NationStates Jolt Archive

Has our species become too focused on increasing our numbers? Not too many centuries ago, our population was kept in check by a relatively high death rate. It was either hump alot or go extinct. Things were relatively "bad", but you could still find the silver lining.

Now, we are focused on all, but eliminating death, but we are still pretty much sex-driven. In many cultures, especially those in North America and Western Europe, sex isn't just something to keep us from dying out, it is a way of life. It has become a bragging right or a rite of passage. There's nothing wrong with a little pleasure here and there and a few kids, but abstinence and virginity are virtues. Those displays of self-control and dedication should be bragging rights. It's saying "I have control over my dick/vagina, not the other way around."

It's too bad we, in this age of std's and AIDS, are too caught up in a single form of pleasure to realize that we just might become a too large a population. We're too caught up in getting rid of death to lower our birth rate as a means of keeping our population from exceeding our supplies. Condoms can break. Pills can fail. Abortian can get banned. Safe sex can turn into the opposite quite easily. The only was to truly prevent std's is to practice the "outdated" and "obsolete" practices of abstinence and virginity. I didn't say AIDS because that can be spread via contaminated needles.

Let's face it. If we don't lower our poulation icrease rate, then first world countries could be eliminated through overpopulation. Our supplies are finite and fragile. We've become all, but expendable. Just bricks in the wall.

comments? positive feedback and constructive criticism only please.

Population growth is necessary for economic and technological growth; however, the problem is that the growth is occuring mostly in places where there is no economic or technological growth with the result that there are none of the increases in economic efficiency that make larger populations sustainable.

The result will be continuous hunger, instability, and poverty in those places until that situation is reversed; however, the process of globalization and accelerating economic growth in India/China will be a valuable part of reversing that trend and is already occuring at an accelerating rate in these regions.

Population growth is necessary for economic and technological growth; however, the problem is that the growth is occuring mostly in places where there is no economic or technological growth with the result that there are none of the increases in economic efficiency that make larger populations sustainable.

The result will be continuous hunger, instability, and poverty in those places until that situation is reversed; however, the process of globalization and accelerating economic growth in India/China will be a valuable part of reversing that trend and is already occuring at an accelerating rate in these regions.
But does this benefit outweigh the dangers of epidemics(especially in the lower classes), crowding, and hunger? After all, we can only feed so many people because plants can only take up so little space and we have only so many.

But does this benefit outweigh the dangers of epidemics(especially in the lower classes), crowding, and hunger? After all, we can only feed so many people because plants can only take up so little space and we have only so many.

In a developed country the risk of epidemics even in a large population is reduced by the availability of clean water/ample food, sanitation and healthcare Also, the production of food is much more efficient, requiring less land and more efficient management of it through automization, productivity growth, and use of artificial fertilizers/genetic modification to increase crop yields. As a result, developed nations can produce a lot more

A lot of the land suitable for food production is unused due to overproduction in developed nations; the US has 36 million acres of arable, previously farmed but now fallow land that farmers gave to the government in exchange for subsidies...in other words, farmers in the US are paid not to produce because there is such a glut in supply as it is.

We can support many billions of more people in aggregate terms, but the problem is that the new population growth is occuring in places that can't support it right now.

Also, it is possible to factory farm, which would turn urban areas in to new, large-scale food producers right now.

Has our species become too focused on increasing our numbers? Not too many centuries ago, our population was kept in check by a relatively high death rate. It was either hump alot or go extinct. Things were relatively "bad", but you could still find the silver lining.

Now, we are focused on all, but eliminating death, but we are still pretty much sex-driven. In many cultures, especially those in North America and Western Europe, sex isn't just something to keep us from dying out, it is a way of life. It has become a bragging right or a rite of passage. There's nothing wrong with a little pleasure here and there and a few kids, but abstinence and virginity are virtues. Those displays of self-control and dedication should be bragging rights. It's saying "I have control over my dick/vagina, not the other way around."


I think you'll find all first world nations except the U.S. have negative population growth. I don't mean people are crawling back into wombs, I mean births are below natural replacment rates. And the U.S. is only slightly above replacment rate. And abstinance and virginity generally aren't consider virtues in countries I've been to. Interestingly Holland is a very sexually liberated country and has much lower STD rates than the more uptight U.S. To most of us refraining from sex seem like refraining from eating food we like. Something that would make our lives less enjoyable without any real benefit. Not that I don't recommend being careful and taking precautions with regards to sex.