Comments on: 300,000,000 Americans

By: Antipodean

Antipodean — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 10:17:52 +0000

Mikal555, we are not at 19 million, we are at 22, and Sydney does not have one third of our population, it has about four million, and Melbourne (which is much better) has around 3.1 million, neither near a third of the total

By: Nitrous Amine

Nitrous Amine — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 08:04:29 +0000

Haa ha…You astronomers, you crazy counter-watchers. I betcha twenty five folx answer this one:

When will unix reach 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 epoch time???

(The predicted fourth coming of Shub-Internet)

By: Kim

Kim — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 19:38:58 +0000

Sadly, in both China and India, “one child” often means “one son.” In China when the policy was first adopted, a lot of peasants thought that girl children didn’t count, so they kept trying until they had a boy. Also, China didn’t ever exterminate second children as a policy, they just demoted you or your cadre in the Party or cut off financial assistance (and in some cases force abortions or tubal ligations — but I gather the CCP doesn’t explicitly endorse these measures). There seems to be only two reliable cures for large families: educate women and/or have them move to the city.

By: Dude

Dude — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 17:31:45 +0000

What India needs is a one child law similar to China’s ( If you have more than
one child than the second child will die) If India doesn’t take action, then by 2050, India will be the most populous country in thes world! China needs to strengthen their one-child rule too. If you are really interested now,
then go to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/worldbalance/ .

By: Thomas Siefert

Thomas Siefert — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 01:32:36 +0000

I once “lived” in Sydney. When I wasn’t working or sleeping, I was stuck in traffic. That’s not a life.

By: Russell W. Coover

Russell W. Coover — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 23:27:56 +0000

To Mikal555:

Re: “with 1/3 living in Sydney..”

You are assuming that “living in Sydney” is “living” in Sydney (or vice versa).

By: Mickal555

Mickal555 — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 18:50:44 +0000

Gee
I thought it was 120mill over there….

We are still at 19 I think, with 1/3 living in sydney…

By: A. E Neumann

A. E Neumann — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 06:01:27 +0000

Again we see the assumption that lower popluation is better. Where does this come from? In every model examined, population growth improves economic projections which leads to better living conditions, higher levels of education, more productive agriculture, in other words, progress. Why are the western economies faltering when population stagnates? It’s really very simple. With top quality medical care and a safe healthy environment, the “first” world has an expected life span of something like 75 years or better (try the “Lifespan Website)
http://www.medindia.net/patients/calculators/death_clock.asp
(Why is male higher than female? Who are they kdding?)
With no new babies, imagine the economic chaos – who would buy insurance, hire teachers, buy baby clothes, diapers, or in fact anything with more than a fifty year horizon?
Are zero population growth proponents any better than creationists?
Well, yes – at least they are are looking for answer (creationists are quittters!!).
A world view that does not include an economic strategy to get us there is not useful.

By: Scott Moore

Scott Moore — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 21:53:41 +0000

“In what year shall the population of the planet Earth be One Trillion?”

Never.
Earth can’t even support six billion. We’re consuming resources much faster than they’re being replenished. Not just fossil fuels – soil is being lost rapidly too.

The answer is clear. Nations where most of the population have education, jobs, homes and at least scrap of political power are holding steady or losing population. The massive growth in population is happening in nations where the desperately poor have no education and no options. Giving all of the people of Earth… ALL of them… education and choices will reverse this trend of increasing population.
The population of regions suffering terrible disasters such as wars and natural upheavals increases despite the increased death rate. The population of regions enjoying stability and peace decreases because citizens have the children they want, not the children that blind biology forces on them. Increasing stability and peace globally will reduce population.

As for reducing population through extra-Terrestrial emmigration… not gonna happen. The best we can hope to do is to send “seeds” of humanity across the void so that if Earth is destroyed, humanity will carry on. We’re not even close to setting up a self-sustaining colony anywhere – even Mars, the friendliest extra-Terrestrial place we’ve ever found. We’re stuck with this one planet for the forseeable future. We don’t know of any other place where we can even hope to survive.

