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The moral issue of population growth

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
Good luck with making women want to be childless. That is highly unlikely. You might have some success in reintegrating the larger family structure so that its not a choice between absolute loneliness or coupling.

It's not as hard or unlikely as you'd think. I'd have to recall where I saw the studies, but the desire to be childless or to have fewer children has been on the rise (at least in the United States). Doesn't matter if we're talking males or females - this isn't just a female-only issue. Working at a university, it seems from random chats with students that they really don't regard "coupling" as equating to "breeding" these days (or marriage, for that matter).
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
Excellent article. This concept was known as far back as when observed by Alexander Humboldt and yet 100's of years later an insufficient number of people understand this yet reveal in the glory of all of our amazing technology. The truth is humans cannot manage the world better than the natural forces that created our world. Until we learn to maintain the balance in favor of the non-human world and stop our rampant destruction of it, we are doomed. Ironically I was and optimist once but the rate of destruction with no evidence of slowing down despite some local heroic attempts has given me little to be optimistic about. The president of the United States does not help my pessimism either. Trying desperately to be optimistic again.

I'm optimistic that following every mass extinction, new biodiversity emerges to fill all the vacant ecological niches. It's what happens. We live on a dynamic planet. Mass extinction events have happened before, it's just sad that humans - the most affluent and technological of which who like to think of themselves as oh so rational and superior - are the drivers of it. Our geological legacy will be a mass extinction event, a dramatic climatic shift, a new type of sedimentary layer full of trash (mostly plastic). It would be nice if the legacy was a better testimony to the beauty humanity has to offer. And it has a lot of beauty to offer.
 

Cooky

Veteran Member
Malthus wrote "Essay on the Principle of Population" in 1798. He predicted that population growth would lead to starvation and that increasing food production would only increase the population growth until it again reaches to the issue of starvation. Poverty is inescapable and related directly to population growth.

In early 2000 a professor of the University of Texas predicted humans had already reached the carrying capacity of the earth and increasing problems related to population and signs of the stress were already developing. He was then condemned as an abortion proponent when all he was saying was something had to be done to slow down population growth without mentioning abortion.

The city of San Antonio is reaching the limits of the gigantic underground Edwards aquifer that supplies the city with water. They are now considering pumping water from lakes to the north.

Despite what we know will eventually happen the population of the world is growing faster with only disaster ahead. Despite this we are advancing medicine to save lives and let people grow older and increasing the demand on the earth for more food and water.

Is uncontrolled population growth a moral issue and if so how can we respond?

I don't believe it's a moral issue, because it's so easily fixable. If a single generation on earth collectively decided to reduce the number of people, it would be done. Problem solved.
 

Remté

Active Member
I don't believe it's a moral issue, because it's so easily fixable. If a single generation on earth collectively decided to reduce the number of people, it would be done. Problem solved.
You don't think it's a moral issue but you expect it to be solved by a sense of moral.
 

Bear Wild

Well-Known Member
I don't believe it's a moral issue, because it's so easily fixable. If a single generation on earth collectively decided to reduce the number of people, it would be done. Problem solved.
That is exactly why it is a moral issue. Recognizing the need to restrain from having too many children in recognition that it is in the best interest of humanity is a moral choice. So since you made it sound so simple tell me how it could happen before the earth is devastated and how will you convince that one single generation to make the necessary decision that no one so far has been willing to make?
 

Bear Wild

Well-Known Member
I'm optimistic that following every mass extinction, new biodiversity emerges to fill all the vacant ecological niches. It's what happens. We live on a dynamic planet. Mass extinction events have happened before, it's just sad that humans - the most affluent and technological of which who like to think of themselves as oh so rational and superior - are the drivers of it. Our geological legacy will be a mass extinction event, a dramatic climatic shift, a new type of sedimentary layer full of trash (mostly plastic). It would be nice if the legacy was a better testimony to the beauty humanity has to offer. And it has a lot of beauty to offer.
I do not doubt that life will go on probably without humans but it does not need to be that way if we can make humans understand before it is too late.
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
I do not doubt that life will go on probably without humans but it does not need to be that way if we can make humans understand before it is too late.

I think understanding the root causes is going to be lost on the majority. What we react to are the symptoms: economic downturns, unemployment, food shortages, biodiversity loss, disease outbreaks, invasive species, wars, pollution, rising sea levels, cost of disasters, desertification, algal blooms, and so on. All of this stuff is already happening, and we are already reacting to it. Very rarely if ever is the population problem connected to any of these. Few want to talk about it. The New Green Deal doesn't bother mentioning the elephant in the room, as far as I'm aware.

