4 ms·

American billionaire club wants to curb overpopulation

13 points by soundsop 17y ago

patrickg-zill 17y ago
War usually does the job.
- TriinT 17y ago
  WW2 killed "only" 60 million or so. Population control would require having 2 billion or so killed. Unless one goes for nuclear warfare, I don't see war solving the overpopulation problem. Unfortunately, there are not enough resources to guarantee everyone a high standard of living. Poverty is the result, and poverty leads to people breeding like rabbits. We are doomed.
  - mahmud 17y ago
    Wanna end over population? Offer free, unhindered family planning services. Curb the rampant influence of organized religion on private matters. Foster a healthy appreciation for one's children, male or female, so families aren't forced to get rid of their daughters through early marriage. Remove the stigma around condoms; we all fuck and it's a beautiful thing, just be careful kids. Empower women and give them equal employment so they have more time to reach for their dreams and less time popping out kids to latch onto a single source of income personified as a male patriarch. Develop family farms and agriculture and introduce automation to the process, so farmers don't depend on their offspring for labor. etc.
    - TriinT 17y ago
      The problem with those measures is that they take decades to yield results. And in a few decades we will all be fucked anyway...
      - mahmud 17y ago
        "decades" is nothing when the result is the uplifting of the entire human race. large-scale literacy campaigns started 200+ years ago, and even though we have much left to do, you can already see the effect of childhood education on the world.
        TriinT 17y ago
        True, but literacy is literacy. You proposed going against the religious establishment... and I am all for that, but it's fighting a battle uphill. Mentalities change very slowly. Mankind has huge mental inertia.
    - anamax 17y ago
      > Offer free, unhindered family planning services. Seems to have little/no effect. > Curb the rampant influence of organized religion on private matters. Good luck doing that without coercion, substituting a different organization's influence on private matters. > Empower women and give them equal employment so they have more time to reach for their dreams and less time popping out kids to latch onto a single source of income personified as a male patriarch. Nice theory, but there's plenty of "overbreeding" in societies where women work as much as/more than men. "X is bad" and "Y is bad" does not imply that X and Y have anything to do with one another. > Develop family farms and agriculture and introduce automation to the process, so farmers don't depend on their offspring for labor. Wrong. Automation doesn't make kids useless. It actually makes them more useful. A ten-year-old girl without automation can't do nearly as much as a 17 year-old boy. The more automation, the closer they are in productivity. (Having actually worked on farms, I'm often amazed by what people say about working on farms.) If you want to keep farmers from breeding, don't have family farms.
      - mahmud 17y ago
        Allow me to answer your suspicion about availability of family planning service and its effect on reducing population growth. You probably have the West, specially U.S. in mind when you say it has no effect. I think you're forgetting the welfare-check incentive in baby-popping. Family benefits as they're in the U.S. seem to be optimized for the maximum yield of babies, and reduction of intact, 2-parent households. Single women simply get more buck for their bang (sorry!) here. And the fact that said benefits demand the removal of the father from the house, what you're left with are women raising children by themselves, and children of single moms becoming single parents themselves and going back to the system. Where generations ago they might have gone to the family farm or shop, now they're going to the family social worker to collect their own welfare checks.
        anamax 17y ago
        The claim was that family planning services mattered. Pointing out that they have no effect when something else is present, which wasn't mentioned in the list of "what to do", doesn't support that claim. I'm quite sympathetic to the idea that many "welfare services" are failures in many ways, including population. Perhaps they should have been on the list from the beginning.
  - pj 17y ago
    "Sex is the poor man's opera."
- mahmud 17y ago
  > War usually does the job. So does education, higher standard of living and positive outlook towards the future. Think positive thoughts, for your own happiness.
- pj 17y ago
  Actually, war is a leading cause of population growth. The baby boomers are an example.
frisco 17y ago
Wow that's misleading linkbait. The actual article describes it as philanthropy targeted at availability of contraception, female education, and higher standards of living world wide, things that are correlated with lower, more sensible, birth rates. This title makes it sounds like there's a secret organization trying to kill us all.
- graemep 17y ago
  The secrecy does not make them look good. The best way to slow population growth is simply by making the poor more prosperous. What about some re-distribution of wealth....
  - nostrademons 17y ago
    ...which was exactly what Gates proposed. Investment in health and education to raise living standards for the world's poor.
  - SwellJoe 17y ago
    What about some re-distribution of wealth.... Which merely exhibits a superstition about money, as though it is separate from what it represents. Merely redistributing money does nothing about the disparity in wealth. Modern wealth is a derivative of education, natural and human resources, ambition, hard work, the rule of law (wealth won't exist for long where the nearest thug can walk away with it unhindered), and other factors. Merely telling governments to force people to "redistribute wealth" won't solve the problems that lead to the wealth inequality between third and first world nations, and the money will merely evaporate, as most aid money evaporates today...into the pockets of local banana republic leaders and their supporters. Fix what's broken about government, education, and ideology, in those third world nations, and you'll solve the wealth gap. There is no way to "redistribute wealth" without redistributing the engines of wealth. And most first worlders, particularly those most successful at creating wealth, aren't going to jump at the chance to live in third world nations.
  - TriinT 17y ago
    If you want to distribute your wealth, go ahead, but don't force me to distribute mine... How about creating markets so that the 3rd world farmers could sell their products? So much gospel on free markets and the U.S. and E.U. are still protectionist when it comes to agricultural commodities...
ThomPete 17y ago
Let the conspiracy theories begin....
- mahmud 17y ago
  There is no conspiracy. Rich people want MORE people on the planet so they can have more people to be richer-than ;-)
nazgulnarsil 17y ago
everyone wants to curb overpopulation, these people are just in a position to act on it.
stuntgoat 17y ago
What is it about Japan that is curbing population growth? http://www31.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+growth+in+japan+ http://www31.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+growth+in+...
- markerdmann 17y ago
  Why Japan instead of Ukraine? http://www86.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+growth http://www86.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+growth
  - stuntgoat 17y ago
    Good question. Because I thought of it first ( then Italy ). What is it about the Ukraine that is curbing population growth? Also, what seems to increase population growth inside countries?
elai 17y ago
At first I thought it was american billionaires not wanting more billionaires to share the status with.

