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On October 29 2009 02:37 Roffles wrote:
Give a starving person a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime.
Ending World Hunger is nice, but thinking about population control and how the population could just skyrocket in the future is quite scary.
The world isn't full of equal opportunity. There are some very unfortunate people out there and you can't deny that.
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Sanya12364 Posts
On October 29 2009 10:53 integral wrote:
Next you'll be telling me humans aren't bound by the same laws of ecology that other species are because we have foresight and the ability to choose whether to reproduce or not based on economic factors. If you were to look at the behavior of individuals and not that of the entire species, you might be able to make this argument. But as a species, humans follow the same exact pattern every single other species follows. We live, we consume, we reproduce, we die. If we don't have enough food, we starve to death. If we exceed long-term carrying capacity, we die-off. Humans are not exempt from any of the biological constraints that other species are, though we're certainly a bit more creative in pushing those limits as far as we can. We have a composite carrying capacity almost to the scale of the entire earth, but it's been completely supported by nonrenewable resources, and that's called overshoot, and populations die when they go into overshoot.
If you want to "fix" overshoot, you'd do well to understand the basic ecology involved, because then and only then you could apply economics to the task.
The your entire premise is that humans can't identify or predict how scarce food is in the world or that human beings once identified how scarce food is in the world will won't change their reproductive behavior in account for the scarcity. Or perhaps you are just really pessimistic about the human race and wonder if all people will figure out that at a certain point it isn't such a good idea to reproduce. Or maybe it's just pessimism that the technological growth of human race will not find a substitute source of resources with energy being the key to just about everything.
Aren't there plenty good examples of people choosing not to reproduce? There are people limiting their reproduction based on how expensive it is to raise children. I'm sure not even half of them have understood this ecological argument of carrying capacity and overshoot. If energy becomes expensive or if food becomes expensive then the incentive to conserve and not reproduce will become ever larger (or there can be wars as populations bump into one another and that will kill off the population). And if need be humans will squeeze ever last bit of fossil fuel out of the shale and then spread to the stars and get energy by farming the sun in space.
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On October 29 2009 10:41 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2009 10:08 .risingdragoon wrote:
Chronology, tangeng, do you have it?
Foreign aid is after the economy is destroyed and the people no longer able to support themselves.
The flood of cheap food in these countries is when they still had an internal agricultural economy. When the cheap foreign food floods their marketplace, the peasant will obviously buy the cheaper good instead of their locally grown food - putting their farmers out of work.
The rest is dominoes. So what seems to be the problem? It's either partially subsidized food that out competes the local agricultural industry or it's the completely subsidized food (free foreign aid!) that out competes the local agricultural industry. What can you do about that? You can either stop subsidizing food or you can a huge amount of money forbidding international trade of food. That means a far smaller variety in diet and possible starvation in some nations where the population is larger than the food production capacity. Is it really logical to point to the trade and call that the problem!?
What do you mean what can you do about it? If international monetary policy is what causes a country to plunge into economy disaster, change the policies. The solutions are there. In plain sight.
But it's not getting done for reasons even more obvious.
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On October 29 2009 10:48 integral wrote:
The reason I don't talk about the socioeconomic factors involved in world hunger is that people talk about the starvation as if it were a problem that can be fixed by feeding people, rather than an outgrowth of resource drawdown and overshoot. If we were living within our means and there were still hungry people, I would of course be talking about trade and the distribution of resources -- the problem, and its solution, would be sociological.
But if you were to address the sociological factors involved, and "solve" world hunger, you would merely exacerbate the real underlying problem of overpopulation by enabling continuing reproduction. This is why it's so important to understand the actual ecology of population, and not talk about human population as if it had no ecological basis.
I'm not worried about overpopulation right now. That's a whole other can of worm.
The problem is NOT sociological, WTF? You call depriving others "sociological"? You call feeding everything, from people to chicken to pigs to cows corn, sociological? It's business, and it's irresponsible.
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On October 29 2009 04:28 Krikkitone wrote:
First fact
we currently produce enough food for everyone on earth
Current "World" Hunger =/= Global Food shortage
"World" hunger is a strictly local problem... or even more specifically and individual problem... the problem is that people are too poor to buy food.
Basically its an economic issue, the development of countries, and allowing individuals to have economic opportunities. Which means places like many African nations with severe political problems would still have hunger even if the price of bread in the West fell to a penny for a loaf... (actually hunger might even get worse in Africa because the farmers couldn't make enough money)
The Malthusian issue is not a problem because population growth rates have been falling world wide and hunger has been falling worldwide.
