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Text Messages USED to cost money. Now, nobody actually uses TXT, as we no longer have dumb phones. We use Hangouts, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, GoogleVoice, email ....

Txt was good when all you had was a feature phone.

Congrats on living in a major metropolitan area. The other 99% of the world still has to pay for texts.

I'll never get over peoples myopic view of the world.

99% of people (particularly people with cell phones) live outside of metropolitan areas? This page claims about half of the worlds people live in a city.

The problem with focusing all your aid to decrease mortality rates is that you end up with explosive population growth that makes it that much harder to lift these people out of poverty.

"Growth is expected to be particularly dramatic in the least developed countries of the world, which are projected to double in size from 898 million inhabitants in 2013 to 1.8 billion in 2050 and to 2.9 billion in 2100. High population growth rates prevail in many developing countries, most of which are on the UN’s list of 49 least developed countries. Between 2013 and 2100, the populations of 35 countries could triple or more. Among them, the populations of Burundi, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia are projected to increase at least five-fold by 2100." http://www.unfpa.org/pds/trends.htm

I think that it has been revised a few times in the last year and projections are higher than what was hoped - and no decline in the next century (although a slowing is expected).
There is a nice chart here: http://www.unfpa.org/pds/trends.htm

It is projected to reach 8.1 billion in 2025, and to further increase to 9.6 billion in 2050 and 10.9 billion by 2100

power consumption
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=united+states+power+use+%2F+population+of+united+states
1.39 kilowatt hr / year per person in the USA
If everyone globally uses the same (similar) amount, which is reasonable, it will require about 5x more power that currently used globally. That assumes a lot of things, of course.
Projections are fun!

I appreciate the optimism, but I find the idea of "we will be cause we need to" to be extremely naive. It ignores a history full of fallen civilizations and makes broad future predictions with no evidence whatsoever. Also, it seems to calm any worries without involving any particular push to action nor plan to follow. Mankind's epitaph could well be "they did what they needed to survive, till they failed".

On the other hand the idea of reducing population seem very sound. It involves practical plans with some evidence of good results (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Development/Family-Planning), and I don't know anyone that actually proposes to kill people (yes, China used draconian measures but that does not mean other options are not possible). If we added BILLIONS of people over 50 years (say, from 3bn in 1960 to 7bn in 2012) thinking of reversing the trend in another 50 doesn't seem to me the aberration you seem to believe. Overall, it makes the statement that many of our current, social, economical and environmental problems seem to come from too many wanting to consume more, so reducing the number of people that needs to be supported helps diminish said problems. Also, reducing serious organizations (like the UN http://unfpa.org/swp/2009/en/ch6.shtml) and serious people to "these naysayers" hardly gets us to a better understanding.

With all due respect, I consider the fact that you were modded insightful kind of dangerous.

And your own technique is a very common one, where you dismiss arguments by claiming it's all "conspiracy theory" and claiming any sources are not credible through ad hominems and guilt by association ("exclusively on crackpot websites").

Well, why would anyone but those you can label as "crackpots" point out that statement by Ted Turner anyway. And of course any other propagation of ideas for depopulating the planet - seen so far by most as very extremist - is going to be downplayed by those promoting the idea to avoid being discredited themselves for promoting extremist ideas. None of that supports your outrageous claim of "fraud, plain and simple." To the contrary, your own dismissal of my assertion and defense of the very groups and powerful, wealthy people advocating depopulation makes your own agenda questionable to an objective observer.

I've actually downloaded the 2009 UNFPA report and guess what, your alleged quote doesn't appear in it.

Not sure what you are talking about, specifically. You can find the UN Population Division Policy Brief right here, and the quote is actually the very first header on the first page. If you're referring to the quotes from the "Facing a Changing World: Women, Population and Climate" report, the first quote starts on the bottom of page 21, and the second on page 25. It's all right there.

As for Ted Turner's quote, it (along with the entire context and his views) was first published in an interview given in 1996 to the magazine of the American conservation organisation The Audubon Society, hardly a publication many would consider "crackpot". I'm sure you can find the whole thing if you actually want to.

