Current Events > Do you think the world is overpopulated?

(+) Yeah! (+)

A large part is zoning laws, permitting issues, etc. For example, it's just plain illegal to build more housing in many cities unless the housing is very specific (single family housing, minimum lot requirements, etc.).
A large issue holding back solar and other renewables for example is that it takes many years for companies to get electric transmission lines approved during permitting!! We are shooting ourselves in the foot on so many things

Artificial scarcity of jobs doesn't prove overpopulation.

there is tons of unused space mostly everywhere

No, my answer would be to train said population and build more medical facilities. You even get the benefit of many of those positions being well paid, so they generate more tax revenue out of the same population.

Did you include every miniscule nation? Most of the densest places are city states, island nations and some dependencies.

NL ranks just behind India for density, 424/km2 vs 435/km2. To give some context, UK is at 277/km2 China is at 149/km2, and the USA, responsible for something like a 6th of global emissions on its own, is at a measly 35/km2..

The main difference is everyone is able to ride a bike.

There's supposed to be!

Wtf.

Dutch infrastructure and urban planning is outstanding, but it's not some freak accident. They actively choose to make things walkable and to invest in public transport and it's a relatively recent change, only going back a few decades at this point. I guarantee if everyone in the UK or USA was able to cycle or take public transport, you would see way more people do so.

When you say too many people for the jobs available, that's another way of saying that there are workers available to be put to use.

no. the environmental issue is the same. it won't be solved by reducing the population, and it can be solved without reducing the population. overpopulation is not the problem.

i'm not living in a fantasy world.

Do you think technology will alleviate many of the concerns you stated?

I don't think people assume it will just instantly get fixed, but I think the idea is that all the new work needed to for newer forms of energy are going to tax the world significantly less than continuing down our current path.

How about poverty? People have been trying to solve that one for literally 3000 years.

Or, just... genuine scarcity of jobs?

It's genuinely intentional. Stop acting like all the possible jobs filled up and we had people left over. Corporations have been cutting jobs left and right for years and then they go "No one wanna work" and you go "there are no jobs left"

My previous job halved their workforce nationwide in the 5 years I was there.

If someone shoves your entire family into a closet and then demolishes the rest of your house, is it really accurate to simply say your home is overpopulated?

I mean, global poverty rates have significantly reduced in the last few decades

I mean, global poverty rates have significantly reduced in the last few decades

lol indeed

shut the fuck up

It's genuinely intentional.

This is another thing that bugs me about this conversation. The population maximalists act like any space that's not occupied by a human or human infrastructure is some sort of dead weight that needs to be exploited ASAP. It's very demonic, really

Dark, the UK is considered overpopulated by most? I thought underpopulation may have been a problem there iirc

The explosive rise of population is tied to our technological growth, with fossil fuels as a foundation. Its not about solely blaming overpopulation, but that our trajectory is unsustainable. We can observe this from microbes in a Petri dish to the reindeer introduced to St. Matthew Island -

The people freaking out about declining birth rates and not on that white genocide hysteria seriously don't grasp what type of a population boom thay really is and just how much is redonkulously offsets any birth rate decline globally.

I stopped following this topic and only skimmed by this post.

Anyone claiming the world is underpopulated is smoking crack, or on that "white genocide" fearmongering shit.

The population was only 2 billion about 100 or so years ago, and it's now an absurd 8 billion. The people freaking out about declining birth rates and not on that white genocide hysteria seriously don't grasp what type of a population boom thay really is and just how much is redonkulously offsets any birth rate decline globally.

Dark, the UK is considered overpopulated by most? I thought underpopulation may have been a problem there iirc

Also, any gains made in efficiency are offset by subsequent population growth, as well as development of the third world. 600 million Africans don't even have access to electricity currently, which is also seen as an affront to human dignity. What do you think their fuel source of choice is gonna be when they industrialize? Hint: it's not clean and it rhymes with bowl

Birth rates are falling in nearly all developed nations.

Another great post. The "well if we just did things differently..." is incredibly tone deaf because these very same people absolutely refuse to even stop eating meat every day and yet they try to say we just need to do things a bit better and then we're golden. Well sure, that might work. When can you start?

