Overpopulation is a hard problem. There are complex socioeconomic reasons for why some countries have higher fertility rates than others. This is a heavily studied topic in health economics, but I am unwell right now and do not feel like digging through research papers. Instead, I will point you to a wikipedia article that talks about one (popular with economists) take on overpopulation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition

Sorry for the wikipedia link, but it is not a half bad article on the subject and it was easy to find. Basically, this theory suggests that increased income per capita is correlated with a decrease in a country's fertility rate.

There are arguments on both sides regarding the flow of causality, but if you wanted to know what was being done to address the challenge of overpopulation then that article above is a good starting point for your own inquiries.

(Also, just as a side note, it is probably the case that you were down-voted for being off-topic and not due to some overwhelming sentimentality. Maybe if you want to talk about overpopulation you should have written a blog post and posted it up, I bet that would have probably got a much better reception.)

You can subtract death rate from birth rate, and the world looks screwed. For China, this is (13.1 - 7.1) per 1000. For India, it's (21.76 - 6.23) per 1000. So for the world's middle class, that's about 2% population growth per year. Yikes.

But the you realize, that China and India have very few really old people. Now that they have decent medical treatment, the older Chinese and Indians live longer, pushing the population up. But they aren't having any babies, so in the long term we might not be growing like lemmings.

So you look at the fertility rate:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territori...

For China, it's 1.54, and it's 2.6 for India. Anything under 2 (plus a bit for the ones who don't reach fertility) means a declining population, in the long term.

And then you leap from the frying pan into the fire: Too many old people relative to the number of young people.

As far as I can tell, "health" isn't keeping up with "life", so we are screwed, just the other way around.

But now we also have to divine the state of robotics and AI, say 100 years out, and my brain begins to strangle itself.

Thanks.

I didn't think the topic of overpopulation was that far from finding a vaccine to a top disease.

I thoroughly enjoyed the replies I got so far so the few karma points I lost were definitely worth it.

Actually, areas with higher life expectancies generally have much, much lower birth rates, in part because you don't have to worry about having half your kids die off.

Japan has actually been paying couples to have kids to stave off population decline.

Note the difference between "developing" and "developed".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate

Malaria causes anemia, which causes lethargy and low energy. But it doesn't kill many people, it just weakens them.

That in turn causes people to be less productive, which in turn means they have less surplus available for things like education.

This causes areas with malaria to forever be stuck in a primitive state of development. Cure malaria and things may change a lot.

That's an interesting perspective.

I never considered people who tried to cure malaria would do it for any other reasons that the deaths it causes. The productivity loss could be another worthy cause.

I still believe people who are after a cure mainly do it to prevent the deaths it causes. Wikipedia reports that Malaria is responsible for "2.23% of deaths worldwide" which is not negligible.

Why is it that these sorts of arguments always seem to pop up in discussions about malaria and HIV, but never in articles about cancer, and heart disease?

I fear it has a lot to do with which populations tend to be most heavily hit.

It's not unheard of to die of cancer or heart disease before having children, but it's uncommon enough (even compared to accidents and suicide) that I wouldn't expect them to affect the size of the next generation. Malaria kills a lot of kids, which is to say there are a lot of potential parents that are going to be saved in places with overtaxed food and water supplies.

Poor insinuation.

You could have asked me if I felt the same way about cancer and heart disease and I could have answered that no matter what disease is the cure for (or who it is for), the question of overpopulation remains.

I'm not attempting to insinuate anything.

I'm trying to provoke some thought. What you say when directly asked is less interesting to me than how you and others respond upon seeing stories like this one, without being otherwise prompted.

Overpopulation isn't a problem really. Projections show that the fertility rate is slowing down. See http://www.economist.com/node/14743589

Isn't global warming a consequence of overpopulation? Aren't ecology problems caused by the increasing needs for resources?

People have lots of children when the risk of any given child dying is high. Lower mortality => lower birthrate.

Interesting point. You are saying that they make babies because they think they have a higher probability to lose them? I think it is too rational.

I would have thought other factors like lack of contraception and education would be more correlated.

It depends. In countries with a lack of social security and pensions people tend to look on their children as providers.

If infant mortality is high then they will likely decide to have many children to make their bet more safe. If they have girls and the local custom centers around having sons then that too might work as a reason to get more children, and the reverse will be true in places where large dowries are paid for daughters.

Having many children is also seen as a sign of affluence or blessing.

Lack of education and contraception are factors in the developed world too, people that have lower levels of education tend to have their first children at a younger age and tend to have more of them as well (both due to starting younger and due to not being able to accurately gauge the impact of having children on their lives).

I'm sorry you got downvoted, overpopulation (or simply the problem of how to match our numbers to the available resources without drastic measures or apocalyptic events) is a subject that requires one to face some harsh realities and ask some very tough questions.

Google "demographic transition" and read to your heart's content.

Done thanks. Someone pointed me to the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation

Please go over the superficial outrage feeling. I know that it is more popular to celebrate saving lives but I still would like to discuss this question:

Is there anyone working on the overpopulation problem? This problem is the root to many other symptoms.

I am not speaking about terrorism or single child policy that didn't seem to work well in China. Is there any other suggestions out there?

Everyone working on raising people's living standards is working on the overpopulation problem.

I agree that better living standards has a correlation with lower birth rate. And if we look at Europe decreasing population, it may actually be the answer.

Thanks Jarek.

No one is working on this problem because there is no problem. In fact many parts of the world have the opposite problem: Not enough young people.

"Not enough young" is only a problem because of the number of "Older people".

The aging of the population is a different issue to the overpopulation issue. You could get 100% young population and still have a overpopulation problem.

I reject your assumption that the world is overpopulated, or that overpopulation is likely to be a problem at all.