The "west" is not growing except through immigration (US is one of a few exceptions and the non-immigration growthrate is very low) and the "nondeveloped world" has decreasing growthrates.
so, population will top out at maybe 10 billion, and there will still be world hunger.... for probably centuries after that, even as food production continues to grow... bcause the problem isn't food production, but distribution.
Dats tha truf yo. It's a weird wheel of fuckery, but lets not act like things are getting worse, I think one day world hunger will be so rare that it is a non issue. I mean a lot has improved during the last 20 years. Baby steps.
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On October 29 2009 08:57 WhiteNights wrote:
I've been making the point that the carrying capacity of the earth depends on capital and technology level. Theoretically, considering a situation where the entirety of the Gobi Desert has been turned into a massive solar power plant designed to power millions of hydroponic farms, one can *imagine* a long-term carrying capacity of a hundred billion.
The competing factors are:
Increasing human population above long-term carrying capacity.
Decreasing non-renewable resources means short-term carrying capacity cannot be sustained.
Increasing technology and capital level increasing Earth's long-term carrying capacity.
Nonrenewable resource drawdown doesn't need to result in die-off in one of the two following scenarios:
1.) Long-term carrying capacity is increased from below the current population to above the current population, and population control measures are implemented before we hit the absolute limit.
2.) Humanity adjusts consumption patterns in order to sustain more people off of less resources rather than continuing current consumption patterns and allowing people to die off.
Notice that neither of these apply to an ecology where the population in question is unintelligent. Standard ecological theory stating "draw-down implies overshoot inevitably leads to die-off" is predicated on the assumption that renewable long-term carrying capacity is constant, which is true when dealing with creatures which are not humans, and it is this assumption which I am objecting to.
Also, I did post about carrying capacity with respect to living standards and you ignored my previous post.
If you accept that we are currently in overshoot, there is not much more to talk about. As long as all strategies toward resolving overshoot acknowledge the current ecological and biological realities of the world, I'm okay with them. So yeah, I can imagine a world with a significantly greater long-term carrying capacity than we currently have -- but whether or not it's likely to happen is another discussion entirely.
So what is sustainable in the long-term? I suppose it depends on your definition of "long-term", especially if you want to look at things in geological or cosmological time. As you wrote in your other post, "any population which consumes resources faster than they replenish is in overshoot," that would mean that humanity was in overshoot the first time humanity extracted metal from the earth. Good point, and I agree. Resource drawdown doesn't necessarily lead to overshoot if the resource is not essential or in no way increases short-term carrying capacity, but the two are correlated quite strongly. Given a human-scale definition of "long-term", it is pretty evident that stone-age technology is the only level of technology that is truly sustainable.
Even stone-age civilizations were quite destructive to their environments, however. The Middle East used to be a lush paradise, but early agriculture caused topsoil loss and massive desertification. Sedentism itself leads to resource drawdown as all available resources in a single area are consumed. A pretty strong argument can be made that hunter-gatherer bands are the only sustainable form of human society in the long-term. The only problem with this is that I honestly cannot imagine a transition to hunter-gatherer bands that does not involve some form of massive die-off. (Realistically, I'm pretty sure die-off is inevitable anyway.)
But let's play world dictator for a bit, and assume you have a grand coalition of the willing, ready and eager to all work together to create this global benign totalitarian regime of yours. How would you raise long-term carrying capacity to the level of the current population?
You should probably start by looking at the history of how population growth was enabled in the first place, starting by understanding essential concepts of scope enlargement and composite carrying capacity. I'll let William Catton himself explain this, with an excerpt from a chapter in Overshoot. source of excerpt
Carrying Capacity and Liebig's Law
To ... [understand,] we need to step outside the usual economic or political frames of thought, go back two-thirds of a century before the 1929 crash, and reexamine for its profound human relevance a principle of agricultural chemistry formulated in 1863 by a German scientist, Justus von Liebig. [2] That principle set forth with great clarity the concept of the "limiting factor" briefly mentioned in Chapter 8. Carrying capacity is, as we saw there, limited not just by food supply, but potentially by any substance or circumstance that is indispensable but inadequate. The fundamental principle is this: whatever necessity is least abundantly available (relative to per capita requirements) sets an environment's carrying capacity.
While there is no way to repeal this principle, which is known as "the law of the minimum," or Liebig's law, there is a way to make its application less restrictive. People living in an environment where carrying capacity is limited by a shortage of one essential resource can develop exchange relationships with residents of another area that happens to be blessed with a surplus of that resource but happens to lack some other resource that is plentiful where the first one was scarce.
