Universe 25 - is this what is wrong with society?

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

Came across this interesting experiment (from the  1950s-70s) in population and the effects of overcrowding, eventually leading to extinction.

https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/the-horrifying-study-that-predicted-human-extinction-244fa185087b?source=linkShare-e6f022b8375-1606816609

Does this feel like it is has parallels to today? i.e. the social pressure cooker?

 

[scottbeard]

In most developed countries people are having so few children that in the long term the population will start falling.

Once you have a society where (i) old age care is provided by the state/pensions rather than family and (ii) children generally don't die in infancy, then people don't feel the need to have as many children.

[richmondtw]

 

Once you have a society where (i) old age care is provided by the state/pensions rather than family and (ii) children generally don't die in infancy, then people don't feel the need to have as many children.

Scott I usually agree with most of what you say.  The population of the uk is increasing bot due to the indigenous population but  due to mass immigration - not a racist thing it is a cultural difference.  There have been any been number of reports that have discussed this. 

Until unless Asia Africa the Mid East start to reduce the size of families the world os doomed - I think it is already to late personally.

The PM of Egypt said a few months ago when their population reached 100M for the first time that population explosion was  afar bigger thereat to the economy and stability of his country and the mid East than terrorism.  
Was talking  to my parenst who said that when they were at school in the mid 70s the fact that overpopulation was going to destroy the world as we know it was spoken about then.  Nothing has changed.  

[markyh]

 

In most developed countries people are having so few children that in the long term the population will start falling.

Once you have a society where (i) old age care is provided by the state/pensions rather than family and (ii) children generally don't die in infancy, then people don't feel the need to have as many children.

correct, the smart men using maths say world population will level out at 11 Billion people. Once they make the poor taste like Chicken, the Chinese will keep the population steady from there onwards.  😉

 

 

[Drat]

You see the effects in the big cities, where crime and anti social behaviour is far higher than you see in rural locations, this always been the case (in general, not exclusively)

Personal bug bear of mine, but I don't like the way the wisdom has seemed to be import workers to grow the population to grow GDP. This is great for the wealthy who benefit from the growth in GDP whilst isolated from the ills of overpopulation by living in large houses whilst more and more people are forced to live in smaller and smaller houses with no privacy and tiny gardens and the reduction in social cohesion as a result.  I am not right wing or anti immigration I just think a lot of people in this country are being sold short.

[Biggus]

 

Came across this interesting experiment (from the  1950s-70s) in population and the effects of overcrowding, eventually leading to extinction.

https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/the-horrifying-study-that-predicted-human-extinction-244fa185087b?source=linkShare-e6f022b8375-1606816609

Does this feel like it is has parallels to today? i.e. the social pressure cooker?

 

A feature length cartoon released in the '80s was supposedly based on this experiment. It's called The Secret of NIMH. NIMH is the National Institute of Mental Health. I tried to watch it once, but got bored.

As for the experiment itself my personal feeling is that it was a disgusting thing to do to to animals. Makes me sick.

[Riedquat]

 

Scott I usually agree with most of what you say.  The population of the uk is increasing bot due to the indigenous population but  due to mass immigration - not a racist thing it is a cultural difference.  There have been any been number of reports that have discussed this.

Births outweigh deaths (although I've not seen figures that separate births from immigrants vs births from the rest, which I'd roughly define as born here whether or not parents were). Even without immigration a below replacement birth rate will still bring along population increases if it's off the back of an earlier population boom that's still around. Immigration is, however, a bigger contribution at present.

I'd need to see the numbers crunched but it's possible that a certain level of immigration now is needed to prevent too rapid a population decline to come (decline is good, but causes lots of problems if it happens too fast).

[scottbeard]

 

Births outweigh deaths (although I've not seen figures that separate births from immigrants vs births from the rest, which I'd roughly define as born here whether or not parents were). Even without immigration a below replacement birth rate will still bring along population increases if it's off the back of an earlier population boom that's still around. Immigration is, however, a bigger contribution at present.

I'd need to see the numbers crunched but it's possible that a certain level of immigration now is needed to prevent too rapid a population decline to come (decline is good, but causes lots of problems if it happens too fast).

Maybe so from a UK perspective...but looking at this from the point of view of the *whole world* I think what we are seeing is that countries are on a path to people deciding on their own to have fewer children.

I am, of course, systematically optimistic - but it looks to me like there is a good degree of self-stabilization about this, as long as we have enough old age care, people don't feel the need to have lots of children just to avoid problems in old age.

However, as others have noted, the population is still increasing very fast in some parts of the world, so I don't know if we are on that path fast enough as a planet.

[ucnvpe0]

 

Came across this interesting experiment (from the  1950s-70s) in population and the effects of overcrowding, eventually leading to extinction.

https://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/the-horrifying-study-that-predicted-human-extinction-244fa185087b?source=linkShare-e6f022b8375-1606816609

Does this feel like it is has parallels to today? i.e. the social pressure cooker?

