The Power of Exponentials
Dr. Albert Bartlett, a professor emeritus of physics at the University of Colorado, regards overpopulation as “The Greatest Challenge” facing humanity. Like every great teacher, he explains in simple terms why overpopulation is so problematic:
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.
At a growth rate of 7%/year, a population doubles in 10 years! You can watch his poignant lecture below:
Arithmetic, Population & Energy by Dr. Albert Bartlett
Overpopulation & Global Warming
Ginosar has a well-rounded compilation of quotes from some of the great minds of our time speaking on over-population.
We must face overpopulation, some quotes
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn’t matter if someone dies. The more people there are, the less one individual matters.
- Isaac Asimov
I am convinced that some political and social activities and practices of the Catholic organizations are detrimental and even dangerous for the community as a whole, here and everywhere. I mention here only the fight against birth control at a time when overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the health of people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organize peace on this planet.
- Albert Einstein, letter, 1954
If government knew how, I should like to see it check, not multiply the population.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Population growth is the primary source of environmental damage.
- Jacques Cousteau
Short of nuclear war itself, population growth is the gravest issue the world faces. If we do not act, the problem will be solved by famine, riots, insurrection and war.
- Robert McNamara, Former World Bank President
Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victims.
- Martin Luther King, Jr., May 5, 1966
The greatest form of contraception is development.
- Mahatma Gandhi
Overpopulation is one of the greatest threats to human nature.
- Joe Rogan
In the last 200 years the population of our planet has grown exponentially, at a rate of 1.9% per year. If it continued at this rate, with the population doubling every 40 years, by 2600 we would all be standing literally shoulder to shoulder.
- Stephen Hawking
Sometimes we, as a society, fail to realize that the greatest thing we can do to reduce our footprint on the planet – more so than driving hybrids, recycling, and having resource efficient homes and businesses – is bearing fewer children.
Defying Common Sense
In a world devoid of misconceptions, ignorance and superstition, this website would be unnecessary. It would be common knowledge that shitting where you eat never leads to good unless you’re producing a movie called “Jackass”.
Yet, the over population epidemic is little known and often ignored. Species go extinct before they’re ever named, pristine habitats are permanently transformed to extract resources, and the planet warms as we suffocate ourselves with the byproducts of growth and prosperity.
Instead of addressing the root of the problem — over population, we’re inundated with a host of causes for the degradation of the planet we call home: globalization, big industry, over-indulgence, deregulation, etc. The fact remains, there wouldn’t be nearly as much emphasis on going green if there weren’t nearly 7 billion (7,000,000,000) of us. So why in this world of finite resources is the world population projected to exceed 9 billion by 2050?
There are three main contributors that enable population growth to continue unchecked and ignored: religious entitlement, tradition and a disconnect between cause and effect.
Without broaching specifics, religion provides a narrative to explain existence, death and everything in-between with an air of absolutism and inevitability. Unfortunately, devout religiosity is marked by faith and turning a blind eye to fact, reason and rationality. But strangely, while scientific findings are subject to extensive testing for validation, questioning of irrational, unsubstantiated religious beliefs is considered taboo. The merits of global warming are debated endlessly by politicians, but the assertion by religious people that the earth is 6000 years old and so evolution is a myth because it does not fit with this explanation of the world is largely ignored.
Because religion is off limits to public debate and scrutiny, behaviors justified in the name of religion go unchecked. Irrational wackos like the Duggars who have 19 brats believe that every child is a gift from a higher power instead of simply the product of a biological process called sex.
Government bodies, the media and other outlets with the loudest voices will never speak out against large families because that would be contradictory, and so could offend, the religious beliefs of the majority who denounce birth control and embrace babies as “God’s Will”.
Traditionalists cling to the past. Today we live in a post-industrial era, where a lot of manual labor has been automated by gadgetry. Where once dozens of laborers were needed to make a plot of land productive, now machines pick and shuck that corn automatically. In earlier generations large families were needed for survival. In turn, descendants of large families feel compelled to have large families of their own because that is where they’re most comfortable. These traditionalists hold that having less than three children is an unnecessary sacrifice.
Both traditionalism and religious entitlement are fed by the disconnect between cause and effect. Drilling is desired in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to fuel growing populations. Food prices increase because population rises faster than supply. Roads are congested because aging infrastructure cannot keep up with growing populations. Greenhouse gas emissions increase because of improved quality of life for growing populations.
As the world flattens, and the billions of inhabitants of developing nations like India and China make quality of life improvements on par with America, the increased consumption will reach a pinnacle from which quality of life will begin to reverse. Air quality will decline, storm intensity will increase, and finite commodities will jump in price dramatically. Yet aging populations require the support of a larger, younger population to maintain their qualities of life in retirement. It’s a Ponzi scheme and a catch-22 in a world of finite resources. Eventually, the bubble will burst
If population growth continues unchecked, eventually there will be a scramble for diminishing resources coinciding with a painful population correction. Like the Titanic heading for the iceberg, the collision course we’re on may not be reversible, but the least we can do is make people aware of the issue and try to mitigate the consequences instead of ignoring the problem.
Mainstream Awareness: 400 Million People Is SO Wrong
Train in India or DC Metro in 50 years?
Last week’s Newsweek article by Joel Kotkin, 400 Million People Can’t Be Wrong: Why America’s new baby boom bodes well for our future, praised America’s startlingly massive growth trajectory:
With a fertility rate 50 percent higher than Russia, Germany, or Japan, and well above that of China, Italy, Singapore, South Korea, and virtually all of Eastern Europe, the United States has become an outlier among its traditional competitors, all of whose populations are stagnant and seem destined to eventually decline.
