of children, for obvious reasons. All you need to do is ask them. Researchers have. Speculation resolved.
The population rises at the hyperspeed of 200,000 per day and the denialist, head in the sand folks cry "let them eat cake!" Population growth happens within a world system. Because you may not be having population growth in your region presently doesn't mean you aren't influencing growth in other areas. Social conservatives think the highest form of morality is preventing a poor woman from having an abortion or even using artificial contraception. And then they yammer on about the Tiffany solution.
