Culling Humanity?

For my Issues Investigation in Biology, I found out that humanity is at plague proportions!

Suffice to say, Imma thinking we might need culling soon.

Stratagy: remove thewarning labels from things and let natural seletion do its work.

Opinions or strategies?

Chemical/biological warfare writ very large. Start with mainland China.

12 Monkeys, baby.

Soviet era beta testing of new technology to create a permanent base on the moon

Yearly monetary reward for the best darwin award

engineered virus to render idiots jackass, and trolls sterile

On a more serious note those are the types of discussions I like to have with my biology students

SSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! ,if MI6 or the CIA intercept this we are all in big trouble !

Awinnell wrote:SSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! ,if MI6 or the CIA intercept this we are all in big trouble !

But what if they have the same ideas as us?

THEN WHO WAS PHONE?

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:Stratagy: remove thewarning labels from things and let natural seletion do its work.

Opinions or strategies?

Have you seen Mike Judge's film Idiocracy (is it even available in Australia)? Left to their own devices humanity will wipe itself out.

Professor Voodoo wrote:

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:Stratagy: remove thewarning labels from things and let natural seletion do its work.

Opinions or strategies?

Have you seen Mike Judge's film Idiocracy (is it even available in Australia)? Left to their own devices humanity will wipe itself out.

Yup, I seen it .
And some problems with whole bilologica/chemical/nuclear (I know no one has mentioned nuclear yet, but we were all thinking it) is that you would have to target someone without such capababilities, or at least hit them hard enough with the first strike to cripple thier ability to retaliate.

Awinnell wrote:SSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! ,if MI6 or the CIA intercept this we are all in big trouble !

It's alright, for me anyway, they don't have duristriction in Australia , I think. I do however have to worry about AZIO.

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:And some problems with whole bilologica/chemical/nuclear (I know no one has mentioned nuclear yet, but we were all thinking it) is that you would have to target someone without such capababilities, or at least hit them hard enough with the first strike to cripple thier ability to retaliate.

Why are you worried about crippling their ability to retaliate? We want to depopulate the earth, remember?

But if you insist, here's a foolproof method. Ground teams infiltrate country of choice, set up numerous detonator-activated nuclear warheads in heavily populated cities (I'm talking about two or three per every state-sized region) and then blow them up. They can't fire in response to stuff that wasn't launched by missile or delivered by plane, because they don't know where the hell the attack came from. If someone carried out an attack like this on China, I guarantee China'll be fucked. Think about it - 10000-plus nukes detonating all over the country.

And then glaval nuclear winter will get the rest of us

What do you think HIV/AIDS is?

a zoonosis we picked up from african primates that is causing big problems since we can't abstain from sex (yes i know it travels through other vectors). However there is some interesting studies going on that could prove useful in the future. IE there is a subset of the scandinavian populations first discoered in iceland that are naturally imune to aids (they lack a key receptor aids uses to enter our cells) ok science nerd moment over

crazyidiot78 wrote:a zoonosis we picked up from african primates that is causing big problems since we can't abstain from sex (yes i know it travels through other vectors). However there is some interesting studies going on that could prove useful in the future. IE there is a subset of the scandinavian populations first discoered in iceland that are naturally imune to aids (they lack a key receptor aids uses to enter our cells) ok science nerd moment over

There are also several variants of the virus, where one can kill you in three years or less and another does nothing but gives you an immunity to it. There are also some cures that are being kept secret because its too low cost and popular on other fronts.

That to aids is pretty notorious for mutating even with in the patient I did not know about the harmless version though. The only virus i know like that is a varient of the ebola virus i want to say it is the reston variation but i might be wrong

crazyidiot78 wrote:And then glaval nuclear winter will get the rest of us

Again, we're trying to depopulate the Earth.

AIDS is way too slow a killer to be effective.

http://www.addictinggames.com/strategy-games/pandemic2.jsp

You're welcome to figure it out...

Officer_Charon wrote:http://www.addictinggames.com/strategy-games/pandemic2.jsp

You're welcome to figure it out...

This rocks!

It has sucked HOURS of productivity away from me...

i think thats the point

Well, there's always the Voluntary Human Extinction party.

Pandemic? I used to play that quite a bit!

