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.
Question: Is it OK to kill things that do not have a conciousness? My Answer: Their life is like a rock's, so my answer is yes. They are like artificial intelligence robots that are at the stage of 10 years ago.
Also, all other animals kill other species, so why should we be different? (read my earlier post.)
And for human population: Could we build floating cities? It would take a lot of work and engineering, but it could happen. Also, we only have to wait 50-100 years before we can live on the moon.
@ kanethebrain ah well i was mistaken, but can you honestly blame china's government? look how heavily populated they are.. i dont think its right, but at the same time i dont think its right/smart to allow people to have more than 4 kids..
@GreatZulu638: China's government is between a rock and a hard place, I agree. They have more people than they can reasonably support at the level of support they feel necessary. Families with too many children are a problem in the US, and other countries as well. Should people be having more than 4 kids? If all those children grow up to be successful and a net gain for the community, I am all for it. If a couple can't even support one child without help, then they shouldn't have a child. I just don't think the government should mandate reproductive rights. How better to mandate that? Well, I'm not sure either, aside from the birth control and economic policy I stated earlier.
@chillad_nodi: I think you are WAY underestimating the time it would take to have self-sustaining moon colonies, and especially in any size to relieve population pressure on Earth. Floating cities aren't worth it economically, and really aren't necessary. Overpopulation is a social and political problem, not a technological or geographic one.
im probably going to get some backlash for this but, the 70k that they said was lost in the earthquake probably wasnt a large percent of their population.. it hurt them but probably not too much.. i dont really agree with a limit on reproduction but they are way overpopulated for their size of area..
Question: Is it OK to kill things that do not have a conciousness?
Define "does not have a consciousness"?
@ Ricador:
Animals are wayyyyyyyyy less important than humans so humans are are first priority.
That's a logical tautology- you'll need to justify this by listing premises, criteria and evidencing them.
@ lumpiaman510:
there is never going to be overpopulation of animals.
If you could tell us why you think so that would be awesome.
@GreatZulu638
the 70k that they said was lost in the earthquake probably wasnt a large percent of their population
In absolute numerical terms, the proportion of deaths to the total living population is indeed very small- China's human population is ~1.2 billion. Come to think of it, so is India's. And India has a much smaller land area than China.
Great Zulu the average amount of children an Indian woman has is 6. Their population is expected to double in the next 30 years and have more people than anywhere else in the world
It is difficult for them to keep animal populations down. They can go to either extreme: Over or way under. I say better to cull a few and leave it at a constant medium.