13 points by soundsop 17y ago

patrickg-zill 17y ago

War usually does the job.

TriinT 17y ago
WW2 killed "only" 60 million or so. Population control would require having 2 billion or so killed. Unless one goes for nuclear warfare, I don't see war solving the overpopulation problem. Unfortunately, there are not enough resources to guarantee everyone a high standard of living. Poverty is the result, and poverty leads to people breeding like rabbits. We are doomed.
- mahmud 17y ago
  Wanna end over population? Offer free, unhindered family planning services. Curb the rampant influence of organized religion on private matters. Foster a healthy appreciation for one's children, male or female, so families aren't forced to get rid of their daughters through early marriage. Remove the stigma around condoms; we all fuck and it's a beautiful thing, just be careful kids. Empower women and give them equal employment so they have more time to reach for their dreams and less time popping out kids to latch onto a single source of income personified as a male patriarch. Develop family farms and agriculture and introduce automation to the process, so farmers don't depend on their offspring for labor. etc.
  - TriinT 17y ago
    The problem with those measures is that they take decades to yield results. And in a few decades we will all be fucked anyway...
    - mahmud 17y ago
      "decades" is nothing when the result is the uplifting of the entire human race. large-scale literacy campaigns started 200+ years ago, and even though we have much left to do, you can already see the effect of childhood education on the world.
      - TriinT 17y ago
        True, but literacy is literacy. You proposed going against the religious establishment... and I am all for that, but it's fighting a battle uphill. Mentalities change very slowly. Mankind has huge mental inertia.
  - anamax 17y ago
    > Offer free, unhindered family planning services. Seems to have little/no effect. > Curb the rampant influence of organized religion on private matters. Good luck doing that without coercion, substituting a different organization's influence on private matters. > Empower women and give them equal employment so they have more time to reach for their dreams and less time popping out kids to latch onto a single source of income personified as a male patriarch. Nice theory, but there's plenty of "overbreeding" in societies where women work as much as/more than men. "X is bad" and "Y is bad" does not imply that X and Y have anything to do with one another. > Develop family farms and agriculture and introduce automation to the process, so farmers don't depend on their offspring for labor. Wrong. Automation doesn't make kids useless. It actually makes them more useful. A ten-year-old girl without automation can't do nearly as much as a 17 year-old boy. The more automation, the closer they are in productivity. (Having actually worked on farms, I'm often amazed by what people say about working on farms.) If you want to keep farmers from breeding, don't have family farms.
    - mahmud 17y ago
      Allow me to answer your suspicion about availability of family planning service and its effect on reducing population growth. You probably have the West, specially U.S. in mind when you say it has no effect. I think you're forgetting the welfare-check incentive in baby-popping. Family benefits as they're in the U.S. seem to be optimized for the maximum yield of babies, and reduction of intact, 2-parent households. Single women simply get more buck for their bang (sorry!) here. And the fact that said benefits demand the removal of the father from the house, what you're left with are women raising children by themselves, and children of single moms becoming single parents themselves and going back to the system. Where generations ago they might have gone to the family farm or shop, now they're going to the family social worker to collect their own welfare checks.
      - anamax 17y ago
        The claim was that family planning services mattered. Pointing out that they have no effect when something else is present, which wasn't mentioned in the list of "what to do", doesn't support that claim. I'm quite sympathetic to the idea that many "welfare services" are failures in many ways, including population. Perhaps they should have been on the list from the beginning.
- pj 17y ago
  "Sex is the poor man's opera."
mahmud 17y ago
> War usually does the job. So does education, higher standard of living and positive outlook towards the future. Think positive thoughts, for your own happiness.
pj 17y ago
Actually, war is a leading cause of population growth. The baby boomers are an example.