No, I never managed to kill Madagascar (familiar players mgiht get this joke)

I found Pandemic: American Swine (where you play as the American Government instead of the Pandemic) to be the most complex and interesting (unless there's a new one I haven't seen).

Just a fun trivia: You can name your disease anything you want. According to TvTropes, someone named their's "Stupidity." Guess how well s/he did?

Nachtsider wrote:

crazyidiot78 wrote:And then glaval nuclear winter will get the rest of us

Again, we're trying to depopulate the Earth.

AIDS is way too slow a killer to be effective.

Not depopulat, cull. For example, there a too many kangaroos in australia, so poeple go and shoot them, not nuke them so that no other living thing can occupy the land. And If nukes must be used, it would have to be neutron bombs so that after a couple of months, the land is agian habitable and infrastructure is not dammaged. Remember, we want to control population numbers, not exterminate. And aren't there radiological alarms in chana also? No... wait, they would just be in the cities .

Officer_Charon wrote:http://www.addictinggames.com/strategy-games/pandemic2.jsp

You're welcome to figure it out...

FearTheLASERFACE wrote:Pandemic? I used to play that quite a bit!

No, I never managed to kill Madagascar (familiar players mgiht get this joke)

I
found Pandemic: American Swine (where you play as the American
Government instead of the Pandemic) to be the most complex and
interesting (unless there's a new one I haven't seen).

Just a fun
trivia: You can name your disease anything you want. According to
TvTropes, someone named their's "Stupidity." Guess how well s/he
did?

I used to play this at school.
And it was alway Madagascar or Australia that gave me trouble. The trick is to save your points for a little and then just waste them on ways to infect more people and horrible simptoms. kill everything but one or two island nations pretty efficiantly.

And on the subject of starting a war, one of my teachers (I'll not mention who, but I will say I have mentioned him a couple o' times before) stated the we need a good world war to get rid of a few of us. That would only work as long as it stays on conventional warfare, as in you shhot the enemy, they shoot you. No nukes. No Biological warfare. Otherwise theres the whole 'depopulated earth' problem again.
Unless it turns out like fallout? That'd be kinda cool .

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:
Not depopulat, cull... Remember, we want to control population numbers, not exterminate.

Sorry, lol. I can often get quite carried away with my madcap fantasies of mass murder.

Mad props for realizing this part, though:

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:And aren't there radiological alarms in chana also? No... wait, they would just be in the cities .

The Party fat cats will look out for themselves and a select few areas critical to the economy. The rest of the country can go die in a fire for all they care.

Anybody considered the zombie option yet, cliche as it is? I think a zombie apocalypse might be an ideal way to go.

Nachtsider wrote:

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:
Not depopulat, cull... Remember, we want to control population numbers, not exterminate.

Sorry, lol. I can often get quite carried away with my madcap fantasies of mass murder.

Mad props for realizing this part, though:

No probs, man. I do that occasionally too. Proabably a good reason why I shouldn't own any firearms or WMDs .

Natchsider wrote:

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:And aren't there radiological alarms in chana also? No... wait, they would just be in the cities .

The Party fat cats will look out for themselves and a select few areas critical to the economy. The rest of the country can go die in a fire for all they care.

Anybody considered the zombie option yet, cliche as it is? I think a zombie apocalypse might be an ideal way to go.

The Solanumn Virus would be efficiant enough. The only known cure is destroying the brain of the infected victim. Will take a few weeks or even months for an organised resistance to be formed. Hopefully all members of this forum have read The Zombie Survival Guide so that non eof them will die, because that would be unfortunate. Depending on climate, most zombies would have rotted five years after turning, most infected rotted or destroyed after 20 - 25 years.

Drawbacks to the plan: most water sources become infected as the zombies can go under water without dying (because they don't need to breath), and zombies in artic climates can roam for up to 15 years as the will be fromzen and the bacteria that normally eat the body will be fewer and sometimes dormant in the coldest areas.

Thread with all other additional zombie info: https://gunslinger-girl.forumotion.com/t257-zombie-plan?highlight=zombie

And if anyone suggests using Resident Evil style zombies that can Run and/or think and/or act like anything other than a shuffling corpse, I will ill-speak of in the village! (seriously though, those sort of zombies are akin to blasphamy, don't ever mention them )

Pitty I can't use this thread as a reasource for my info, it would make my Investigation so fun .