Trade does not repeal Liebig's law. Only by knowing Liebig's law, however, can we see clearly what trade does do, in ecological terms. Trade enlarges the scope of application of the law of the minimum. The composite carrying capacity of two or more areas with different resource configurations can be greater than the sum of their separate carrying capacities. Call this the principle of scope enlargement; it can be expressed in mathematical notation as follows:
CC (A + B) > CCA + CCB
The combined environment (A + B) still has finite carrying capacity, and that carrying capacity is still set by the necessary resource available in least (composite) abundance. But if the two environments are truly joined, by trade, then scarcities that are local to A or B no longer have to be limiting.
A good many of the events of human history need to be seen as efforts to implement the principle of scope enlargement. Most such events came about as results of decisions and activities by men who never heard of Liebig or his law of the minimum. Now, however, knowing the law, and understanding also the scope-enlargement principle, we can see important processes of history in a new light. Progress in transport technology, together with advancements in the organization of commerce, often achieved only after conquest or political consolidation, have had the effect of enlarging the world's human carrying capacity by enabling more and more local populations (or their lifestyles) to be limited not by local scarcity, but by abundance at a distance.
...
Unfortunately, modern transport systems, and some aspects of modern organization, are based very heavily upon exhaustible resource exploitation. Insofar as this is true, they must eventually founder upon the rocks of resource exhaustion. But even before they might succumb to such physical disaster, the trade arrangements upon which the earth's extended carrying capacity for Homo colossus has come to depend can be torn apart by social catastrophe. [3] It is important to recognize at last that that is what happened in 1929-32. In fact, some of it began happening during, or as a repercussion of the Great War of 1914-18. emphases mine
Okay, so if you want to raise long-term carrying capacity you would need to completely eliminate resource drawdown, which completely eliminates the use of fossil fuels -- which are entirely responsible for the massive increase in scope accompanying the latest population boom.
I sure hope you're a genius dictator with some amazing, because you would have to completely retool all of society's trade infrastructure all over the world to even begin to have a chance of supporting so many billions of people.
Also, you probably want to stop pollution and the destruction of every single ecosystem on earth, considering we really need those, which means you'd also need to completely re-design all food production systems. This is still a technical problem, but I sure hope you have some good ideas, because current yields are subsidized by aggressive drawdown of the invaluable resource of topsoil.
I could go on a while, but I don't really like playing world dictator, nor do I find it a remotely plausible scenario. (Not to mention that I find it pretty reprehensible and repugnant to imagine such an impossible solution for a really fucking awful situation.) Theoretically possible, sure, but not for humans and not on this planet, and that's where I take my leave of the discussion.
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On October 29 2009 02:29 Biochemist wrote:
education and birth control
this is pretty much end thread, educated people with access to birth control have fewer children.
ignore all the guilt trips about skinny african kids and especially ignore the crazies calling for eugenics/mandatory sterilization/etc.
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While I have no opinion on this matter, it seems that Integral is dumping his estrogen on his adversaries. Do calm down a little.
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On October 29 2009 11:37 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2009 10:53 integral wrote:
Next you'll be telling me humans aren't bound by the same laws of ecology that other species are because we have foresight and the ability to choose whether to reproduce or not based on economic factors. If you were to look at the behavior of individuals and not that of the entire species, you might be able to make this argument. But as a species, humans follow the same exact pattern every single other species follows. We live, we consume, we reproduce, we die. If we don't have enough food, we starve to death. If we exceed long-term carrying capacity, we die-off. Humans are not exempt from any of the biological constraints that other species are, though we're certainly a bit more creative in pushing those limits as far as we can. We have a composite carrying capacity almost to the scale of the entire earth, but it's been completely supported by nonrenewable resources, and that's called overshoot, and populations die when they go into overshoot.
If you want to "fix" overshoot, you'd do well to understand the basic ecology involved, because then and only then you could apply economics to the task. The your entire premise is that humans can't identify or predict how scarce food is in the world or that human beings once identified how scarce food is in the world will won't change their reproductive behavior in account for the scarcity. Or perhaps you are just really pessimistic about the human race and wonder if all people will figure out that at a certain point it isn't such a good idea to reproduce. Or maybe it's just pessimism that the technological growth of human race will not find a substitute source of resources with energy being the key to just about everything.
The only one of these statements I agree with is the last one.  Food being scarce isn't an issue, it's hardly a problem in my opinion -- it's the natural consequence of overpopulation and a precursor to die-off. Desperately attempting to avoid the inevitable consequences of overshooting long-term carrying capacity IS a problem, and should be noted as such.
