People driving cars, making cars. We are overpopulated. When lemmings or any other animal gets overpopulated, they get some disease and numbers get lower. When we get that, we overcome the obstacle and the population doesn’t get significantly reduced. That is why we keep fucking up the planet. Nothing to stop us, except ourselves. And if that happens, we take all other life with us.
(I’m not saying this is my personal opinion so don’t roast me plz):
it’s not that there are too many people.
it’s that there are too many people living under a regime that compels them to wantonly consume, pollute, and generally destroy the ecosystem in favor of the sole benefit of a miniscule number of oligarchs
in other words, the planet has the carrying capacity to sustain all of us theoretically, but not practically as things are today, at least not if humans continue living according to capitalist hyper consumptive individualism.
so yeah, there are too many people - unless we effectively reprogram all of modern culture to embrace a sustainable and pro environmental ethics… which you and I know, isn’t going to happen.
QED: too many people.
note: this is different from the other commenters take because it’s not making claims about human nature as being inherently bad. it’s just claiming that the system/culture people are born into is bad and does in fact impose artificial limitations on the capacity of the planet to support diverse ecosystems
appreciate the rec, I’ve been a patreon to Climate Town for years and already listened to that episode of CDH…
my point still stands. “too much” is a spectrum, my opinion likely differs significantly from most people, including Rollie’s. i lean towards the Daniel Quinn side of environmental ethics, which definitely places more than just fat over consuming Americans in the category of unsustainable cultures.
Well then the good news for you is that lots of wealthy “western” countries are starting to decline in population and will actually need immigration to keep up numbers. There is the pretty nice Kurzgesagt video about how South Korea is basically done.
I dont know why you say we in this context. Almost none of us have any control over the decisions of “the world”. Its run by billionaires with their paid off politicians, corporate lawyers, judges…
Russia is very corrupt, China as well, USA is getting there…
The problem is not overpopulation, its that humans have no power. What if we wanted to stop spending money on warfare one day and focus all that money on building more high tech buildings, lowering prices of housing, increasing wages,…you know, positive things for humans and prioritize happiness for everyone.
Sounds like a dream right? Because you cant do that, you have no power. Thats the problem, not overpopulation. That can easily be fixed with money and visions, expanding public transport, investing in high tech trains etc etc.
Currently it feels like the only way the world would be able to work together for the good of humanity would be if there was a big asteroid coming, and everyone needed to work together for once, putting our little stupid differences aside. We could do that, but leaders are children and very low on empathy or interests in making life better for strangers.
In the case of LA specifically, it’s the cars. That’s what’s changed in this picture - no cars on the road commuting to work.
People driving cars, making cars. We are overpopulated. When lemmings or any other animal gets overpopulated, they get some disease and numbers get lower. When we get that, we overcome the obstacle and the population doesn’t get significantly reduced. That is why we keep fucking up the planet. Nothing to stop us, except ourselves. And if that happens, we take all other life with us.
For what it’s worth I’m with you on the overpopulation. I don’t know what’s going on that people think population has no role in this.
The Climate Deniers Playbook podcast, Episode: There’s just too many people, a nice episode debunking this myth that there are too many people
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3XsAW5AkFTGYBvM2vuoNLp
https://podcasts.apple.com/sk/podcast/the-climate-deniers-playbook/id1694759084?i=1000662501122
(I’m not saying this is my personal opinion so don’t roast me plz):
it’s not that there are too many people.
it’s that there are too many people living under a regime that compels them to wantonly consume, pollute, and generally destroy the ecosystem in favor of the sole benefit of a miniscule number of oligarchs
in other words, the planet has the carrying capacity to sustain all of us theoretically, but not practically as things are today, at least not if humans continue living according to capitalist hyper consumptive individualism.
so yeah, there are too many people - unless we effectively reprogram all of modern culture to embrace a sustainable and pro environmental ethics… which you and I know, isn’t going to happen.
QED: too many people.
note: this is different from the other commenters take because it’s not making claims about human nature as being inherently bad. it’s just claiming that the system/culture people are born into is bad and does in fact impose artificial limitations on the capacity of the planet to support diverse ecosystems
Only americans consume too much, thats 4 % of the population, you should really listen to the podcast episode
appreciate the rec, I’ve been a patreon to Climate Town for years and already listened to that episode of CDH…
my point still stands. “too much” is a spectrum, my opinion likely differs significantly from most people, including Rollie’s. i lean towards the Daniel Quinn side of environmental ethics, which definitely places more than just fat over consuming Americans in the category of unsustainable cultures.
Well then the good news for you is that lots of wealthy “western” countries are starting to decline in population and will actually need immigration to keep up numbers. There is the pretty nice Kurzgesagt video about how South Korea is basically done.
I dont know why you say we in this context. Almost none of us have any control over the decisions of “the world”. Its run by billionaires with their paid off politicians, corporate lawyers, judges…
Russia is very corrupt, China as well, USA is getting there…
The problem is not overpopulation, its that humans have no power. What if we wanted to stop spending money on warfare one day and focus all that money on building more high tech buildings, lowering prices of housing, increasing wages,…you know, positive things for humans and prioritize happiness for everyone.
Sounds like a dream right? Because you cant do that, you have no power. Thats the problem, not overpopulation. That can easily be fixed with money and visions, expanding public transport, investing in high tech trains etc etc.
Currently it feels like the only way the world would be able to work together for the good of humanity would be if there was a big asteroid coming, and everyone needed to work together for once, putting our little stupid differences aside. We could do that, but leaders are children and very low on empathy or interests in making life better for strangers.
Your comment is just apologia for failing to promote good urbanism. Overpopulation or not, there is no excuse for sprawl.
This is an incredibly cringe take and I wish you’d never type it out again.