Heaven and hell on earth
 

If you look at what is happening to people around the world some are in hell and some are in heaven.

Heaven equals vast wealth, free from worries, people doing everything for you.

Hell equals the poorest those with no voice and no hope, used and abused by others, children starving to death.

And this is the world that we the human race have created.

We are all guilty by continuing to live by the rules that see one with everything and one with nothing.

I agree but it would take alot of sacrifice, kindness, generosity and acceptance on a global scale to change anything, that isn't going to happen unfortunately

The rich bamboozle the poor to vote against their interests eg Brexit
And so it continues

Here's the real hard to swallow pill:

The world doesn't have the resources for all 7 billion people to live well. It's not just that it would take a gargantuan effort in sharing... if you took everything the world has and divided it equally, the result would be a relatively poor existence for everyone.

If we stop spending money on weapons and tens of millions of pounds mansions for two people to live in we would sort the world out

100 grand cars that sits in a garages

Your solution?

or for example our dutch government stops spending too much on military, we have spent too much on fighter jets

I agree. We are overpopulated and it is not sustainable. And every time nature comes up with a way to thin us out a bit, we find a cure. There is no end to our self-importance.

As for the heaven and hell thing, I really do believe that there comes a point when you have to answer for the kind of life you've led and what happens to you after that depends on the kind of human you were.

Weapons is a strange one. I'd love the UK to give up all its weapons... about ten minutes after Russia and everyone in the Middle East gives up theirs.

I don't think there is a solution

I think the only way we can reduce population is to educate people to understand the consequences of not reducing. Ask people to limit themselves to two children. There will be some who have more, but many may have less, or none. It would be a slow start, but it would be a start. It would be a huge mistake for anyone to think you could force people to reduce, you have to have them on your side and understand the reasons.

Hopefully and thankfully most people in this country are somewhere in the middle.

There isn't one. Accept the status quo and hope that population increase eventually stabilizes and thank our lucky stars that we were born on the right side of the fence, try to do what little we can to make things as "least bad" for others as we possibly can, and swallow the pill. Global equality would only ever be possible with a MASSIVE drop in population as in 75%+.

Although my honest thinking is that the world can only comfortably support a few hundred million people "living their best life" :shrug:. We're too adaptable, too good at surviving, and too good at reproducing. There's an irony in that I think. The human animal's individual ability to survive and adapt is the very thing that's going to destroy our home and ensure that our viability as a species is limited.

In order for that to happen, women all around the world need the right to education and the right to own their own bodies and reproductive systems......that's a long way off as it means tackling religious beliefs and cultures that don't want to change

I'm still hoping for the Zombie apocalypse.

The problem is that you'd need global cooperation or the population in certain areas would continue to boom. And global cooperation is... well it's not likely, really. If we can't effectively cooperate on things as urgent and basic as carbon emissions and antibiotic resistance, how would we ever cooperate on something as drastic as population level control?

Zombies can't exist in real life, or can they

Some people have worked really hard to get from hell into heaven as you call it, but not everyone who is rich is happy and not everyone who is poor is unhappy, We are really lucky to live in the country we do, there really should not be children starving, there is so much waste in the world and education has to be a thing too , we are overpopulated, I think education is the thing here, and maybe we should just be thankful we are all relatively in heaven compared to some.

That too: we have huge institutions still insisting that birth control is immoral.

Absolutely. The first thing that would need to be done would have to be the freeing and the educating of women. Every woman in the world should be in charge of their own reproductive system. And yeah, it's a massive mountain to climb... the alternative is to allow humans to increase and their needs increase to the point where the earth just dies.

In theory yes but it would probably be some sort of parasite in a living host, rather than the actual "living dead".

Yes, the Vatican for instance... refuses to allow women to use contraception, but has killed more women than childbirth.

I'm stockpiling food and shotgun cartridges... just in case.