Aren't there plenty good examples of people choosing not to reproduce? There are people limiting their reproduction based on how expensive it is to raise children. I'm sure not even half of them have understood this ecological argument of carrying capacity and overshoot. If energy becomes expensive or if food becomes expensive then the incentive to conserve and not reproduce will become ever larger (or there can be wars as populations bump into one another and that will kill off the population). And if need be humans will squeeze ever last bit of fossil fuel out of the shale and then spread to the stars and get energy by farming the sun in space.
Maybe then God and Zeus could have a breakdance competition and magical unicorns will frolic in our new colonized star system. As long as we're writing fiction, I mean.
Isolated examples of people choosing not to reproduce has had and will have no impact on the biological imperative of members of our species to reproduce causing our population to reproduce to its carrying capacity, whether that capacity is short-term or long-term.
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On October 29 2009 12:36 chillos wrote:
Despite having no opinion on this matter I decided to post anyway because I didn't like another poster's tone
This issue, and the amount of ignorance on the topic, makes me mad.
edit because this really deserves more than one sentence. Overpopulation is a hugely important issue regarding the current world that is very seldom understood in terms of the actual discipline dedicated to understanding population dynamics: ecology. We're not just talking about abstract entities here, very real people starve to death every day. I don't take this lightly, it's a matter of utmost importance to me that population does not overshoot so this death and suffering does not have to happen. it's also important to me that when people are talking about solutions to a problem they consider the effects of their attempted solutions. Overshoot doesn't just lead to starvation, it leads to war and genocide and unrest and political corruption, all of which create and leave behind lasting trauma. This isn't a thought experiment to take lightly, there are very real consequences to our actions that very very few people seem to take responsibility for. If I am perceived as bitchy for not taking this very lightly, well, there are worse things to be perceived as.
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Why doesn't the US or some country just bomb the entire African continent to end hunger on the continent. The productivity of that continent is extremely low with rampant diseases and poverty. Then, more educated people from the US can utilize the resources in Africa and make the entire continent more productive.
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On October 29 2009 11:23 Adeeler wrote:
We can produce food far more efficient and with greater yeilds with improved technology & farming techniques. Even in 1st world countries the best farming techniques & technology isn't being used so production is simply a fraction of what it could be. If we produce food with the best methods across the globe we'd be able to sustain a population far higher then what we have now.
If we reduced the wasted food we'd also reduce our use of food dramatically.
If need be we could always switch to hydroponics which yield far more then normal farming techniques. This is what we would do if we ever travel into space for extended times.
the more food you produce from an area of land (the more intensive) the less nutrients this food has
you may get enough calories but you will end up with diseases caused by nutrient deficiencies and malnutrition
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On October 29 2009 13:37 YianKutKu wrote:
Why doesn't the US or some country just bomb the entire African continent to end hunger on the continent. The productivity of that continent is extremely low with rampant diseases and poverty. Then, more educated people from the US can utilize the resources in Africa and make the entire continent more productive.
...What the fuck? Not even the good ol' USA could be so immortalized to do such.
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Actually, ending world hunger, increasing education and promoting birth control should all be considered equally important. I'm sure there are already plenty of organizations dedicated to each of these causes. Ending world hunger might seem more important because you can't effectively educate and encourage birth control on starving people. Gotta feed them first.
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The technology and logistics exist today to end world hunger.
What is lacking is sufficient education (farming & health best practices), appropriate public policy (moral capitalism & no financial aid checks), and adherence to timeless moral principles (hard work & uncompelled generosity).
The following 'problems' are misnamed synonyms for inadequate food distribution/supply:
-too many people
-too much food
-prolonged lifespan
-inadequate natural resources
It is foolish to suppose that we fully understand or can even accurately estimate the population this planet can support. We can't predict the weather next month or explain how your taste buds work yet. First things first.
I'm a member of the Mormon church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), whose humanitarian efforts, I feel, are a good example in their organization. Charitable donations go to several focused areas, staffed primarily by volunteer missionaries, in order to do the most good for the money:
- Measles
- Neonatal Resuscitation Training
- Clean Water
- Wheelchairs
- Vision Treatment
I think religious and secular organizations such as this one, are what really make a difference where the rubber meets the road - in providing long-term sustainable training and support to those who need it. That's all we need. We just need more people involved.
Respectfully,
-0neder
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Sanya12364 Posts
On October 29 2009 12:37 integral wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2009 11:37 TanGeng wrote:On October 29 2009 10:53 integral wrote:
Next you'll be telling me humans aren't bound by the same laws of ecology that other species are because we have foresight and the ability to choose whether to reproduce or not based on economic factors. If you were to look at the behavior of individuals and not that of the entire species, you might be able to make this argument. But as a species, humans follow the same exact pattern every single other species follows. We live, we consume, we reproduce, we die. If we don't have enough food, we starve to death. If we exceed long-term carrying capacity, we die-off. Humans are not exempt from any of the biological constraints that other species are, though we're certainly a bit more creative in pushing those limits as far as we can. We have a composite carrying capacity almost to the scale of the entire earth, but it's been completely supported by nonrenewable resources, and that's called overshoot, and populations die when they go into overshoot.
