Townhall.com
Walter E. Williams
May 31, 2027

In 1798, Thomas Malthus wrote "An Essay on the Principle of Population." He predicted that mankind's birthrate would outstrip our ability to grow food and would lead to mass starvation. Malthus' wrong predictions did not deter Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich from making a similar prediction. In his 1968 best-seller, "The Population Bomb," which has sold more than 2 million copies, Ehrlich warned: "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." This hoax resulted in billions of dollars being spent to fight overpopulation.
According to the standard understanding of the term, human overpopulation occurs when the ecological footprint of a human population in a specific geographical location exceeds the carrying capacity of the place occupied by that group. Let's look at one aspect of that description -- namely, population density. Let's put you, the reader, to a test. See whether you can tell which country is richer and which is poorer just by knowing two countries' population density.

North Korea's population density is 518 people per square mile, whereas South Korea's is more than double that, at 1,261 people per square mile. Hong Kong's population density is 16,444, whereas Somalia's is 36. Congo has 75 people per square mile, whereas Singapore has 18,513. Looking at the gross domestic products of these countries, one would have to be a lunatic to believe that smaller population density leads to greater riches. Here are some GDP data expressed in millions of U.S. dollars: North Korea ($17,396), South Korea ($1,411,246), Hong Kong ($320,668), Somalia ($5,707), Congo ($41,615) and Singapore ($296,967).


The overpopulation hoax has led to horrible population control programs. The United Nations Population Fund has helped governments deny women the right to choose the number and spacing of their children. Overpopulation concerns led China to enact a brutal one-child policy. Forced sterilization is a method of population control in some countries. Nearly a quarter-million Peruvian women were sterilized. Our government, through the U.N. Population Fund, is involved in "population moderation" programs around the world, including in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia and Colombia.

The entire premise behind population control is based on the faulty logic that humans are not valuable resources. The fact of business is that humans are what the late Julian L. Simon called the ultimate resource. That fact becomes apparent by pondering this question: Why is it that Gen. George Washington did not have cellphones to communicate with his troops and rocket launchers to sink British ships anchored in New York Harbor? Surely, all of the physical resources -- such as aluminum alloys, copper, iron ore and chemical propellants -- necessary to build cellphones and rocket launchers were around during Washington's time. In fact, they were around at the time of the cave man. There is only one answer for why cellphones, rocket launchers and millions of other things are around today but were not around yesteryear. The growth in human knowledge, human ingenuity, job specialization and trade led to industrialization, which, coupled with personal liberty and private property rights, made it possible. Human beings are valuable resources, and the more we have of them the better.


The greatest threat to mankind's prosperity is government, not population growth. For example, Zimbabwe was agriculturally rich but, with government interference, was reduced to the brink of mass starvation. Any country faced with massive government interference can be brought to starvation. Blaming poverty on overpopulation not only lets governments off the hook but also encourages the enactment of harmful, inhumane policies.

Today's poverty has little to do with overpopulation. The most commonly held characteristics of non-poor countries are greater personal liberty, private property rights, the rule of law and an economic system closer to capitalism than to communism. That's the recipe for prosperity.

Link

quote:

Human beings are valuable resources, and the more we have of them the better.

Nonsense. They still have to eat, drink, douche, etc.
If you can't feed them or provide potable water, humans are worm food.

ETA - The greatest threat to mankind's prosperity is government
On this I agree with the author 100%.

This may be neither here nor there, but would have had more children if I could have afforded them, but I stopped at 2. 2 is just the replacement of my wife and myself on this planet. I took the responsible route, stopping at 2. 2 offspring was all.

MANY people don't think like me, and many of them populate at will, responsibility be damned. Our welfare system rewards the irresponsible, allowing them to 'over-populate" while the responsible get left behind.

I STRONGLY believe population should self regulate by not subsidizing the offspring of the irrisponsible. If you want to have children, pay for them your damned self!

I

quote:

The greatest threat to mankind's prosperity is government

or stated another way: The greatest threat to mankind is government

quote:

Originally posted by ftttu:
This may be neither here nor there, but would have had more children if I could have afforded them, but I stopped at 2. 2 is just the replacement of my wife and myself on this planet. I took the responsible route, stopping at 2. 2 offspring was all.

MANY people don't think like me, and many of them populate at will, responsibility be damned. Our welfare system rewards the irresponsible, allowing them to 'over-populate" while the responsible get left behind.

I STRONGLY believe population should self regulate by not subsidizing the offspring of the irrisponsible. If you want to have children, pay for them your damned self!

I

Amen!

