Overpopulation

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Burninator

Oh I agree and the author knows that too. From the first paragraph...

Of course, we should remember what the sage pop philosopher Yogi Berra once said: “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.” Let’s call this Yogi’s Maxim. In theory, just implement the Developing Dirty Dozen. In practice, this might not be so easy. I recommend starting with just the first one: property rights. And the playbook on how to do so is already written: Prosperity Unbound: Building Property Markets with Trust (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) by former World Bank economist Elena Panaritis, now working with developing nations around the world to build trust through property rights.

Ah-ha! You over-estimate me, and I thank you for that. But I never read your stinkin' article and just made wild assumptions that I knew more than it...so take that!

“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”

Haha, that's a great quote. Thanks for clarifying.

[firebug]

Originally Posted by Burninator

How to Build a 1st-World Country (in 12 easy steps)

How do you turn a 3rd-world developing nation into a 1st-world developed nation? It actually isn’t that hard. In fact, it is so simple it can be explained in a blog-length essay. You need twelve conditions. I call them the Developing Dirty Dozen:

1. Property rights.
2. The rule of law.
3. Economic stability through a secure and trustworthy banking and monetary system.
4. A reliable infrastructure and the freedom to move about the country.
5. Freedom of speech and the press.
6. Freedom of association.
7. Mass education.
8. Protection of civil liberties.
9. A robust military for protection of liberties from attacks by other states.
10. A potent police force for protection of freedoms from attacks by other people within the state.
11. A viable legislative system for establishing fair and just laws.
12. An effective judicial system for the equitable enforcement of those fair and just laws.

http://trueslant.com/michaelshermer/...operty-rights/

We should start with the reserves in our own country.

IMHO the lack of individual property rights is one of the biggest handicaps we have burdened our aboriginals with.

~Firebug

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Rich countries have a very low birth rate. Poor countries have a very high birth rate.

Typically as a country's government puts in programs such as pensions, unemployment insurance and welfare, the birth rate plummets.

Yup, which is why immigration is vital to the economies of those countries.

[HotHotHeat]

You know it's bad when Fotze asks 'Too much?' at the end of his post, lol. Wow.

[HotHotHeat]

Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler

Yeah, capitalism is the problem - Raul Castro and Chavez will take care of things...

Where did I say democracy is the problem?

You can't look at capitalism, link to democracy, and consider that the only alternative is communism. Capitalism can exist, just not in the way it occurs right now. The problem is that changing capitalism is...Not going to happen.

[Shazam]

Democracy = political system

Capitalism = economic system
Communism = economic system

There are very few (if any) countries run by democracy. Most are some form of republic.

Yes, it's possible to have a democratically run country that was also communist.

[albertGQ]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

If we all became Vegans and got rid of global cow flatulence, we'd be off to the races.

Cowperson

You are such a cow person. Always trying to save those mammals

[dissentowner]

Cull the chinese.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

Cull the chinese.

The Chinese are culling themselves. Their ultimate goal is to have around 350 million people.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

Where did I say democracy is the problem?

You can't look at capitalism, link to democracy, and consider that the only alternative is communism. Capitalism can exist, just not in the way it occurs right now. The problem is that changing capitalism is...Not going to happen.

Ummm, if I wanted to discuss democracy I would have brought up China. Perhaps, you don't even know what capitalism is? See Shazam's post for reference...

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by Shazam

The Chinese are culling themselves. Their ultimate goal is to have around 350 million people.

Yeah, the Chinese are about to enter the European demographic model...

[HotHotHeat]

Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler

Ummm, if I wanted to discuss democracy I would have brought up China. Perhaps, you don't even know what capitalism is? See Shazam's post for reference...

I read Shazam's post. I still think you've incorrectly taken my original post to mean that capitalism needs to be phased out and replaced by other economic/political models (such as when you said "Yeah, capitalism is the problem - Raul Castro and Chavez will take care of things...")

So, what did you mean by that? I would suppose you weren't speaking about Castro and Chavez in terms of the economic systems they preach, since I said in my original post that ending capitalism probably wasn't the solution. Did I say it was a contributing problem? Yes. But I never said ending it was the solution. That led me to believe that you were talking about these leaders in terms of their guiding political ideology, and the reason I asked where I said democracy is the the problem. Perhaps the problem isn't my grasp on capitalism, and instead your lacking ability to understand my post.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

I read Shazam's post. I still think you've incorrectly taken my original post to mean that capitalism needs to be phased out and replaced by other economic/political models (such as when you said "Yeah, capitalism is the problem - Raul Castro and Chavez will take care of things...")