If you want to "fix" overshoot, you'd do well to understand the basic ecology involved, because then and only then you could apply economics to the task. The your entire premise is that humans can't identify or predict how scarce food is in the world or that human beings once identified how scarce food is in the world will won't change their reproductive behavior in account for the scarcity. Or perhaps you are just really pessimistic about the human race and wonder if all people will figure out that at a certain point it isn't such a good idea to reproduce. Or maybe it's just pessimism that the technological growth of human race will not find a substitute source of resources with energy being the key to just about everything. The only one of these statements I agree with is the last one. Food being scarce isn't an issue, it's hardly a problem in my opinion -- it's the natural consequence of overpopulation and a precursor to die-off. Desperately attempting to avoid the inevitable consequences of overshooting long-term carrying capacity IS a problem, and should be noted as such. Show nested quote +Aren't there plenty good examples of people choosing not to reproduce? There are people limiting their reproduction based on how expensive it is to raise children. I'm sure not even half of them have understood this ecological argument of carrying capacity and overshoot. If energy becomes expensive or if food becomes expensive then the incentive to conserve and not reproduce will become ever larger (or there can be wars as populations bump into one another and that will kill off the population). And if need be humans will squeeze ever last bit of fossil fuel out of the shale and then spread to the stars and get energy by farming the sun in space. Maybe then God and Zeus could have a breakdance competition and magical unicorns will frolic in our new colonized star system. As long as we're writing fiction, I mean. Isolated examples of people choosing not to reproduce has had and will have no impact on the biological imperative of members of our species to reproduce causing our population to reproduce to its carrying capacity, whether that capacity is short-term or long-term.
You have no perspective on the technological advancement of the past century. Might as well be dancing with God these days compared to the people of 100 years ago. Optimism in technology might be misplaced but pessimism could be very much wrong as well. In fact, this very idea of a carrying capacity was introduced in the 19th century and it lead some to eugenics and other crimes against humanity. It's your prerogative and you can place your bets on where technology will lead us in 50 years and profit or lose accordingly.
Apparently, you don't understand the economic idea of scarcity which just means that there's a limit to the amount of goods available for use. Therefore it must be distributed and rationed among a population - usually by free market pricing - but hopefully wisely allocated to good and optimal use.
I don't see what to argue about anyhow. You're just posing the probable outcome when the most pessimistic scenario unfolds, and I don't have any objections to that analysis since it's based on that premise.
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haha yes let's kill people to stop other people from starving that makes sense
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On October 29 2009 11:37 TanGeng wrote:
Aren't there plenty good examples of people choosing not to reproduce?
There are many more of them not refraining from reproducing. And those examples tend today to be in areas where hunger is a bigger problem http://www.indexmundi.com/map.aspx?v=Birth rate(births/1,000 population)
And if need be humans will ... spread to the stars and get energy by farming the sun in space.
This is exactly the kind of crap that makes having a conversation about this impossible. Do you have any idea how much energy it takes to break orbit? Or how inhospitable space is? It lacks certain things like air, or food. Energy though is the sticking point. We are in a crunch now (look at gas prices, alleviated mildly in the last year by depression, but ticking upwards again) and you are going to throw energy at lifting masses of people or equipment into space? It's not happening.
It's a bit of a buzzkill to think we will no sooner go to Alpha Centauri than we will to Tattooine, but that's the truth of it.
Anyway, there's nothing to be gained from this thread. People would rather have their head in the sand. I would too. I live that way in fact, ignoring the idea of a world without anesthetic, oreos, fresh raspberries all the time etc and enjoying those things while they are here.
All I am hearing from all this is a lot of denial and no workable solutions. All the people claiming to be rational, not bound by religion and science believing are pretty happy to ignore science in this case. There's something to that "hope" and "irrational thought" thing after all eh?
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On October 29 2009 13:37 YianKutKu wrote:
Why doesn't the US or some country just bomb the entire African continent to end hunger on the continent. The productivity of that continent is extremely low with rampant diseases and poverty. Then, more educated people from the US can utilize the resources in Africa and make the entire continent more productive.
but if you bomb africa, you'll destroy the resources there :C
you were so close to having everything figured out
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EPT