Maybe it's that humans are just bad at addressing abstract problems. In many regards, carrying capacity limits are an abstract problem. Theoretical limits have been calculated or modeled, but that isn't as real to us as the symptoms are. Perhaps in time, addressing symptoms will build up enough inertia that the root issues get addressed incidentally? It's hard to say. There are promising signs, at any rate.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
This is nonsense. We (most western countries that have swallowed this crap) currently average at 1.2 population growth. Replacement is 2.0 meaning in one generation our population will half. Further, the so called overpopulation, in America at least, is masked by old people. The boomer generation are six kids or whatever. Their kids have 3 kids. Their kids one kid or less, and tend to also believe in abortions. My family was raised Christian. My siblings each have 2 kids. I have none, because the one I love doesn't want to date or marry, she just wants to be friends. And I don't want to love another.

When the last boomer dies, we will be underpopulated, and then people will talk about importing people. How about you just have sex like normal people?
Yet total world population continues to grow, despite localized regions of stable or dropping population.
Underpopulation?! What the heck is that? Will it be recognized when topsoil and aquifer depth, biodiversity, and reforestation start increasing? or when pollution and global warming start decreasing?
From an ecological standpoint we're a global infection. Wouldn't the ideal human population be zero? Wouldn't a sustainable population be one that preserves biodiversity, maintains stable biological systems and allows replacement of natural resources to match our usage rates?
All animals and plants will eventually die out if they don't adapt. Humans are just apart of the evolution system as were Dinosaurs. Just because humans are better at killing things off doesn't make them different from the other animals. My parents home town had to boil and import water because of an over population of beavers. There excrement was poisoning the cities reservoir.
Humans are more than just better killers. Most other organisms contribute to ecosystem maintenance, they're part of the system. Humans have removed themselves from natural checks and balances, plus we're harming the system, not supporting it. We're an infectious species.
 

paarsurrey

Veteran Member
The moral issue of population growth

This is "General Religious Debates" forum, did everybody write one's post quoting from the religion/no-religion one believes in and arguing its moral aspect referring to the guidance provided by it.

Regards
 
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Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
In the short term, people electing to have fewer children overall -and campaigns to show that such is necessary and beneficial -would be the best way to address such a problem where it exists -whether locally, or eventually globally.
Doing so is as "green" as anything else people might do for the benefit of all.

From a biblical perspective, it will not be a local issue for long -and things will change before it becomes an extreme global problem.

Unfortunately, the first change is a decimation of population due to war, famine, disease, natural disaster -and even, toward the end, the returning Christ defeating those who attempt to war against him at his return (search: "Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations", "shall destroy those who destroy the Earth" and "these shall make war with the Lamb") -and various "last plagues".

Fortunately, "the slain of the Lord" will all be resurrected, have the opportunity to live forever -and be given a "glorious" spirit "body" with extreme creative power similar to that which allows the Word who became Chrst to "subdue all things into himself".

"Science" is beginning to realize that we can not practically go out into the universe as humans -but such a body will allow for it.

It is written that "the heavens" we're not made "in vain" but "formed to be inhabited."
This "it doesn't matter, God's coming soon to fix everything." rationalization -- which I suspect is common among some religious communities -- I see as pernicious. It's ignoring a clear and present threat based on completely unsupported folklore.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I'm optimistic that following every mass extinction, new biodiversity emerges to fill all the vacant ecological niches. It's what happens. We live on a dynamic planet. Mass extinction events have happened before, it's just sad that humans - the most affluent and technological of which who like to think of themselves as oh so rational and superior - are the drivers of it. Our geological legacy will be a mass extinction event, a dramatic climatic shift, a new type of sedimentary layer full of trash (mostly plastic). It would be nice if the legacy was a better testimony to the beauty humanity has to offer. And it has a lot of beauty to offer.
Keep in mind, though, that previous mass extinctions have taken tens of millions of years to re-establish climax ecosystems resembling those pre-cataclysm.
You have an unusually long-term sort of optimism.o_O
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I don't believe it's a moral issue, because it's so easily fixable. If a single generation on earth collectively decided to reduce the number of people, it would be done. Problem solved.
And how do you propose convincing a whole generation of hominins to do this?
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
That is exactly why it is a moral issue. Recognizing the need to restrain from having too many children in recognition that it is in the best interest of humanity is a moral choice. So since you made it sound so simple tell me how it could happen before the earth is devastated and how will you convince that one single generation to make the necessary decision that no one so far has been willing to make?
This may motivate some big-picture consequentialists, with long-term goals, but those motivated by divine command pay little attention to consequences, even when they would appear deleterious -- or expensive.
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
Keep in mind, though, that previous mass extinctions have taken tens of millions of years to re-establish climax ecosystems resembling those pre-cataclysm.
You have an unusually long-term sort of optimism.o_O

Here's the rub with this narrative - it leaves the realm of science and enters the realm of philosophy. The notion of "climax ecosystems" is normative, rather than descriptive. They are a thing because humans decide they are a thing. Humans have the perception that there is some state an ecosystem is supposed to be in, and that's normative (hence philosophical and non-scientific). Humans also tend to hold to the notion that these states should never change, in spite of the fact that ecosystems are in constant flux if we look at them more objectively.