So, what did you mean by that? I would suppose you weren't speaking about Castro and Chavez in terms of the economic systems they preach, since I said in my original post that ending capitalism probably wasn't the solution. Did I say it was a contributing problem? Yes. But I never said ending it was the solution. That led me to believe that you were talking about these leaders in terms of their guiding political ideology, and the reason I asked where I said democracy is the the problem. Perhaps the problem isn't my grasp on capitalism, and instead your lacking ability to understand my post.

You are right - I have no clue what you are talking about.

[Ashartus]

Interesting topic. A few of my more-or-less random thoughts:

- Right now we have a (relatively) small group of people with very high consumption, while the rest of the world lives in comparative poverty. Personally I like having my house, car, luxuries, and all the other trappings of life in Canada and would resist giving any of it up. As a compassionate human being I'd also like all of those other people to be able to have a lifestyle like mine. However, with current technology, there's no way this planet could support that lifestyle for every human on the planet.

- The list posted by Burninator has good ideas for how to get countries to develop, but still doesn't answer the question of what to do about current overpopulation in some countries (overpopulation isn't universal but rather limited to specific regions and countries). I think significant scientific/technological advances would also be needed in many cases, including things like genetically designed high yield crops and new or improved energy production technologies.

- I think a "one child per female" policy would have devastating economic and social effects down the road due to its effects on population age structure. At the very least it would force people to stay in the workforce much longer, which would require significant improvements in the health of the population. A "two child per female" policy would be better; still resulting in a small population decline over time due to not every female having two children, but not quite as severe an effect.

- How much responsibility do western nations have for the rest of the world? Is the state of third world countries partly our "fault" (colonialism, exploitation), or would they be worse off or in a similar state if they'd been left to their own devices (I suspect the latter in many cases, but don't really know)? Do we have a moral obligation to make sacrifices to our standard of life to help other countries improve theirs?

- I think developing countries may have a point when they resist things like greenhouse gas emission targets or banning certain chemicals when the developed nations didn't have to worry about those things when they were at that stage; if we want them to go without advantages that we had, we might have to help them out (economically and/or by giving them technology).

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

It's been said 100 times, but water is the oil of the next century. It's scary to think the single most required aspect of life on this planet is going to become a tradable commodity. The most amazing part right now is how quietly the corporate world is preparing itself to take over the watersheds of North America and elsewhere.

I call BS on this. Water is the ultimate renewable resource. All you have to do is throw energy at polluted water and you can distill perfectly clean water. You can also make water out of hydrogen and oxygen, and we have lots of that.

Energy remains the more important of the two resources because its scarcer. If I have abundant energy, I can easily make clean water. If I have a lot of clean water, well, I have a lot of water.

Furthermore, if I have abundant energy, I can trade it at a premium for your puddle of water, or I can use that energy and take it by force as needed. I can also use energy to move water over great distances, so that I can get my water from anywhere, and deliver it anywhere. Energy trumps this debate hands down.

[Jason14h]

Energy trumps this debate hands down.

Energy = CO2 = Global Warming = Dead Polar Bears = BAD
Water = Not dieing of thirst = GOOD


Water 1, Energy 0!

[octothorp]

Yeah, I'm not too worried about water supply; desalination technologies are improving rapidly, to the point where a couple wind turbines can power a decent-sized desalination plant that can supply water to a small city.
The difficulty (and potential environmental impact) is disposing of the brine from the desalination.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by octothorp

Yeah, I'm not too worried about water supply; desalination technologies are improving rapidly, to the point where a couple wind turbines can power a decent-sized desalination plant that can supply water to a small city.
The difficulty (and potential environmental impact) is disposing of the brine from the desalination.

Easy, just make many delicious roasted turkeys.

[supadaveo]

Want to control the population? Easy! Raise the standard of living. IF you cant afford kids/more kids, you wont have them. (for the most part)

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern

A few years ago during my studies we watched an interesting documentary called Water Wars. They talk about the future state of fresh water, how the Bush family has been buying up land that occupy aquifers, and what is currently being done to help prepare for all of this. It was a very interesting movie, incredibly bias, but you can always take something good away from documentaries like that.

In the film, they indicated that the reason the Bush family bought up all of this land in Paraguay was because under neath it was one of the largest aquifers in the world. At the time, nobody could seem to figure it out and everyone looked at it from a political stand point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaran%C3%AD_Aquifer

I am in no way saying I agree with the video or anything of that nature, but I am saying it was an interesting watch and all Canadian done which was even cooler.

Meh...

If water ever becomes scarce to the point that it becomes a massive economic commodity like oil, property rights won't be be worth the paper they are written on. Paraguay would patriate that land in a minute.