women and children vs overpopulation

[roid]

in a world struggling with overpopulation, is "women and children first" still an appropriate policy?

ie: titanic

[woodchip]

Where I come from...yes.

[Flabby Chick]

Men are by far the weaker sex, it should be men n kids first.

[woodchip]

FC, you been visiting San Francisco again?

[roid]

damnit. men of few words begone! i want discussion

[Dedman]

I don't know about kids. They are messy and noisy and overly demanding. But deffinately women should go before men. How else would we be able to get a good long look at their asses?

[CDN_Merlin]

Women and children first because they are the future. Can't have kids without women and if you had more men then women, it's be harder to repopulate.

[roid]

CDN_Merlin repopulation is the last thing you want when you are talking about overpopulation.

don't skim over the OVERPOPULATION bit ppl, it's most important to the point i'm making.

[CDN_Merlin]

Ok, about over population, we should force countries like Africa to use birth control because it is the 1st world countries that are footing the bill for them and we should have a say.

[woodchip]

Roidy, if you are in a "women and children first" scenario, the last thing you will be thinking about is "over population"

[Lothar]

Overpopulation is a myth.

[bash]

Heh, I was just Googling "Overpopulation Myth" when you posted, Lothar. Anyway...

^x2

From what little attention I pay to birth rates, the latest news seems to be that in developed nations birth rates are dropping to worrisome levels (especially Japan and Europe, IIRC). It is true, however, that certain nations/regions are becoming overpopulated beyond the resources of their still-developing infrastructure to handle (China and India come to mind) but those instances appear to be governmental mismanagement and cultural throwbacks (where parents regard children --especially males-- as economic assets). Unlike India, China seems to be solving its problem through government-mandated family planning.

Either way, it doesn't warrant yet another round of global *sky is falling* doomsaying. The coming concern will more likely be how do developed nations promote population growth rather than curtail it. After all, they won't stay *developed* unless they can sustain workforce and tax-base levels.

[Lothar]

Here's a nice start: http://www.reason.com/rb/rb072804.shtml

The UN is finally on the bandwagon of what I've been saying since high school... population will top out between 8 and 10 billion (simple calculation -- there's an inflection point at 4.5 billion, and in most real populations that signifies half of the expected carrying capacity.) This has pretty well killed the old chicken-little rallying cry of "overpopulation" (1).

The NEW chicken-little rallying cries are:
1) "Peak Oil!!!!!" (1 2 - recommended reading 3)
2) There are going to be too many old people for society to handle because people are living longer and having fewer children (what bash posted about birth rates dropping.)

[bash]

Let's just combine it into one massive *Global Overpopulation of Obese SUV Drivers!!!*. That may still draw the desired reaction. :fear:

[Flabby Chick]

Overpopulation is a myth.

Agreed. The point though is not "overpopulation" on a physical sence, the point is that we don't know how to spread the happiness, and we don't know how to harmonise with nature.

'cause we're stupid.

[Testiculese]

What? We're overpopulated *now*.

[Lothar]

*Global Overpopulation of Obese SUV Drivers!!!*

Agreed. There are far too many of them!

What? We're overpopulated *now*.

In what sense of the word?

What, in your opinion, is the ideal population level? How many people would be "just right", and what criteria are you using to judge this?

[Dedman]

How many people would be "just right", and what criteria are you using to judge this?

I thought you knew better than to cloud the issue with the facts

[Top Gun]

Roid, even if overpopulation were an issue, what you are proposing seems to be rather heartless and cold. Ensure that the women and children die so that our world isn't too crowded? Are you telling me that you could stand somewhere, say on the Titanic, for the sake of argument, and make that decision? Call me old-fashioned, but I know that if I were in that sort of situation, I'd make sure that the women and children were all safe before I even thought of helping myself. I've never been in that sort of scenario, but I like to think that I would put the security of others over my own, even if it put my own life at risk. Call it what you will, but that's what I feel is right.

P.S. I wonder what the feminazis think about this? Somehow, I think their demands for female superiority don't extend to a situation when their own asses are on the line.

[Krom]

My solution to the Titanic problem, pick up a hot chick, tell her to fake broken legs, carry her on to a life boat.

[Sergeant Thorne]

I believe that such issues should never have a bearing on perilous situations. It seems to me that it's putting yourself in the position of God to make such "educated", social-engineering decisions in the face of human tragedy. Help who you can--help those weaker than yourself (especially the children).

