Free Thinking - The Population Time Bomb

[Serial_Apologist]

If we follow stupid short termism, then some of us can have a good time, leaving the rest to have to put up with the resulting mess, and perhaps humans might be extinct within a thousand years.

But short termism is the way the system is set up, namely to keep the firms that make up its wealth creating capacity sufficiently in profits to satisfy the interests of shareholders and the exigencies of competitive profitability. Attempts to mitigate this by "controlling the excesses of the market" are met by accusations of appealing to inefficiency and "people pricing themselves out of jobs" by those in charge and their henchpersons in the mainstream media quickly pointing blame where it doesn't belong. Apart from the effects of long hours on families, communities and bringing up a responsible society, the jobs would merely go faster were people to work harder and longer hours so as to be more "productive". And in any case it is not hard work but new techology that keeps the "healthy" sectors in being at the expense of the would-be philanthropists, with their ideals of environmental protection and fair trade dissed as not in tune with the "hard-nosed realities of doing business". It takes literally exorbitant amounts of money to enable the Gateses of this world to shell out on philanthropic projects because so much of the wealth sloshing around produced by printing money regardless of the amount of "value" underpinning it goes into gambling on the stock markets. This is blatantly revealed every time the system is shown to have been operating in overdrive, producing in excess of what its markets can absorb. At the moment this amounts to "the only game in town"; everyone has to go along with it, buying its unsustainable product and knuckling down laden with guilt for being greedy when times a-plenty had encouraged making the most of them, bingeing while they lasted - which to me accounts for so-called "fecklessness" being one angle on the mindset of working class people, and solidarity another, for when the proverbial horse has already bolted.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm just thinking that in a world in which anything that happens is based on power, and those who have the most of it are the ones who have most of the wealth, with the eclipse of that once recognised (and feared by some) power base, the industrial proletariat, it is difficult to see from where enough practicably applied power can be wielded in order to exert change. For positive change to happen an alternative power base is needed to the current one based on class antagonism, and the pretense that it doesn't exist. Change in the most undesirable sense is already being brought about by the reversion to 1930s-style nationalism, which only needs a scapegoat or bevvy of scapegoats around which to "unite" a large enough group to support a dictatorship figurehead; the question is, will the recently coined "youthquake" be sufficiently strong, articulately persuasive and realistically practical in means and objectives to meet the challenge of the times we're presently living through?

[Major General]

There is no bomb! The premise is wrong! We probably need to find another inhabitable planet, because sooner, rather than later, in an evolutionary timescale, Earth will become uninhabitable!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yeah, I can just see us projecting 10,000,000,000 people on plutonium-powered mega-spaceships towards a planet orbiting another star, a minimum of 4 light years away.

But we can dream of this whilst neglecting to correct our self-harming on our own planet.

[Jonathan]

Did anyone see, a couple of years ago a programme on BBC4 which was the contrary argument i.e. that the human race is already in decline? It was most interesting. If anyone can remember what it was called, and post a link, I feel it might be relevent to this thread. I can't remember at the moment (too much on my mind)

[Serial_Apologist]

Did anyone see, a couple of years ago a programme on BBC4 which was the contrary argument i.e. that the human race is already in decline? It was most interesting. If anyone can remember what it was called, and post a link, I feel it might be relevent to this thread. I can't remember at the moment (too much on my mind)

If anyone can remember, was the programme predicated on sperm count decline, thought to be caused by chemicals in detergents getting into the water supply?

[LHC]

UN projections suggest the biggest area of population growth in the coming decades will be in Africa. There are currently about 1.2 billion people in Africa, 16% of the world's population. By 2100 this is expected to rise to 4.4 billion (39% of the world's population).

In contrast, in the same period, Europe's population is expected to decline from 700 million to 640 million, while the US and Asian populations are expected to rise slightly from current levels.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

UN projections suggest the biggest area of population growth in the coming decades will be in Africa. There are currently about 1.2 billion people in Africa, 16% of the world's population. By 2100 this is expected to rise to 4.4 billion (39% of the world's population).

In contrast, in the same period, Europe's population is expected to decline from 700 million to 640 million, while the US and Asian populations are expected to rise slightly from current levels.

So, to feed the huge rise in the African population, the continent will have to have a huge rise in agriculture. The northern section of Africa is most desert. The equatorial section is rainforest, so we don't want to go down that road. Much of the rest is semi-desert, putting pressure on the rest. Not good news, I'm afraid.

Then there's the major issue of drinkable water. Desalination of sea water could be done on a massive scale - maybe. But many of the well-drilling schemes are thought to be short term solutions only. Water that has collected slowly over millennia can only be recovered once.

[Lat-Literal]

So, to feed the huge rise in the African population, the continent will have to have a huge rise in agriculture. The northern section of Africa is most desert. The equatorial section is rainforest, so we don't want to go down that road. Much of the rest is semi-desert, putting pressure on the rest. Not good news, I'm afraid.

Then there's the major issue of drinkable water. Desalination of sea water could be done on a massive scale - maybe. But many of the well-drilling schemes are thought to be short term solutions only. Water that has collected slowly over millennia can only be recovered once.

Yes - I am generally with you.

