Now there's a thought. Parents signing away the future of their kids. "Oh, I promise he will only consume 100 CO/2 every day!". Then throw the kid and parent in jail if he/she doesn't follow it. Larger contracts cost more.

That is actually a great idea!   There was one african that traded his legs for a wheelbarrow of cigarettes so it might be very possible to do!   You just have to inform them first about 'laws of economics' which explains to them that overpopulation means worse quality of life and that they'll get paid well for the sterilization. And since they're poor, we could probably get away with a farm with farmanimals, some big gates with walls and some good weapons for a whole village.

You twits are missing the point....

It's not they, them, the poor...the 'one african'...

It's YOU.

Armchair sociologists...."let's discuss how THEY can change to make OUR world better."

No, darlings....it's how YOU can change to make THEIR world better.

Charity isn't the only thing that starts at home.

That's a large part of what I've been trying to type, only clearer and less wordy. 

I apologise if the purpose of my thread were misinterpreted. I am not certain that population control is ethical and my intention was more to discuss that, if it was accepted, how it could be achieved.

I believe it can be however. Offering money for sterilization is not the same as people selling their legs for cigarettes. Surely there is a way to increase artificially the cost of having children, in a way that is fair across the planet? For example, perhaps you define it in terms of GDP for a given country (or half a days average wage in that country). Or even take it down to an individual level, as a child income tax. You then distribute all the money collected amongst those who don’t.

I don’t buy the “telling foreigners what to do” argument at all. You could use that argument to say that Americans have no right to expect china to keep a lid on greenhouse emissions, because Americans burn more. What about the paying of subsidies to Brazilian farmers not to cut down the amazon, so we don’t have to replant our forests? We use economic incentives to change behaviour in all sorts of ways, within borders and across them, so why is this any different?

Many people in the developed world have children FOR economic reasons. We just need to shift the economic balance in the favour of not doing so. Everyone has their price at which they consider themselves better off for their sacrifice, so why not give people the opportunity to achieve that in a way that helps everyone else? Money is usually the fairest way of attributing value, because it’s transferable.

Was a time when food ran out the population would fall and that was accepted. Now human life has become highly fetishized, ways around death are always found and food production increased. Now there is the atmosphere and limited stocks of oil, rare earth metals, and everything else to consider. There is no longer one fail safe mechanism that can intervene to bring down population, and until one is reached, the stretching of other means will continue to cause death and suffering for many more, whether it’s through increased opportunities for war or disease.

Personally i think the arguments of how are more interesting than the if. For example, how does a sterilization policy avoid the risks of gender imbalance?

Point by who?   And who cares?   I argue from the perspective of what's good for ME and my people.

Why (and HOW) should I change to make life better for people in that primitive continent??   THEY are the ones who haven't achieved a goddamn thing!   THEY are the ones who can't feed themselves!   Making tons of kids but can't feed'em...real smart....

How would a sterilization policy affect gender imbalance in the first place? The only problem I know of there is sex-biased selective abortions, which apparently have already changed some populations in India and China.

If you're talking about the long-range risk of a diminished gene pool, a crowd of fertile women can get by with a handful of fertile men and do no harm to the gene pool.

Or are you asking a 'strategic' question, like whether it would be more efficient to focus incentives on females because they are the production choke point? 

Good evening to our community,

first of all! It is with an ice-cold blood and feeling that I read to you.
Then standing back in front of the evidence of the certain truths how can speak to yourself so inhumanly so?
So, with the time which I would begin to read again you to answer by stage on certain foundations of the life.

It is not especially in this way that we find solutions.

For some who cannot bring into the world 1 child 

and who(which) they read your subject imagine what these persons can feel?

Sethai vous lancez un sujet des plus sensible et reel sur la surpopulation mondiale sans connaitre l'évolution de l’écosystème de la vie en elle même. En demandant qu'elle technique serait la meilleure à trouver? Un programme à mettre en oeuvre?

je vous lance un autre débat qui représente la gravité de votre sujet ! Peut on prendre le contrôle de la vie ?...

sorry,

Sethai you throw(launch) a subject of the most sensitive and reel on the world overpopulation without connaitre the evolution of the ecosystem of the life in her even. By asking that she(it) technique would be the best to find? A program to be implemented(operated)?

I throw(launch) you another debate which(who) represents the gravity of your subject! Can one take the control of the life?

Good evening to you all,

Having read to you, and by trying to understand(include) of what each could think about the overpopulation, I rebel on the emitted(uttered) comments, the hurtful and raw words which you use(employ)

Everybody has the right(law) for the word, and the right(law) to think, but put you a single moment in the place(square) of a housewife, who by for lack of means had to interrupt a life which grew in her!