Most of the way through writing this I was temped to just close it all down. It disgusts me to even give enough validity to the question to post a rebuttal. Roid... get a clue.

[Dedman]

Roid, even if overpopulation were an issue, what you are proposing seems to be rather heartless and cold.

Roid... get a clue.

It seems to me that Roid was asking a valid question not taking a position. You may not like where the question takes you, but that doesn't negate its validity. Drop the indignation.

[Will Robinson]

My take is 'women and children first' is more about chivalry than actual protecting the bloodline so its an ego thing. The feminazi's will have cured us of that notion before too long and then we can embrace every-man-for-himself without guilt.
But I don't think the overall population has ever been affected by the woman and children thing anyway.

[roid]

it hadn't occured to me while starting this thread that overpopulation was CURRENTLY a myth. however i still imagine we will eventually be facing it as an issue sometime in the future, just perhaps centuries from now rather than decades.

Roid, even if overpopulation were an issue, what you are proposing seems to be rather heartless and cold.

Roid... get a clue.

It seems to me that Roid was asking a valid question not taking a position. You may not like where the question takes you, but that doesn't negate its validity. Drop the indignation.

perceptive dedman.
yes topgun it seems rather heartless and cold.

i was listening to some a that had the lyrics "women and children first" in it, and then when trying to sleep that night it occured to me: could that be simply a throwback from days before we'd heard the word "overpopulation", and also from when the human race (particularly young males) was regularly getting culled by wars. which is a possible theory as to why only males were sent to war (no i'm not really suggesting that, but it's still a theory).

CDN_Merlin went straight to the point i was trying to make when he said:

Women and children first because they are the future. Can't have kids without women and if you had more men then women, it's be harder to repopulate.

my point being that, if a society is dealing with overpopulation - can the same quote above still be said? you shouldn't be priming a society to produce more and more children in the face of overpopulation.

wern't the wars linked to a phenomenon we now know as 'baby boomers'? being that whenever a worldwar finished a hell of a lot of ppl got to making babies, it almost seemed like they were trying to quickly make up for people lost in war. it would have likely simply been because compared to the past years - NOW seemed like a great time to settle down and safely nest, with 'evil defeated' and all that, people felt very safe - there was no way to go but up.
maybe it's just ingrained into the human psyche? that when faced with disaster our social brains are wired to make desisions with survival of the species - fast repopulation - subconsciously in mind. or it could be simply a long standing cultural throwback.

but afterward i was thinking more along the lines of what would actually happen, if we imagined the most heartless ugliest inhumane future situation this could elude to - disaster strikes! and it's every ultra-selfish man/woman/child for themselves.
men would statistically occupy more lifeboats because they are stronger than women, fights break out and the stongest wins. technically it would be the - strongest - men - only - occupying the lifeboats.

the differences between the genders are not a social construct but an uncontrollable biological fact. so to avoid one group, or gender, being discriminated against it would make good sense for society to think of itself as a whole - made up of different parts like a body is made up of many different specialised cells. as humanity is made up of different genders, different personalitys, different outlooks, different upbringingings (well... there's lots of differences in humanity ok lets move on).

so acting as a whole, a society will adopt methods of evening up all situations, which is likely what 'women and children first' is actually all about. so i've come to the conclusion that it's not actually about repopulation. it's about a society acting as a whole (like a body made of cells) protecting those within who are naturally weak.

[woodchip]

Another way to look at it Roid, is if the imperative to protect the females and children was not ingrained in the human species, we would have died out in neolithic time. Most animals have a ingrained desire to protect the young at the very least. Lions do it, wolves do it and killdeer (thats a bird for those of you who live in Rio Linda)do it. To say society determines this protective characteristic belies basic biological instincts.

[Lothar]

it hadn't occured to me while starting this thread that overpopulation was CURRENTLY a myth. however i still imagine we will eventually be facing it as an issue sometime in the future, just perhaps centuries from now rather than decades.

Nope. Overpopulation will probably ALWAYS be a myth. Population won't just keep growing until it's too much; it'll level off when we're at the level the environment is able to sustain. That happens in every species. It's a basic fact of ecology.

Now, some species manage to damage the environment such that it can no longer sustain them. The deer around the grand canyon did this one year -- some genius decided the 30K population of deer would be better off without any predators, so the rangers removed all of the wolves and the deer population grew to about 100K. The next year, the trees -- the deers' food source -- were so badly damaged (due to overexploitation) that only about 5K deer managed to survive, and it took a long time for the food source to recover.