If the human population really were to get out of hand, nature would come up with something to balance things out.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
If the human population really were to get out of hand, nature would come up with something to balance things out.

Or as I've noted many times, the planet will simply get fed up with our nonsense, and we'll be the next species to go extinct. There have been times in the history of the world where the planet has wiped out life and reset, and it's almost guaranteed it will happen again.

quote:

Originally posted by 10-7 leo:

quote:

Originally posted by ftttu:
This may be neither here nor there, but would have had more children if I could have afforded them, but I stopped at 2. 2 is just the replacement of my wife and myself on this planet. I took the responsible route, stopping at 2. 2 offspring was all.

MANY people don't think like me, and many of them populate at will, responsibility be damned. Our welfare system rewards the irresponsible, allowing them to 'over-populate" while the responsible get left behind.

I STRONGLY believe population should self regulate by not subsidizing the offspring of the irrisponsible. If you want to have children, pay for them your damned self!

I

Amen!

Yep, and this is the premise of Idiocracy. The low IQ idiots popping welfare babies continue to procreate while intelligent people actually weigh the impact of adding a child. I wanted four originally and now am questioning if I can even support more than 2.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
If the human population really were to get out of hand, nature would come up with something to balance things out.

Or as I've noted many times, the planet will simply get fed up with our nonsense, and we'll be the next species to go extinct. There have been times in the history of the world where the planet has wiped out life and reset, and it's almost guaranteed it will happen again.

Humans can't go extinct. Who will pay the debt?

quote:

The greatest threat to mankind is government

The greatest threat to mankind is their relying on government

somewhere along the line, a lot of people chose something other then self reliance.

a lot of people chose to be reliant on others , most of the time its "government" but a portion of the time they choose charities for sustenance.

Some say that this trend started about 5 years after F.D.R. took office.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
If the human population really were to get out of hand, nature would come up with something to balance things out.

Or as I've noted many times, the planet will simply get fed up with our nonsense, and we'll be the next species to go extinct. There have been times in the history of the world where the planet has wiped out life and reset, and it's almost guaranteed it will happen again.

Humans can't go extinct. Who will pay the debt?

Thank you. I was having a crummy day and that put a smile on my face.

Have as many kids as you want as long as you can support them and teach them to support themselves, IMO.

Most "overpopulation crisis" people I've come across live in cities or suburbs where everything seems too crowded. Drive across Alaska or Texas or Wyoming and your view changes a bit.

quote:

Humans can't go extinct. Who will pay the debt?

Thank you. I was having a crummy day and that put a smile on my face.

LOL +1
It's a self-correcting problem....
The current generation of millenials will self-destruct!
Have a better day, bigdeal!

Governments have killed more people in the last few hundred years than all other causes combined.

more than religion ?

I have to go do some math

quote:

Originally posted by Jager:
Governments have killed more people in the last few hundred years than all other causes combined.

I'm getting close to the end of the 11 volume, ~12,000 page "Complete Story of Civilization" by
Will and Ariel Durant.

One aspect of human history stands out, the persistent slaughter of people by their fellows, over land, over religion(s), over kings and princes and governors, Caesars, Pharoahs, et al. I believe Durant, maybe not as part of this book, has claimed that of the last 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them, or just 8 percent of recorded history. This doesn't count ordinary murders, for robberies, affairs, etc, or Chicago.

Thomas Malthus Was writing about agrarian societies. Limited to such societies he is correct. The industrialization of agriculture has made his thesis obsolete.

There was "Famine 1975" that sought to resurrect Malthus. The author actually listed nations that we should refuse to feed. The "Green Revolution" with it's ncreased crop yields, consigned the book to the compost heap.

What really helps with population growth is education. Still the specture of "The Marching Morons"(Cyril M. Kornbluth, 1951, http://mysite.du.edu/~treddell...-Marching-Morons.pdf) where idiots take over the world still remains a possibility.

quote:

Originally posted by wishfull thinker:

quote:

The greatest threat to mankind's prosperity is government

or stated another way: The greatest threat to mankind is government

or more concisely
The greatest threat is government.

quote:

Originally posted by Jager:
Governments have killed more people in the last few hundred years than all other causes combined.

I'm thinking influenza might have government beat.

https://youtu.be/lZeyYIsGdAA

I've always wanted to get the Forum's opinion on the above documentary. It is called "The Demographic Winter." Its premise is that there has not been a population boom due to births, but due to increased lifespan. Those gains have already been realized in the twentieth century, but birth rates have crumbled in the last 75 years, so by 2050 the human race will begin a rapid decline. It also goes over the social ramifications of a population where the age pyramid becomes inverted, with more aged than young. It is a bit disettling.