Should we limit global population levels

[Chadders]

With the population having surpassed 8 billion I do believe that this is a simply unsustainable figure given our current conscious development to have proper social cohesion and a healthy relationship with the planets biodiversity and ecosystem. We are obviously on a very turbulent path with many moving parts that become more fragile and run the risk of great catastrophe with higher population levels.

This whole topic though is very controversial to even discuss but I do not believe humanity is consciously developed yet to live in harmony and deal with our shit at this population scale. Dealing with the worlds problems is a hell of a lot harder with massive populations that are increasingly disconnected from each other and nature. 

I don’t necessarily think population controls are the right way forward as forcing its application I believe to be unethical. Perhaps we need a new social paradigm and contract with the people to shift social norms and to bring population levels down so we can live in greater harmony and balance with the planet. This goes hand in hand with challenging this growth narrative which is obviously unsustainable 

I do totally get the argument that as societies develop birth rates naturally fall so this is part of the solution but maybe that’s not enough and won’t be as impactful? The time lines I don’t think work as we move closer to environmental breakdown leading to a shopping list of problems for humankind. 

I personally don’t see why the above as a topic should be controversial when put in the proper context. It’s a bit like assisted suicide. Why is that so controversial? It shouldn’t be if people who have chronic health conditions want to die peacefully allow them to rather than suffer on

Anyway curious to see what people think about this - is the population simply unmanageable? If so how best to respond?

[integral]

16 minutes ago, Chadders said:

I do totally get the argument that as societies develop birth rates naturally fall so this is part of the solution but maybe that’s not enough and won’t be as impactful? The time lines I don’t think work as we move closer to environmental breakdown leading to a shopping list of problems for humankind

Like you said as a country ego development goes up population  naturally drops because the more conscious you become to less like you are to have children. 

So people who are at a lower stage of development have more babies and the less conscious countries take over, it’s a cycle.

japan’s population is in complete collapse.

We need to make it easier for people to have children not the other way around. This way the more conscious people with better genetics reproduce more and we can have a new balance.

The way it is now having children is financial slavery unless you’re rich. You need to be stupid to have children when you’re poor so that’s why the stupid reproduce more than everyone else. Or your values need to be at a lower level like stage blue. 

Edited June 18, 2024 by integral

[LastThursday]

I sit on the fence about this sort of thing.

On the one hand humans are not totally divorced from nature, they very much rely on and more importantly are a product of nature. The level of population is natural. If you view the whole planet as a system then if the human population is unsustainable it will eventually collapse because resources run out, this is seen time and time again in ecology where populations yo-yo or go extinct. Life as a whole will never be extinguished on Earth because bacteria and viruses and other forms of life are extremely tenacious. So really, the concern should be can we stop ourselves going extinct?

On the other hand, even one human needs a lot of resources to survive a lifetime. By accident or by design humans tend to wreck ecosystems, because they're not in the habitat they originally evolved in (the rift valley in Africa), they're completely disconnected from the way they originally lived (hunting and gathering) and because ecosystems are extremely delicately balanced. We're effectively an invasive species everywhere on Earth. Whatever happened that made us different from all other animals, has also caused us to fan out of Africa and "invade" ecosystems not evolved for us.

It's a balance. We should try as much as we can to not disrupt ecosystems or to learn how to fix them when we do, but to say we're not a natural product of the Earth is not true. If we continue expanding in population we will eventually run out of resources and we'll pay the consequences, and in the very long term the planet will recover it's balance again.

Edited June 19, 2024 by LastThursday

[integral]

@LastThursday we will likely become a multi planetary species in the short term if a AI Reaches its full potential. Maybe instead of reducing population growth we should expand our territory.

[ZenAlex]

17 hours ago, integral said:

Like you said as a country ego development goes up population  naturally drops because the more conscious you become to less like you are to have children. 

So people who are at a lower stage of development have more babies and the less conscious countries take over, it’s a cycle.

japan’s population is in complete collapse.