frisco 17y ago

Wow that's misleading linkbait. The actual article describes it as philanthropy targeted at availability of contraception, female education, and higher standards of living world wide, things that are correlated with lower, more sensible, birth rates. This title makes it sounds like there's a secret organization trying to kill us all.

graemep 17y ago
The secrecy does not make them look good. The best way to slow population growth is simply by making the poor more prosperous. What about some re-distribution of wealth....
- nostrademons 17y ago
  ...which was exactly what Gates proposed. Investment in health and education to raise living standards for the world's poor.
- SwellJoe 17y ago
  What about some re-distribution of wealth.... Which merely exhibits a superstition about money, as though it is separate from what it represents. Merely redistributing money does nothing about the disparity in wealth. Modern wealth is a derivative of education, natural and human resources, ambition, hard work, the rule of law (wealth won't exist for long where the nearest thug can walk away with it unhindered), and other factors. Merely telling governments to force people to "redistribute wealth" won't solve the problems that lead to the wealth inequality between third and first world nations, and the money will merely evaporate, as most aid money evaporates today...into the pockets of local banana republic leaders and their supporters. Fix what's broken about government, education, and ideology, in those third world nations, and you'll solve the wealth gap. There is no way to "redistribute wealth" without redistributing the engines of wealth. And most first worlders, particularly those most successful at creating wealth, aren't going to jump at the chance to live in third world nations.
- TriinT 17y ago
  If you want to distribute your wealth, go ahead, but don't force me to distribute mine... How about creating markets so that the 3rd world farmers could sell their products? So much gospel on free markets and the U.S. and E.U. are still protectionist when it comes to agricultural commodities...

ThomPete 17y ago

Let the conspiracy theories begin....

mahmud 17y ago
There is no conspiracy. Rich people want MORE people on the planet so they can have more people to be richer-than ;-)

nazgulnarsil 17y ago

everyone wants to curb overpopulation, these people are just in a position to act on it.

stuntgoat 17y ago

What is it about Japan that is curbing population growth? http://www31.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+growth+in+japan+ http://www31.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+growth+in+...

markerdmann 17y ago
Why Japan instead of Ukraine? http://www86.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+growth http://www86.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+growth
- stuntgoat 17y ago
  Good question. Because I thought of it first ( then Italy ). What is it about the Ukraine that is curbing population growth? Also, what seems to increase population growth inside countries?

elai 17y ago

At first I thought it was american billionaires not wanting more billionaires to share the status with.