World Populations..Group 2
Ok, so since the world is overpopulating, we need to find ways to stop it. But how? We could limit children per parent, not let some people have any children at all, etc. I don't really like the idea of Genocide so that's definitely out of the question. But I think we could limit children per parent. You look around and you see that there are parents with 5+ kids, and that to me is a hassle. Then again, thinking on religion and culture, some believe that the more children you have, the wealthier you are. Now I, personally would accept that, but what about the people who just keep having kids for no reason at all? To make a compromise, something that would work in my eyes would be to have the countries that believe in "the more the merrier" idea can keep that if it's for religion, cultural reasons, etc. But for the ones that don't, they could be limited to one. Take Africa vs. North America, for example. Some African cultures believe that the more children they have, the wealthier they can be. They are still in the demographic transition, and this is probably one of the reasons. Now, take a look towards the other side of the scale. North America has finished the transition, and we are already overpopulated. So, why not limit a population like North America rather than one that's still growing? Think of it as aging. North America is an adult compared to Africa. We need to let them grow just as we did. Power to the people, not the government, I say!
Thoughts, anyone?
25 Replies
I like the ideas, but I disagree with some parts. How can we limit one population and not the other? That would cause some disagreement among the countries that were being forced to follow this law or whatever you want to call it..how can we let Africa keep having more and more kids when they don't even have the resources to support them? In my opinion education would take care of that..I like your freedom of speech though, and how you feel the people should have some say in it too.
I agree how Stephanie says that children is why our country is overpopulating and also the fact that the more children a family has, the wealthier they will be. However, I don't agree that we should limit children per parent. It's their decision to decide if they want to have children, not ours, but there should be advertising saying about it. There should be less children born so we won't overpopulate! What is genocide anyway? Please give feedback.
This post was edited on: 2007-11-28 at 08:15 PM by: DevanP
This post was edited on: 2007-11-29 at 10:58 AM by: DevanP
I agree by saying Genocide is not the answer. I think birth control is the answer to control world population. I disagree on saying some people aren't aloud to have any children at all. How is that fair to them if they want kids? Birth control would allow everyone who wants children to have, just don't over do it. Good point Stephanie, on comparing Africa to North America. Africa has not yet completed the demographic transition; North America has completed this process. The demographic transition is complete when the birthrates fall to meet the death rates, and population growth stops. Some say a solution to this world wide growing problem would be abortion. I strongly disagree with this concept, murder never solved anything. What do you think is the best solution to limiting world population growth?
I agree with what you say about genocide. That is certainly not an option. I think that not letting genocide happen supports your idea of "power to the people, not the government". I also agree with the idea of limiting children born per parent. I think that this would help stop population growth completely in developed countries. However, if you allowed certain countries to have as many children as they want but limit other countries for the sake of religion, there will be some problems. People will want to have laws like this constant throught their region. I disagree with the idea of letting some countries grow while limiting others. Like in your example, if you let Africa or countries like it grow, the world's population will still keep growing. They will also face many economic problems because they won't be able to support all the people that reside in their country. In a sense, if you did let developing countries grow exponentially, you would really just be destroying that country. There would be less food and neccessary supplies to support all of the people, so you would eventually have a dangerously high death rate. If those developing countries have trouble supporting people now, why should we let them continue to grow?
I think that education would be an important factor in limiting population growth. If people really realize what is happening to our world's population, they could possibly be willing to go against their religion or to have fewer children. I realize that not everyone can be educated and some people will not agree with ideas that are being taught about limiting population growth. But if people in poorer countries that are still developing were educated on birth control, the population growth would certainly not keep it's steady incline. The main reason for the current population growth could be because the current average age even in developed countries is 26 years old. This is the prime reproduction age, so naturally the growth rate will be a little high. So if women in developing countries were educated now, we could see a declining growth rate over the next few years. I suggest that education is the key: educating women in developing countries is a good step to take towards limiting population growth.
pahs-LucasB wrote:
I agree that genocide is not the answer, but the people of China and Nigeria will not be willing to go against their religion. Instead, possibly that scientists could develop some kind of drug that limits women on how many births they have. Another idea could be that once a family reaches the limit of children, the man could get a vasectomy or the woman could get a reverse tubal to insure the prevention of child birth.
