World Population Projections

[worlder]

http://www.nbc29.com/story/22584406/un-world-population-to-reach-81-billion-in-2025

So...

Boy, what a nice century to grow up in.

[starseeker]

The URL missing the decimal point just makes it funnier.

[worlder]

The URL missing the decimal point just makes it funnier.

Huh, well if the URL were telling the forecast then that would be worse.

[mellenORL]

At least it is not the high projection I learned about in school as a child. The growth rate was alarmingly fast back then, with a figure of 13 billion by 2050. Basically it was the post war baby boom rate projected forward.

[SpaceProg]

Humanity: There are condoms, and birth control, as well as other forms of prophylactics.   Use em!

[wrightway]

The URL missing the decimal point just makes it funnier.

I about had a heart attack until I saw about the missing decimal. And in know I'm being a massive hypocrite now because my first thought was "Yeah, my kids are toast if I get unadopted grandkids."

[Alehksunos]

Humanity: There are condoms, and birth control, as well as other forms of prophylactics.   Use em!

No! God asked every one of us to have children! We much punish those who choose defy God's demands! Respect life! (/fundie-wundie)

[Dakota Bob]

...So, time to implement Soylent Green?

[Zygarde]

Or we could hope another black death or bubonic plague shows up it's been a while since we've had a huge fuck all disease outbreak.

[worlder]

Or we could hope another black death or bubonic plague shows up it's been a while since we've had a huge fuck all disease outbreak.

Well there is the possibility that Edward Snowden is a harbinger of the next world war.

Won't that be a fun thought?

[chitoryu12]

Not to mention that we're actually becoming LESS violent. A study on the 20th century found that despite there being approximately 5 minutes of time when the world was at total peace, the death toll was lower than any previous century. Warfare requires fewer people, especially with the advent of robotics and remotely operated drones, and many armies are staffed by volunteers rather than conscripted peasants. Most nations don't even resort to war in the first place, compared to previous centuries where starting a war was pretty much what you did in response to a perceived snub at an award ceremony.

So combine that with improved health allowing for longer lives and less risk for pandemics (and with relatively small death rates if they DO occur in developed countries), and you've got a population boom.

There's few ways to counter it other than not having babies. Abortion and birth control are big ones, as well as encouraging families to adopt existing kids instead of having biological children. China's a common example of a country that established strict governmental birth control, but they don't exactly murder infants in the hospitals to counteract couples that have kids anyway. Their population is STILL growing and isn't expected to peak and decrease until the 2030s, as improved health care helps counteract the fertility rate being slightly below that necessary for population growth.

[PosthumanHeresy]

Or we could hope another black death or bubonic plague shows up it's been a while since we've had a huge fuck all disease outbreak.

No, it's really not. In fact, last one was the Spanish Flu. But, it wasn't. We're in the middle of another "huge fuck all disease outbreak". AIDS/HIV. The thing is, in the first world, we did what Akin thinks womens' bodies do when raped. We shut that whole thing down. Sure, people die of it in the first world today, but mostly, they live normal lives, just on drugs, now. It took us a few decades, but there's no more Philidelphia-type things going on. Now, in the third world, it tears a path of death like a pissed off action movie star. But, that's the thing. We can't have a disease outbreak like that anymore. We're too advanced. We've not yet eliminated disease, but it's the Black Knight after his arm's off. Not dead yet, and not even disabled yet, but damn near.

[Stormwarden]

I just hope the next outbreak isn't like a certain fungus in South America that plants itself in ants' (or other insects) heads and makes them climb so that it can bloom and spread its spores all over. If that ended up happening to humans, we would be in a world of trouble.

[PosthumanHeresy]

I just hope the next outbreak isn't like a certain fungus in South America that plants itself in ants' (or other insects) heads and makes them climb so that it can bloom and spread its spores all over. If that ended up happening to humans, we would be in a world of trouble.

I remember that thing. I really hope it is. Think about it, they abandon the pack, mindlessly wander to their destination (which, would be different for them, because they'd look to climb buildings and not have ant-climbing powers), and would be a mindless threat with no regard for its safety. And we'd need to wipe them out. Or in other words, motherfuckin' zombies.

[Sigmaleph]

Parasites altering host behaviour are not that unusual, actually. For example, trematodes infest fish and make them act in such a way as to attract predatory birds, who then eat the fish and allow the parasite to continue its reproductive cycle.
(Illustrated by Zach Weinersmith here)
Human brains are the slightest bit more complicated than ant or fish brains, though. Any complex behavioural alteration that doesn't already exist would take too long to evolve, and we'd be able to deal with it easily.

Of course, that's exactly what a mind-controlled host would say to blind you to your imminent slavery.