We need to make it easier for people to have children not the other way around. This way the more conscious people with better genetics reproduce more and we can have a new balance.

The way it is now having children is financial slavery unless you’re rich. You need to be stupid to have children when you’re poor so that’s why the stupid reproduce more than everyone else. Or your values need to be at a lower level like stage blue. 

So basically

Lower consciousness - Just let survival fears and instincts dictate your decisions

Higher consciousness - Realise survival is of no value without quality of life and make informed decisions about how to maximise quality of life, which involves sometimes not having kids.

[LastThursday]

@integral you raise a good point. Although, I don't think there will be millions or probably even thousands going "off planet". It'll be tens at a time. That would make the pioneer populations extremely vulnerable to going extinct for a long time as the populations slowly grow. They'll then have to contend with population expansion on a planet with no ecosystems at all - they'll be totally reliant on their technologies to cater for all their needs, which is a tall order. Not impossible, but very difficult to pull off.

[Chadders]

@integral From what I understand the time line for becoming a multi planetary species with looming ecological and environmental collapse just doesn’t add up. The most habitable planet closest to us is Mars and of course that is not habitable at all compared with earth without proper domes to create artificial environments for us to live. We’re no where near that yet not in technology or global cooperation to make it happen

[Chadders]

@LastThursday then we are left with the same conclusion that the population is simply unsustainable

I was thinking about the impact of pesticides in the food chain. Perhaps a good test as to whether the population is at a sustainable size is to ask the question could we feed everyone on organic produce and pasture raised animals alone? I don’t think we possibly can so we get low grade industrial farming rife with pesticides 

It’s just that how we manage this going forward is the controversy. The growth narrative doesn’t help. Intuitively endless growth does not work

[integral]

@Chadders A human won’t be a human in the future.

[Yimpa]

 

[Danioover9000]

@Chadders

On 2024-06-18 at 8:12 PM, Chadders said:

With the population having surpassed 8 billion I do believe that this is a simply unsustainable figure given our current conscious development to have proper social cohesion and a healthy relationship with the planets biodiversity and ecosystem. We are obviously on a very turbulent path with many moving parts that become more fragile and run the risk of great catastrophe with higher population levels.

This whole topic though is very controversial to even discuss but I do not believe humanity is consciously developed yet to live in harmony and deal with our shit at this population scale. Dealing with the worlds problems is a hell of a lot harder with massive populations that are increasingly disconnected from each other and nature. 

I don’t necessarily think population controls are the right way forward as forcing its application I believe to be unethical. Perhaps we need a new social paradigm and contract with the people to shift social norms and to bring population levels down so we can live in greater harmony and balance with the planet. This goes hand in hand with challenging this growth narrative which is obviously unsustainable 

I do totally get the argument that as societies develop birth rates naturally fall so this is part of the solution but maybe that’s not enough and won’t be as impactful? The time lines I don’t think work as we move closer to environmental breakdown leading to a shopping list of problems for humankind. 

I personally don’t see why the above as a topic should be controversial when put in the proper context. It’s a bit like assisted suicide. Why is that so controversial? It shouldn’t be if people who have chronic health conditions want to die peacefully allow them to rather than suffer on

Anyway curious to see what people think about this - is the population simply unmanageable? If so how best to respond?

   Okay, let me reframe your post. Should we limit global population levels? I think this is going to be very hard to do, given that most 3rd world countries, most religious theocracies that are not westernized and secular/humanist societies in the west will not capitulate unless threatened to do so. The main reason why is that these stage blue to stage purple theocratic societies like in Africa and in places in the middle east will continue to have stable birthrates, and will try to make larger families as is incentivized by their value system. Here in fact in most westernized modern secular/humanist societies that uphold liberalism and egalitarianism and multiculturalism to a fault are suffering from their own shortages of birthrate declines such that their own nations have to import from those 3rd world theocratic countries to maintain threshold numbers of populations to run that western country smoothly. Because of this I'd say if you said this post to those in theocratic societies, and even to 1st world western democrats they'd disagree with you wanting some globalism of numbers controlling populations across the world, of course for each of their own motivated reasons.