Since you asked, most Americans don't grasp it yet, but the truth is that the global elite are absolutely obsessed with population control. In fact, there is a growing consensus among the global elite that they need to get rid of 80 to 90 percent of us. The number one commandment of the infamous Georgia Guidestones is this: "Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature." Unfortunately, a very high percentage of our global leaders actually believe in this stuff.

OK, I'm no American, but I'll play...

First, let's keep the anonymous polemics out of this, eh?

This philosophy is now regularly being reflected in official UN documents. For example, the March 2009 U.N. Population Division policy brief begins with the following statement:

What would it take to accelerate fertility decline in the least developed countries?

Not related to climate change, but let's read the report:

Fast population growth, fueled by high fertility, hinders the reduction of poverty and the achievement of other internationally agreed development goals. While fertility has declined throughout the developing world since the 1970s, most of the least developed countries still have total fertility levels above 5 children per woman.

5 children per women is definitely a fertility level that's unsustainable in Nigeria. Or even here in India. This is nothing new - those countries with stable governments have been more or less going in the direction of lower fertility rates for decades. See this Gapminder plot, for example. In any case, the report says nothing about global warming. It's about health and happiness, not warming.

This agenda showed up again when the United Nations Population Fund released its annual State of the World Population Report for 2009 entitled Facing a Changing World: Women, Population and Climate".

1. 
   1) "Each birth results not only in the emissions attributable to that person in his or her lifetime, but also the emissions of all his or her descendants. Hence, the emissions savings from intended or planned births multiply with time."
2. 2) "No human is genuinely "carbon neutral," especially when all greenhouse gases are figured into the equation. Therefore, everyone is part of the problem, so everyone must be part of the solution in some way."
3. 3) "Strong family planning programmes are in the interests of all countries for greenhouse-gas concerns as well as for broader welfare concerns."

That would be this one

The interesting thing is, this isn't really talking about eliminating 80% of the population of the world. Both reports talk about fertility rates, family planning and improved health. The second one is a little hyperbolic about climate change, but nevertheless, it's not a call to cull 80% of the world's population.

The population control agenda is also regularly showing up in our newspapers now. In a recent editorial for the New York Times entitled "The Earth Is Full", Thomas L. Friedman made the following statement:

You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century

Certainly, but those mortality rates are much higher (5x) for mothers under the age of 15.

...to the developing world.

To the whole world would be even better. The developing world (a misnomer, as a great many of these countries are backsliding rather than developing) may have the faster growing populations, but their people consume far less resources per individual. When laying blame for the destruction of the world's oceans, one must look to the developed world's insatiable appetites as well as to the poorer countries' prodigious breeding. Both together are destroying the planet, and to condemn one without addressing the other is foolishness (or racism, but I'd rather not assume that).

Well, I live in the Third World, and there are plenty of studies that show that poor people actually have more children, because they usually can then live off their children.

http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2002/espanol/ch7/page4.ht m (In spanish, there must be an English version somewhere)

I have been thinking that the American system of healthcare is a direct violation of the Hippocratic Oath but after some cursory study, I find the oath to be wanting as it is translated into English.

The United States allows abortion and I personally think that is a good thing (allowing it) because of a study finished some years ago by the United Nations Fund for Population Activities that showed women find their value in society increases in direct correlation to their access to contraception.

It is my opinion that, if society is going to make a mistake in its laws, those mistakes ought to be the kind of mistakes that increase the worth of the citizenry of that society, not decrease their worth. Thus I feel that abortion should remain legal as a "last resource" method of contreception and in cases of rape or incest in a society that claims to value women.

The hippocratic oath specifically prohibits that:
"I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. ..."

So I don't know what doctors are swearing to.

I think that the healthcare system in the United States uses two methods of triage: financial and injury or disease. The idea behind the hippocratic oath is that doctors will work to save lives and to serve and educate people, regardless of their standing, without prejudice and with honor. This is certainly at odds with the American system of healthcare delivery.

Lawsuits are not necessarily to blame just as the level of medical education and the quality of the medical schools aren't either. I will agree that there is disfunction but one cannot point to one sole cause for the price of healthcare in the US.