*crickets*

No one's willing to dial back their consumption or comforts (heaters in the winter, AC in the summer, etc.) Nothing will be done on that front. Ever. People will die before they'll do that. It's seen as an affront to their dignity. Also, any gains made in efficiency are offset by subsequent population growth, as well as development of the third world. 600 million Africans don't even have access to electricity currently, which is also seen as an affront to human dignity. What do you think their fuel source of choice is gonna be when they industrialize? Hint: it's not clean and it rhymes with bowl

bowl and coal don't rhyme

Another great post. The "well if we just did things differently..." is incredibly tone deaf because these very same people absolutely refuse to even stop eating meat every day and yet they try to say we just need to do things a bit better and then we're golden. Well sure, that might work. When can you start?

Many problems with this. (1) most people are thick as pigshit, I wouldn't want them working on me. (2) I'm sure they thought of that already. (3) no, nursing jobs are extremely low paid. (4) tax revenue is nothing to do with it.

The list that has all the countries in the world. Sorry, did you want to exclude the ones that didn't fit your narrative?

Or, I guess, most people in UK/USA don't ride a bike because they are too lazy or too unfit to do so. And countries like Australia and Russia are simply too large for people to consider riding a bike. Other countries are too hilly or have too much jungle for people to ride a bike. It's definitely not a solution that works everywhere.

In the UK public transport is too unreliable and too expensive. And outside of London it barely even exists. Same for USA. Not everybody is as well-paid or has such a low cost of living as the Dutch. Our trains are simply unaffordable for most people.

Put to use in jobs that don't exist... Again, from personal experience of being unemployed for 18 months, getting a job is not easy. The UK has a huge number of unemployed , and although some are simply too lazy, there are others that do want a job and can't get one. Because of the overpopulation.

Similarly, there are people that want a house and can't get one. Because of the overpopulation. Etc.

It's basically a product of the "infinite growth" mentality that most have where number must never go down. There are people who genuinely think we're at risk of extinction by not fucking enough, which is absurd, but it's usually demographic shift concerns.

What do you mostly attribute the great population increase to. I thought it might be improved medicine, vaccines...etc..

1) Thats... why you train them?

2) Clearly not, this is a relatively new problem. My hometown has had countless flats and developments put in without a corresponding rise in amenities.

3) Who sets nurse pay? How come countries with better healthcare aren't so afflicted?

Bangladesh, Palestine (bit of a special case but w/e) Lebanon and South Korea before you get to the Netherlands. I apparently got my numbers messed up, Netherlands is ahead of of India in population density. Palestine and Lebanon are tiny nations, but it would be very arbitrary to exclude them.

Fitness is a part of the issue, although it would alleviate itself a lot if more people cycled to work. The real issue is the infrastructure and city planning. If you're from the UK, how easy is it for you to cycle to all of your destinations? If you're outside the cities or home counties, do you even have dedicated cycle infrastructure? How far do you need to travel?

That's why I said most people are thick as pigshit. They simply don't have the ability to be trained. It's not like you can pick any person off the street and turn them into a brain surgeon, lol.

Huh? What do you mean a new problem? The UK has had a health service since 1948, and within a decade it was completely fucked. This didn't suddenly creep up on us.

What? It's a low paid job. I can't be bothered to find a source for you, do you're just gonna have to believe me on this.

Translation: if you're so obtuse that you're gonna refute the point, this conversation is over. I won't respond to somebody who is so clueless or so stubborn.

Huh? NL is also a tiny nation. I've lost track of what point you're trying to argue.

If you have a very tiny and very flat nation, that makes it perfectly suited to travelling by bike (is that where we started?) In contrast, the USA is too big and Switzerland is too hilly and the UK is too congested for anybody to bother.

Now we're getting somewhere.

No, it's not easy. No, we don't have the "infrastructure". They just installed a bike lane near my house and all it's done is create 2 km traffic jams every day. Also, about 500 metres from my house, somebody got stabbed so they could steal their bike.

Distances? Too big. Some people in London travel 60-70 km to get to work. Similar if you live in Manchester and work in Liverpool. Cycling is simply out of the question.

In contrast, Amsterdam, which is considered one of the less bike friendly places in NL iirc, makes it so easy, safe and quick to get around by bike. People don't cycle there because they're poor or health focused, they cycle because it's legit a great mode of transport.

I take the bus every day to and from the office, it's very reliable here

However, this has taken years to get to this point and the council literally owns the bus company. Public transport is a priority here, that's why it's good. I totally agree that this isn't the norm outside of some cities and London, but it's a choice made by the government, it's not an inherent part of the UK.