How could we make sure everyone got this done? Not everyone is going to run off to the doctor to make sure they can't have children. If we followed this rule the population would completely die out not just decrease. There are pro's to this idea but there are also con's and the con's are more effective than the pros I think.
A very reliable friend said that he thinks you should have a license to have children. That's an okay idea because the people who are unfit to have children right away will be made wait until they are ready. The only problem is making sure that they people will listen to this and not have children until they are completely ready for them.
This post was edited on: 2007-11-29 at 09:38 AM by: AmyH
Lucas, I see where you're coming from on this, but how can we be sure that everyone will take it? Like Amy said, they won't be running off to the doctor to make sure they can't have children. But if they were given this drug as a infant, then it would already be in them and they wouldn't have to go off to the doctor for a shot when they hit puberty.
I also can see the possibilities in Ivy's idea. Birth control can help stop it, but the side effects are drastic. Long term effects in birth control products such as Yaz include stroke or heart attack. True, it could decrease the population even more, but do you really want to die like that? I think not.
Ps. for the people who don't know, Genocide is the killing of one group or country. Think of Adolf Hitler and the Jews.
I think that you're right about treating adults; it would just be to difficult to reach every adult in those developing countries. I think that the idea of administering the drug at an early age could possibly work and it would be a better and more effective age to treat people. I also agree with your ideas on birth control. Like you said, it has long term side effects. Another problem would be the possibility of abuse of the birth control substance. While that substance could be given by a doctor, how will you get every person to a doctor?
Please think about my earlier suggestion (educating women) and give me your feedback.
Corbin, I see your point. Educating women may help to control population. If everyone learns how major our world's population is, they may realize a change must be made. Everyone needs to take part in this change. However, I feel there needs to be another solution other than just education. What do you think of birth control like I mentioned yesterday combined with education?
pahs-IvyS wrote:
Corbin, I see your point. Educating women may help to control population. If everyone learns how major our world's population is, they may realize a change must be made. Everyone needs to take part in this change. However, I feel there needs to be another solution other than just education. What do you think of birth control like I mentioned yesterday combined with education?
That would be a good idea, combining those two aspects. But, as I mentioned earlier, birth control is pretty drastic. No matter what age you start taking it, there are some pretty crazy side effects, short or long term. And Corban, no matter what drug you take, there's always a risk of dependency; I agree with you on that. I think the birth control should only be given to a certain extent so there's no dependency factors, but the question is to what extent? We could give the people this "drug" and then educate them about how to take birth control at a controllable level. If we first educated them about the situation and then gave them birth control as a precaution, that might work out; I mean, it's just like in any school - some people just don't listen to what education says, they just go on their own way thinking they know everything there is to know. Also, everyone can't be educated; there are people less fortunate that wouldn't be able to pay for the cost of school. I'm not saying education is a bad thing to try, but would there be a way to make the education free for everyone?
This post was edited on: 2007-11-29 at 11:04 AM by: pahs-StephanieS
It would be good if education was free for everyone. But it might not help people, people don't always do what is the best for them and everyone else that it affects. If people would do the right thing that is best for everyone, then we wouldn't be in this situation at all. People have to start taking action and control how many babies they have. If people don't want to help with this epidemic and take it into their own hands, then they won't. If we tell people that they can only have a certain number of babies, they might go to that limit, and might accidentally have another. What if this happens, are we just going to take the life of that child after it is born. That would be worse than abortion. I also believe that abortion is not the answer. If we just tell people that they can have abortion then they won't worry about having kids. They will tell themselves that they can have as many babies as they want and will just keep getting abortions. Another problem would be that people would forget about the other problems like HIV and AIDS, which will cause even more problems. I think that the only way to fix this problem is to convince all nations, countries, and people that if this keeps going the way its going we, the human race is going to kill itself by overpopulating the earth. People have to take matters into their own hands and stop waiting around for some scientist to come up with something to slow birth. When you say that out loud how crazy does it really sound. Society today is too lazy and don't think what they say is meaningful enough to do anything. One person can make a difference, so people should get into action and start doing something about this epidemic.
I honestly think that devan is going in the right direction in saying that birth control is a reasonable and accomplishable way of controlling population sizes. I also agree that genocide is way over the top and out of the question. Back to the birth control, there needs to be something available and very effective. Also it needs to be offered to the third world countries so that they also get it. On the other hand though, this should be an option not a law or anything like that. People should be able to choose if they want that birth control or if they want to have so many kids. The bottom line is in my theory this alternative has to be effective, affordable and available, and it should be a choice not a law. One thing that I don’t agree with is the education thing. I don’t see where it comes into play with population control or getting pregnant other than knowing what the results are when you get pregnant. So if you could explain that in further detail it would be very helpful because I just don’t understand it.
