Meanwhile, in the year 7013...

[armaghniac]

you put in place social protections that mean people don't have to have lots of children to guard against having no one to look after them in their old age and be confident that their children won't die before them.

There is something of the chicken and egg here though. It can be very difficult to get such protections in place if you have a very high birthrate, especially as most children do survive to adulthood now in a way that was not the case when European counties had such a high birthrate.

[deiseach]

you put in place social protections that mean people don't have to have lots of children to guard against having no one to look after them in their old age and be confident that their children won't die before them.

There is something of the chicken and egg here though. It can be very difficult to get such protections in place if you have a very high birthrate, especially as most children do survive to adulthood now in a way that was not the case when European counties had such a high birthrate.

True enough. India has benefited from reduced infant mortality thanks to the availability of advanced medicines ahead of the rate at which they were available in developed countries. Still, there's no question that increased affluence leads to reduced family sizes, not the other way round.

[seafoid]

Jaysus seafoid, I wouldn't have taken you for a Malthusian. I know life is grim in India, but there's plenty of food to go around, just as there was in Ireland the the 1840's. The problem is inequality. You don't reduce birth rates by having one child policies (which lead to millions more men than women and widespread instances of female infanticide), you put in place social protections that mean people don't have to have lots of children to guard against having no one to look after them in their old age and be confident that their children won't die before them.

Climate change is going to mess up the.monsoon that India depends on for rain. Maybe it will be grand but what  if it isn't? Uttar Pradesh state had 30million people in 1947 and is forecast to have 180 m by 2050. India already imports more food than anywhere bar China. What if the Great Plains have a few years of drought? Is there a plan B?

[deiseach]

Plan B is less inequality. You may call it pie in the sky, but I think it's more achievable than telling billions of other people they can't have any more children.

[muppet]

China did it. India didn't and now effectively rations food. 60% of kids are malnourished.

China is a dictatorship while India (for all its ills) is a democracy. Is that the choice we face?

Democracy has its weaknesses. Look at what India sees as a priority: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-24907995

[Hardy]

Birth rates ARE reducing rapidly throughout even the most deprived parts of the world and it IS happening mostly because of improved social provisions (China's one child policy aside). The worldwide average birth rate is now 2.5 children per woman, which is close to, or at, the sustainable replacement rate.

So we are no longer growing world population by having babies and, if the downward trend continues, we will have started a long term reduction in population very soon.

However, as far as I understand it from Hans Rosling's Gapminder Foundation figures I referred to earlier, the world's population will continue to grow to a peak of 11Billion without any increase in the birth rate. This is because the children already alive will grow up and they and the existing adult population will live longer.

So the only point (in social engineering terms) in continuing to reduce birth rates (which is an irreversible social trend anyway, barring  a substantial intervention) is to reduce the long term population below the peak of 11 Billion. 

Whether this is desirable or not is moot, since indications seem to be that improved food production and logistics indicate that we will be able to feed the 11 Billion by the time we get to that figure, so population reduction from that point may cause another set of entirely different problems.
 
Things ARE actually getting better. The population growth has been stopped, to the extent that it is possible without actually exterminating people. Social provisions are improving worldwide. Poverty is receding dramatically and it now seems feasible that extreme poverty (effectively hunger) will be eradicated within a couple of generations. Not that you'd know it because good news rarely makes the 9:00 headlines.

[deiseach]

Democracy has its weaknesses. Look at what India sees as a priority: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-24907995

It's the worst system - apart from all the others.

[muppet]

Democracy has its weaknesses. Look at what India sees as a priority: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-24907995

It's the worst system - apart from all the others.

If only we could take the politics out of politics.

[seafoid]

Plan B is less inequality. You may call it pie in the sky, but I think it's more achievable than telling billions of other people they can't have any more children.

India needs to educate its girls so they start their families at 25 rather than 18 but that needs money.

[seafoid]

Birth rates ARE reducing rapidly throughout even the most deprived parts of the world and it IS happening mostly because of improved social provisions (China's one child policy aside). The worldwide average birth rate is now 2.5 children per woman, which is close to, or at, the sustainable replacement rate.

So we are no longer growing world population by having babies and, if the downward trend continues, we will have started a long term reduction in population very soon.

However, as far as I understand it from Hans Rosling's Gapminder Foundation figures I referred to earlier, the world's population will continue to grow to a peak of 11Billion without any increase in the birth rate. This is because the children already alive will grow up and they and the existing adult population will live longer.

So the only point (in social engineering terms) in continuing to reduce birth rates (which is an irreversible social trend anyway, barring  a substantial intervention) is to reduce the long term population below the peak of 11 Billion. 

Whether this is desirable or not is moot, since indications seem to be that improved food production and logistics indicate that we will be able to feed the 11 Billion by the time we get to that figure, so population reduction from that point may cause another set of entirely different problems.
 
Things ARE actually getting better. The population growth has been stopped, to the extent that it is possible without actually exterminating people. Social provisions are improving worldwide. Poverty is receding dramatically and it now seems feasible that extreme poverty (effectively hunger) will be eradicated within a couple of generations. Not that you'd know it because good news rarely makes the 9:00 headlines.

11bn is 4bn more than now. 5bn of the 7 have difficult lives as it is . Check out the typhoon damaged shacks in the Philippines. That is the kind of housing most of the poorest 5 bn live in. Ignorance is still the default. Food supply is tight. Onion prices are 6 times 2012 prices in India. The Arab spring kicked off with droughts in Syria and the Ukraine which supplies a lot of wheat to food importing countries. The human spirit is great and all but the future looks quite complicated.

[Jim_Murphy_74]

Clare forward line will be over-age for  U-21 Hurling Championship.
/Jim.

[BennyCake]

Shoot the over 65s.

They are, more or less. With the flu jabs. It just takes a bit longer.

[armaghniac]

Shoot the over 65s.

Thousands of people over 65 die each year anyway.

[muppet]

Shoot the over 65s.

Thousands of people over 65 die each year anyway.

That is a media conspiracy, driven by the Governments of the world and the pension funds. There is no hard evidence other than they simply disappear from sight and a box arrives in their stead. But does anyone ever ask to check the box before it goes down? No.

[andoireabu]

Found an interesting map about the population of the world.



http://www.goodnet.org/articles/9-maps-to-change-how-you-see-world