I'm pretty sure that won't happen with humanity. The problem with the deer is that they grew over 200% in one year, but had a food source that grew much slower. We're not in that situation; we have quite a bit of information about our own food sources, and we can only grow a few percent per year. If we do overexploit some key renewable resource, we'll have a bit of a shortage and population might dip a little, but nothing drastic will happen. And there's no unrenewable resource we *really* rely on to keep ourselves alive. (Oil is a convenience, but if the situation got dire, we'd adapt.)

All that is to say: overpopulation is a myth now, and it will remain a myth decades and even centuries from now.

---

As for "women and children first", I don't think it's an ingrained behavior. Women typically have a strong "protect the kids" instinct, but men really don't -- men have a "save your own butt" instinct. That's true of most species -- momma bear will risk itself to save its cubs, because she had to put a ton of energy into making them, but papa bear can just go look for another momma bear because all he contributed was some spermies. There is some level of "protect your own children" instinct for everyone, but it's generally a lot stronger in females than in males.

"Women and children first" is a learned behavior. It's a chivalry thing -- we protect the weakest members of our society. It's not just "the future" -- we also protect the elderly and the handicapped. We don't do it for population-preservation reasons; in fact, often, it's in spite of them -- a strong adult male sacrificing himself to protect a crippled old man is generally bad for population growth. (Like I said before, protecting children is there for most species -- but as far as I can tell, protecting women, the handicapped, etc. is uniquely human.)

So, even if overpopulation was a legitimate problem, I don't think the right response would be to sacrifice the chivalry of "women and children first". The right response would be to have fewer children, but once you've had them, keep protecting them.

[Testiculese]

Whereas our food source may grow along with our population, it will be at the expense of most every other species. When there are 10 billion people around, there are no trees anywhere, the ground is concrete for hundreds of miles, the only animals are found in the air or in people's homes, yet our food production, which would be almost entirely synthetic "keeps up", does that still fall in your line as no problem? I think the problem is not doing anything about it before there's nothing that can be done about it.

[Grendel]

Nope. Overpopulation will probably ALWAYS be a myth. Population won't just keep growing until it's too much; it'll level off when we're at the level the environment is able to sustain. That happens in every species. It's a basic fact of ecology.

That does not apply to mankind. An ecology does not include human interference ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_environment ). Humans shape their environment thus affecting the planetwide ecology. Human overpopulation is where YOU set the point on the curve..

The deer around the grand canyon did this one year -- some genius decided the 30K population of deer would be better off without any predators, so the rangers removed all of the wolves and the deer population grew to about 100K. The next year, the trees -- the deers' food source -- were so badly damaged (due to overexploitation) that only about 5K deer managed to survive, and it took a long time for the food source to recover.

You do realize that that's a good metaphor for mankind right ? We are in the deers position..

I for my part can't wait to get my living space restricted to a few square feet, get food alotment and restrictions in muscular activity to curb my oxigen intake.

[Dedman]

As for "women and children first", I don't think it's an ingrained behavior. Women typically have a strong "protect the kids" instinct, but men really don't -- men have a "save your own butt" instinct. That's true of most species -- momma bear will risk itself to save its cubs, because she had to put a ton of energy into making them, but papa bear can just go look for another momma bear because all he contributed was some spermies. There is some level of "protect your own children" instinct for everyone, but it's generally a lot stronger in females than in males.

I know you are generalizing but I am not sure I agree with you. I don't know a single father that wouldn't kill for thier child or trade his own life so his child may live. Mothers are more nurturing, it's true. But there is a huge difference between nurturing a scraped knee or a cold, and protecting your child against a truley life threatening situation.

Before my daughter was born, I probably would have agreed with you. But now? If you wish to harm my child, you better bring force enough to kill me, because I am going to do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in my power to make sure you never take another breath. Even if it means taking myself out with you.

Again, I understand you were generalizing. (I don't want you to think this is another situation like you and Dissent (or was it Sheepdog) had during the thread about the President of Harvard.) I understand the difference between making a generalization about a population or one about a small sample size. I just don't agree with your assesment.

[Lothar]

When there are 10 billion people around, there are no trees anywhere, the ground is concrete for hundreds of miles, the only animals are found in the air or in people's homes, yet our food production, which would be almost entirely synthetic "keeps up", does that still fall in your line as no problem?

Would 8 billion be OK, when there are only a few trees left, the ground is concrete for fifties of miles, there are still animals in Canada and Fiji, and our food is 42% synthetic?