   The next problem with this is that this is a common anti natalist talking point, which again is a deluded form of liberalist and feminist thinking. Really the anti natalist position is from those very empowered feminists who just don't want babies, and will go along with whatever pseudo scientific thinking like too many people in one place to support any idea of lessening babies being made, because they don't care that their own western nation is in decline due to lower declines in native birthrates of their own populations. They also get to say this because egalitarianism and tolerance of speech. I dare you to suggest this to say a caliphate Islam area, the idea of stopping the birthrate of not just your own people, but their people as well. I promise they'd yell you off and maybe throw some stones at you for suggesting something so wildly ridiculous to them.

[Ishanga]

Sadhguru explains it well here, why we need to control the birthrate and eventually lower the amount of ppl on the planet, I agree with him..

The way we are living now, we will ruin the planet in not too many years, if its not already ruined... If we were a more conscious people, then maybe would could handle more ppl, but we are not close to being conscious, just more crazy as it ever was, with many more ppl than ever before...

 

[Danioover9000]

@Ishanga

14 minutes ago, Ishanga said:

Sadhguru explains it well here, why we need to control the birthrate and eventually lower the amount of ppl on the planet, I agree with him..

The way we are living now, we will ruin the planet in not too many years, if its not already ruined... If we were a more conscious people, then maybe would could handle more ppl, but we are not close to being conscious, just more crazy as it ever was, with many more ppl than ever before...

 

   Great you'd say that and sound similar to the anti natalist feminists. Now tell that to those living in 3rd world theocracies, under caliphate Islam, under more traditional structures to stop producing so much people, and stop making large families then.

   The main problem isn't to reduce birthrates in 1st world democracies that are secular, too liberal, too egalitarianist and multiculturalism as they're already declining in birthrates due to sexual liberation, condoms, pills, open relations, porn, lesser marriages, high divorce rates. The main problem is telling the 3rd world autocracies and theocracies to stop reproducing too quickly. My counter is to actually limit western democracies down to be like the Roman empire, half autocratic rulership, half democracy in peace times. A smaller democracy leads to faster adoptions of policies, and implementing faster social changes due to smaller scale and smaller size. Less is more in this case, limited to those with more experience and leadership versus 50 plus voices in representations doing very little in society.

[LastThursday]

On 6/18/2024 at 8:12 PM, Chadders said:

With the population having surpassed 8 billion

It should be borne in mind that the horse has already bolted. It doesn't matter what anyone says, does or wants. It's like trying to stop an express train with your hand. Only two things may stop the train: an artificially engineered deadly pathogen or all out nuclear war. The pathogen would have to be extremely transmissible and extremely deadly. All out nuclear war will mainly affect cities, those in rural and remote areas will be less affected. It should be clear, I don't advocate either.

[Jehovah increases]

On 6/19/2024 at 3:12 AM, Chadders said:

With the population having surpassed 8 billion I do believe that this is a simply unsustainable figure given our current conscious development to have proper social cohesion and a healthy relationship with the planets biodiversity and ecosystem. We are obviously on a very turbulent path with many moving parts that become more fragile and run the risk of great catastrophe with higher population levels.

This whole topic though is very controversial to even discuss but I do not believe humanity is consciously developed yet to live in harmony and deal with our shit at this population scale. Dealing with the worlds problems is a hell of a lot harder with massive populations that are increasingly disconnected from each other and nature. 

I don’t necessarily think population controls are the right way forward as forcing its application I believe to be unethical. Perhaps we need a new social paradigm and contract with the people to shift social norms and to bring population levels down so we can live in greater harmony and balance with the planet. This goes hand in hand with challenging this growth narrative which is obviously unsustainable 

I do totally get the argument that as societies develop birth rates naturally fall so this is part of the solution but maybe that’s not enough and won’t be as impactful? The time lines I don’t think work as we move closer to environmental breakdown leading to a shopping list of problems for humankind. 