People in power are too short sighted to even try to move forward with this anyway. Keeping people ignorant and poor is a great way to control and they will be dead anyway when the world implodes so why should they give up their money and power? Basically

So true, Kaz.

Yes, I'm kind of with you... I have no faith in humans because as a whole, they're selfish and greedy.

If I ran the world... and let's not discount that happening one day... I would make the United Nations into a useful thing, not the expensive and toothless organisation it is. No country should be run by a dictator...UN forces should be able to enter a country, depose the government and keep the country ticking over until a democratic election could be held, how ever long that takes. Right now, there is nothing but sanctions. We - the rest of the world - should be able to intervene with huge military might, made up of soldiers from all countries, whose function is to keep the peace.

Read somewhere that around 1 billion is sustainable for the planet.
The current forecasts say we'll reach 11 billion before it starts falling.

They can, but only close to canals. The Netherlands for example.

Had to give this a little lol...

luckily i don't live near a canal then :D

The only problem with another country/countries coming in and removing a dictator is if the people aren't educated or didn't pursue it themselves, it just leaves the place wide open for someone similar or worse to step into those dictators shoes. Similar to womens rights I think, alot of women in countries where they're treated as second class citizens are so brain washed all through their lives, I don't think just steam rolling in with change wouldn't be effective. They would need to want and fight for it themselves (with support of other countries of course if they wanted it and reached out for it)

You say that, but...
Oh never mind. Stay safe anyway

1 billion is sustainable at subsistence levels, if we're talking about every person being able to live in the land of milk 'n' honey it would have to be a lot less.

Here's a scary list:

1 Squirrel Unknown
2 Bat Unknown
3 Mice Unknown
4 Rat Unknown
5 Human 7.6 Billion
6 Cow 1.5 Billion
7 Sheep 1.1 Billion
8 Pig 1 Billion
9 Dog 900 Million
10 Goat 860 Million
11 Rabbit 709 Million
12 Cat 600 Million
13 Water Buffalo 175 Million
14 Horse 60 Million


Take out the rodents:


1 Human 7.6 Billion
2 Cow 1.5 Billion
3 Sheep 1.1 Billion
4 Pig 1 Billion
5 Dog 900 Million
6 Goat 860 Million
7 Cat 600 Million
8 Water Buffalo 175 Million
9 Horse 60 Million


Take out the large mammals that are only there because humans breed them for food etc:

1 Human 7.6 Billion
2 Dog 900 Million
3 Cat 600 Million
4 Horse 60 Million

:omgno: It's just us and our pets - none of which even number a billion - and no other species of mammal in the world even gets close to 50 million. Wups.

I don't mean replacing one dictatorial regime with another. I'd just like to see the UN able to depose dictators by force if necessary, and then aid the country to rebuild. If someone doesn't intervene then some countries will be populated by the hungry and oppressed forever. We know who the worst presidents/whatever they call themselves are. It's probably a forlorn hope to think that one day decent people might get together to oust them.

Thanks for this, TS
Depressing.

The problem is that being rich and healthy with all the comforts is no use without health. Get a painful incurable disease and you are in hell no matter what your circumstances are.

I admire humans wish to make everything better for everyone, but we are animals and as such we don't play fair. We want whats best for us and our loved ones above all others. That will never change.

Over population, under population makes no difference because basic instincts will always be the same

You're probably right unless we go through some sort of mindfulness evolution :laugh:

Pandemic.

It'll probably be measles....

Well that's just it though, and the primary instincts are all based around survival. It turns out, the biggest asset in adaptability and survival is intelligence, by far. Humans got too smart, and therefore "too good at surviving" and because of the inevitable population boom we're quickly outgrowing our habitat (Earth) and have nowhere to expand to, so (unless there's a sudden leap in space travel technology and terraforming) we'll use up everything that this one has to offer for as long as is possible and then simply die off.

i saw an article recently where they showed that dogs have been forced bred favouring those that can control their eye muscles to look cute to humans .... we need the same sort of thing to weed out the heartless bastards from the population