When there are 10 billion people around, there will still be trees, grass, animals, etc. The scenario you envision is simply unrealistic for a population of 10 billion humans, in particular, in the geographic distribution they'll be in.

Let me ask you again, since you dodged the question: How many people would be "just right", and what criteria are you using to judge this?

Far too often, people simply pull numbers out of their butts. "X billion people? Oh, well obviously X billion people is way too many, and at X billion we'll have all these problems." Really? How do you know this? Did you do the math or read a reliable analysis that shows when those problems show up, or are you just making up what you *think* will happen when there are that many people? Do you actually have a realistic picture of what 10 billion people will do to the environment, vs. 8 billion or 12 billion or 20 billion or 100 billion? Judging from your analysis, I'd say you don't.

10 billion is really not that bad. There's nothing that NEEDS done about it; it won't lead to the scenario you envision, or anything close.

Population [will] level off when we're at the level the environment is able to sustain. That happens in every species. It's a basic fact of ecology.

That does not apply to mankind. An ecology does not include human interference ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_environment ).

Under certain definitions of the word "ecology", human interference is excluded. I was specifically referring to population ecology, but if you'd like, I can simply call it a basic fact of population growth or population dynamics, and leave the term "ecology" behind. I don't care to argue semantics; I care to argue concepts.

The point is, populations rarely grow and then crash. A basic fact of population dynamics is that populations generally grow and then level off.

Human overpopulation is where YOU set the point on the curve.

I don't understand what you're trying to get at here. It's "overpopulation" because we're able to manipulate the carrying capacity for our benefit?

Let me ask you what I asked Testi: how many is the right number? Was the population at the right level in 1800, before we had much good medicine? Was it at the right level tens of thousands of years ago, before we grew crops on a large scale, or before man made tools? How much manipulation of the environment is too much?

The deer around the grand canyon did this one year.....

You do realize that that's a good metaphor for mankind right ? We are in the deers position..

Did you even read the rest of my post?

We are not in the deers' position. Even if every reproductive-age woman had a baby this year, we wouldn't be in that position (though there would be some local populations in poorer parts of the world that would be.) Global human population would need to grow a lot faster than it is, and grow a lot higher than 10 billion, for us to be in trouble.

I for my part can't wait to get my living space restricted to a few square feet, get food alotment and restrictions in muscular activity to curb my oxigen intake.

Again, let me ask what I asked Testi:

What makes you think this scenario will happen at 10 billion people? Certainly, if population keeps growing, eventually this scenario will happen -- but why do you say it'll happen at 10 billion? Why not 8 billion, or 12 billion, or 200 trillion?

What legitimate analysis are you basing your scenario off of? Overblown rhetoric and made-up doomsday scenarios that have no basis in reality are worthless as persuasive arguments. You and Testi both said things about what you think will happen when human population grows, but both scenarios are completely unrealistic at the level of population growth we actually expect.

As for "women and children first", I don't think it's an ingrained behavior....

I know you are generalizing but I am not sure I agree with you. I don't know a single father that wouldn't kill for thier child or trade his own life so his child may live. Mothers are more nurturing, it's true. But there is a huge difference between nurturing a scraped knee or a cold, and protecting your child against a truley life threatening situation.

I agree. Most human fathers would kill, or die, to protect their children. Human males will protect their children to a far greater degree than any other animal. What that says to me is that, though there is some instinct there to protect offspring, the "women and children first" attitude we humans have (especially toward other people's children) isn't purely an instinct or a survival mechanism.

We protect women and children and the elderly and the handicapped. That's not instinct; that's not animal survival behavior. That's something more than either of those. That's why I've referred to it as chivalry rather than instinct -- the way we treat weaker members of society is a learned behavior, and it's a good way to be. It's not something we should abandon, even if you buy into the premise that there are too many humans. If there are too many, stop having more -- but don't stop caring for those who are already here.

[Grendel]

Nice arguing (except if you were refering to population ecology in that sense you should have said so ).

How many is the right number ? Hard to say, that's why I said "YOU set the point on the curve", as in "everyone decides for himself" since everybody has a different opinion about it anyway. I'd say an eighth of what we have now would allow us to go on quite comfortably for a long time w/o the global problems we got today.

Was the population at the right level in 1800, before we had much good medicine ? Well, you're not trying to tell me that the average world citizen has better access to medical services than he had in the 1800's ? Just look around. Doesn't hinder humans from procreating tho.

How much manipulation is too much ? Obvious -- if the system collapses when manipulation is withdrawn it's too much. If it collapses even w/ manipulation, it's way too much.

