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Comment by marincounty | Hacker News Reader

Too many people period. And no--education is not the answer. The world has to stop procreating--including Ameicans. Enough is enough. We are ruining this small planet for all species. The next time she opens the gates of hell--demand birth control. Yes--you.

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Stop spreading alarmist FUD.

Overpopulation is not a threat[0]; if you really want to prevent further damage to the planet, start working towards things like sustainable energy, or better yet, improve the system that rewards irresponsible exploitation of the environment. What do you need to solve these types of problems? Education.

[0]: http://overpopulationisamyth.com/

The power of people to worry about imaginary problems never ceases to amaze me.

Overcrowded cities are a legitimate problem, but it's an issue of design and infrastructure and economics and politics rather than absolute numbers.

I don't know if overpopulation is a problem per se, but since pollution is roughly proportional to population, most of the environmental issues we face wouldn't be issues if we had 1/10 as many people.

nonsense - pollution is not roughly proportional to population. USA 5% of population, >45 % pollution / use of resources. drop the per capita footprint of the average American and you have a model for the rest of the world

you need to understand how evolution works. populations don't control themselves, they are limited by their environment, and thus far the environment hasn't acted to limit the species population, but it will. We've not be around that long, give things time. procreation is the only thing that a population does. the rest is fluff.

As a matter of fact, population growth due to births in developed countries drops very low- IIRC, the U.S. fertility rate is actually below replacement levels, and fertility in Japan is so low that people worry about a majority of Japanese being retirees in coming decades. Furthermore, as still-developing countries catch up, they follow the same pattern. There's every reason to believe that sufficiently advanced human populations do indeed control themselves.

Not to say I agree with marincounty's vehemence on the issue, either. The key is to give everyone the opportunity and environment that allows sustainable reproduction levels, not to browbeat them into doing so.

In the long run, there are two kinds of species: those that go extinct and those that hit the carrying capacity. It is the simple math of exponential curves. A steady modest population would require artificial selection. I.e., fertility police who rule with an iron fist.

You left out the part that happens when the populations get limited by their environment. It's not pleasant for the species...

And I don't think it's fair to say that we can't possibly limit our population... strong social safety nets reduce the need for big families, and freely available contraception makes it feasible to limit family sizes.

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