I personally don’t see why the above as a topic should be controversial when put in the proper context. It’s a bit like assisted suicide. Why is that so controversial? It shouldn’t be if people who have chronic health conditions want to die peacefully allow them to rather than suffer on

Anyway curious to see what people think about this - is the population simply unmanageable? If so how best to respond?

You must ask Mother Gaia about this one Demigods are allowed in this dream. I believe my mushroom friends solved this problem a while back with Terence hold on I mean the other Terence Mckenna.  The answer is yes we should. 

[Chadders]

@LastThursday Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to either of those. We need a twin approach globally coordinated that deals with individual needs to pull people out of po alongside social conventions around population reduction

Fat chance this will happen though before some serious human catastrophe unless we figure out fusion energy or something 

[Danioover9000]

@Chadders

15 minutes ago, Chadders said:

@LastThursday Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to either of those. We need a twin approach globally coordinated that deals with individual needs to pull people out of po alongside social conventions around population reduction

Fat chance this will happen though before some serious human catastrophe unless we figure out fusion energy or something 

   You mean another USSR for the world?

[Chadders]

@Danioover9000 we cannot deal with the world’s problems without global cooperation. That includes coordinated efforts to minimise the impact of societal harms

[Ishanga]

21 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

@Ishanga

   Great you'd say that and sound similar to the anti natalist feminists. Now tell that to those living in 3rd world theocracies, under caliphate Islam, under more traditional structures to stop producing so much people, and stop making large families then.

   The main problem isn't to reduce birthrates in 1st world democracies that are secular, too liberal, too egalitarianist and multiculturalism as they're already declining in birthrates due to sexual liberation, condoms, pills, open relations, porn, lesser marriages, high divorce rates. The main problem is telling the 3rd world autocracies and theocracies to stop reproducing too quickly. My counter is to actually limit western democracies down to be like the Roman empire, half autocratic rulership, half democracy in peace times. A smaller democracy leads to faster adoptions of policies, and implementing faster social changes due to smaller scale and smaller size. Less is more in this case, limited to those with more experience and leadership versus 50 plus voices in representations doing very little in society.

It more a combination of controlling birthrate, by creating institutions that allow more conscious individuals to be on the planet at any one time, not talking about creating "Enlightened Beings everywhere", just ppl that are more conscious and less Compulsive in their nature, if this happens then random need to procreate will drop, wars will drop, overall suffering and abuse will stop... As well the other side of the coin is that ppl are living longer, that is also why the population is higher, its not just birthrates, so we have to change most everythiing, we are too Consumer orientated, this comes from being Compulsive too as well as looking for fulfilment outside of yourself, look for it within and that will solve many of our problems...

[Danioover9000]

@Chadders

30 minutes ago, Chadders said:

@Danioover9000 we cannot deal with the world’s problems without global cooperation. That includes coordinated efforts to minimise the impact of societal harms

   And who and what group get's to decide that? USA? China/Russia? Afghanistan or Iran? Which one? Because this type of talking point, if we use Spiral Dynamics for a bit, is lofty stage green/yellow value talking points. Sounds nice and Utopia, but let me be blunt, the majority of high birthrate places come from 3rd world countries like in Africa, in the middle east theocratic countries, which many large families, with traditional values that they enforce in their region. So, when a 1st world western democratic feminist egalitarianist liberal like you, comes along with lofty talking points like that, and they refuse to listen to your over worldly concerns about global climate, environmental issues, human rights because your fantasy may threaten their lives and livelihood, what will you do? Change their ways with no enforcement arm? What if stage red/blue refuses to listen to someone spouting stage green/yellow points, that even stage orange was warning the higher stages about?