It's one of the many valuable things I learned in grad school by sticking a philosophy minor onto my program. In conservation biology especially, there are normative assumptions that are made. This species shouldn't be here because reasons, that population declining is undesirable because reasons, and so on and so forth. Sometimes we're not aware of how we are projecting our norms onto nature. It was kind of a wake-up call for me studying philosophy of my discipline to unpack the non-scientific assumptions underneath it. In an odd way, it helps me make peace with what's going on right now. Doesn't make me happy about the sixth mass extinction by any stretch of the imagination, but there is humility in recognizing that things are what they are and need not conform to my narrow human expectations of them.
 

Cooky

Veteran Member
This may motivate some big-picture consequentialists, with long-term goals, but those motivated by divine command pay little attention to consequences, even when they would appear deleterious -- or expensive.

Well, the religious can work on finding ways to turn barran lands into livable places, while the others can focus on reviving eugenics philosophies... This way we can all be doing our part as a team.

For the record, Plato dabbled with eugenics philosophies, and the subject only became taboo when the NAZI's got their dirty hands involved.
 

bobhikes

Nondetermined
Premium Member
Yet total world population continues to grow, despite localized regions of stable or dropping population.
Underpopulation?! What the heck is that? Will it be recognized when topsoil and aquifer depth, biodiversity, and reforestation start increasing? or when pollution and global warming start decreasing?
From an ecological standpoint we're a global infection. Wouldn't the ideal human population be zero? Wouldn't a sustainable population be one that preserves biodiversity, maintains stable biological systems and allows replacement of natural resources to match our usage rates?
Humans are more than just better killers. Most other organisms contribute to ecosystem maintenance, they're part of the system. Humans have removed themselves from natural checks and balances, plus we're harming the system, not supporting it. We're an infectious species.

You have a high opinion of human's. We give just as much back as we take, we have to its a closed system. I guess the few items we set into space can be considered completely gone but then meteor's hit earth everyday. Every living species if left uncheck becomes infectious until checked. A major natural disaster can still take us out and we have created a few man made one's that can take us out as well.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
You have a high opinion of human's. We give just as much back as we take, we have to its a closed system. I guess the few items we set into space can be considered completely gone but then meteor's hit earth everyday. Every living species if left uncheck becomes infectious until checked. A major natural disaster can still take us out and we have created a few man made one's that can take us out as well.
But we are unchecked. The only thing slowing our growth is resource depletion.
What do we give back? Is the air getting cleaner? topsoil thicker? aquifers shallower? is biodiversity increasing? coral growing?
Seriously, we're not helping the ecosystem.
 
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Bear Wild

Well-Known Member
Well, the religious can work on finding ways to turn barran lands into livable places, while the others can focus on reviving eugenics philosophies... This way we can all be doing our part as a team.

For the record, Plato dabbled with eugenics philosophies, and the subject only became taboo when the NAZI's got their dirty hands involved.
The religious are doing insufficient action to actually making things worse. Exactly how are the religious going to help? I am very interested in hearing this answer.
 

Bear Wild

Well-Known Member
Here's the rub with this narrative - it leaves the realm of science and enters the realm of philosophy. The notion of "climax ecosystems" is normative, rather than descriptive. They are a thing because humans decide they are a thing. Humans have the perception that there is some state an ecosystem is supposed to be in, and that's normative (hence philosophical and non-scientific). Humans also tend to hold to the notion that these states should never change, in spite of the fact that ecosystems are in constant flux if we look at them more objectively.

It's one of the many valuable things I learned in grad school by sticking a philosophy minor onto my program. In conservation biology especially, there are normative assumptions that are made. This species shouldn't be here because reasons, that population declining is undesirable because reasons, and so on and so forth. Sometimes we're not aware of how we are projecting our norms onto nature. It was kind of a wake-up call for me studying philosophy of my discipline to unpack the non-scientific assumptions underneath it. In an odd way, it helps me make peace with what's going on right now. Doesn't make me happy about the sixth mass extinction by any stretch of the imagination, but there is humility in recognizing that things are what they are and need not conform to my narrow human expectations of them.
Anyone who studies evolution or ecology would disagree with the statement of "climax ecosystems" that do not change. There is clearly some stability in many ecosystems which can absorb invasions if new organisms and some degree of climate change but they are all temporal and in constant change. There is no ultimate climax ecosystem. Yes descriptions of environmental types and patterns are given but in the principles of both evolution and ecology they are dynamic places with expected changes and new introductions as well as losses all of the time as well as some that disappear replaced by new ones from changes in the environment. The big difference that is occurring with humans is that we have removed all of the usual checks and balances to allow for unrestricted population growth. We are also changing the environment at the expense of all other living things except for those we eat. The sad point is we are supposed to be the most intelligent organism. We have recognized what we are doing wrong for over 200 years, been warned of what will happen if we do not change what we are doing yet despite all the intelligence we give ourselves credit for, we persist in destroying a beautiful planet. How really intelligent is a species that does that.
I do not know how you can make peace with what is happening when it does not have to happen. The humility we will ultimately feel will be one with profound suffering.
 
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