I was watching Animal Planet the other night, and something was mentioned that made me think. In Florida, when a large alligator is caught, it is put down, because there is overpopulation of that animal there. Something about that irked me, and it made me think about how we deal with overpopulation.
So heres the topic of discussion. Do you think it is appropriate the way that we deal with overpopulation in animals, versus how we do with people. My only example for people is that in China, they are only allowed to have one child, without a large fee. This goes along with 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure', in that we prevent the continuous overpopulation by regulating reproduction in humans, but in animals we just kill the excess.
There is much more to discuss here, but I will throw it to the community before I continue.
@kanethebrain some govts already do. China for example. If a woman has more than 1 baby they either force her to have an abortion or her and her family loses all their civil rights
@woody_7007 i believe china has suspended the 1 child law.. im almost positive they have.. i thought i saw it in the news.. ill have to look on my laptop to be certain.. there isnt really a better one to have overpopulate.. if people overpopulate they get violent and crimes break out (imo), if animals overpopulate they begin to destroy habitat and limit other species..
@zulu its good they abolished the law it wos pretty harsh. Altho i did this subject in geography @ skl. They sed dat we as humans should only have 2 kids to replace the two parents. But as people are having more ts overbalance can use up too much resources. Altho if everyone only has 1 kid like in Japan then there arent enough kids to replace the old so its bad for the economy. Its a v.hard problem to solve
yeah, we are going to probably have a good amount of lost population when all the baby boomers die (know this is harsh) because kids are expensive a bunch of people are only having one kid, which also probably has an affect on the child's social ability.. since they are only child they dont have the "bond" that 2 or 3 child families have..
The perfect balance would be for all the families in the world to have two children. This way the dead are replaced but are not putting more pressure on the earths resources
On a side note, I'm really happy with how much information is here. I've learned a lot in the past few days.
I purposely didn't particularly side with anything, to see what happens. Yes, I am an animal-lover, maybe to an extreme, but I can see how it makes sense that we regulate animal overpopulation after the fact. Its not like we can hand out condoms to alligators. On the other hand, humans do not reproduce so much for reproduction's sake, but more often than not, because of an accident. In my personal experience, myself, my fiance, and many of my friends are accidents. Animals, on the other hand, procreate (with a few exceptions) for procreation's sake.
That said, I can understand that animals who are dangerous to humans are put down. Not to say it's completely fair, but it's not going to change any time soon.
I would like to propose a scenario and see how people react to it. This is *completely* hypothetical. Lets say that the human race became dangerously overpopulated, to the point where not enough goods are being made to support humanity, everyone is going hungry, etc. Would you think it feasible to reinstate "survival of the fittest" and have the weaker ones of the population destroyed?
But that's just a hypothetical that's just...simply not going to happen.
So now what! D:
Let's take stock of all the things relevant to population demographics. Think of population age profiles- affecting the average birthrate will also affect how much of what age bracket there is. This in turn affects economy and workforce, infrastructure etc. etc.
Who are the people more likely to have a higher number of children? Would this be relevant to any of the above?
To relate back to the original topic, the only real reason there's an apparent double-standard when it comes to population controls is because we're human, and we happened to create the standards. Rationalisations on the intrinsic value of other animals relative to humans are merely that: rationalisations.
d'oh! My first statement was directed @woody_7007, not DM.
As for the hypothetical posited by DM, I'm going to go a step further and say that to some extent this situation isn't actually so unreal. For starters it's already the case in what we call 3rd world countries...but let's look at it this way- the first world countries and all the affluence we enjoy (sitting at computers exchanging our ideas in the comfort of a secure shelter) is the thing that's far removed from the so-called natural order. Other things that we tend to call horrors, atrocities, such as war, natural disasters, outbreaks...those comments that call these things our most effective form of population control are actually not all that far off the mark.
The main problem? Humans in our corners of the world are afraid of death, and the kinds of misery it brings. We think death is a thing to be avoided to the extent that, well, we pretty much do everything we can to avoid it. Which in itself is 'natural', but to avoid some kind of neo-Malthusian crisis, some shift in our attitudes and education regarding the role of death (or lack thereof) in life.
Furthermore I feel that we'll be more pressed than would be necessary to make such changes in the future. Competition is the driver to our initiative, and competition only comes with pressure.
Not going to happen because the world wouldn't become that overpopulated? If overpopulation occurred in one country, could it not in the rest? Or are you saying that it wouldn't come down to that? I don't think it would, I would just like to see if people thought it would be alright if we 'bred' humans the way we 'breed' animals. Maybe not destroy the humans that aren't superior, but not let them breed. I think it might be interesting to see the results.
The perfect balance would be for all the families in the world to have two children.
Is totally not gonna happen. This:
Lets say that the human race became dangerously overpopulated, to the point where not enough goods are being made to support humanity, everyone is going hungry, etc.
In a manner of speaking, has always been happening, will always happen, and may happen on an even broader scale once again in the future!
@woody_7007 and GreatZule638: I am well aware of China's One Child Policy. I am horrified by that also. Then again, I'm pretty horrified by China's human rights abuses in general. Also, China hasn't suspended their One Child Policy; they've only made an exception for families that had children die in the recent earthquake
