How many old people can the world support?

[kiki5711]

Why stop with the old ,surely we would be better off without the handicapped or the just plain dumb and would you want ugly people in this utopian new young world ?

I think preserving our humanity depends on a compassion and fairness. No one chooses to be handicapped and we all grow old if we live long enough! and so choosing a age related medical cut-off appears both the most sensible and most compassionate way of rapidly reducing a population! and producing a hopefully viable demographic in the face of extreme environmental change.

this kind if thinking reflects the reptile stage of human evolution. It seems some are progressing backwards.

[Atheist-Lite]

Why stop with the old ,surely we would be better off without the handicapped or the just plain dumb and would you want ugly people in this utopian new young world ?

I think preserving our humanity depends on a compassion and fairness. No one chooses to be handicapped and we all grow old if we live long enough! and so choosing a age related medical cut-off appears both the most sensible and most compassionate way of rapidly reducing a population! and producing a hopefully viable demographic in the face of extreme environmental change.

this kind if thinking reflects the reptile stage of human evolution. It seems some are progressing backwards.

If there is a alternative strategy I'm more than willing to hear it?

[Feck]

Your assumption that the population of the world is rising because of an ageing population is false . Your assumption that old people are expendable is false .

If you reduce the birth rate the population will not be top heavy for more than a generation or two .

If we are going to discuss population control then rigid Eugenics is a better option ,not only reducing the population but deselecting undesirable traits.

[Clinton Huxley]

If we are going to discuss population control then rigid Eugenics is a better option ,not only reducing the population but deselecting undesirable traits.

Undesirable traits like a predilection for eugenics..

[Feck]

If we are going to discuss population control then rigid Eugenics is a better option ,not only reducing the population but deselecting undesirable traits.

Undesirable traits like a predilection for eugenics..

Yes or owning a cat

[Clinton Huxley]

My cat once nursed me back from a bout of ill health. Well, I say nursed, I mean lay purring on top of me while I was bed bound and used me as a whiskery hot water bottle, but fair enough.

[Atheist-Lite]

Your assumption that the population of the world is rising because of an ageing population is false . Your assumption that old people are expendable is false .

If you reduce the birth rate the population will not be top heavy for more than a generation or two .

If we are going to discuss population control then rigid Eugenics is a better option ,not only reducing the population but deselecting undesirable traits.

In the industrial nations there is a ageing population and the less industrialised nations have a different demographic which given a generation or two of idealistic complacency we may emulate for a while before climate change closes the whole show down. And I have said nothing about old people being expendable. In rare instances they continue to contribute and I'm sure a flexible system will allow for this and spur more people into making extra efforts despite the ageing process? I'm not interested in produce ideal traits, some kind of masterrace, but rather preserving a flexible and necessarily youthful population in the face of the coming environmental challanges. A reduced population is absolutely essential if we are to prevent resource depletion, climate change and pollution etc from causing a later population crash from which may not recover as species; in all respects it would appear to be unlikely we can achieve what I suggest having modern cultural taboos that prevent change. Deep down I think we'll go extinct within a few hundred years and that is confirmed by the response here....brittle things break before they turn.

[kiki5711]

if you had no old people/grandparents around, who would take care of your stinkin kids for free?

[Feck]

Your assumption that the population of the world is rising because of an ageing population is false . Your assumption that old people are expendable is false .

If you reduce the birth rate the population will not be top heavy for more than a generation or two .

If we are going to discuss population control then rigid Eugenics is a better option ,not only reducing the population but deselecting undesirable traits.

In the industrial nations there is a ageing population and the less industrialised nations have a different demographic which given a generation or two of idealistic complacency we may emulate for a while before climate change closes the whole show down. And I have said nothing about old people being expendable. In rare instances they continue to contribute and I'm sure a flexible system will allow for this and spur more people into making extra efforts despite the ageing process? I'm not interested in produce ideal traits, some kind of masterrace, but rather preserving a flexible and necessarily youthful population in the face of the coming environmental challanges. A reduced population is absolutely essential if we are to prevent resource depletion, climate change and pollution etc from causing a later population crash from which may not recover as species; in all respects it would appear to be unlikely we can achieve what I suggest having modern cultural taboos that prevent change. Deep down I think we'll go extinct within a few hundred years and that is confirmed by the response here....brittle things break before they turn.

I think we are fucked too ,reducing population just prolongs the inevitable demise . I think humans may cycle from high numbers to low numbers a few more times before our final extinction just as technology and Industrialisation maybe cyclical .I hold no hope for THIS society lasting very long .

I don't care much either I am more emotionally upset by the loss of the great whales or Snow leopards than I am about the loss of human kind .

[Atheist-Lite]

if you had no old people/grandparents around, who would take care of your stinkin kids for free?

I'm not suggesting the end of society here. Putting the entire shebang into a tighter timeframe so it is more flexible, quicker on its feet and ready to react to the unknowns. 45 could be the new old? That is still a age when people have something to say. It is possibly nearer to what old age should be, before the modern era and it's distortions?

[kiki5711]

here's an interesting article about eugenics.

http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/212/135/

seems like no matter which way it goes, the powerful corporations will find a way to make money of us. one way or another. it's not reason and science that moves the world, it's corporations.

[Clinton Huxley]

What old age "should be"?

Maybe we should all wear loin cloths and wrestle saber tooth tigers for the love of Raquel Welsh?

[JimC]

I'm quite amenable to the idea of voluntary euthanasia, carefully administered, for older people with intractable illness and the desire to push the off switch...

[Trolldor]

if you had no old people/grandparents around, who would take care of your stinkin kids for free?

I'm not suggesting the end of society here. Putting the entire shebang into a tighter timeframe so it is more flexible, quicker on its feet and ready to react to the unknowns. 45 could be the new old? That is still a age when people have something to say. It is possibly nearer to what old age should be, before the modern era and it's distortions?

Distortions? Hardly.

[Robert_S]

How much of a drain are the infirm elderly on real planetary resources? Do they eat too much or use up too much electricity? Are they driving Humers and demanding a new motherboard every six months while emitting copious amounts of methane and CFCs?