A few things
December 14th, 2007A friend of mine who I have a lot of respect for and I got into a slight argument about overpopulation the other day. He thinks the world isn’t overpopulated. I say it is.
Overpopulation is the cause of most wars nowadays. Just like the animal kingdom, when people are too close together and don’t have enough resources, they’re pissed off. Those experiments have been done with rats. You think humans are no different?
He says that the world still has plenty of wilderness. Sure it does - in Antarctica, Siberia, the Sahara, the Arabian desert, Mongolia, Greenland, Northern Canada, the Amazon Rainforest, and the deserts of Australia. Can anyone guess what those places have in common? My point exactly.
It’s just wonderful we have an administration that wants to block global family planning funding. Yeah, that will work really well. You want more wars and even more terrorists? Add more people to this world that don’t have enough to eat.
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I was talking to a girl at work today. 26 years old, maxes out her 401k, maxes out her IRA, invests in stocks on the side, and has a comfortable savings account. Wow. I told her I wished I was that responsible when I was her age.
She told me she was socially liberal and fiscally right-wing. She’s highly against taxes, and went off on parents who want her to pay for their f*** trophies (her word, not mine). Heh. She expects parents to be responsible for their own actions? Like that will ever happen. Someone got all butt hurt on another blog when I said that they should pay for their own day care instead of expecting my tax money to cover it. You can guess which political party they were affiliated with.
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I saw Idiocracy, Mike Judge’s new movie, the other night. If you don’t know who Mike Judge is, he’s the guy who brought us Beavis and Butt-head and Office Space. I’ll do a review on that later. For now, have a wonderful weekend.
Yes the world is overpopulated. I have the village idiot in my class.
I think you should have help in the beginning for child care, when looking for work. But not totally.
You need child care to get work and work to get child care. You need a help up, not a hand out.
The world is not overpopulated. There is no traffic, pollution, starvation, poverty, oil shortage, environmental destruction, species extermination, et cetera as far as I know.
Hi there. Wonderful Saturday.. LOL.. But in some places it is over populated. I cant give specifics but it is. And I agree with the day care. When you are first starting our sure its nice to have help and that stuff but after on your feet your on your own. Now this is coming from a stay at home mom. I mean I know crap about that so its just an opinion.
I’m with your friend, the World is certainly not over populated. It’s simply over governed.
Scott - Our argument came down to sprawl. He didn’t see sprawl as a bad thing, and as someone who loves the outdoors, the whole world is turning into one big slab of asphalt.
Tweety - Agreed.
Skeletor - No war or terrorism either. And nobody ever starved to death.
Kate - Sure, it’s called credit cards. Pay it back, but don’t take it from me. That’s what he wanted to do. He wanted me to pay for his dumb ass.
Don’t get me started on this issue!
My generation was taught ZPG in school. I have noticed that very few people of my generation have more than 2 children. Now, many people my daughter’s age are having, at least, 3 kids. Many have 4, 5, or 6.
I’m told that it’s none of my business. YES IT IS MY BUSINESS! Your descendants will be taking precious natural resources away from MY descendants! Your irresponsible breeding practices will make the future more violent. Food and fuel shortages are inevitable. This planet can only comfortably support a finite number of people.
Tshsmom - One of these days, I’ll have to do a full post on exactly that.
Finally got some free time and had to jump in on this post even though I’m late. Yes, the world is overpopulated with a growing likely hood that we will max out the world’s supply of fresh water and even cause an ecological collapse of the ocean’s due to over fishing. As I was sitting around the hosue today watching “Planet Earth” on Discovery channel I saw the episode that described how certain fungi control the population of various ant species when the get to big and may cause damage to the rain forest. Anyone with a hint of common sense who heard that and understands how the human race is screwing up the planet should have shuddered
Beach - Agreed. We will have water wars in our lifetime. The oil wars have already begun.
Because of our species, the oceans are so polluted I have my doctor telling me not to eat fish more than once a week because of mercury. I could go on and on, but I should really do a long, separate post on this.
Amen, the world is definitely overpopulated. I’m doing my part by not having, but I know too many people who have more than two. And a friend of mine swears the “oil” wars in Iraq are really about water.
I actually agree that we are at a critical mass, but at the same time I also believe that by creating such a large population, with the ability to communicate at the speed of internet, we are entering an era where it might be possible to share some really big ideas and witness some really big change. My motto is, good people should have babies so we can try to breed out the idiots.
As far as taxes paying for social services such as day care.. honestly, its not a tricky question. You take care of your people, you have a healthier society. Stress is not good for anyone, especially children. I think a good quote is: “you have money to kill people, you have money to help people.”
One more thing; Idiocracy is one of my favorite movies at the present, I look forward to your review.
Kathleen - I’d love to talk to your friend who says the oil wars in Iraq are really about water. I think they’re about oil, but would love to hear his or her argument. I’m sure it’s interesting.
Clothosfate - I need to get that review written out. First things first, I have to get Tweety’s tag done.
And interesting about the era we’re entering. You’re definitely an optimist, which is a good thing. Gene Roddenberry was an optimist about the future. That’s probably why so many people loved his works.