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  • It was a passing comment, and just part of his speech. At this moment in time restricting births in countries other than the third world won't work, as the problem lies at the top end. Sorry, but we are surviving to long, and society thinks it's a good idea. If we managed to reduce the survival age, we could then consider restrictions on births. China had a one child policy, but had to increase it to two because of the age imbalance. Of course, if we managed to reduce the population, we would have to reduce the world's economy. The reality is that the subject is extremely complex, but nothing will happen whilst governments choose to ignore the facts.

    In the meantime I believe we should at least be concentrating on the quality of our society, and paying the underclass to produce endless amounts of brats isn't helping

    The intelligent are being oppressed so the stupid don't get offended

  • Welcome to casablanca's brave new world

  • It was a passing comment, and just part of his speech. At this moment in time restricting births in countries other than the third world won't work, as the problem lies at the top end. Sorry, but we are surviving to long, and society thinks it's a good idea. If we managed to reduce the survival age, we could then consider restrictions on births. China had a one child policy, but had to increase it to two because of the age imbalance. Of course, if we managed to reduce the population, we would have to reduce the world's economy. The reality is that the subject is extremely complex, but nothing will happen whilst governments choose to ignore the facts.

    In the meantime I believe we should at least be concentrating on the quality of our society, and paying the underclass to produce endless amounts of brats isn't helping

    Yes, I've just listened to David Attenborough's cosy fireside chat! I suppose a statement of the unmentionably/unthinkably obvious is a step forward. It's almost a bad joke to say "population growth must come to an end" - duur, ya think?.

    United Nations Projections show "stabilization and reduction" (ha!) and they go on to say "but not flattening out until the end of the century" - although perhaps what the UN means by "flattening out" is lying in a horizontal position ready to be buried by the lucky survivors.

    There's a reference to "Sixth Mass Extinction " being on the cards but it turns out to be just the march of civilized mankind reducing the viability and survival of animal-kind. I thought when I saw that reference it was trying to describe a situation and new policy, of survival of the fittest, to include self-destruction and non-intervention in the Middle East and Africa. But that's just me, forever the cockeyed optimist!

    Professor Paul Ehrlich predicted in his book "The Population Bomb" (1968) what we are still barely able and willing to discuss today. His original book title was "Population Resources and Environment" but his publisher changed the title. It certainly sold more copies. Yet here we are today, reduced to the ever-scowling Greta Thunberg and her problem-solving "Eureka!" insight that "something must be done".

    Imagine being in a lifeboat trying to survive when the boat's occupants keep procreating. One can stretch it out by having a gadget that desalinates seawater, another gadget that attracts and reels in an endless supply of fish but one can't make the boat any bigger to accommodate the ever-increasing mouths to feed. Eventually, the unspeakable reality makes its ugly entrance, which is birth control, preferably in tandem with survival of the fittest.

    Of course all of the above melts away into a temporary minor inconvenience if we can travel faster than light to some really comfortable planets. Probably best we don't rely on Branson, Musk, Boeing or Thomas Cook (and FlyBy is only for short haul). Maybe the Chinese will reach the stars first. That would be a load off Mother Earth's mind!

  • Imagine being in a lifeboat trying to survive when the boat's occupants keep procreating. One can stretch it out by having a gadget that desalinates seawater, another gadget that attracts and reels in an endless supply of fish but one can't make the boat any bigger to accommodate the ever-increasing mouths to feed. Eventually, the unspeakable reality makes its ugly entrance, which is birth control, preferably in tandem with survival of the fittest.

    Your analogy fails to recognise that the elderly and sick in the lifeboat would die off, the new babies needed to replenish the stock

  • Your analogy fails to recognise that the elderly and sick in the lifeboat would die off, the new babies needed to replenish the stock

    I guess you were out of the room when it became known that someone explained to those with single figure IQ's that if the number of births exceeds the number of deaths you get more people on this planet.

