Is the country full up

[daneha]

My own judgement is that the most important thing by far on the planet is the people. If this is not your top priority we're never going to agree on anything.

 

The loss of species from the planet is sad and should be discouraged, but does not threaten the future of humanity.

 

I do not find anything here or elsewhere to justify denying the people of the world the right to have children, or to condemn the future elderly to die in abject poverty because there are insufficient people of working age to look after them.

 

You appear to lack knowledge on the subject and place humanity on some kind of pedestal, we are just one species in the planets Eco system and we are far from the most important. We are however the most destructive.

 

---------- Post added 06-09-2013 at 07:48 ----------

 

 

I like people.

Eventually as living standards continue to increase and the entire world becomes the first world, population growth will gradually fall off and level out at I'd guess about 10^10, where it will stay for an extended period.

 

This is simply not possible, the world doesn't have enough resources to allow everyone on it to live like an average person lives in a first world country.

As developing countries get wealthier they will start to consume there own resources and will no longer be able to sell them to us. At this point we will need to decrease our population my about 40,000,000 people.

 

---------- Post added 06-09-2013 at 07:56 ----------

 

I tend to agree with the sentiment that a poor person in a foreign country is equally deserving of our help as a poor person down the street.

The fact is that world food production, even African food production, is growing faster than the respective populations so population growth is not the real problem.

Africa is crippled primarily by poor government and poor infrastructure and offering them money in exchange for their food surplus is a critical component in addressing these issues.

There will remain for some time at least some African countries which are in a mess. That's probably out of our control. But as the continent is made gradually richer by trade with the first world they have the opportunity to better their lot.

 

We don't buy their food surplus, we just buy the food they need because we can afford to pay more than their own people can pay, if the people in these countries start to eat as well as we eat, they will also need to import food. For us to live how we live on a planet of 7 billion people, about 5 billion people have to be worse off than us. For everyone to be equal we either reduce our consumption so they can increase theirs or the populations needs to fall.

[skinz]

What about when we can't import stuff?

 

Back to turnip soup and lard butties. duh.

[Ms Macbeth]

I find that a totally immoral outlook, I think we've stolen enough skilled personnel already from countries that have spend money on educating and training people, and can't afford to lose them. And yet I bet, judging your past efforts, you'd be one of the first criticising the old British Empire for siphoning off other countries wealth in the past.

 

Although, like MsMacBeth, maybe you think it's justified so that when you're old people you continue to live the good life on other people's contributions?

 

As BF has already pointed out, the contributions we make support those who 'need' them at the time. My OH and I get state pensions based on our contributions. Mine isn't a full pension as I was bringing up children;working part time etc. No 'Home Responsibilities' NI credits then, if we wanted to sign on we genuinely had to be looking for work.

 

We've already moved to a cheaper house to clear our mortgage, and because I have a small occupational pension we don't get any means tested benefits. Fair enough, even though making contributions for a number of years has meant we're only marginally better off than if we'd spent the lot. A free bus pass is hardly living the good life!

[unbeliever]

You appear to lack knowledge on the subject and place humanity on some kind of pedestal, we are just one species in the planets Eco system and we are far from the most important. We are however the most destructive.

 

---------- Post added 06-09-2013 at 07:48 ----------

 

 

This is simply not possible, the world doesn't have enough resources to allow everyone on it to live like an average person lives in a first world country.

As developing countries get wealthier they will start to consume there own resources and will no longer be able to sell them to us. At this point we will need to decrease our population my about 40,000,000 people.

 

---------- Post added 06-09-2013 at 07:56 ----------

 

 

We don't buy their food surplus, we just buy the food they need because we can afford to pay more than their own people can pay, if the people in these countries start to eat as well as we eat, they will also need to import food. For us to live how we live on a planet of 7 billion people, about 5 billion people have to be worse off than us. For everyone to be equal we either reduce our consumption so they can increase theirs or the populations needs to fall.

 

Resources are a funny thing. I can remember being told emphatically at school that there was no more than 25 years of natural gas left in the world at the rate of consumption at the time. That was 27 years ago. So I guess we shall have to ascribe the fact that natural gas is still plentiful to the fact that consumption has risen dramatically.

 

Usually "resources" refers to sources of energy that can either power vehicles or be converted into electricity or both. It is highly implausible we shall run out of these. Fossil fuels extracted from shale/rock may be a little expensive for now, but they're getting cheaper all the time. The supply of energy available from even traditional nuclear is not practically exhaustible, and there are new ways of extracting nuclear energy on the way.

In practice it is politics which limits access to resources, and not the scarceness of the resources themselves. In the west energy costs are high mainly because environmentalists have gone to great lengths to make them high.

 

I'm not forcing Ethiopia to sell us food. If they need it for themselves, we'll go shopping elsewhere.

Nobody is robbing anybody. If they do sell us stuff, they will get money. Money can be exchanged for goods and services.

[Ms Macbeth]

That sounds like an entirely selfish reason to conclude that we aren't overpopulated, I would rather work longer so that my children can enjoy a less crowded country.

 

It isn't selfish, its reality. I don't envisage needing long term care, who does? But the population is ageing, and the numbers who will need care will ultimately rise.

[daneha]

Resources are a funny thing. I can remember being told emphatically at school that there was no more than 25 years of natural gas left in the world at the rate of consumption at the time. That was 27 years ago. So I guess we shall have to ascribe the fact that natural gas is still plentiful to the fact that consumption has risen dramatically.