Again, mad props for recognizing this part:

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:Depending on climate, most zombies would have rotted five years after turning, most infected rotted or destroyed after 20 - 25 years.

In actual fact, I hesitate to even give a zombie a lifespan of two years. People seriously underestimate how quickly things can decay, and what decay can do to a corpse's structural integrity.

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:Drawbacks to the plan: most water sources become infected as the zombies can go under water without dying (because they don't need to breath), and zombies in artic climates can roam for up to 15 years as the will be fromzen and the bacteria that normally eat the body will be fewer and sometimes dormant in the coldest areas.

I don't know about the cold climate thing, but the water thing is bullshit. Water is full of bacteria; if anything, the zombies would rot quicker when submerged. Take it from someone who's had to handle drowning victims left in the water for upwards of a week.

The Zombie Survival Guide contains some handy tips, but it is not a be-all-and-end-all tome to zombie survival. Brooks torpedoes his credibility with more than a few questionable weapon choices, for instance.

Vaccines
GMO's
Artificial Sweeteners
HIV/AIDS

It's all part of the evil globalist's plan to wipe out humanity. A slow kill is less likely to gain attention then well a mass plague.[/Alex Jones]


We are humans, we spend billions on develop new weapons to "humanely" murder humans.

I just played Pandemic II on Realistic mode, for the first time in a while.

I won for the first time.

Before that, I found a name I could use for the disease on TvTropes, thought it was clever, and used it.

Apparantly, the entire world was wiped out by "Stupidity."

Nachtsider wrote:Again, mad props for recognizing this part:

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:Depending on climate, most zombies would have rotted five years after turning, most infected rotted or destroyed after 20 - 25 years.

In actual fact, I hesitate to even give a zombie a lifespan of two years. People seriously underestimate how quickly things can decay, and what decay can do to a corpse's structural integrity.

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:Drawbacks to the plan: most water sources become infected as the zombies can go under water without dying (because they don't need to breath), and zombies in artic climates can roam for up to 15 years as the will be fromzen and the bacteria that normally eat the body will be fewer and sometimes dormant in the coldest areas.

I don't know about the cold climate thing, but the water thing is bullshit. Water is full of bacteria; if anything, the zombies would rot quicker when submerged. Take it from someone who's had to handle drowning victims left in the water for upwards of a week.

The Zombie Survival Guide contains some handy tips, but it is not a be-all-and-end-all tome to zombie survival. Brooks torpedoes his credibility with more than a few questionable weapon choices, for instance.

When I said go under water without drowning, I didn't mean they can survive indefinatley, just that they don't drown like anything 'alive' would, they would rot quicker. As I recall however, bacteria aren't big fans of solanumn infect flesh, so the rotting is slow.

And the 20-25 years thing is also acounting for all the new victims. Person A is infected, after three years, Person A infects Person B. Another two years and person A has rotted but Person B is still roaming.

As far as the Z Survival Guide being the be-all-end-all tome, it's the only Z-book I've read . ANd I don't like going by movies as they never give a very good explination (though you may have ssen one that has that I haven't seen yet)

FearTheLASERFACE wrote:I just played Pandemic II on Realistic mode, for the first time in a while.

I won for the first time.

Before that, I found a name I could use for the disease on TvTropes, thought it was clever, and used it.

Apparantly, the entire world was wiped out by "Stupidity."

Damn you, I've never won the game ever!
But seriously, cool . Stupidity does seem like something that couls kill us all.

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:When I said go under water without drowning, I didn't mean they can survive indefinatley, just that they don't drown like anything 'alive' would, they would rot quicker. As I recall however, bacteria aren't big fans of solanumn infect flesh, so the rotting is slow.

That part strained credibility, you know - the part about bacteria not wanting to go for flesh infected by solanum. I've never, ever heard of any virus that does that sort of thing. In his push to make the zombie apocalypse fearful, methinks Brooks went overboard with his sci-fi. But oh well.

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:And the 20-25 years thing is also acounting for all the new victims. Person A is infected, after three years, Person A infects Person B. Another two years and person A has rotted but Person B is still roaming.