 

It reminds of how people behave on the London underground during rush hour.

[FANG]

Property density coming to a city near you soon

 

 

[Locke]

Propaganda.

Isn't it weird how they never let the experiments actually reach the stage of extinction, just said "Oh it looks like it's going that way, therefore it is."

Trite, unscientific nonsense.

[PeanutButter]

I refuse to participate in this discussion.

 

 

Just kidding 😂 

 

Start by asking a few questions. How many people is the right number for the world? We’re at almost 8 billion now. Net gain is 220,000 each day. That’s roughly the city of Southampton. Each day. 

Is this good? Does this make us all happier?  Is it going to make houses cheaper? Is world happiness going up? Who does this really benefit? 

Who benefits when people are placed in extremely competitive labour markets and deprived of education or the ability to family plan? What sort of people gain from having a human population pyramid scheme?

Is it you? I certainly have benefitted from that nice cheap Chinese labour, but remember they also had the one child policy - very different from poor countries where contraception is difficult or expensive to obtain. 

Why did the Trump admin link their foreign aid funding to NGOs not mentioning contraception? Who benefits from children dropping out of school, married off, giving birth from a young age to 5+ children? Take a look at the child marriage/birth age demographics for somewhere war torn and suffering starvation like Yemen.

Sir David Attenborough knows the score. 

 

 

[spacedin]

 

This is great for the wealthy who benefit from the growth in GDP whilst isolated from the ills of overpopulation by living in large houses whilst more and more people are forced to live in smaller and smaller houses with no privacy 

It's okay, sooner or later the windows will be so small people won't be able to see out of them anyway. 

[Si1]

 

Propaganda.

Isn't it weird how they never let the experiments actually reach the stage of extinction, just said "Oh it looks like it's going that way, therefore it is."

Trite, unscientific nonsense.

It could just be limited resources and pressure to publish. Could still be sh1te science nonetheless. Richard Feynman was a big critic of badly controlled psychology experiments.

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

 

It could just be limited resources and pressure to publish. Could still be sh1te science nonetheless. Richard Feynman was a big critic of badly controlled psychology experiments.

 

[Chunketh]

 

correct, the smart men using maths say world population will level out at 11 Billion people. Once they make the poor taste like Chicken, the Chinese will keep the population steady from there onwards.  😉

 

 

Great video that

[winkie]

 

Great video that

Yes.....very good, one thing that it did say was that the population of the world and how many children are born comes down to the actions of men, no child is born without a man.....one thing they have quite a lot of power and control over .......one thing that reduces the number born is men who die young such as in war, and men and women who choose to stay single and/or childless or do not replace themselves such as a couple having only the one child between them.

[regprentice]

Birth rates is one element of the puzzle but what if life expectancies increase significantly.

These scientists claimed 2 weeks ago that they may have extended peoples lives by 25 years. They've certainly reversed the shortening of the teolmeres which 'cap' the end of chromosomes and are generally attributed to being an important part of the ageing process. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/anti-ageing-reverse-treatment-telomeres-b1748067.html

This time last year I'd have said a pandemic in modern Britain was science fiction but look where we are now, perhaps next year I'll be saying the same thing about extending average life expectancy to around 110. What would that do to house prices, or even pensions? 

[winkie]

Nature has a way.....has anyone seen a overweight bird apart from a pigeon?

[Locke]

 

It could just be limited resources and pressure to publish. Could still be sh1te science nonetheless. Richard Feynman was a big critic of badly controlled psychology experiments.

How expensive can it be to feed some mice?

In the absence of contradictory evidence, my theory stands just as well as theirs:

The population dips as the mice who cannot stand living in a utopia (because of their genetics) fail to breed. The mice who are able to live in such a system have a huge evolutionary advantage and become the dominant phenotype, expanding their population until caloric expenditure of the mice equals the caloric input of feed.

 

Some people think human evolution has halted. These people are wrong.

[PeanutButter]

 

Birth rates is one element of the puzzle but what if life expectancies increase significantly.

These scientists claimed 2 weeks ago that they may have extended peoples lives by 25 years. They've certainly reversed the shortening of the teolmeres which 'cap' the end of chromosomes and are generally attributed to being an important part of the ageing process. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/anti-ageing-reverse-treatment-telomeres-b1748067.html

This time last year I'd have said a pandemic in modern Britain was science fiction but look where we are now, perhaps next year I'll be saying the same thing about extending average life expectancy to around 110. What would that do to house prices, or even pensions? 

Good questions.

Medical ethics...

[Si1]

 

How expensive can it be to feed some mice?

 

Sorry dude but you know nothing about science.

[Riedquat]

 

Nature has a way.....has anyone seen a overweight bird apart from a pigeon?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-51294545

[VancouverGuy]

What we need is something like a global pandemic, for example.

[jiltedjen]

"the pretty ones" always seemed a bit haunting for me.
Wonder why they acted like that.