 

Usually "resources" refers to sources of energy that can either power vehicles or be converted into electricity or both. It is highly implausible we shall run out of these. Fossil fuels extracted from shale/rock may be a little expensive for now, but they're getting cheaper all the time. The supply of energy available from even traditional nuclear is not practically exhaustible, and there are new ways of extracting nuclear energy on the way.

In practice it is politics which limits access to resources, and not the scarceness of the resources themselves. In the west energy costs are high mainly because environmentalists have gone to great lengths to make them high.

 

I'm not forcing Ethiopia to sell us food. If they need it for themselves, we'll go shopping elsewhere.

Nobody is robbing anybody. If they do sell us stuff, they will get money. Money can be exchanged for goods and services.

 

As I said before as long as their are people like you that are happy to exploit the poor countries and fossil fuels at the expense of the environment we can continue expanding the population, but we can't expand it and bring everyone up to our standard of living, there will how ever come a crunch point when what you are happy to exploit will be unexploitable and the population will crash, control the population would however be significantly more pleasant than a population crash.

 

---------- Post added 06-09-2013 at 09:48 ----------

 

It isn't selfish, its reality. I don't envisage needing long term care, who does? But the population is ageing, and the numbers who will need care will ultimately rise.

 

Of cause its selfish, you want to increase the population to benefit yourself at the expense of the younger generation.

[Ms Macbeth]

As I said before as long as their are people like you that are happy to exploit the poor countries and fossil fuels at the expense of the environment we can continue expanding the population, but we can't expand it and bring everyone up to our standard of living, there will how ever come a crunch point when what you are happy to exploit will be unexploitable and the population will crash, control the population would however be significantly more pleasant than a population crash.

 

---------- Post added 06-09-2013 at 09:48 ----------

 

 

Of cause its selfish, you want to increase the population to benefit yourself at the expense of the younger generation.

 

Don't people realise that is how the system has worked since the introduction of the welfare state in the 1940s? We don't pay into a savings pot to fund our pensions in retirement. All the NI and income tax I paid during my 45 years of working were paying for someone else's pension and/or benefits at that time. I'm already in receipt of my state pension, but the generations coming up behind may not be so lucky if there aren't enough younger people working and funding them.

 

If you understand how the benefits system works, you'll realise that of course I'm not being selfish. In fact I'm thinking of the younger people who might not be in such a fortunate position as pensioners of today.

[chem1st]

As the global population has increased, the proportion of people going hungry has reduced.

 

The UK is not full, but it's infrastructure would struggle to cope with more, without deteriorating living standards.

 

We need to invest in infrastructure, and build more housing. We can also free up land for allotments and parks, and increase food production, and we can do this all at the same time, and whilst increasing population via immigration as has been the case for the past 42 years.

 

The UK has an artificial scarcity of land to be used for the public good (i.e. for housing for the people, fo food production for the people, to be used by the people for leisure).

 

The problem we face is on of massive land inequality, and the only way to solve that is scrap regressive land taxes and benefits, and bring in progressive land taxes and benefits.

 

---------- Post added 06-09-2013 at 22:37 ----------

 

Don't people realise that is how the system has worked since the introduction of the welfare state in the 1940s?

 

1913!

 

We don't pay into a savings pot to fund our pensions in retirement. All the NI and income tax I paid during my 45 years of working were paying for someone else's pension and/or benefits at that time.

Aye.

 

I'm already in receipt of my state pension, but the generations coming up behind may not be so lucky if there aren't enough younger people working and funding them.

You'll be taking out far more than you put in, and retiring earlier than other generations, those before, and those after.

 

Us young uns have been shafted, and we'll no doubt have a revolution in due course.

 

If you understand how the benefits system works, you'll realise that of course I'm not being selfish. In fact I'm thinking of the younger people who might not be in such a fortunate position as pensioners of today.

To be fair, your generation seems to be taking more out than any other, and it still has the audacity to plead poverty, when pensioners are richer in real terms than they ever have been and for the first time ever in history are richer than working 20 somethings.

[cressida]

If you look on Google maps from high up there's much more green unbuilt on, unpopulated land than builton populated land, so geographically no, we're not full up; in the builton areas though we are getting pretty full up.

 

I know unbuilt and builton aren't actual word's but they should be.

 

 

Yes but it can be the big cities where immigrants hope to find work and schools are now feeling the pinch often with over 30 pupils to a class, then there is the NHS of course, waiting times, people on stretchers in corridors, it doesn't seem to be getting any better - and then we read about makeshift 'shanty' accommodation because of the housing shortage.

[angos]

Don't people realise that is how the system has worked since the introduction of the welfare state in the 1940s? We don't pay into a savings pot to fund our pensions in retirement. All the NI and income tax I paid during my 45 years of working were paying for someone else's pension and/or benefits at that time. I'm already in receipt of my state pension, but the generations coming up behind may not be so lucky if there aren't enough younger people working and funding them.

 

If you understand how the benefits system works, you'll realise that of course I'm not being selfish. In fact I'm thinking of the younger people who might not be in such a fortunate position as pensioners of today.

 

Of cause people realise this, its a pyramid system that is destined to fail, with each generation needing the population to increase to sustain the pyramid.

 

I'm happy to work longer so that the younger generation don't have to support me, you apparently are not which could be considered to be selfish, as long as you are OK you don't appear to care about the consequences for generations to come.

 

---------- Post added 06-09-2013 at 22:56 ----------

 

As the global population has increased, the proportion of people going hungry has reduced.

 

 

So it doesn't matter that more people starve to death as long as the percentage is lower than before. There are now more staving people than even existed 200 years ago.

 

As the population increases so does the amount of poverty, starvation and dehydration and disease.