Ah, gotcha. Theoretically, though, humanity could survive by avoiding the zombies and waiting for them to rot away, which again leads me back to Brooks going overboard. I don't think World War Z would've lasted so damned long.

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:As far as the Z Survival Guide being the be-all-end-all tome, it's the only Z-book I've read . ANd I don't like going by movies as they never give a very good explination (though you may have ssen one that has that I haven't seen yet)

Oh, I'm talking about going by real life.

The M-16 is nowhere near the unreliable weapon Brooks makes it out to be, for instance. Automatic fire, while something he doesn't advise, can work by chopping a zombie's limbs off. A burst from an automatic weapon can do that to a live human; imagine what it could do to a rotting corpse.

I've handled a 'Shaolin spade', as Brooks calls it. The damned thing is huge and heavy. Not something you'd want to lug around while being chased by zombies; heck, not something your average person could lug around with no trouble. And I've handled a trench knife, too. No way in hell I'm fighting zombies with that - it's great at doing the damage he describes, but the 'reach' of the weapon is so short; you have to really get in close with the zombies to do damage, and you'll be bitten before long.

Hang on. I suggested a zombie apocalypse as a method to cull humanity, and now I'm trying to poke holes in a zombie apocalypse. The hell?

Nachtsider wrote:

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:When I said go under water without drowning, I didn't mean they can survive indefinatley, just that they don't drown like anything 'alive' would, they would rot quicker. As I recall however, bacteria aren't big fans of solanumn infect flesh, so the rotting is slow.

That part strained credibility, you know - the part about bacteria not wanting to go for flesh infected by solanum. I've never, ever heard of any virus that does that sort of thing. In his push to make the zombie apocalypse fearful, methinks Brooks went overboard with his sci-fi. But oh well.

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:And the 20-25 years thing is also acounting for all the new victims. Person A is infected, after three years, Person A infects Person B. Another two years and person A has rotted but Person B is still roaming.

Ah, gotcha. Theoretically, though, humanity could survive by avoiding the zombies and waiting for them to rot away, which again leads me back to Brooks going overboard. I don't think World War Z would've lasted so damned long.

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:As far as the Z Survival Guide being the be-all-end-all tome, it's the only Z-book I've read . ANd I don't like going by movies as they never give a very good explination (though you may have ssen one that has that I haven't seen yet)

Oh, I'm talking about going by real life.

The M-16 is nowhere near the unreliable weapon Brooks makes it out to be, for instance. Automatic fire, while something he doesn't advise, can work by chopping a zombie's limbs off. A burst from an automatic weapon can do that to a live human; imagine what it could do to a rotting corpse.

I've handled a 'Shaolin spade', as Brooks calls it. The damned thing is huge and heavy. Not something you'd want to lug around while being chased by zombies; heck, not something your average person could lug around with no trouble. And I've handled a trench knife, too. No way in hell I'm fighting zombies with that - it's great at doing the damage he describes, but the 'reach' of the weapon is so short; you have to really get in close with the zombies to do damage, and you'll be bitten before long.

Hang on. I suggested a zombie apocalypse as a method to cull humanity, and now I'm trying to poke holes in a zombie apocalypse. The hell?

That's alright, I do the sme sort of thing sometimes too . And I think Brooks was talking about the A1 version used in Vietnam.

I do sorta agree with you on the weapon choices. One assault rifle which wuold be ideal is the Austyer F88 (rifle the Aussie army uses) (also, you may want to check with a reputable source beofre accepting what I'm about to say as 'accurate' information) The F88 is designed so that is you just tap the trigger, it will only fire a singel shot, and will fire on full auto is that trigger is held for an extended period of time, so it is actually impossible to fire off more than one round unless you purposely hold down the trigger. (Again, only second hand info, check with someone who knows what they are on about if you want the truth. BTW, the may be other rifles that do that same but I don't know of them).

Plus the katana and machete probably won't help much if you don't have much training or experiance with a sword.

Additionally brroks seems says not to use explosives, he underestimates how easy it is to construct a nuclear device, it's only the finding of the radioactive stuff that's difficult.