Oh, we are in the deers position. No predators, we can do what we want. And we do. See, unfortunately human civilisation developt a lot faster than our animal heritage instincts could adapt. Humans are egocentric by nature -- we can overcome that w/ a certain level of intellectual work and common sense. Now, look around again -- how much non-selfish work do you see on a broader scale, ie. who's trying to preserve at least the status quo or even improve it for future generations (more than 2 or 3 ahead) ? If you do see any (I don't right now), compare that w/ what the remaining people do.

About living in a box -- that picture was overdrawn on purpose. Never the less, that can happen faster than you think IMHO. China, India and the western world provide ~1/2 of the worlds population. This half is already getting in sight of the production limits for food fr themselves. How to increase food production ? Dedicate more area to it (if it can be developt) and migrate people to cities. You get the picture..

What legitimate analysis are you basing your scenario off of? Overblown rhetoric and made-up doomsday scenarios that have no basis in reality are worthless as persuasive arguments. You and Testi both said things about what you think will happen when human population grows, but both scenarios are completely unrealistic at the level of population growth we actually expect.

I feel on the borderline of being offended here.

Nice you use a math model as your background, unfortunately the world tends to ignore those (you should know that). How much human population the earth can handle is not forseeable, too many factors play a role in that answer (funnily almost all of them are influenced by human behaivor). I prefer to use you model just as another datapoint for my opinion -- and that's exactly what it is, an opinion. Even in your case using any "legitimate analysis" -- no fortune telling for you

I agree. Most human fathers would kill, or die, to protect their children. Human males will protect their children to a far greater degree than any other animal.

Besides that the last sentence is not true (there are animals where the male does the pup care and the female wanders of), it's interesting to note that human dads will do that only for their own children. There are more sophisticated behaiving animals where all adults will defend any pup of this social unit..

[Lothar]

if you were refering to population ecology in that sense you should have said so

"context"

How many is the right number ? Hard to say, that's why I said "YOU set the point on the curve", as in "everyone decides for himself" since everybody has a different opinion about it anyway. I'd say an eighth of what we have now would allow us to go on quite comfortably for a long time w/o the global problems we got today.

Everyone has an opinion on this, but not all opinions are informed opinions. Some people pick a number out of thin air ("I think 3.5 billion is perfect!" "why?" "because 4 billion is too many." "why is that?" "because!"); others make an estimate based on some specific factor they think is important ("based on global freshwater supply, we should be able to support about 5 billion"); still others make estimates based on more complex models. That's why the other half of my question (to Testi) was how he judged that to be the right number. Where did you get your number? What's it based on?

Also, what specific global problems are you referring to that would be fixed or reduced if population dropped to 1/8 of what it is now?

Obvious -- if the system collapses when manipulation is withdrawn it's too much.

A population of the size you recommended above (about 800 million) would still collapse if we stopped all manipulation of the environment.

Part of what I was getting at is that things like medicine and tools are also manipulations of the environment. Each of those things boosted the carrying capacity for human population. But you implicitly accepted both of those forms of environmental manipulation as OK (as well as many others, if you want to sustain a population of 800 million.) When I asked "how much manipulation is too much", maybe I should have phrased it "how do you draw the line between acceptable manipulation and unacceptable manipulation?" What specific technologies or philosophies we currently use to manipulate the environment do you object to, and why those but not others?

As you can see, I'm interested in specifics. What number do you think is ideal, and where does the number come from? How much environmental manipulation are you willing to allow, and why? How would the world be a better place if that happened?

we are in the deers position. No predators, we can do what we want. And we do.

But we're not in the deers position in the sense that we're not at great risk of causing our own population to crash (which was my original point, and why I brought up the deer in the first place.) We're not growing fast enough, or damaging the environment fast enough, to have any sort of catastrophic collapse of society -- which is what many of the overpopulation arguments focus on. We're growing, but the growth is slowing down by quite a bit; we're damaging the environment, but we're also cleaning up past damage, and it's also healing itself. There's no global catastrophe in the works for us, and local shortages (like food in certain parts of the world) are easily overcome.

You and Testi both said things about what you think will happen when human population grows, but both scenarios are completely unrealistic at the level of population growth we actually expect.

I feel on the borderline of being offended here.

I meant to borderline-offend. Both scenarios were completely overblown, and completely unrealistic. They're essentially fear tactics, based on a much-worse-than-worst-case scenario. Let's stay away from such hyperbole.

