Sounds like communism to me :P

Communism, IMO, can only work if people are willing to do everything with nothing to expect in return. But we all believe our paychecks are ours, don't we? That alone, by definition, is capitalism.

The only reason the Na'vi exist in such harmony under this similar system (not the same, just similar) is because they're all bound by a single, common language, deity, and way of life. There's no room for radical differences. There never was. If they possessed this they'd be just like us. The tower of Babel was built by a united earth, all under a single, common language, belief system, and society. The only difference between them and the Na'vi was their desire for power. This is absent on Pandora because it's literally impossible to be an atheist of Eywa, simply because it can be proven to exist by physical means.

...in what way? All of those things are the exact opposite of communism.

The main reason the Na'vi population is sustainable is because they aren't overpopulated. Perhaps a few hundred thousand of them on Pandora in total.

Those are the things communism involves in the hand of humans. I may have misunderstood the idea of communism, but I always thought free will, individualism and personal ownership were part of it (You can have your own clothes just like Na'vi have their bows, hammocks and such.).

I agree with Woodsprite, but just to remind you, Na'vi are still more communists than capitalists. Capitalism is all about race and fight, and can simply never stay in the limits of nature.

Communism is collective ownership by the state. There is no such thing as a company. Everything is state run. Everyone has equal rights. Everyone is given according to "need" only. And paid according to "work".

You see, you can't classify the Na'vi into political categories such as communism, capitalism and socialism. These should only be applied to nations of substantial population. A tribe of a few hundred natives is what it is. Actually you could probably just say that it is a monarchy.

Is overpopulation really a problem.

The population of the planet (both humans and animals) is kept in check by food supply. If the population outgrows the food supply then the excess population will die off.

I don't think there is such a thing as an unsustainable population (one that would result in the extinction of the entire human race)

The only problem is that the more people that exist the worse off quality of life for each person due to the supply and demand limitations.

If the population does get too high, reducing the quality of life for individuals, then the only controllable solution is to enforce a one child law.

Any attempt to reduce the population with violence will cause resistance, starting a war and if the choice on who lives and dies is not randomised, who would you trust to make that decision (assuming you could not nominate yourself).

I believe that a WCL will become popular when the individuals notice that there QoL is slowly improving.

That is the exact definition of overpopulation, and over thousand people are already dying _every hour_ for starvation.

But only in countries where the government is so restrictive that it uses its funds for things such as its military forces (Russia, China, countries in Africa, etc.) or beautification of architecture (Saddam's former Iraq, Russia again, etc.). You don't see these kinds of problems rampant in the U.S., the U.K., much of the European Union, Australia, or any "free" country-government (free to a certain extent, that is).

If these factors were played on, and government reduced to an entity that serves the people, we would not have so many starving nations. It isn't over-population, it's government control. We shouldn't even be worrying about this issue. The issue at hand is economic collapse: the trend that's been spreading around the globe lately (except China, of course ;)).

Overpopulation is a problem that is now centered on developing nations or as is commonly known the third world and the only humane way to deal with it is through education.

The idea to globally enforce a one child policy is totally wrong because it does not address the above stated fact and would lead to the disappearance of entire groups of people and cultures from Earth (Especially in the developed world) with the excuse that is for saving the planet. Such policies should only be adopted in the countries afflicted by overpopulation and it should not be done in a repressive manner either.

A standard human, lets say takes up 1 square meter of space standing up. 7 billion square meters would become 70thousand square kilometers of space.

O.o

...

You can't deal with it through education, most of developing countries are extremely unstable, a military crackdown is required first hot rod.


Such are the consequences.

Its called liebig's law of the minimum. The lowest resource will control any given population. Further, if a population moves above its carrying capacity, set by the environmental resources, then they will have an absence of the resources that; that given population needs. Therefore a naturally induced cull will take place. The population will shrink down to a sustainable size, humanity has this coming on a grand scale very soon, as soon as finite resources run out worldwide.

I agree with Spock, also in that I do not have the energy to make long posts on this.
Just a few remarks:
* Before you talk about communism or socialism, you should find out what that really means. The basics of the theory. Not the so-called socialist nations that never really have been true communist or socialist states at all! Also, socialism does not have to mean that everything is owned by the state, but that everything, all resources and production is there to serve all people. The ways to achieve this are manyfold.
* The liebig limit. It should suffice to say two things - one is, we do not want to hit that limit. Yes, population will control itself to its limits, but no it wont be pretty. What makes it worse is, that we are facing actually a decline of that limit rather than hitting it from below, we will find ourselves suddenly above it, worsening the effects. We have two choices - voluntary reduction (my preferred method is also socialism and education, but I would not oppose a two-child policy to keep at least ZPG); Or involuntary reduction by random means. Now whcih of these could be more "humane" - hmmmm
* increasing the planets capacity. It is possible in some ways. Especially with enough energy. Desalinated water, Skyscraper farming and using modern farming technologies in some additional areas can increase output. The problem is, that more production never solved the matter of overpopulation. Each time humans devised better food production, population increased (Liebigs law) until all that benefit went to hell. And many of the modern aspects of increasing output are either harming the planet and ourselves or are not sustaineable in the long run (making the problem of living above the Liebig limit even worse)
* Eating less meat - same as before. temporary solution only. Eventually we would, like in "Avatar", all eat plant derived protein slurry and be able to sustain twice as much population but still be on the brink.

