Animals breed unrestricted but ultimately, they are always constrained by the food resources available to them. If they over-breed, those that cannot find food will die young. There will also be more sickness. Nature gives and nature takes.

Humans also breed unrestricted in most of the world (excepting China perhaps, which I believe still has their one child rule). If humans keep reproducing unrestricted, at some point we are going to run out of resources to feed an ever increasing population.

Humans are “supposed” to be smarter than most other animals. So why do we breed without control in many instances, particularly in 3rd world countries which are already constantly short of food and adequate medical care? There are many reasons, some of which as Yves notes.

One aspect that I have never seen discussed is that children have no choice in their birth, whether they are blessed to being born into a wealthily family that can provide them with adequate food, care, education and opportunity or be constrained to live a hardscrabble life, forever hoping to pull themselves out of a fate of poverty, hunger and/or low opportunity that they were born into without consent. I think that parents should have to demonstrate that they can provide fully for a child before they have one or more.

Sending food across the world to attempt to alleviate starvation doesn’t solve the problem. It contradicts Nature and encourages ever more breeding.

btw: here is a link on estimates for the total number of humans that have lived and died since the beginning. The number is around 106 billion. Of course the number is a gross approximation.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=764806

Now if the first world were a a good deal more environment-sensitive (more people living in apartments in cities which allows for lower heating costs and greater use of public transport; a willingness to convert to diets that were less meat intensive), we could accommodate more people living at this level, but the basic conundrum is still here.

And it is fundamental. We have the religious element, from the Catholic that intervening in reproduction is sinful, to the more generalized Judeo-Christian “be fruitful and multiply” edict. Many ethnicities and countries view any attempts to restrict childbearing as a form of genocide.

And we have the practical elements. Most societies are set up presupposing growth. Look at the much lamented demongraphic crisis hitting Japan and European countries with low birth rates, such as Italy. The obvious expedient is to encourage the able-bodied middle aged and elderly to continue working, yet there is considerable bias against that (I know of many very talented people 45 and older who simply can’t find reasonable work, and that was in a supposedly robust economy. The predisposition is to have someone young and supposedly hungry, even though the new 20-somethings actually want tons of praise and fast promotions. Prejudice dies hard).

And we do not have good alternatives for care of the elderly ex families. Even if one had the means to afford a high standard of care, there is no assurance you will get it unless someone is watching. In a hospital, having your own private duty nurse can keep you from being neglected, but otherwise, an elderly person with no/few visitors is almost guaranteed to get less attentive care than one with a lot of traffic and family members pestering the doctors. It’s the squeaking wheel phenomenon, and it operates in retirement homes too.

Now the USDA projects
the U.S. ethanol sector will need 4 billion bushels per year by 2011—roughly twice as much as it consumed in 2006.

So in 2006 ethanol fuel takes a years worth food away from 200,000,000 kids and 400,000,000 in 2011.
Those of you in NY think the lotto ads thats two hundred million kids, thats two hundred million kids

I mean, how long does anyone think we can keep doing this? There need to be 50-90% fewer people on Earth if we all want to live developed world lifestyles. It’s that simple.

I mean, Malthus has to be right eventually, even if we make it to a Dyson sphere level of technology first. Exponential population growth is a bad, bad thing.

-Walt

You heard wrong; turns out we do. Visit NPR.org and go to “All things considered” edition of the 10th of April.

You like to quote Prichard. Pray tell, what does this little jewel mean?

Wheat at $145 a barrel? The barrel is apparently built on a subsidy. Hope we don’t have subsidence!

Last I heard we don’t make ethanol from soybeans.

Pritchard is an hysterical fearmonger writing to fetch maximum effect with least fact.

And his writing style is right up there with Pirsig. Now there’s a combination.

Zen and the Art of Food Hysteria.

CONTINUOUS COMMODITY INDEX

http://quotes.ino.com/chart/?s=NYBOT_DX&v=d12

US DOLLAR INDEX

Most of this is much like Gresham’s law is commonly stated: “Bad money drives out good.” Add the MOMO investors because the price is going up along with the number one US being dollars and it is not very hard to see what is the cause and also who will ultimately pay the price.