Perhaps it's the "what the market will bear" attitude we have here that we apply to everything, including the public welfare. That, combined with a "survival of the fittest" ethic coming from our government these days, has created a system that is not fixable from within the system. The solution must come from outside of the system and it would appear that the global market might do that.

We cannot buy drugs from nations that control the prices of dtugs because "those drugs may be unsafe" (according to politicans and the drug companies). Never mind that these drugs are perfectly safe for the citizenry of the non-US country and are made by the same manufacturers. Drug companies tell us they're doing research when they're really researching how they can take over other drug companies and laboratories to get their patents as well as how they can use the US court system to extend their existing patents to maximize their profit cycle. They have stopped educating doctors and started using advertising to "educate" their potential customers, all the while passing the cost of national television and magazine advertising campaigns on to the customers.

Doctors have to request additional tests to protect themselves from litigation which results in more waiting for treatment that works, and adds about 1 to 2% to the costs of healthcare.

And the poor don't see a doctor in a timely way, winding up in an emergency room with an acute illness because they cannot afford either health insurance or the cost of a doctor.

In the meantime, we have lobbyists writing our laws and taxpayers footing the bill for a system that works for most but is very costly.

If there is a doctor in the house, I would specifically request a copy of or a link to the actual hippocratic oath now sworn to. And, perhaps, we need patients to swear another oath, to see a doctor regularly and to treat him as a good samaratin.

He is living in a dream wolrd, but maybe he is right about that 90% of world poulation.

If you check Minature Earth - Flash or Text only or some more serious websites like State of World Population 2002, then yes the scaring thing is that only few percent of world popuation are living in acceptable living standards. A huge percentage of worlds Population has less than one dollar per day to live.

But now, if you compare the USA to other industrial countries then the charts would not look soo great, actually I would expect the USA to be somewhere down the bottom on the list.

I have never seen so many homeless people and ghettos like I do in the USA, even not in China (where I was living for one year).

So yes again, many Americans are living in a dream World. Guys, wake up and open your eyes, go out on the streets and see. Saying the US is superior in living standart to something, is like if the president of Uganda was saying that his personal living standard in Uganda is much better then that 90% of the worlds population.

whatever. it is just slashdot.

p.s. For you americans, Uganda is one of the poorest countries in the world.

The United Nations Population Fund (link)

Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS (link)

United Nations Children's Fund aka UNICEF (link)

UN's work on women's rights (link)

UN Commission on Sustainable Development (link)

United Nations Environment Programme (link)

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (link)

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (link)

One would HOPE that
that posters have a vague familiarity with the UN before launching such a broadside.

Until you donate 2 billion dollars to the cause, maybe you should shut the hell up about charity.

Actually, according to the UN's population growth report the world's population should stop growing by around 2050. This is due to the replacement rate trends going down throughout the world. Of course, there is no guarantee that the report will be accurate and certainly the large population at that point could be a problem, but it's not the doom and gloom scenario you propose.

I have read Ishmael and it was quite interesting. I agree with some of Quinn's points about having to think about the consequences of our actions and how we're all immersed in a "story." I don't believe that we have to reject all of our current "story" however. And some of his points about population growth are not born out by the UN report. Read it.

Steve

Women who want an abortion generally choose abortion because they do not want to be pregnant. There is a difference.

In some cases, the women need an abortion because they have a medical condition which makes carrying a child to term potentially life threatening. In fact, pregnancy itself is a serious risk for any woman.

From http://www.plannedparenthood.org/articles/maternmo rt.html:

Abortion is far safer than carrying a pregnancy to term.

Death occurs in 0.4 of 100,000 abortions performed within the first eight weeks of pregnancy -- the time during which more than half of abortions occur.

Death occurs in 1 of 100,000 abortions performed during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, but 88 percent of abortions occur within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Only 1.5 percent of abortions occur after 20 weeks. So the risk of maternal mortality is at least seven times greater than the risk of death resulting from safe and legal abortion.

See also http://www.unfpa.org/mothers/facts.htm

Yeah, cause good ol' Bill isn't philanthropic enough...