4 ms·

We overproduce food for the human race by like 35% right now, we have a long ways to go before we hit a population issue. Regardless of all the hand-wringing ce

We overproduce food for the human race by like 35% right now, we have a long ways to go before we hit a population issue. Regardless of all the hand-wringing certain rich people do about the birth rates in Africa. A much more pressing concern is our lack of any inclination to reasonably distribute it.

CalRobert 3y ago
The population of cattle is a bigger concern than the population of humans
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
Just the inefficiencies in beef yields alone could probably feed half of Africa. We've got a long, long, long way to go before half the world is starving to death.
- ADeerAppeared 3y ago
  It's so much more than that. We produce ~77 million tonnes of beef, using (at the 1:25 ratio) 1925 million tonnes of feed. Africa currently imports most of it's grains, let's take a generous estimate of ~75 million tonnes of grain. Add another 25 million tonnes for their local production. And we're still off by a factor of 19x. Food production capacity is a non-issue. Availability to the people who need it is the real problem, and that is primarily about our willingness to aid those who need it and make some personal sacrifices for the greater good.
Razengan 3y ago
> we have a long ways to go before we hit a population issue. I wish people who say that would actually live in the overpopulated regions of the world for just 1 month.
- DinaCoder99 3y ago
  > I wish people who say that would actually live in the overpopulated regions of the world for just 1 month. People need to stop dragging 19th century nonsense into a globalized economy. Regional carrying capacity is certainly a thing, but the primary constraint in most areas today isn't food (which is, after all, rather easy to ship and process) but water. Anyway, you can apply the same reasoning to migration as I did to food. It's just not really an issue outside of political utility. The US alone could support literally billions of people if we gave a shit about anything other than money.
  - starluz 3y ago
    I’ve heard this argument before and it is insane to me. Re comment above have you been to an overpopulated region? It is not just about food. Logically movement becomes more limited and difficult with people literally in each others way. Regions become incredibly inefficient. We are independent beings not meant to live like sardines
    - throwaway2037 3y ago
      > Regions become incredibly inefficient. Tokyo? Seoul? Manhattan? London? Paris? All very dense. Also very economically efficient. All have great metro systems, so it is easy to move around.
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen... Of the top ten on that list, at least 5 would be considered desirable places to live by most people. If the criterion is "better than most other countries in the region", it's more like 9 out of 10 (Gaza Strip is pretty bad). By contrast, many of the lesser-populated regions/countries are considered to be horrible places to live. As I scan down the list, it looks like there is only a very weak correlation, at best, between population density and "would I want to live there". Obviously, your mileage is going to vary. Nonetheless, I bet you'd rather move to The Netherlands (#33) than Afghanistan (#153).
insane_dreamer 3y ago
spoken like a true "inner"

CalRobert 3y ago

The population of cattle is a bigger concern than the population of humans

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago

Just the inefficiencies in beef yields alone could probably feed half of Africa. We've got a long, long, long way to go before half the world is starving to death.

ADeerAppeared 3y ago
It's so much more than that. We produce ~77 million tonnes of beef, using (at the 1:25 ratio) 1925 million tonnes of feed. Africa currently imports most of it's grains, let's take a generous estimate of ~75 million tonnes of grain. Add another 25 million tonnes for their local production. And we're still off by a factor of 19x. Food production capacity is a non-issue. Availability to the people who need it is the real problem, and that is primarily about our willingness to aid those who need it and make some personal sacrifices for the greater good.

Razengan 3y ago

> we have a long ways to go before we hit a population issue. I wish people who say that would actually live in the overpopulated regions of the world for just 1 month.

DinaCoder99 3y ago
> I wish people who say that would actually live in the overpopulated regions of the world for just 1 month. People need to stop dragging 19th century nonsense into a globalized economy. Regional carrying capacity is certainly a thing, but the primary constraint in most areas today isn't food (which is, after all, rather easy to ship and process) but water. Anyway, you can apply the same reasoning to migration as I did to food. It's just not really an issue outside of political utility. The US alone could support literally billions of people if we gave a shit about anything other than money.
- starluz 3y ago
  I’ve heard this argument before and it is insane to me. Re comment above have you been to an overpopulated region? It is not just about food. Logically movement becomes more limited and difficult with people literally in each others way. Regions become incredibly inefficient. We are independent beings not meant to live like sardines
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    > Regions become incredibly inefficient. Tokyo? Seoul? Manhattan? London? Paris? All very dense. Also very economically efficient. All have great metro systems, so it is easy to move around.
Turing_Machine 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen... Of the top ten on that list, at least 5 would be considered desirable places to live by most people. If the criterion is "better than most other countries in the region", it's more like 9 out of 10 (Gaza Strip is pretty bad). By contrast, many of the lesser-populated regions/countries are considered to be horrible places to live. As I scan down the list, it looks like there is only a very weak correlation, at best, between population density and "would I want to live there". Obviously, your mileage is going to vary. Nonetheless, I bet you'd rather move to The Netherlands (#33) than Afghanistan (#153).

insane_dreamer 3y ago

spoken like a true "inner"