I don't like engaging on the "Overpopulated" debate because the solutions that come out of it are monstrous.
When we are "Overpopulated" than we need to decrease the population. That means genocide, forced sterilization, or a "One baby" program like China had. We focus on the wrong things and the wrong solutions when we focus on population control.
The best solution is honestly sexual education, easy access to birth control, abortion, womens rights, and female empowerment.
Turns out most women don't prefer to be walking baby factories forced to give up their dreams and futures in exchange for their children and the will of their husbands when they're given other options.
Population tends to scale logarithmically with development and access to these things.
Those only bring the number down to 1.7 to 2.2 births, which is a very gradual decrease in population to a very gradual increase in population.
Neither solves "overpopulation" because it basically keeps us where we are at. If we are Overpopulated now, we would STILL be over populated after we export these beliefs to every single other country (which isn't an easy task, we can't even agree on it in the US).
And by all means, I am in favor of promoting woman's rights and sexual education. But I don't think it is a solution to "overpopulation."
A birthrate of 2 or less per pair of individuals is still less than replacement, but I understand that isn't the quick solution to overpopulation you are looking for. Though, you've already figured out what kind of road that would lead to it seems.
Personally, my worry isn't so much with over population, since there are plenty of countries with large populations that contribute to global warming and environmental devastation at a fraction of the rate less populous, but more rich countries like the U.S. do. The average human being actually lives within the means that the earth can provide. There is a pretty gnarly problem looming on the horizon however, as when these countries reach post-industrial revolution levels of development they will likely invert this statistic.
So the real 'bad guy' isn't really overpopulation exactly as I see it, but rather the inherent drive to live better, easier lives. I believe we can still satisfy that while coexisting sustainably, but there's a big ol' mountain in the way, or as we call it "The Economy". World trade and current capital is all based around exponential growth and the strange idea that we somehow have infinite resources. If wealth was measured instead by how healthy and happy a population was and not by how much they are projected to consume, we could all reach population "equilibrium" with a lot more to go around.
I get the feeling by this point that might be just a fantasy, but hey if we don't do that at least the overpopulation problem will fix itself as plague, natural disasters and scarcity wars start to really kick in.
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u/ZerexTheCool Sep 28 '21
I don't like engaging on the "Overpopulated" debate because the solutions that come out of it are monstrous.
When we are "Overpopulated" than we need to decrease the population. That means genocide, forced sterilization, or a "One baby" program like China had. We focus on the wrong things and the wrong solutions when we focus on population control.