We know the answers:
VERY greatly reduce fossil fuel use.
Spread resources among all people of Earth. How many childhood vaccinations can be bought at the price of one mansion or one Leer-jet?
Educate all. Start with the poorest, not the richest.
Free condoms for everyone.
Massively fund non-fossil energy research.
Make do with much, much less than we imagine we need to be happy. Find other ways to be happy than obtaining and spending wealth.
We can, possibly, survive if we snap our of our aggressive, greedy “shake the trees and snatch the tubers out of the hands of the fleeing ape-tribe” mentality. If we don’t come to our senses, we’re doomed.

As for “Terra-forming Earth”, we’ve been doing that for hundreds of years. The consequences are going to hit us very soon. Some parts of the globe are already being injured and the rest of the planet is soon to follow.

By: Russell W. Coover

Russell W. Coover — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 21:05:36 +0000

When I die (not soon, I hope), there will be one less. But then 10 seconds later, someone will be born and we’ll be back where we were before. Darn! At least for a 10 second period, I will make the world a better place (assuming that a smaller population is better than a larger one).

By: Steve Cooperman

Steve Cooperman — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 09:02:39 +0000

Carl Sagan was one of my favorites — I never met him personally, but he was such a powerhouse for making difficult ideas clear and bringing the public along for the intellectual ride. Gone too soon . . .

Here’s a cartoon:
http://spider.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/jarrett/sagan/kid_sagan.gif

By: Thomas Siefert

Thomas Siefert — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 02:51:22 +0000

Ray Gray, I don’t think any country would be able to keep up with population growth by sending them into space. Not only would you need huge capacity (passenger wise) earth-to-orbit crafts, but you would also need somewhere to send them.
There’s plenty of room on earth, we just need to Terraform it.

The biggest concern facing the human race is the Elvis impersonators. At current growth rate, one third of the earths population will be Elvis impersonators in 2019. We will need to find an audience for them or they will be permanently unemployed, so the SETI program is very important.

BTW, Carl Sagan denied ever using the expression “billions and billions” in his book “Pale Blue Dot”.

By: Ray Gray

Ray Gray — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 02:31:38 +0000

The late great Carl Sagan once said “billions and billions of stars.

Now it’s billions and billions of humans. In what year shall the population of the planet Earth be One Trillion? Could this be the reason why so many nations and corporations are building spaceports right now?

By: HawaiiArmenian

HawaiiArmenian — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 01:47:25 +0000

300 million? Nearly 6.5 Billion? wow, humans are such successful species that you wonder how much of our billions (people, and yes, money) are wasted on those who would like to reverse critical thinking, and take us back to simpler times (when we all lived in caves, using bat guano on starchy roots as a tasty treat).

If more of these teeming masses would be better aware of science, and the fruits and benefits it can provide us as a species, we would challenge ourselves, reach the limits of our potential, and actually make a difference. Not just in a global scale, but beyond.

200,000 extremely successful years as homo sapiens, and a great majority still believe in invisible forces guiding us, tugging at our spiritual tethers. If we had less Pat Robertsons, and more BA’s, who knows, perhaps those of us on Sunday morning would take a pill, and resolve the inevitable New Year’s Day hangover. What we need are a few more Captain Picard-like figures, to sit at the helm, and proudly exclaim “engage”.

Happy New Year to all, and may science win out in 2006.

By: Michael Hopkins

Michael Hopkins — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 01:13:07 +0000

“Donâ€™t feel too bad. Around Thanksgiving, my dad revealed that he thought the world population was around 4 billion.”

And possibly for the same reason for the BA’s 250 million: it might have very well been the correct ball-park figure when he was studying geography or history.

By: arensb

arensb — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 23:47:09 +0000

I thought we were hovering around 250 million.

Don’t feel too bad. Around Thanksgiving, my dad revealed that he thought the world population was around 4 billion.

By: Thomas Siefert

Thomas Siefert — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 20:28:29 +0000

mark, they go to London every single morning, all of them, just to annoy me, the only driver obeying the speed limits. I can’t pull out to overtake the slow ones because of the fast ones blocking me in.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 20:11:52 +0000

Do we have to subtract the 11 million illegal aliens? ;o)

By: mark

mark — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 19:57:13 +0000

And each one of ‘em is in a car in front of mine (except the ones who want to drive really fast; they’re behind me).

I’m still getting used to approaching 220 million instead of 200 million.

By: TravisM

TravisM — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 18:41:57 +0000

Well, a little while later (10 min it looks like) and we have…

12/30/05 at 18:39 GMT (EST+5) is

297,813,714