Is a subject so grave, must not be so handled, I think that it would rather be necessary to bend over the gift(donation) of sperm, the surrogate mothers, who I think, push in children's traffic, but when a pregnancy is wished, and that it settles(arises) an important financial event which prevents this future mom from pursuing this life which grows in her, you do not believe that of lira of such sentences can shock her(it) and hurt her(it)

Sethai, a little of humility in front of the existence would get(fit) better to you! As well as in the others..

Sethai, 

When you speak about reproduction, we engender and not reproduce, to reproduce is made by us a certified true copy, knowing that a child takes the genes of his relatives(parents) and not the conformity of his parents!

Tout d'abord ne soyez pas préoccupé car vous n'y serez plus... Pfff!

First of all be not worried because you will not be there any more... Pfff!

What report(relationship) between the overpopulation and the infectious diseases?
Because there is in this world of the unfortunates who cannot have the right(law) for the care by for lack of means??????
Travel broadens the mind, continue to travel even in your dreams!!!!!! 

In the dreams we catch no disease, then let us dream!
I do not dream any more ......

Mais comment pouvez au fond de votre âme ecrire de tel chose...vous êtes inhumain et doté d'un égoisme horrible!

translate

But how can at the bottom of your ecrire soul of such thing(matter) you be inhuman and endowed with a horrible égoisme

Outraged(Exaggerated), I am him, when I read your saying lines:
Not to feed the persons who starve ............... to avoid the overpopulation!
That we pay a little less all our politicians, and maybe than the world would get(fit) better, and would avoid many pains in

Bravo Uvah 1 karma pour vous! car je vous estime! Vous avez mon respect.

Bravo Uvah 1 karma for you! Because I estimate(esteem) at you! You have my respect

I'm sorry, I don't understand you.

edit: babelfish ftw

What morality is this of yours, that billions should starve and destroy the world? Where none need starve and the world can survive. Be told, humanity is the enemy of life. Those who live over their means deserve hell on earth, and they will swiftly receive it.

lecajef, I can't speak for Sethai, but as far as my reading and participation in this thread goes, there is more than one way to look at humility in the face of this very, very serious problem.

I have loved ones who have experienced miscarriages and abortions and I appreciate the fact that every pregnancy, no matter how brief, is a profoundly important part of a woman's life. I also firmly believe that every decision to bring a new person into the world needs to be made with the deepest possible humility, especially when our planet is so severely overcrowded and becoming more crowded every day.

If this thread does any good in the real world, it will help a few more people take personal responsibility for their ability to procreate, whether that be avoiding unplanned pregnancies or, better yet, deciding to limit themselves to one or two children.

A tag-team of 'husband and wife' in French doesn't add to a debate, but rather propagates some form of family dissent.

Can every attempt be made to use the site's default language, please.

Again with the 'us and them'.

"They haven't achieved a goddam thing"?   'They' colonised your [probable] country.  'They' died so YOUR corporate machine can profit [Union Carbide].

'THEY' work for shit wages so YOU can have cheap [er] Nikes.

THEY don't see the right to bear arms [own a gun] greater than the right to access medical care.

THEY don't encourage the waste and abuse of natural resources through the basal lust for wealth and excess.

Get off your collective arses and do something, anything towards lowering YOUR impact upon the planet's FINITE resources.

If you need to ask 'HOW' then YOU are the lost cause in this world's society.

I recommend reading this excellent site, before starting the emotionally-ridden flamewars:

http://www.vhemt.org/

I too think we, as a species, must use our reason to control our animal urges - otherwise, we will face the same fate as any over-populated animal - rapid die-off.

The dramatic rise of population during the 20th century was made possible by the exploitation of fossil fuels and improvement in medical care - now, when the fossil fuels are about to decline, we will find ourselves in a Malthusian trap.

Also note that the problem is not limited to 3rd world countries - on the contrary. It has been estimated that environmentally and resource-consumption-wise, an American couple with two children has about the same impact as Indian couple with 40 children, or Ethiopean couple with 400 children. Indeed, when you realize that while America has only a fraction of world's population, but consumes 1/4 of world's oil production, something is not definitely right here. 

The rich West also exports resource depletion to poor countries in Asia and Africa, whose people watch their resources being stripped and exported by corrupted governments and multinational corporations, while their poverty never diminishes.

Unfortunately, humanity has a giant ball-on-a-chain attached in the form of various religions, namely Christianity, whose power to cling to obsolete dogma is astounding. Their motto "love each other and multiply" leads us to a situation where we will end up hating and killing each other. The Pope's campaign in Africa against contraception is an inhumane atrocity, bringing thousands of helpless children into a life of misery, malnutrition and incomprehensible suffering. 

Agreed...again. I could probably think up a thousand hypothetical situations and solutions to problems involving "the world" but realistically if I don't start with the man in the mirror and my own home, family, work and surroundings that I ACTUALLY DO have some control over what's the point except maybe some witty dialogue sprinkled here and there or possibly regurgitating something I heard that sounded thought provoking and clever...