Tyler, I totally agree with the fact that abortion is wrong. It's murder; that child could've found the cause for cancer or something to that effect! Besides, it would've been the mother's own fault if she got herself pregnant when she wasn't supposed to be.
Brodi, the factor of education would help in the ways you described, but it would also enlighten the students about how this problem of overpopulation is getting out of hand. It might make them more aware of the fact that this is a bigger problem than what some think. And if not, then there's always the other matters that we've all discussed.
I see what some of you are saying about the free education thing. Let me clarify what I mean when I say "education". What I mean is sending representatives around to these countries in person and giving them lessons on having fewer children. This means finding people that are devoted to this cause and willing to go to every village and town in these countries. I think that this is the only way to reach EVERYONE. This would be difficult; sending people around to every country and have them tell people how to control population growth by having fewer children. Now that I hopefully explained it better, think about what I said about sending representatives to countries and let me know what you think about that idea.
I also think that we have run into a problem here. I see that we are saying that it would be difficult to get some people to cooperate with our efforts. We all have good ideas that will possibly work: education, special birth control drugs. But what we lack is how to enforce what we are giving to these people. I propose that we could place the representative that we sent to deliver the education in that area to make sure that nothing is misused and that people are following the guidelines that we taught them. This was the first idea that came to mind when I read what Tyler wrote. Understand that these things would be an option; not everyone would have to take the drugs. The representative would just be there to monitor what we did distribute to the people. Again, read my suggestions ovet, think about them, and let me know what you think.
I like your ideas, Corban. Especially with the representative thing. That would be a great way to get the point across to everyone: getting down to their own level and actually talking to them about it. It really ties in with my idea for the education. But I guess the question would be like the one with the drug idea: how are we going to get enough of these reps to go to every country in the world? You have to think of the diseases in other countries that us Americans haven't really seen, language barriers, etc.
I think if we got some people to learn languages that several counties speak, it would take less people and less mileage. Take Spanish for example. If someone were to learn Spanish they could go to all of the Spanish-speaking countries of the world and save everyone some time.
Just an idea. Tell me your thoughts on it...
pahs-StephanieS wrote:
I like your ideas, Corban. Especially with the representative thing. That would be a great way to get the point across to everyone: getting down to their own level and actually talking to them about it. It really ties in with my idea for the education. But I guess the question would be like the one with the drug idea: how are we going to get enough of these reps to go to every country in the world? You have to think of the diseases in other countries that us Americans haven't really seen, language barriers, etc.
I think if we got some people to learn languages that several counties speak, it would take less people and less mileage. Take Spanish for example. If someone were to learn Spanish they could go to all of the Spanish-speaking countries of the world and save everyone some time.
Just an idea. Tell me your thoughts on it...
I agree. If we do get people who want to learn a language that many countries speak, then it will take less people and less time. However, i don't agree the fact that people could go all to the countries that speak that language. It would be much easier if that person could find somebody to learn the language closer to home. What does everybody think?
Stephanie, I agree with you on having people who speak the countries native language, educate people. These people would be the most knowledgeable about their own country and would be able to communicate easier with the people. There would be less misunderstandings and mis consumptions this way. Although with doing so, there could be false education being taught in some countries. I still feel strongly on my idea of combining education and birth control. Yes, I agree there are side effects, but while educating everyone, also educate them about birth control and it's side effects. What are your thoughts and ideas on this?
pahs-IvyS wrote:
Stephanie, I agree with you on having people who speak the countries native language, educate people. These people would be the most knowledgeable about their own country and would be able to communicate easier with the people. There would be less misunderstandings and mis consumptions this way. Although with doing so, there could be false education being taught in some countries. I still feel strongly on my idea of combining education and birth control. Yes, I agree there are side effects, but while educating everyone, also educate them about birth control and it's side effects. What are your thoughts and ideas on this?
I agree. Combining education and birth control, it will probably decrease the population. One question, what are the side effects from this?
