Future Population Numbers.

Future generations are going to curse us one way or another I think.

Reproductive rights are a pretty touchy area and there is NO good solution here. Eventually mother nature will curb our population growth if we do nothing. The big question there will be how severe a revenge mother nature exacts.

Your question made me think of what I had once read about animals. When their food source is scarce, their reproduction rate decreases. Too bad that human beings aren't "programmed" the same way!

That was the same thing I was thinking about Phoenix. Maybe we ARE programmed that way though??? In the west at least women are holding off until later in life to have children. Maybe that's a sign? Maybe the "cycle" for humans is just a lot longer?

fishin'- I think that the phenomenon of waiting later to have children is peculiar to the educated, middle class in the U.S., where the woman waits to establish her career before she has children.

I think that people who do not go beyond high school are still marrying young, and having lots of kids.

Fishin, with humans the population numbers seem to move exactly opposite to the way they do for animals. As we humans become more affluent, our birthrate decreases. In countries that are poverty stricken the population growth is high.

The reasons for this seem to have nothing to do with food supply.

Phoenix, i can't vouch for this, but i've read that the birth rate in any area drops in proportion to economic development, that women in "advanced" nations are actually less fertile than those in "underdeveloped" nations. If this were true--and again, i can't vouch for this--it would make the same kind of sense as the mechanisms in animal populations when they become overpopulated (female rabbits can absorb fetuses, and cease to be pregnant), or when resources are plentiful (many species produce larger litters under such circumstances). Given that a technologically crude society needs many hands to make light work of agriculture, this makes sense. In the middle ages of western history, having many children also functioned as old-age insurance--if you made it to old age, and had adult children living, you could make a deal for your land that required them to shelter and support you--there are thousands of records of manor courts approving just such a deal.

If this were true, the way to slow the human birth rate is to guarantee the necessities of life to all nations, to assure efficient agricultural methods throughout the "third world," to spread the wealth more equitably--in other words, it ain't gonna happen any time soon . . .

Sigh . . . i'm actually an optomist about the human race, but i try to be a realist about human nature . . .

Just as an observation to insert here... One of Japan's accepted biggest problems for the future is its extremely negative population growth. It's expected that, in the near future, hugely disproportionate numbers of senior citizens to young adults entering the workforce will spell a collapse of the pension system & far fewer customers for all the new technology & gadgets that currently sustains Japan's economy as much as it does.

(edit: I don't think this still happens at all now, but I know that some years back, realizing this problem, the Japanese government would actually occasionally pay certain couples an amount of money per kid per month if they'd decided to have more than 1 child. More recently, I've seen a government-sponsored TV special featuring a Japanese happy family with 7 kids.)

Monger,

I've heard that they are hoping the "daddy's girls" (I forget the term, been about 14 years since I was there) will emigrate. Are you seeing any of that?

Don't limit the thinking to small pockets - Consider the human population as a whole. Even in the animal kngdon, when food or water is in short supply SOME of the animals reproduce. They tend to have smaller numbers of off-spring until the total population balances back out with nature but reproduction still occurs.



I wasn't trying to imply that it was strictly a food supply issue. I was referring to it as a similar cycle. "Forces", be they food, habitable land, economic status, etc.. shape and can impact the reproduction rates on an overall global scale.

Chewing the fat
Last night we were eating porkhock. Lovely knuckle if done slowly in an oven over 3 / 4 hours. Cabbage and new potatoes to accompany and it's a one pot meal of sorts. A good prayer of thanks and ........

While I was realizing , regardless of the size of these hocks there wasn't very much actually meat. As the pile of discarded layers of fat piled up, I realized in Old Lithuania you would just eat as much of the fat as you could. Because your only insurance policy, one had against illness, was some added body fat. Hense in case of emergency, famine or what have you , it was always wize to eat as much as possible.

So I said to my friend ...........we would have just eaten this, been jolly and then around 70 somewhere we'd just die happily and naturally of a heart attack.

No questions , no worries a life in arms of nature.

Back to topic:
There is a solution to the population explosion. It will not be reached until the end of the century: women's education.

With minimum variability among countries, there is a very strong correlation between years of schooling in women and number of children.
Income, religion, nationality and living in an urban or a rural area are indeed minor variables [many of them also associated with female access to school]. The big one is the woman's years of attending school. And men's schooling counts almost nothing.

The varying is indeed very slight fbaezer.

I live in America, and believe that no mater what we may think or feel the population growth is still going to escalate. Due to the fact that it is part of human nature to have love and share love, now with more cultures and other nationality's entering our country adds to this. I have also studied the news where in certain states they want to try to block out sex education either in general or certain age brackets. In all honesty it is our own society that depletes any attempt towards population control. We have people coming in from countries that are used to large families, and having children at a young age. America likes to put statistics on everything like the average amount of kids per family is 2.5, what is that but merely a mathematical assumption or conclusion. Our increase in population deals mostly with poor education, and the ratio of that education mixed with the depleating of our own family values in America. I have studied this very much recently through many aspects not only population. Where I live you cannot sit their and listen to the radio anymore without an add coming on every 15 min's or so about Penis enlargement, now if these are stations that teenagers listen to what does that put out.. surly no comercials on radio or T.V about Teenage pregnancy anymore instead you find Viagra and anti drug commercials, and infomercials about how to increase your bust size, or shows about dating. BLAH BLAH BLAH

Sorry for more Blah, but also look at music. The main music that is sweeping our nation now is that of Rap, now not all of it bad, but at the same time look at the people who most listen to it.... teenagers where it puts out the wrong msg not only about sex also about love and respect.
I feel for the teenage girls that watch or listen to this and also how it affects their morals. Since nowadays you do not really hear about the birds and the bees, instead you hear of they're stinging disease.

a) Rap sales are on the decline

b) Sex doesn't have to lead to a population increase, with the advent of birth control it just takes a little bit of thought. In any case you seem more opposed to a oversexed media culture than a population increase (just a guess).

c) America isn't the problem when it comes to population increase.

d) Advertising has been about sex since David Oglivy

e) Sorry for the list approach, I wanted to post this quickly.

Eminem who happens to have sold over how many copies of cd's, well his new song is at #1 on the bill board charts right now. and when teenage fans see that they jump right out to get more.

I know that America is not to blame but, their oversexed media and lack of communication in family's does contribute to overpopulation or baby boomers.

babyboomers were due to war BTW. And I don't think oversexed media contributes that much to population increase in America. America has a weird mixture of Puritannical and overtly sexual culture that makes this hard to call.

Countries with high rates of population growth are almost invariably countries that are on the lower end of the stick educationwise (and in wealth but those are chicken and egg factors). I haven't seen much correlation between sexually liberal media and culture and population growth.

edit: Rap sales are on the decline despite Eminem. The trend is toward staple Rappers selling while the rest sell very little.

Sorry Craven, my head is lost I am in the middle of my book and was at a point of reviewing the people that I have met and talked with, and was in the middle of thinking about my younger brother that all he does is listen to Rap, get high and F###. That is why I left because so many places I have went and seen. No matter how much money the family makes, or religion I have seen so much pain and babies being popped out that were not planned. Wrong place to put reply's I guess.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with listening to rap, having sex or getting high (some highs are legal and some don't even involve drugs. I'm referring to legal highs, I gave up the illegal ones).

But I don't see anything wrong with you replying here either. I guess we see thing differently. ;-) No biggie.

In any case, we digest. I'll try to stay on topic now.