3 replies to this topic

[Live Forever]

Here is a an article that I ran across today on how the United States will be breaking the 300 million person mark in mid-October of this year, and how different groups are saying different things on whether population should go up or down.

Interestingly enough, the fundamentalist Christian segment is the one saying population increases are good. They say this because of their objection to teaching about birth control methods (instead wanting "abstinence only" education) in schools, and their efforts to restrict access to contraceptives for everyone. I find this interesting, because when I bring up the subject of radical life extension with any of my friends who are Christian, one of the first objections that they raise is overpopulation.

Also, there are discussions in the article about when the number will hit 400 million, and the changes that American society will face. There are the political takes on it as well, both positive and negative for population increases.

Thought the article was particularly interesting from a life extensionist perspective, since the objection of overpopulation seems to be one of the most common ones to radical life extension.

[John Schloendorn]

Come on, we're 80 Million over, here in a country only slightly larger than Arizona, and we're still not dead.

[caston]

There's more than just the size of the land area. Look at continents like Australia, which is very dry (desert) and Antartica which is also very dry (frozen).

One of the biggest issues is sprawl. You consume less energy for transportation if your millions are in the one place than you do if they are all over the continent. Countries like Australia and America use a lot of petrol because of the suburbun sprawl and this is a bigger factor than the size of the cars and the population.

[Lazarus Long]

Also, there are discussions in the article about when the number will hit 400 million, and the changes that American society will face. There are the political takes on it as well, both positive and negative for population increases.

Population pressure is real no matter how much it is naysayed by those that dismiss it out of hand. The real questions are: what are the impacts of population and when are they damaging versus beneficial?

Political change is inevitable as demographics shift. This has always been true and will likely continue to be true. It is the nature of those changes that are being debated, such as a shift to a Hispanic majority for the US within 50 years and how this will impact the politics of the nation.

Thought the article was particularly interesting from a life extensionist perspective, since the objection of overpopulation seems to be one of the most common ones to radical life extension. 

The problem here is that despite the common perception, longevity accounts for only a small percentage of the population pressure and is essentially being scapegoated to ignore the fact that the real culprit is still archaic birthing strategies that drive the process. Population pressure balances out with respect to growth and longevity relatively well once that is accounted for.

I do hold fundamentalist doctrine that insists on over-procreation as far more responsible than longevity for overpopulation AS WELL AS the resulting warfare, which is the most common self limiting strategy adopted by our through evolutionary selection addressing resource competition. Humans are still animals and they behave as such. Sadly all too much like urban insects. Our economic systems are still predicated on Zero/Sum strategies no matter how far seeing some would like us to be, or apologetic for the excesses that they are,. Not to mention the blame game and the denial that also accompanied the discussion and ignores the causal factors shared on all sides of socioeconomic conflict.

Another important point to understand about the US population issue as opposed to the global one is that the majority of US growth is begin driven by immigration. Once you remove the numbers generated by immigration our population growth actually begins to look like Japan or Europe. Again over-procreation strategies are enshrined in our cultures due to hundreds of thousands of years of cultural evolution and the fact that they have reached the point of diminishing returns does not alter the fact they are sanctified and difficult to assail overtly. The irony is that as wealth and education are distributed it appears you don't have to attack them as they diminish by voluntary choice of those that seek to personally redistribute their individual resources with better family economic strategies.

We still have a positive growth but it far closer to stable. Also we see that as immigrant groups assimilate they stabilize the number of offspring but this usually requires two to three generations and since a majority of immigrants are from under developed impoverished third world counties and they arrive with a more fundamentalist character, whether Christian or Muslim. This too impacts the political debate.