And has Brooks ever tried to use a sling, slingshot, blowgun, throwing knife or bow? If you have week arms, a couple of those can be FUCKING DIFFICULT, the others are equally FUCKING DIFFICULT without any bloody training!

Furhtermore, he forgets to mention battle rifles! yes thier ammo is heavier and more illeagal than other weapons, but more often than not, they came in smei-auto. I know at least the FAL comes in a semi-auto only version, other rifles probably do too. no good for on the run, but good for staying put!
Damn, I'm poking holes too now and ranting, better stop . Aw well, it's fun though .

Also, I remembered something on of my teachers said, that we should just stop trying to cure everything. If the rate of illness and death increases, there would most definately be less of us.
Or get soem brave 'volunteers' to bring a shitlaod anthrax into a few major cities, that'll get rid of a few peoples.
Or, to go really extreme, create an amry to rival the US, North Korea, and Foreign Legion combined and decimate to population of the world. (Decimate - elimeiate every tenth)

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:For my Issues Investigation in Biology, I found out that humanity is at plague proportions!

Suffice to say, Imma thinking we might need culling soon.

Stratagy: remove thewarning labels from things and let natural seletion do its work.

Opinions or strategies?

Aw, can't we all just get alon--
...... or not.

tremec6speed wrote:

Destroyer of Worlds ;D wrote:For my Issues Investigation in Biology, I found out that humanity is at plague proportions!

Suffice to say, Imma thinking we might need culling soon.

Stratagy: remove thewarning labels from things and let natural seletion do its work.

Opinions or strategies?

Aw, can't we all just get alon--
...... or not.

It's not so much that we can't get along, it's that there are just too many of us. Austrailians get on quite well with kangaroos and koalas, but we still cull them because they're freeking everywhere.
And it would be easier to get along if there are less people because there would be fewer conflicting opinions, so if anything, it's the 'peacful' solution

Now that I look at it, the spreading of humanity looks like a gigantic shroom parasite.

If only more people would realize that they are not better than anything else..
That they are not here to rule over something or even try to.
Look what happened to this planet because of little humans, hungry for might and rulership.
They wanted to defend their nest but they overdid it.
look at this wealth, television, pc and supermarkets!
great, 1/3 of all food which is produced on this earth gets thrown away.
the folks are moving farther away from their primal roots, living next to each other penned up in little boxes.
eating, sleeping, do something.
a lot of them suffer from a sneaky disorder? go to the doctor and get some happy pills instead of changing your way of life,
it must continue like before. the machinery has to function and every little cogwheel is needed.
Indeed, the walls of your box are well known and safe.
It always seemed to be more comfortable to follow commands than to use your own mind -be careful of what's outside of the box, it might scare you.

(And don't forget your happy pills!)

As I'm sure some of you will remeber, this thread was started because of an assignment in Biology. For my question I chose the question "Should humanity be culled because it is at plague proportions?" or something like that. I've nearly finished it and after I check with my teacher I'll post my results here (I need to make sure I'm not breaking ay major rules or anything). BUt yes, if I can I will post my findings here. Don't go expecting anyhting to philosophical or briliant though.

The only true scientific way to do such a thing is with low-range gamma bursts in isolated locations. It will effectively sterilize the population within the isolated sector. I bit slower than a zombie apocalypse, but MOST effective.

However if you MUST have a zombie apocalypse:
-I think it is commonly agreed that the zombie condition is a viral one in nature. So we have to look at the symptoms and method of infection transmission. A virus of the Rhabdoviridae variety would be a good template to start with. Another possible genetic template is Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. By splicing the genetic templates of these two with something fast acting such as say...Nasopharyngitis and Neisseria meningitidis and WHAMO!!...you've got yourself a zombie apocalypse in a handbasket.

Wasn't the Genome Project a GREAT idea?!!

We're did I read that financially prosperous families by and large have less children. Rather than speaking of slaughtering people as if they were so much chaff, if the standard of living can be raised to the point were humans can afford to live responsibly, all the talk of murder on a large scale might not be necessary. I can't help but feel the ghost of Hitler would be proud to read this thread. The Devil himself would be foaming at the mouth.
Who's my brother? We're all brothers

(Of course some might say some pesky brothers are not worth saving! Lolz )
Marisa: Hey Ayden, did ya hear? China, the US and most of Europe is raising the price of candy!
(An hour or so later)
Lorenzo: (loud speaker blaring) 'all agents emergency meeting! Ayden has escaped and is running amok lowering populations worldwide!!!!'
*
Never mind nukes, chems or bio meanines, there's an 8 year old super powered nut cake named Ayden....

i thought all the female hormone analogues in the water has been reducing male fertility anyway ? haven't sperm counts been declining over the last 50 years ?