Corban i think your idea is great and it has the possibility of working very well. This wouldn't even be that complicated to accomplish either because there are already people out there that speak many different languages. The only thing is organizing a group to do this and they have to be educated enough in population increases and how they effect the economy and such. But overall i think that you idea is great.
I don't really know what kind o f side effects there would be but there is bound to be some. On the other hand though will we ever know if we don't try and what is the worse that can happen if there would be education and birth control.
As far as the representative thing goes, I think that you all have the right idea. However, I have a minor change to suggest. If we were to have someone in a country train other people on what to teach, we could then send those people out to educate people. For example, in Africa, if we could find one representative that would be willing to educate people on population control, we could have that person find other people who would be willing to teach also. Then the original representative and his recruits could go out to different areas like I originally suggested.
This was my original idea for the representative thing. Let me know what you guys think of this.
The Love Deterrent
Solutions to population problems have been going on for centuries, mostly in the form of mass genocide; or in America and China, the silent genocide, abortion. I am apathetic to the cause of population control; in other words I’m not fighting along side people who believe they are the only way to end the world’s demise. I will offer a solution however.
Diplomacy is all about the dollar my dear- unless a country, man, or organization has the capability to pay the individual countries of the world billions or perhaps trillions, population control will not become a world issue. Instead, you leave it up to countries individually; it is their responsibility to provide for the basic necessities of their own countries. If a country is too poor to pay for its own problems, have an agreement for another country, to give aid for free. The worlds multi-trillion dollar debt will come back to hurt us in a way much worse than the depression of the 1930’s.
Do you see why I am apathetic? I lack the faith in mankind as a whole. Sure a country can solve a problem directed to peace, but all the world coming together to form a non-sadistic agreement, I laugh at this. The nations coming together to start a war, or to end one, yes; but the nations coming together to end world hunger due to the population increase, I don’t just doubt it, I know it won’t happen.
The world is not in the hands of mankind, organisms, or the elements; it is in the hands of the Almighty God who created the Earth 6,000 years ago on the basis of intelligent design. There’s no denying it, the theory of Evolution has been disproven time and time again, and so has Global Warming; but one quarter of the Word of God has been written, when the event hadn’t even occurred, yet not a verse has been changed from the ancient manuscripts, no verse has been disproven. The demise of the world, world hunger, and all world conflict are not in our filthy hands, they are in the hands of God, the One who came to earth and died on the cross to redeem mankind in an already sin-filled world. Last, to the point of abortion, every soul that we have killed is in God’s hands; they are residing with Him, they have souls. Oh, mankind when will you stop blaming the world and your redeemer; when will you look at your own blemishes, if you want change it begins at the source- our own crud filled hearts.
Corban, i think your idea about the representatives is exactly what we need. People need to be educated so that they can take action. Like i said before in my other post that i think the only way is to have people realize what is happening in the world and take responsibility for what we have done. People won't do anything until they want to do something about it. Unless people start taking action, this is going to keep getting more worse until we won't be able to fix it. I also agree with what steph said that educating people to speak different languages is a good idea. But what would save even more time is to teach people that are bilingual about these problems and the solutions that we have. Then they can teach everyone that speaks their language about this. But in the end people need to wake up and realize what is going on and without being educated about the subject, no one will be able to do this. It would be like telling someone to put a car together but not knowing all of the parts or where they go. You can't do something without being educated on the matter.
I do agree on some things like that the power should be given to the people, but I disagree with the limiting of children per pair of parents. Instead, we should try to look more toward the future. Do you think that we can actually control the population? I don't really think we could in a good, mannerly way. I also agree that we have other factors to consider such as religion and culture. North America has been growing, but Africa hasn't, why? Africa hasn't because of the disease and beliefs, etc. America has grown to an extend to be extremely overpopulated because we are more free compared to many other countries. I believe that if we wanted to hit this at its source, we should look to better methods of population decreasing and increasing in certain regions.
One thing, the world will work much better together if we didn't fight so much. We have done some terrible things to other places, but is it just payback? We need to band together and figure this out together. Afterall, the more minds thinking on the matter, the better the result. Don't you agree?
I do agree with you and Steph about the freedom part, but the education needs a little work. For example, what if the other countries don't want their people educated? Education maybe one answer, but really we need to think of other things because like global warming it needs more than one solution.
I also agree that they do need to have more resources to support their population, but how? The countries need to work together to solve this problem just like global warming.
JocelynH
Nov 27, 2007 at 8:36 PM