Unemployment in the UK is lower than it's been in decades.

UK housing is a complicated issue. A major issue is for profit landlords of course as this constricts the supply, but the other big piece of the puzzle is how little investment is made outside of the home counties and a couple of cities. Everyone wants to live in the south because that's where the most jobs and amenities are.

We're talking doctors, you only need relatively few of them.

The last decade is pretty recent on the scale of 76 years.

Yeah, I've been to Amsterdam perhaps 8 or 10 times.

In London you basically can't fit on the roads because of all the busses, vans and SUVs. And then you have to watch out for the stabbings and muggings.

I'm not saying cycling is a bad mode of transport. I'm saying it's suited to some areas more than others. Same with walking or jet skis.

I took public transport for 35 years. In London it's now 350 per month. In the end I got fed up and switched to the car. Trains are simply too expensive and too unreliable. Not to mention complex. In Chester, northern England, you can get to quite a number of destinations. Depending on where you're going, and sometimes depending on the route you take, you travel with, I'm gonna guess, one or more of around 6 different train companies, all owned by different people. It's just a mess.

And when I was a student I had to fly everywhere because I literally couldn't afford the train. We have low-cost airlines but not low-cost trains. That's when you know somebody messed up.

It is? Stats are a bit skewed at the moment due to COVID and Brexit, but figures from a couple of years ago are that 10 million people don't have a job. That's a quarter of the workforce. It's very significant.

Good point. I was born in London and eventually moved away because it was shit. Main problems being traffic and cost. But still, it's a fundamental problem that there are too many people for the number of houses that we have.

I'm just saying there are too many people for the number of doctors that we have. It's not as simple as magically saying "just train more staff and build more hospitals". It's not that simple. We don't have the money or the space. You can't spend what you don't have. Sometimes you just have to admit that you can't afford something.

isn't just like london area extremely extremely crowded, but less so, of rest of uk? Unsure.

https://a.plumplot.co.uk/?tab=population_density_map_m&pc=4

London is several times more population dense than even the neighbouring counties.

Nurses being paid poorly in the UK is because we as a society have chosen to pay them poorly.

People don't make frequent trips across the country, they generally travel to their workplace and to points of interest around where they live.

Now imagine if your workplace and said points of interest were just a bike ride away along safe routes and you didn't have to take the car. Would you still drive for stuff like that?

This isn't a cultural thing or down purely to geography (as if the USA and UK don't have large plains), this is an active choice the Dutch have made. They have planned their cities in a way that you can get around by bike.

Quick note on the congestion: The cause of that is people driving. Give people viable alternatives to driving and they will stop driving. Congestion will improve.

The lack of cycle infrastructure and the fact that people are having to travel 60-70km to get to work is literally the root problem. I'm not saying that people should cycle 70km a day to get to work, I'm saying they shouldn't have to travel so far in the first place

This cycle lane that was installed, is it just road markings or do you actually have a dedicated lane that is separated from car traffic?

In the UK public transport is too unreliable and too expensive. And outside of London it barely even exists. Same for USA. Not everybody is as well-paid or has such a low cost of living as the Dutch. Our trains are simply unaffordable for most people.

I spent many years getting public transport to work and school (London, Manchester and Merseyside), and my frustration practically got me into fist fights with the staff on a daily basis.

People been taking the bus in Cardiff, London, Bristol and Birmingham for years and despite the inevitable interruptions, it doesn't lead to less passengers taking the services.

*shrug*

Necessity breeds innovation.

i dont like cities that are huge population centers personally. But good news is I dont have to live in one

just cause it is necessary doesn't mean an invention will always be made for it

Exactly. In the UK, taxes are already way too high. People can't afford for nurses to be paid more.

It's not uncommon for people in London to spend 1.5 or even 2 hours to get to work, and even longer getting home. It would appear the government wants people to commute double this (ie Manchester to London).

If I'm going to the supermarket, I'm gonna be bringing like 4 or 5 heavy bags back with me. I'll never do that any other way than by car. If I'm going for a picnic in the park, I'm gonna be taking a hamper or a coolbox or something. If people are gonna take their kids to the beach, they're probably gonna take a pushchair etc. Bikes don't work for family/group trips, or for transporting items. And if there's 2 or 3 of us going to something like a museum or show, you're gonna have to pay multiple train fares, so it ends up being more expensive than simply driving.