Nice you use a math model as your background, unfortunately the world tends to ignore those (you should know that). How much human population the earth can handle is not forseeable, too many factors play a role in that answer...

True... but we can make some pretty reasonable estimates and predictions that hold up fairly well, especially when we look at things like age structure in populations. The models are a lot more solid than you give them credit for, and while they're ultimately "opinion" they're at least fairly justified opinion. They necessarily leave out some detail, and they're subject to change as technology develops, but they give very good estimates on the scale we're talking about.

it's interesting to note that human dads will do that only for their own children. There are more sophisticated behaiving animals where all adults will defend any pup of this social unit..

Apologies for oversimplifying the point about males not protecting their children as much as females; I haven't studied animal behavior much. While it's probably true that there are some species where the opposite happens, and some species where even stranger behaviors occur, what I was driving at is that most (human) men will defend children, women, the elderly, or the hanicapped, regardless of relational status. This is very different from the instinctive behavior of other groups -- it's not merely protecting "the future", but rather, protecting "the weak", and it's certainly not an instinctive behavior. The point is, the original post that coupled "women and children first" with population growth was based on an incorrect assumption (namely, that "women and children first" is an instinct meant to protect the future, rather than a social construct to protect the weak.)

[Dedman]

What that says to me is that, though there is some instinct there to protect offspring, the "women and children first" attitude we humans have (especially toward other people's children) isn't purely an instinct or a survival mechanism.

Agreed.

[1ACE1]

The world as a whole is at negative population growth anyway. There are some countries that still are, but these can't make up for the rest.

[Lothar]

uh, no, I'm pretty sure the world as a whole is still at positive population growth.

[Avder]

As for the overpopulation aspect, I think lothar has made some good points earlier in that the population will grow as much as the environment allows it to.

As for the concept of women and children first, well, women want equal oprotunity, correct? Well then in order ot have that we must scrap the notion of women and children first. Children first, the women can stay back and have an equal opprotunity of getting a lifeboat with the men.

[Krom]

As for the overpopulation aspect, I think lothar has made some good points earlier in that the population will grow as much as the environment allows it to.

As for the concept of women and children first, well, women want equal oprotunity, correct? Well then in order ot have that we must scrap the notion of women and children first. Children first, the women can stay back and have an equal opprotunity of getting a lifeboat with the men.

Opportunity yo.

I believe the earth in its current level of development can probably sustain double or more the current human population; the only thing that would need to change would be the level of resource distribution. At the "maximum" who knows how many people the earth can handle, I'd say it's safe to assume if population ever got that high a world war would kill us off long before overpopulation could.

[dissent]

All of this of course assumes that the terrestrial environment remains fairly constant. An interesting article in the 15 April 2005 Science (p. 398) relates to the high variability of the atmospheric concentrations of oxygen over geologic time. In particular, the authors report a drop in the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere from a little under 30% to a little under 12% that occurred relatively rapidly (in geological terms) at the end of the Permian period, and which they claim could have contributed significantly to the large extinction that took place then in the fossil record. It was not until the middle of the Cretaceous that oxygen levels in the atmosphere got up around the level today of about 20%.

It was a bit surprising to me that there has been such wide variability in the oxygen concentration in the atmosphere. At 12% oxygen much of the present continental land space would not be habitable because it would be like trying to breathe normally on top of Everest. If you took the present population and squeezed it all down to the coastal areas, that would probably make for some interesting cultural encounters.

Not that this is likely to happen, but it has at least sometime in our past. This could make for a creepy disaster movie. If it were to start happening again (and how would we know; these changes take place over many lifetimes) it may be time to start thinking again about settling off of the planet. Then you might have to make some really tough choices about who stays and who goes.

Ah, but I think my over active imagination gets the better of me....oops, it past time for my medicine!!

[woodchip]

Getting back to the main topic, watching the history channel there was a piece on how a guy hired a couple of passenger airplanes to fly into Tan Son Hut airport to save Vietamese women and children. When they landed it was the Viet. men who stormed aboard the planes. Very few woman (3 or 4) got aboard. So, unlike the Titanic episode, perhaps there is some credence to a cultural aspect on how men regard women in such situations.

[Mobius]

The world isn't overpopulated. Why would anyone think that? (Cancel that - of course you think it's true: the media always says it!) It might be "underfed", it might be "under utilised", it might even be "under managed", but it certainly aint over populated.

The current guesstimates are 30 billion and more people before we really start to run out of room.