[Isinlor]

Because there is no world overpopulation. People talk about overpopulation since ancient times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_overpopulation#History_o...

Currently standard of living are growing almost all over the world and human population is predicted to pick and stabilize at around 11 billion.

I really recommend "DON'T PANIC — Hans Rosling showing the facts about population" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FACK2knC08E

What's also interesting in his video is the fact that people tend to be very misinformed about state of the world affairs. E.g. when asked questions about certain statistics, they do worse than random. And the better educated you are the more misinformed you may be.

[DuskStar]

What would be "overpopulation" by your definition? No way to grow enough food, resulting in mass famines? No physical space for people, even after tiling the planet with skyscrapers?

Or would "unsustainable carbon emissions and ecological damage" be enough? And if that's enough, aren't we already there today?

[Isinlor]

I would accept decline in more than 1% of world population over 10 year time span caused by ecological collapse as overpopulation.

But the important question is what would you do about possibility of overpopulation however it is defined?

If you want to invest in health care and education in Africa - awesome! You have my full support. For example educating woman has excellent side effect of reducing fertility rate.

If you think about enforcing population restrictions, then you should think harder. How do you imagine that would look like on a global scale if you can't get USA to stick to Paris Climate accord? Some country with nuclear weapons threatening mutual assured destruction if some other country doesn't stick to 1 kid policy? Ridiculous.

[viklove]

If the global population was still 2 billion as in the early 1900s, I'm certain we wouldn't have a climate crisis anywhere near the scale we're seeing today. We should be panicking, and I don't understand why our population should be allowed to grow until the Earth literally cannot sustain it. We're an intelligent and evolved species, and we'd all be better off exercising some self-control and keeping our population in check.

And yes, I would gladly give up my right to procreate. I have no interest in having children, primarily because I believe it's a terrible thing to do in today's world.

[Isinlor]

Predicted population growth will have little to do with emission growth, because most of population growth will be happening in places where people don't have even access to electricity.

We, you and I, the top 10% richest people in the world are responsible for 50% of global emissions. Population of my home country is declining rapidly, I bet yours home country is as well.

Also let me ask you a nasty question, why should your right to exists trump someone else right to have children? Why don't you leave and make space for 10 children that will be born somewhere in Africa, that will probably emit less CO2 during their whole life than you already did?

[viklove]

> why should your right to exists

I'm not claiming I have a right to exist. In fact, that was the thesis of my comment, so you may want to work on your reading comprehension. You're the only one claiming anyone has a right to exist (or a right to be born). In my opinion your rights only exist after you are born, meaning no person should have the right to procreate.

[Isinlor]

You missed the second part of my question, but let's put that aside. As I said it's a nasty question.

So, I think more productive question would be: How would you take away people right to procreate?

How do you imagine doing that if you can't get USA to stick to Paris Climate accord?

If you want to invest in health care and education in Africa - awesome! You have my full support. For example educating woman has excellent side effect of reducing fertility rate without taking any of their rights.

[viklove]

I'm not claiming I have a good way to implement my proposition, I'm just trying to convince people that my proposition would be in the best interest of the human species. Maybe if we can convince enough people we can find a politician/leader who can make it happen :)

[papermachete]

If we're going the totalitarian route, why not designate kids and force them to grow up to be scientists. Make them work for minimal wage on what are today billion dollar R&D, all for finding a solution to the so-called crisis? After all, human procreation is a naturally occuring event and it is the failure of science to produce a solution for the consequences and politicians - to adopt it.

[viklove]

> After all, human procreation is a naturally occuring event and it is the failure of science to produce a solution for the consequences and politicians - to adopt it.

Yes, the solution is to stop thinking of procreation as a naturally occurring event and to instead limit each person to 1 living offspring (so each couple can produce 2 children). By the way, science doesn't provide solutions (that's engineering). Science only provides explanations.

[AnimalMuppet]

First: I question that you have the authority to "limit" people in this way.

Second: How do you propose to enforce your limitation?

[papermachete]

>the solution is

I'm sorry are you a politician or an authority figure?

>1

How did you measure the optimal number to be 1? And how would you value an ethnic minority to be just as valuable as the majority? Don't you support greater minority birth rates at the expense of the majority?

>explanations

No, that's philosophy. Granted, I haven't encountered a reproducible study on climate change, the scientific method proves or disproves hypotheses to provide a baseline of knowledge. The scientific method is how scientists develop early-stage solutions to climate change, not building contraptions.

[viklove]

> Don't you support greater minority birth rates at the expense of the majority?

Frankly, I don't care what the relative birth rates are between "minorities" and "majorities." By the way, which metric are you using to define minority? Is it height? Nose size? Personality type? I'm guessing it's just race, which is a very narrow criteria, but that's the only the criteria respected by the modern definition of "diversity."

> No, that's philosophy.

Erm... no. Science can give us an explanation for what is causing climate change, and even how quickly climate change is occurring, but designing a solution to it is firmly in the domain of engineering.

Anyway, that's all semantics. As to how I came up with the "1" number is really pretty straightforward though. That number will prevent the population from growing or shrinking -- it will maintain the current number. Isn't that obvious?