The congestion is what puts people off cycling. In the latest data, there were 5 cyclists killed in 7 months, in London alone, nearly half of which were killed by a bus.

It's 140 km per day, but yeah. It's the distance and not the amount of cycle lanes that's the problem. I presume cycle lanes is what you mean by "infrastructure".

But people can't travel shorter distances, because central London house prices are basically unaffordable (ie 1-5 million to buy, or 2-3k per week to rent). So people can't live close to work.

The whole road is 2km long, with a roundabout at one end and traffic lights at the other end. A year ago, it was 2 lanes in each direction, I think 50 mph speed limit, very few cars and hardly any bikes. Now, it's 1 lane in each direction, some metal bollards and a whole car-width cycle lane in each direction. Busses can't use the cycle lanes. Result: only one lane of cars/busses can cross the traffic lights instead of 2, so at rush hour the entire road is at a standstill. Not only that, but ambulances and fire engines can't get through. In 6 months I think I've seen 1 bike.

Yes, but not in some evil twisted Thanos malicious way. We've simply boosted so many towards a middle class that we're consuming far too much for the planet to sustain us.

I do think we're on a path though to curbing overpopulation, yet not in our lifetimes - the western world is already declining birth rates, & soon enough many other locales will stop popping babies like rabbits, & maybe by 2350, the global population eases.

Completely agree. The failure is the intentional development of areas in ways that are unsuitable for anything but car travel.

Yeah, British trains are a fucking mess. I think the worst part is that quite a lot of them are at least partially owned by foreign state companies, so we're effectively subsidising them.

Buses can be a different story though. I don't wanna doxx myself beyond the South, but you can get a 30 day bus ticket that covers where I live and all the surrounding towns and villages for just under 100

Unless you wanna haul some big items, you can absolutely get by without driving here. I do appreciate that this is the exception rather than the norm.

According to ONS, the unemployment rate for Oct-Dec was 3.9% I don't have the pure number to hand but I feel comfortable in saying it's less than 10 million. I believe you have been misinformed here.

So, is that another way of saying... "I'm allowed to consume, but you're not"?

Well, a few countries have a declining birthrate, but they also still have a declining death rate, and therefore a growing population.

To say nothing of the countries with a booming birthrate, resulting in a net world increase...

You just gotta look at somewhere like Birmingham. I considered living there at one point, but on a visit I realised exactly how bad the city centre was when compared to somewhere like Manchester.

But on your point - that's basically the whole of the USA. When you stop and ask for directions, they immediately start talking about stoplights - they simply can't fathom that you might actually be on foot.

Then you have something like the Vegas strip, completely impossible to cross something like that. I once remember in Lake Tahoe, trying to cross what was basically motorway, and the pedestrian light having a 10-second countdown to cross something like 6 lanes, lol.

I think round here sone of them are German. Ironic that they're nowhere near as punctual as actual German trains

All along I've been thinking you're Dutch, now I'm realising that you're probably not...

Yeah, more or less, apart from in the south, busses are just for poor people.

Just "unemployed" though? That's just false spin.

Per gov figures published in Dec 2023, "in 2022, 22% of working age people in England, Scotland and Wales were economically inactive".

In other words, 9,278,000 people. Last month. Not including children and pensioners.

It also doesn't help that as a country we've been way to slow to build houses for decades now. The other big thing is that we as a country need to move away from London.

Staffing is a slightly more complicated issue. It's expensive and time consuming to train doctors and the pay out the door is quite frankly shit. I'm paid about the same as junior doctors, but I didn't need to spend thousands of pounds and several years of my life in education

oh you are from london area? Isn't it still less dense than nyc area ?

Yeah, it feels like the government wants to fight a culture war in favour of cars, but the result is that people will have to drive more. This is reversible on paper, but we as a country need to take action now and I simply don't see that happening. Working locally needs to be more feasible for far more people.

it's totally feasible if you work from the ground up to make this possible, like the Dutch..

If you have about 20 minutes, I'd recommend this video comparing a bike trip from downtown to a hardware store in Amsterdam and Calgary. Obviously one fares better than the other, but it's a good example of what you can do to make cycling feasible..

The problem is people having to work in London in the first place.