For those in this thread who think, that growth is not a problem and can be handled, maybe even by colonizing space, please invest half an hour or so into education and listen to a lecture from a mathematics professor at the University of Boulder who can explain the dynamics of growth. It is not a boring math lecture, I promise, it is very well done and obviously focuses mainly on the topic of this thread and the predicament on what solutions we could choose: YouTube - The Most IMPORTANT Video You'll Ever See (part 1 of 8) (part 1 of 8)
http://www.aurora-glacialis.de/webde...ool/growth.jpg

Other than that all I can say is ;):
http://www.aurora-glacialis.de/webde...ople_error.jpg

and:
http://cutuphistory.org/media/cover_s.jpg
(translation: No, No, this is not communism; referring to the three self imposed communist leaders despite the fact that the mere concept of communism does exclude such a permanent position)

Oh and if you can understand German: this is a great one-page comic on the neverending discussion on communism.

1. No one here is saying that population growth is not a problem, but there a lot of misconceptions about this too. For example when Scientists said that we are above the carrying capacity what they really meant to say is that if every human being in the planet where to live as the people in the U.S and the developed world does you would need not one or 2 but 3 Earth like planets, hence the carrying capacity argument. Hope that clears the whole thing up.

2. I've always argued that education is the best way to solve the overpopulation problem that now afflicts the third world particularly Africa.

3. No matter how you want to paint it, Socialism and Communism are by far and wide failed social experiments. Maybe instead of trying to rehash them they should try to take what has worked from such models such as Cooperatives for example. and dump all from that system which has not worked and never will.

I'm going to finish by saying that responsible resource management and population management by education and voluntary means should not only be implemented in Earth but wherever we go next in the Cosmos. After all the same principles would apply on any off-world Solar system colonies or interstellar colonies.

That really won't be a problem, the food supply I mean. We can build giant skyscraper communities that put tons of people & farms inside columns that take up tons of vertical space but not much horizontal space. Absolutely the technology is already there today that we could have a much higher population and not starve.

So I don't see food as something that keeps us in check. We're more likely to hurt ourselves with overpopulation in ways we don't realize. We'll pave over the magic pond that sustains all life and overnight everything will die. OK, that's far fetched, but we will screw something up that we never would have thought of. Something that never would have occurred at lower population levels. I don't see it as an "if" in my mind, but rather a "when". Of course I put the "when" to be beyond my lifetime. So you know what? It's someone else's problem, let them figure it out. :)

Actually not entirely. Your statement is true, but that is not what is the only meaning of beeing over carrying capacity. For once, if humans are to grow like they do now and just maintain the current lifestyle, we'd need 2 planets within a century. But what I really missed is the fact, that the current resource and food production is largely based on cheap energy. Currently that cheap energy is fossil fuels. With energy, we produce fertilizers, agrochemicals and water for food production. If that energy fails or gets more expensive, world food production goes down. Also we are overusing the lands, soil degradation and erosion happens all over the world, also in the US. If crops would be grown in a manner that is in the long term sustainable, output could also diminish. So basically, we are living on a food production that is not sustainable in the long run but would rather diminish. Check out this (sadly rather simply written but still illustrating what I mean rather well) article. A way out is following later in the post when I replyto vvx.

But cooperatives are socialism. And basically true democracy (the rule of the people) is also socialism. Workers unions, public healthcare, free education - these are all elements of socialism. Interestingly, the US implemented such systems in the countires they defeated in WWII, but never adopted them themselves. And I tell you these are successful systems. For my thinking, they could have gone a little further, to further diminish inequality. Japan is not bad - it is one of the countires with the lowest difference in wages between upper management and lower working class. They have different (mostly cultural) issues however.

Very true - we have to get wise first and then go off world, not go off world because we did not manage to live here.

This can indeed be a solution for the production of food. I have given it a lot of thought since I read that article lately. The main issue I see is, that it even more depends on cheap energy (it is often not mentioned, but in skyscaper farms, >90% of the light has to be artificial!). If we get clean, cheap energy, we can manage this, but fusion is still far from practicable and nuclear energy is far from safe.

Also do we really want to grow:
Definitely. I oppose further population growth for several reasons. One - i causes stress in the people who have to live close together. And Two - it is not needed at all. We can achieve anything we want with half the people living on the planet now. Or even a quarter. And obviously three we are damaging earths systems by beeing so many without reason (see two).

I have seen several interesting indications lately on what we do not understand about life on earth yet. Funghi and even bacteria form complex networks of fibres to exchange nutrients and potentially information. A forest or an ocean/lake floor can be literally a system of interconnected lifeforms which profit from each other! This is not some Pandora-myth, it is down to earth science (just read a Nature-paper on it) and no, it obviously does not imply a thinking Eywa organism, it is just a network. The point is, if you disrupt it by any means - agrochemicals, deforestation, introduction of invasive species, dredge fishing ocean floors, seperating plants from the soil for food production in hydroponics or monocultures - there is not telling on what will happen in the long run and how long it takes to re-establish these networks.

People still think of plants, animals, microorganisms and funghi as seperate individuals you can put in a box and just have to add the right mix of nutrients to sustain them, but that is not true. Maybe they will grow, but maybe they won't - or they will grow but lack properties we are not aware of. Like greenhouse tomatoes that just do not taste like the ones grown in soil. It is all an interconnected network of ecologies.