European systems require large families to maintain social security/pensions. That is not to be opposed but it is a cleft stick. I suggest a counter-balance via internationally administered payments to people in Europe and indeed Africa with zero children or one child. I also propose that Britain leads the way in taking trade with Africa in each direction to stratospheric levels. That would be especially targeted at central/southern Africa. It would help them and it would help us. And the starting point should have happened before now, given Brexit. I don't understand why Fox and co are pussy footing around with outmoded notions regarding the US, New Zealand and India which can perfectly look after itself thanks very much. Let's get the garden of England - and Britain - up and running so that we can feed people experiencing climate change and benefit financially while applying the moral principle of fair trade.

[Dave2002]

Yes - I am generally with you.

European systems require large families to maintain social security/pensions.

Are you correct there? Surely they only "require" a large base of younger and or well people to fund the older/sicker ones, but not necessarily within families.

Collectively "we" are plundering the earth's resources at a rate which means that some problems will arise which may be very difficult to recover from.
In the very long term, there could perhaps be stability, but it may be more likely that that some major catastrophe will occur first. The seemingly unrestrained "desire" to reproduce is giving rise to demands which are going to be challenging, to say the least. Medical sciences also prolong lives, which seems a good thing, but also extends the demands which people put on the resources available.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Are you correct there? Surely they only "require" a large base of younger and or well people to fund the older/sicker ones, but not necessarily within families.

Collectively "we" are plundering the earth's resources at a rate which means that some problems will arise which may be very difficult to recover from.
In the very long term, there could perhaps be stability, but it may be more likely that that some major catastrophe will occur first. The seemingly unrestrained "desire" to reproduce is giving rise to demands which are going to be challenging, to say the least. Medical sciences also prolong lives, which seems a good thing, but also extends the demands which people put on the resources available.

[oddoneout]

Are you correct there? Surely they only "require" a large base of younger and or well people to fund the older/sicker ones, but not necessarily within families.

Collectively "we" are plundering the earth's resources at a rate which means that some problems will arise which may be very difficult to recover from.
In the very long term, there could perhaps be stability, but it may be more likely that that some major catastrophe will occur first. The seemingly unrestrained "desire" to reproduce is giving rise to demands which are going to be challenging, to say the least. Medical sciences also prolong lives, which seems a good thing, but also extends the demands which people put on the resources available.

I would agree with your comment that it is young and/or well people that are needed - and(crucially) economically active - and that that doesn't have to mean large families. In fact it is poor countries that often have the large families - children as their insurance against old age/illness; as standards of living and perceptions of stability increase so family size tends to decrease. Unfortunately that doesn't also reduce the resource demands on the planet, so reducing population can only be one part of the solution.

[Serial_Apologist]

I would agree with your comment that it is young and/or well people that are needed - and(crucially) economically active - and that that doesn't have to mean large families. In fact it is poor countries that often have the large families - children as their insurance against old age/illness; as standards of living and perceptions of stability increase so family size tends to decrease. Unfortunately that doesn't also reduce the resource demands on the planet, so reducing population can only be one part of the solution.

Absence of welfare in poor countries and shortness of lifespan is another reason large numbers of offspring, some of whom will hopefully survive to a decent age by western standards, are needed for supporting their elderly. Reducing the population would need to go hand-in-hand with raising incomes; but since historically the west has supported (or turned a blind eye) to repressive, trade union-banning régimes, with multinationals relocating to such places to exploit such labour to maximise profit returns, short of workers' internationalism on a global scale (to compete with and out-manoeuvre capital transfers and tax dodges) this is an unlikely outcome, given the notorious need of such companies to out-compete each other and expand operations. This would nevertheless seem to be one of the "attractions" of economic nationalism - which, on the basis of a continuing capitalist world order, can only mean everyone loses - and which that sector of the ruling classes rueful at the prospect of trade wars and the EU breaking up understands better than anybody, Corbyn apparently included.

[Lat-Literal]

Are you correct there? Surely they only "require" a large base of younger and or well people to fund the older/sicker ones, but not necessarily within families.

Collectively "we" are plundering the earth's resources at a rate which means that some problems will arise which may be very difficult to recover from.
In the very long term, there could perhaps be stability, but it may be more likely that that some major catastrophe will occur first. The seemingly unrestrained "desire" to reproduce is giving rise to demands which are going to be challenging, to say the least. Medical sciences also prolong lives, which seems a good thing, but also extends the demands which people put on the resources available.

Perhaps they do only "require" a large base of younger and or well people to fund the older/sicker ones but in order to maintain a system of singles popping over for 5-10 years and then returning to their homeland, you have to be content with Old Empire ways like depleting the countries of origin of resource as is happening with Latvia and reducing the least intellectually able British born to ever greater comparative poverty. The latter, of course, comes with a proviso. In order to provide such people with a means of living on minimal income, huge amounts are paid on housing and other benefits so it isn't that they just go to the old and the unwell. It's essentially a subsidy not to them but to employers who are benefiting themselves from a low wage economy. I am not prepared to support that - what is very obviously a backward step - however it is dressed up even as it is happening now.

The welfare state is a wonderful thing when it does address the physically vulnerable rather than the economically vulnerable, the latter merely being victims of a system. In the main I do not support part privatisation but there is a conundrum as welfare is set to grow which in turn requires economic, hence population, growth. There is here a significant difference between Britain on the one hand and Germany and France on the other. We are not economically in need of additional numbers as families - often originally from other countries - are much larger. In the other two, they became accustomed to having fewer and fewer children - especially adults born in those countries - so they do need more people. That can only in the short term be met by the immoral Old Empire attitudes to other nationalities I have outlined. Poaching as it were, and the acceptance of a larger underclass among the home born.