Debate Diseases - Modern Medicine and Overpopulation

There's no such thing as "overpopulation." We could fit much more than the entire earth's population in Florida alone, with each person having a few feet to themselves.

now this goes back to nature's reproductive abilities, and I think it will suffice, if not provide more than enough. And of course diseases are bad, there's not much too it, if you look from the outside in.

 

They surely are bad on personal, societal, and economic levels, but you are right that in the grand scheme of things, diseases do curb overpopulation. For humanity specifically, I believe that disease is more of a curse than a blessing on the world. But diseases of insects, fish, and other quick or mass reproduction species are necessary for all species to coexist.

 

It's called building upwards. A Coruscant-style city would be epic.

War also curbs population. Think of that. Maybe there is some secret order in which all the world leaders decide that there needs to be a war or disaster. (lol)

 

I remember when I pointed out as a kid that one of the few benefits of the holocaust was that there would be more natural resources for the rest of the world (and my social studies teacher never looked at me the same). The maximum capacity of humans on earth is irrelevant, our reserve of resources IS however, and the more people there are, the quicker we expend these. As far as mankind goes, all we can hope for is that there are significant advances in space colonization before the earth becomes uninhabitable. If you have the opportunity to treat someone of a disease then go ahead, but all you're doing is increasing the odds of humanity's short-term survival, which becomes meaningless unless we can get off this rock.

(I recommend reading this and this)

 

Yes, that is a big problem, but if somehow possbile, wouldn't it be kool to find a planet just like earth that we could get to and half of the poplulation could live their.

But on the other hand, now that were talking about diseases.
If we can go to the moon, build things that 20,000 mph, Breath underwater, and everything like that, why can we not create a cure for cancer

 

Maybe you should have read my second paragraph?

 

Are you seriously trying to argue this point? You are ****ing delusional. Try telling that to China, India and Japan.

 

I hope you're joking. If the whole world's population can fit more than 10 times in florida alone, with more than just sleeping space, I'm sure China and India/Japan isn't overpopulated. Plus, they dug themselves into a hole, by not taking over more land earlier.

 

I don't even know what to say.

 

Then don't bother spamming. Your "Wow you just totally made yourself look like an idiot" statement doesn't work at all. I've seen you spam lots, and the debates forum is one place not to spam.

There's absolutely no point in posting that. I'm sure you haven't lived in Japan, China, or India a sufficient amount of time to observe any sort of overpopulation. Furthermore, the airlines aren't closed, they can move to any country they want if they feel their's is overpopulated, without having to go through panic of war.

 

OP you're basically arguing that one kind of horrible death should be used solve another kind of horrible death. You've reached the point in your thinking where you need to step back and realize you're destroying the problem not solving it.

Unless your concern doesn't actually lie with people but with the permanent damage that is being done to the planet by these unchecked populations. In that case you should look at some resource consumption charts and then immediately feel a twinge of guilt over having been born in a first world country.

Considering the negatives, the positive of very minor population control is inconsequential, so much so that any mention of that positive will be rightfully viewed as an expression of either malice or immaturity.

 

Really? How old are you? I would atleast hope that they are teaching people atleast common sense in school... seriously wow. Just wow

 

Over-Population has two remedies:

1. Kill humans.
2. Gather more supplies.

As wrong and cruel as it sounds, option 1 is easier and much more helpful towards the planet.

We really need to do something because humans are destroying this planet faster and faster each day.

 

It seems to me that you're pretty young yourself, calling what I think is stupid and not even giving a reason. And all of a sudden age matters? Would you think differently of my opinion if I was 35? I hope they teach YOU common sense in school, learn to back up what you believe, not just blurt out "wow you're an idiot."

Posts like your's go nowhere.

 

George Carlin and I disagree my friend:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyxuVFzKypU
But on a more serious note, while I've thought along the same lines as the OP at times(curing disease could have unintended consequences... overpopulation) I don't think that we should ever lessen our efforts to cure deadly diseases and repair damage to the environment. Instead we ought to be pursuing genetic research to where we can build a better environment 50 years from now. Engineer bacteria to process our waste into new fuels(like hygdrogen), engineer crops to have higher yield at lower cost, use gene therapy treatments on ourselves to correct for genetic disease etc.

Because cancer is not something that can be "cured" with a vaccine or a pill or anything. Cancer is a unique problem in that it is our body's own cells growing out of control and forming a tumor. It isn't a bacteria or a virus that we can single out for treatment with specialized pills that block their access to our cells, because it is our cells. Got lung cancer? Well, great, we could go out and find a treatment to kill the lung cells growing into a tumor, but the side effect is that that treatment would kill healthy lung cells too.

Radiation and chemotherapy are both treatments that do just that, they kill everything, but we do our best to keep them restricted to the cancerous area. Well, we try to restrict them and we all just cross our fingers and hope the tumor dies before the person. If the cancer is in an unnecessary area, like perhaps skin cancer on the ear like my grandfather had, the area can be cut off and the cancer "cured" at least temporarily but that doesn't work with say, liver cancer unless you've got a transplant ready.

Hey! Genetic and stem cell research could build you a new liver for transplant pretty easily! Why don't we do that? That's a totally different debate. HIV and many other "incurable" viral diseases, as well as currently incurable disorders like Parkinson's could also be treated with gene therapy or stem cells but the research has been underfunded.

Anyway, this whole cancer bit has been somewhat off-topic and I'm afraid of dragging the stem cell debate into this, but I just wanted to answer Star's question about why something like cancer hasn't been cured while we've accomplished all these great things in physics, as well as the things in physics that are actually recent, unlike the examples given.

 

OK well if you are 35, then I would hope that they at least attempted to teach you common sense in whatever kind of a school you went to.

 

You're quite oblivious of the fact I just used common sense to deny what you said. And if you bother clicking on my profile, you'll see i'm not 35.

 

You didn't learn to back up what you believe because all you said is a ridiculous statement of "10 times the worlds population could be fit into Florida easily"
and writing your age down proves nothing about anything.