Mr. Antonic wrote:Don't go expecting anyhting to philosophical or briliant though.

We're expecting it to be entertaining/engaging, though, at the very least.

Nachtsider wrote:

Mr. Antonic wrote:Don't go expecting anyhting to philosophical or briliant though.

We're expecting it to be entertaining/engaging, though, at the very least.

Well, it made my biology teacher laugh (and that terrified the hell out of me since I'm not sure whether that's good or bad). I'm sure you will like it though. I would ask that people bare in mind that it was written to get a GOOD GRADE in accordance with the SACE requirements. Oh yes, and I will post it as soon as I get my SACE results (it's really suck if I were to post it and then get a 0 on it because they found an exact copy of it on the net).

I'm actually thinking a zombie outbreak would be a bad idea since it would also negatively impact any local populations of critters the zeds just want to eat. Something like another world war though, while much much more expensive, would reduce the effect on other species. (For this excersic, imagine the zeds are uncontrolable and the waring countires stick to conventional warefare and avoids nerve gas, napalm, defoliants, bio weapons, etcetera.)

I think we're missing the point, guys. Plagues ARE the culling agent.

The Black Death took down a third of the human population in Europe, just as it became populous enough for widespread communication of the disease to be possible. The Flu Pandemic of 1918 killed more people - way more - than the World War.

Common antibiotics are becoming less and less effective as resistant diseases evolve and spread. Nature is doing her best to keep us from overruning the planet and turning it into a billiard ball. Modern medicine makes her job more difficult, since se's got to come up with something that can kill off millions before a cure is found. The next 'plague' may not be a disease at all. But any organism that grows without limit dies in its own poisons.

Personally, my money's on algal blooms knocking the props out from under our ecosystem.

let's just say this; a virus that cause the dead cell imitate themself into living cell,in other term....zombified corpse eating human

boomer_gonz wrote:The only true scientific way to do such a thing is with low-range gamma bursts in isolated locations. It will effectively sterilize the population within the isolated sector. I bit slower than a zombie apocalypse, but MOST effective.

However if you MUST have a zombie apocalypse:
-I think it is commonly agreed that the zombie condition is a viral one in nature. So we have to look at the symptoms and method of infection transmission. A virus of the Rhabdoviridae variety would be a good template to start with. Another possible genetic template is Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. By splicing the genetic templates of these two with something fast acting such as say...Nasopharyngitis and Neisseria meningitidis and WHAMO!!...you've got yourself a zombie apocalypse in a handbasket.

Wasn't the Genome Project a GREAT idea?!!

Add a little MERSA and the Siamese version of HIV (The version that cripples your immune system in 3 or less years) the drug resistant Strep, and we might have something.

Got my SACE results so I can finally post my Issues Investigation (I got a B- in Biology by the way, not sure what I got for this report specifically)

“Should the human race be culled due to overpopulation?”

Introduction:
Should the human race be culled due to overpopulation? One of the biggest issues with this question is that some would consider it unethical. However, the human race is at plague proportions, and for any other species it would have been culled. Part of the problem with humans at plague proportions is the way in which we survive. The current trend is to destroy other organisms’ habitats to make way for our own, negatively impacting many of those organisms. Another problem is that the human race isn’t only at plague proportions, but it is increasing exponentially, with each instance of the population doubling being closer and closer each time.


Relevant biological background:
A community is the sum of all populations living in a particular place at a particular time. A population is a group or organisms of the same species that live in the same area at the same time. An example of a community is a forest, which contains birds, insects, small animals such as foxes and squirrels, and trees. When humans clear these forests to make way for farmland, they replace the forest community with a farm community; displacing many species and killing off more.

