Now that I have your attention, you sick individuals...
OVERPOPULATION!!!
This is one of the nastiest topics in the world. But according to many scientists it is a real concern. There are only a few ways to stop it. The only nice one is technological development and space colonization. The others are yucky.
Of course, in rich nations we don't have to worry so much. But some scientists are saying that even if people in overpopulated nations were able to diffuse into less populated areas, there would not be enough resources to go around. And with projected world population growth, it will get worse even if not directly for those of us living in rich areas that may actually shrink in population thanks to responsible sex, choice over child-bearing, length of wait before marriage, survival in old age not being entirely dependent on kids, and protectionist immigration policy.
The way I can figure, if our technology is not developed soon these are our choices:
1) Let nature take its course: most likely before mass starvation, we will see big epidemics that will reach over the globe. The result may be similar to the experiments with rat population growth, meaning detrimental to the survival of civilization and maybe the entire species. To counter that would require a police state based on insane border security and quarrantine. Not pretty.
2) Genocide: Some will say that selecting which individuals die is prettier than option #1. In fact, it seems some overpopulated nations have already started. Rather than completely destroying ourselves, we would just morally destroy ourselves with this one. Also we'd have to decide who it is that has the right to pick, rather than just leaving it to God.
3) Prevention: This is the hardest. So of course it is the best one. Figures, doesn't it? Educate people in problem countries on responsible sex (including both abstinence and contraceptives), make contraceptives more available, and try to encourage population loss over a generation in those countries. Even laws like China's over population size, as disgusting as their ramifications are, are better than the above alternatives. And the countries that need them are predominantly not model democracies at this point anyway and won't be until they can get problems such as overpopulation and useless governments fixed.
In addition, I'd recommend lifting barriers from immigration to allow some population diffusion. Rich countries actually need to maintain current levels of population while poor ones need to lose. I speak even more of EU countries than the US. The ugly side of this is that the prime thing we need to look at for a potential immigrant's application is not skills or education as much as being clean of dangerous contagious disease.

No one likes this issue. And the easy comment I've often heard is "God made the world for all people, so there is always going to be room". Not unless God is planning a disaster that wipes out a bunch of us without destroying resources (which I know some are sitting around waiting for).
What we don't understand is that not doing anything now is an action that will lead to nastier means in the future. As Rush says in Free Will "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice".
So what is it? As much as you may think you are not affected, this is a global concern. Your morals and lives are just as much at stake.

__________________
"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

nature would take care of it. Eventually, either nature will come up with a nasty virus or it will be explointed beyond hope and do us in that way. I'm a fatalist when it comes to humans. We are beyond hope. We are far too short sighted and selfish.

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I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.

The number of views vs. the number of replies is telling.
Sex sells and when you bring up a global issue, expect to hear a lot of crickets.
I suppose I can't blame you for your fatalism, Stekim. Apparently people just don't care. They are more concerned with the activity that increases the intensity of the problem.
:sigh:

__________________
"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

Source: David Deming, Malthus Reconsidered, Brief Analysis No. 469 March 22, 2004.
For text http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba469/ba469.pdf

Some environmental advocates claim that human population growth causes intolerable pollution and will result in a scarcity of key natural resources and mass starvation. Others have called for international programs to slow or reverse population growth and for governmental controls on natural resource use.

The origin of these claims can be traced to Thomas Malthus' "Essay on the Principle of Population," first published in 1798. According to Malthus, "the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio."

As a result, he concluded, "humanity must perpetually exist in a state of misery, as population tends to invariably expand to the point that food supplies are at the subsistence level."
• Malthus did not foresee that technological changes would enable resource growth to outstrip population growth.
• Nor did he anticipate the demographic transition that takes place as societies move from agricultural to technological civilizations.

The birthrate in many developed countries is now substantially lower than the minimum required to replace the population (an average of 2. 1 births per women). In less developed areas the fertility rate has also fallen dramatically and continues to decline. Among the reasons:
• In agrarian societies, children are an economic asset, whereas in technological societies they are an economic liability.
• Birth control has become increasingly available and culturally acceptable.
• Infant mortality has fallen.
• Women in technological societies spend more time on education and work, and less time on childbearing and rearing.

The growth rate has decreased since the early 1960s, reaching 1.2 percent in 2001. If this trend continues, the world's population will likely stabilize and perhaps even begin declining before the end of this century.

Necessity nutures nature to correct the imbalance - as we should have observed by now since this same issue was widely considered during the 18th century

There are four possibilities here.

1. We can cull the herd by having one hell of a good war.

2. We can screw our idiot brains out until we're so overpopulated that we've outstripped our food supply and mass starvation ensues.

3. Maybe one heck of a good plague will carry away one third part of the world as the Black Death did in the Middle Ages.

4. Maybe one could actually try producing only that number of children that one can actually support. Of course, this would require most men to start thinking with the correct head.

__________________
Theodore Lamar Heiks
BA, History/Political Science, Western State College of Colorado, 1984
MBA, Entrepreneurship/Marketing, City University of Seattle, 1993

The trouble is that we're thinking too much about the situation in the rich countries where population growth is evening out. In the third world, population growth is much more troublesome and they have not yet developed to the state that the West is in to have the beneficial resources and freedoms to voluntarily quit having kids. If Social Security serves no other purpose, it ensures that old and disabled people do not have to rely completely on children to survive. That enables people to choose not to have kids or to have one kid and as a result, our population stays stable or shrinks a bit. Immigration helps make up the difference.
But the problems of overpopulation will continue brooding outside of our gates. Some of those problems are likely to seep under the gates.

__________________
"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

That's the ticket! Get rid of Social Security! Let the old folks just die of starvation! After all, they're contributing nothing, just taking! Just let the law of the survival of the fittest take care of them!

__________________
Theodore Lamar Heiks
BA, History/Political Science, Western State College of Colorado, 1984
MBA, Entrepreneurship/Marketing, City University of Seattle, 1993

That's pretty sick. We went through all this trouble of building civilization to stop that kind of thing. We could have stayed in the jungle if we wanted to live by its laws.

__________________
"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

Really? You defined the problem as overpopulation. Guess what? Populations are composed of people. Thus, by defining the problem as overpopulation, you have the problem of which part of the population is the over part and, even more problematic, who gets to make these decisions. Learn to discern the use of irony in making a point.

__________________
Theodore Lamar Heiks
BA, History/Political Science, Western State College of Colorado, 1984
MBA, Entrepreneurship/Marketing, City University of Seattle, 1993

For one thing, I don't think we're overpopulated yet. Even if we are, we can wing it for a generation or two provided there's no major growth, at least not what the bigtime pessimists are projecting (9 billion in a few years!)
That's why I advocate diffusion and prevention.
I don't think we should have to choose who dies or leave it to nature. How about we just don't add a whole hell of a lot of people?
Unfortunately that means dramatically changing the lifestyles of people in some third world countries. Some of it's based on tradition, but chronic reproduction is also caused by lack of birth control methods and an economic situation in which several hands are needed both for work now and financial security for the parents later. Traditions have a tendency to adapt to economies and reality. Another contributor to overreproduction (probably not a real word) is, oddly enough, high mortality rates and low life expectancy. If people expect that their kids are going to die and depend on the kids for future security, they will have lots of kids. We are at the point where we can think of kids completely for the joy they bring (those who think kids bring joy anyway). We don't realize what a luxury that and most ethical, responsible behavior are.

Oh and thanks. I was beginning to think this thread would be left to die in complete isolation.

__________________
"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside