asg70 wrote:Open question. Mods, please move this to another forum if you see fit.
As I observe culture changing, as well as dropping fertility rates, I'm starting to think that the first world is running the Mouse Utopia Experiment, and that perhaps in an extended period of surplus that nature provides its own checks and balances against further overpopulation.
The saying goes that hard times breed hard men, which leads to good times which leads to weak men and that weak men lead to hard times, hence the cycle repeats. Successful societies enter into decadence, decay, and are then overrun by barbarians ala Rome.
You know Children of Men? I don't think we'll get that far, but for whatever reason, male sperm count is falling. Much is made of male feminization (aka soyboys or nuMales). Women have abandoned marriage first, and largely abandoned childbearing in favor of riding the carousel through most of their reproductive years. Old concepts of traditionalism are increasingly branded as undesirable or even toxic (like masculinity in general).
I'm just starting to think all of these factors are an almost unconscious macro-level result of too much surplus and overpopulation, like a negative feedback-loop ala the Mouse Utopia experiment. I'm just thinking that we might experience a kind of uncontrollable implosion while we're still basking in surplus rather than having to wait for empty store shelves and gas rationing. This would be because humans in particular have evolved for a world of scarcity (at least scarce compared to modern life) and we can't handle surplus very well.
Thoughts?
Plantagenet wrote:Humans, like other animals, tend to breed and reproduce until they reach some limiting factor and then the population collapses and the cycle starts over again.
EnergyUnlimited wrote:Plantagenet wrote:Humans, like other animals, tend to breed and reproduce until they reach some limiting factor and then the population collapses and the cycle starts over again.
Discussed experiment have shown that collapse of population can proceed in an environment of plenty before hard limits kick in.
All what was needed is lack of external threats and environmental pressure to population involved.
Plantagenet wrote:Humans don't seem to have this hard-wired need for space.
GHung wrote:I'm trying to over-think this thing. IMO, it comes down to consequences. If a society gets to the point where its members don't have to suffer the real consequences of their day-to-day behaviors, their lack of forethought, their levels of consumption and waste streams,,, all that, their individual and collective sanity ebbs away; their priorities and relationships become increasingly superficial. Meaningless things become important; things that matter, less so. Our society is well into that cycle.
That's all I have to say about that.
Plantagenet wrote:EnergyUnlimited wrote:Plantagenet wrote:Humans, like other animals, tend to breed and reproduce until they reach some limiting factor and then the population collapses and the cycle starts over again.
Discussed experiment have shown that collapse of population can proceed in an environment of plenty before hard limits kick in.
All what was needed is lack of external threats and environmental pressure to population involved.
I think some kind of "hard limit" was clearly involved...you can't have a much "harder limit" then something that can make a population of mice or other animals collapse. One likely "hard limit" in the mice experiments involves a need for space. In the "mouse utopia" experiments those mice who were able to control a "normal" amount of space continued to behave normally. It was the mice who were unable to control space and wound up crowded together that exhibited all kinds of pathologies and abnormal behavior.
Humans don't seem to have this hard-wired need for space. Studies of humans show that humans living in some of the densest population zones in the world continue to behave relatively normally, as long as they have basic comforts and normal status.
Newfie wrote:Dissident,
I think you are exactly right when you say we are at max entropy. Maybe not max, but surly attempting to maximize entropy. I always have the feeling there is more to that concept that needs further development and thought. Something going on there.
Newfie wrote:It strikes me we have had sufficient generation of over crowding in India to test the theory. One of my pet theories is that their highly developed caste system was a reaction to excess population. The castes allowed each individual in he culture to have some role, it was a way of sharing out the limited work. This supports my theory that some of the USA’s problem is that we are quick to make people excess, make them feel as though they have no role. Which then leads to depression and all sorts of other mental and physical issues.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
dohboi wrote:P wrote: "Give people food and water and basic housing and they'll breed like metaphorical bunnies and the population will grow"
To a point. But how does this square with the fact that many the poorest countries who have the least food have some of the highest rates of population growth, while many of the richest countries, with the most ready access to food have some of the lowest, or even negative growth?
Some eloquence here, especially some of Ibon's stuff. But also some excuses for various sorts of lightly veiled bigotry. Recall that homosexuality including 'effeminate' men have existed in pretty much every kind of society.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Return to Environment, Weather & Climate
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 16 guests