Between 1800 and 1930, the human population doubled from one thousand million to two thousand million. Between 1930 and 1975, it doubled again, going to four thousand million. After 2011, the human population was greater than seven thousand million. The current prediction by the United Nations is that by the end of 2100, the human population will exceed ten thousand million people. This growth in human population means that more resources are required to sustain our numbers, and due to the limited biomass of the Earth, this means taking resources away from other species. As the human population increases, so too does the number of species becoming extinct.

In order for life to continue thriving on Earth, a great biodiversity is required. With the increase in human populations causing other species to become extinct, this biodiversity is dwindling. If too many species become extinct then the health of the biosphere will collapse almost like a game of Jenga. Without biodiversity, not only will humanity die out, but the rest of life on the planet as well.

At the current rate of consumption, humanity uses 1.5 times the amount of resources that the biosphere can sustain. In other words, humanity is consuming itself to death.

One of the reasons for this the sudden increase in human population numbers is the lack of natural predators. Humanity does not have any natural predators, and with current advancements in medicine have all but abolished natural selection. So, while humans are a K-selected species (where survival is a higher priority than breeding), we are expanding at the rate of an R-selected species (where breeding is a higher priority than survival).


Alternative views:
It is the view of many people that it is not so much that human overpopulation is the main problem, but rather our way of life that is the problem. Instead of something that seems as drastic and unethical as culling the population, the population should instead be educated on how to live sustainably. By doing this, there would be no need for what some might call mass executions, and neither the human race nor any other species would have to be culled for the sake of the other. Furthermore, many also believe that the answer is education. Rather than simply changing the way in which we live i.e. recycling our waste rather than throwing it away. We should invest in long term projects such as nuclear fusion and the exploration of space. While some may see these as preposterous or far fetched, they are the only way current trends in population growth will be able to be maintained.

The alternative to this is global education. Having all the people of the world educated would mean freer access to contraception, which would assist in regulating human population numbers.

There is another, much more radical alternative. A group called the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHET) believe that humanity should stop breeding altogether for the sake of the rest of the planet. In some ways, this can be seen as less ethical than culling, or more ethical than culling. It can be viewed as less ethical since the entire human population will die out. On the other hand, it can be seen as more ethical, as how do we select who is to be culled? Is it means tested, are there certain criteria that must be met? Are people selected at random?


Summary of results:
Humanity has already outgrown the Earth’s biosphere, using 1.5 times the resources it can reproduce annually. If the current path is continued, life on Earth will cease to exist. Due to human nature, many will be unwilling to change their way of life as it will seem an inconvenience. But human nature is also the reason why culling of human populations will never happen, as there is no ethical way to do so. The most likely possibilities of human culling are either another world war, or a virus that is engineered in a lab to kill only a certain percentage of those that get infected. Both of these events are highly unlikely though as wars are expensive and there is no commercial value to such a virus.

No. After review of the evidence available, it is clear that rather than committing what would be considered a crime against humanity, the human population of Earth should focus on education and future technologies such as nuclear fusion and space exploration.

References:

Animal Welfare Institute n.d. Human Population, viewed 24/09/2012
• Being an article hosted on the Animal Welfare institute website, this is likely a little biased towards the preservation of animals. Some information was still valuable however as it was statistics, raw numbers.

Deep Ecology Hub 2010 Human Overpopulation, viewed 24/09/2012
• This proved to be a valuable source of information that helped with much of my assignment.

Joseph R. Simonetta 11th Feb 2009 Human Overpopulation Causes, Effects and Solutions, viewed 24/09/2012
• [in seperate document]

Centre for Biological Diversity n.d. OVERPOPULATION: A Key Factor in Species Extinction, viewed 24/09/2012 Kelsey is adorable
• This site was useful as it provided many of the statistics used and is likely credible due t it being a .org site.

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement n.d. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, viewed 24/09/2012
• Used briefly to gain a different view on human population.

Dictionary, Encyclopaedia and Thesaurus – The Online Dictionary n.d. Crime against Humanity, viewed 12/11/2012
• Used briefly to make sure I know the exact definition of a crime against humanity.

Awinnell wrote:i thought all the female hormone analogues in the water has been reducing male fertility anyway ? haven't sperm counts been declining over the last 50 years ?

True, I counted my sperm the other day and it has been going down.....