Evidently if there are more of US than THEM, it must be a fantastic outlook for us. Now that we have moved beyond an arms race with the former USSR, it seems we have filled the void with — a baby race. This new drive to out-populate our global frienemies is not comforting.
While over-populated countries like India and China are finally curbing their unsustainable growth in an effort to clean up their polluted, carcinogenic environments, here we come with a solution that does little more than delay bankruptcy to that All-American ponzi scheme Social Security:
Between 2000 and 2050 the U.S. population aged 15 to 64—the key working and school-age group—will grow 42 percent, while the same group will decline by 10 percent in China, nearly 25 percent in Europe, and 44 percent in Japan. Unlike its rivals, America’s economic imperative will lie not in meeting the needs of the aging, but in providing job and income growth for our expanding workforce.
Oh, right, we currently have nearly 10% unemployment. The job climate is the worst for graduating seniors in decades. Aging infrastructure in major cities is crumbling as population growth in urban centers outpaces the ability to adapt. And Kotkin’s solution is MORE BABIES!
Long ago, a group of settlers had many offspring to help them tend to their land and maximize their crop. Eventually the settlement reached a critical mass. All the arable land was sewn, maximum crop yields were realized, and natural resources were abundant. Everyone worked. Everyone ate. Statues were even built in gratitude to the gods. Life was good. But then the settlement growth continued unchecked. More land and resources were unavailable, so competition for resources became fierce. The over-exploited land stopped providing, children starved, and the population plummeted until hardly anyone was left. All that remained were barren grasslands and giant stone heads.
Hopefully our country and the planet will avoid the same fate as Easter Island.
Alpha male jaw lines.
Mainstream Awareness: World Population Day
Today, July 11th, is World Population Day! The mostly ignored reminder of our species’ ruthless dominance was established in 1989 by the UN. It was inspired by 5 Billion Day back on July 11th 1987, when fertile males the world over joined their wives and children to celebrate what can be accomplished with a high sperm count, a relentless sex drive, and a big brain.
We here at stopreproducing.com were still prepubescent back in ’87, but we imagine 5 Billion Day must have inspired people to keep up the prophylactic-free humping because here we are a little over twenty years later fast approaching 7 billion. It took over a million years for our population to reach 1 billion back in 1800, but only another 210 years to septuple that number.
Daily Kos has a great post about the willful ignorance surrounding the issue of over population:
“There is widespread agreement among scientists that we are in overshoot. According to Global Footprint Network, 1.3 planet Earths would be required to sustainably meet the needs of our current population at present levels of consumption and waste. If we continue current upward trends in consumption and population, by 2035 we’ll need 2 Earths. This means we are not acting sustainably. We are using up stuff that we, and/or future generations, are going to need.”
World Population Day: Let overpopulation topic out of closet
Why Stop?
We here at stopreproducing.com have a very simple request: We want you to stop reproducing, now. Just stop having kids as soon as possible. That is all. We in no way condemn having sex, in fact have more sex if possible. Just, when you are having sex, do so with the intent of actually enjoying it, and not for procreation. We are kind of like the bizzaro Catholic church.
We admit, having kids used to be all the rage. Back when we were primarily an agricultural society lots of kids were a necessity. They were like slave labor you did not have to feel guilty about. We needed them to help plow the fields, and feed the livestock. Maybe sew together some burlap sacks for some fresh duds. They were cheap and efficient labor that you could pay off with a corn husk doll or a new whittlin’ knife. If they didn’t like it, well that was just too damn bad. Good luck finding dinner at the next farm twenty miles away kid. With your tiny ass legs you might make it there in two to three days, tops.
If you happened to live in a mining community, having lots of kids around was equally useful. They could fit down mine shafts that larger men would get stuck in. Also, their tiny lungs alerted the full grown miners if there was a gas leak. All without wasting a perfectly good canary!
When the industrial revolution rolled around, kids still were useful. They worked long hours and you did not have to pay them nearly as much as their full grown counterparts. Additionally their tiny little hands and limbs could fit into machines and gears grownups were too smart to go sticking body parts into.
The problem started when those fat cats in Washington decided to pass child labor laws and mandatory education bills. All of a sudden the natural check of population growth was thrown out of the window. Without thresher accidents, gruesome machine-related incidents, and collapsing mines all these kids were free to spend their childhood safe and secure in their school house. This meant that there was a surge of kids who actually got to grow up into mature, healthy adults capable of making more babies to grow up and have more kids, and so on and so forth.
This would not have been a disaster if we had been smart enough to realize that the need to have large families was gone. We went on having kids like the end of the world was coming (Spoiler Alert: it wasn’t). Populations got out of control, natural resources got depleted, and the need for eerily similar storefront avenues and strip malls has gotten to the point that suburban sprawl is on the verge of covering every inch of this planet in concrete. Add to this the fact that so many of the people on this already way too populated are so terrible, we feel that it is our duty to urge you to, you guessed it: STOP REPRODUCING.
We at stopreproducing.com feel that all people should stop reproducing, but in an effort for efficiency and equally to maintain the sanity of the rest of us, we have compiled a list of those people who we feel need to stop reproducing immediately. For reasons that are explained below we feel that the following groups of people have more or less revoked their right to pass on their undeserving seed.