  • I guess that didn't apply to Germany where a falling birthrate has led to a top heavy elderly population and the need to attract immigrants to balance the equation

    https://www.dw.com/en/study-germa…mand/a-47470731

    This is where the problem lies. Controlling the birth rate reduces the population, but in an irregular fashion. The tree has to be pruned from the top, not the bottom. In an ideal world we just need to euthanize old people, but in reality that won't happen. So, to keep a balanced population we need to breed at a greater rate because people are living longer. The population then grows, and we continue to destroy the planet.

    The more optimistic of us believe science and world policy will sort the problem, the more realistic of us know it won't. I was watching the BBC news this morning, and Glasgow want to be the first carbon neutral city in the country. That's a lot of good when China are building a new coal fired power station every week, and Donald Trump doesn't believe in global warming. Building expensive and impractical electric cars, putting up inefficient wind turbines, and cutting back on our foreign holidays, is a very small p155 in a very large ocean. Changing our diet will help quite a lot. As well as farm animals producing so much methane, the land required per ton of food his far greater than growing crops. Our diet will certainly change as the generations progress, but that's going to be to late. I know many people who adamantly won't eat any dish without the inclusion of meat, and it's going to be a long time before these people die off.

    The only real answer lies in the reduction of the world population and economy, but how the hell do we achieve it. Answers on a post card please

    The intelligent are being oppressed so the stupid don't get offended

  • The only real answer lies in the reduction of the world population and economy, but how the hell do we achieve it. Answers on a post card please

    War, pestilence, natural disasters or famine. Take your pick. They have always been the great population reducers.

  • I guess that didn't apply to Germany where a falling birthrate has led to a top heavy elderly population and the need to attract immigrants to balance the equation

    https://www.dw.com/en/study-germa…mand/a-47470731

    You need to look for relationships in data. The correlation between fewer births and a declining population is obvious to even a complete imbecile.

    It is also obvious to a complete imbecile that the resulting age profile of a birth-restricted population would become older. Fewer young people. Duuuurrrrh!

    Naturally if you over-apply birth restriction you get that kind of imbalance which might present a shortage in a young workforce or, conversely, if there was unemployment, it could reduce that problem.

    Then again, maybe with the march of Artificial Intelligence (AI). the shortage of young workers might be a blessing in disguise. Especially if it was at the lower end of the class spectrum, more easily replaced by AI.

    Do you understand any of this? Or to put it another way: are you just pretending to be stupid?

  • War, pestilence, natural disasters or famine. Take your pick. They have always been the great population reducers.

    Only if we don't rush out with medicine, food, water and shelter to save them

    As long as there are reporters, photographers and crazy-mixed-up mean-wellers, we're sunk

  • You need to look for relationships in data. The correlation between fewer births and a declining population is obvious to even a complete imbecile.

    It is also obvious to a complete imbecile that the resulting age profile of a birth-restricted population would become older. Fewer young people. Duuuurrrrh!

    Naturally if you over-apply birth restriction you get that kind of imbalance which might present a shortage in a young workforce or, conversely, if there was unemployment, it could reduce that problem.

    Then again, maybe with the march of Artificial Intelligence (AI). the shortage of young workers might be a blessing in disguise. Especially if it was at the lower end of the class spectrum, more easily replaced by AI.

    Do you understand any of this? Or to put it another way: are you just pretending to be stupid?

    I was referring to your analogy about a boat

    Do you not understand your own posts?

  • Right on cue: Pestilence.

    A deadly mystery virus has killed a second person, as officials warn the fatal coronavirus could sweep the globe.

    Two men aged 61 and 69 have died in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

    But now the health ministry in Japan have confirmed its first case of the disease after a man in his 30s tested positive.

    It's understood that the man had been to Wuhan, where there has been an outbreak of pneumonia - believed to be caused by the new strain.

    In total 41 patients in the city have been taken ill with coronavirus.

    The Black Death decimated the populations of Europe, no reason it couldn't happen again. The planet would heave a sigh of relief.

  • Right on cue: Pestilence.

    The Black Death decimated the populations of Europe, no reason it couldn't happen again. The planet would heave a sigh of relief.

    We were going to be wiped out with Asian flu, then it was Swine Fever

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