Me and my friend have been arguing about an issue comparable to this! Now I realize that I used to be appropriate. lol! Thank you with the data you publish….

i want to see a succinct definition of overpopulation. i have yet to find it . anywhere.

"2) lets skip this."
- Fine

"3) discussion of “overpopulation”

first. i’m NOT trying to sabotage you. i dont even KNOW you.

dude, you dont have to educate me, or tell me about all the stuff u know.

i just want to know about ur take on overpopulation. i promise to ask only interesting, non-trivial, clarificatory questions, if needed.

yun lang."

Why ask me? For all I know I'm feeding you BS? Why not read the report or Contest me with another source?

" ok. gets ko na. sustainable NOT in the size of the population, but u use this definition:

” its Growing now, but growing in a way that it creates great social inequity, suffering, and a waste of resources through the poor distribution of reasources.”

OK. you futher clarify…

“Bottom line – it is growth that can have the minimalist negative accidental circumstance. Families can tell when X no. of children will drive them to poverty.”

aha! i think THIS is what you define overpopulation as…

if adding a child will cause a family to become poor (enter some definition of poor here), the family is OVERPOPULATED.

OK. this is a defnition for a family. this is an OK definition for a family.

what about the definition for the country? recall this is what the candidates were talking about — “Is the philippines overpopulated?”

how many families that fit the critieria makes the philippines overpopulated?

if not the number/% of families, what then?

another way to put it — how can we translate your definition of family overpopulation to the scale of a whole country.

one way, is to assume the whole country is 1 family. but this goes back to my questions from way earlier…

" what poverty rate will make for an overpopulated country?"

- Yes there is a simple answer to a Complex Problem like Poverty. Why didn't anyone think of that?

- Simple answer to all the segmented questions – all the families that are dragged down to a level poverty that they are unable to support their children.

- poverty rate – below working class. usually Cost of living of less than $4 a day <a href="http://(http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Poverty-in-the-Philippines/chap6.pdf)” target=”_blank”>(http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Poverty-in-the-Philippines/chap6.pdf)

Poverty threshold for comparison <a href="http://(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold)” target=”_blank”>(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold)

Overpopulation has an indirect causality that is compounded by all the other negative attributes of poverty which perpetuates it (poverty).

Among all the other factors: overpopulation is one of the major factors that can be alleviated with the least effort (as compared to our educational system, corruption, political monopolies etc. etc.). If you read the report, it compares us to Thailand and Indonesia to provide an idea how effective RH services can do. Indonesia in the report, which has RH and more corrupt that the Phils can pulled it off.

"real simple question. i’m not baiting you. i just wanna know ur opinion, and ur reasoning. "

You will note, boiling down data has severe problems with premise and HUGE gaps of knowledge. This is where most of our conflict stems. I wanted to reduce it, by asking your educational details and pointing to my sources so that you can tell me if you will accept them or not to save us time and effort. Instead explaining every point like I am answering a paper at school is wrong in the sense that, as the other party you could have met me half way. So because you didn't brush up on it and I had to contribute most of the data in this discussion makes it lopsided. This is not how freethinkers works. You read up and draw your own conclusion, you compared notes, but you don't let anyone dictate most of the information.

I'm not sure where you learned to discuss such matters, because your not supposed to take my word for it. My definitions aren't dogmas they are interpretations and you participate by giving me YOUR interpretations as well. Since I had to justify all my answers, and dispite your usage of words conclusively anywone who reads the entirety of this discussion can logically conclude that it is "trollish" and are free to reserve judgement if it is Voluntary or not. That is why #2 was a key question that would save us a lot of grief, since you couldn't contribute much in the discussion except probe the data I brought to he conversation it makes all your motives quite clear for me at least.

Please read up on Overpopulation and Contribute to the discussion. If you really are curious, why not ask the FF forums about it.

2) lets skip this.

3) discussion of "overpopulation"

first. i'm NOT trying to sabotage you. i dont even KNOW you.

dude, you dont have to educate me, or tell me about all the stuff u know.

i just want to know about ur take on overpopulation. i promise to ask only interesting, non-trivial, clarificatory questions, if needed.

yun lang.

ok. gets ko na. sustainable NOT in the size of the population, but u use this definition:

" its Growing now, but growing in a way that it creates great social inequity, suffering, and a waste of resources through the poor distribution of reasources."

OK. you futher clarify…

"Bottom line – it is growth that can have the minimalist negative accidental circumstance. Families can tell when X no. of children will drive them to poverty."

aha! i think THIS is what you define overpopulation as…

if adding a child will cause a family to become poor (enter some definition of poor here), the family is OVERPOPULATED.

OK. this is a defnition for a family. this is an OK definition for a family.

what about the definition for the country? recall this is what the candidates were talking about — "Is the philippines overpopulated?"

how many families that fit the critieria makes the philippines overpopulated?

if not the number/% of families, what then?

another way to put it — how can we translate your definition of family overpopulation to the scale of a whole country.

one way, is to assume the whole country is 1 family. but this goes back to my questions from way earlier…

what poverty rate will make for an overpopulated country?

real simple question. i'm not baiting you. i just wanna know ur opinion, and ur reasoning.

2) It all boils down to what are you willing to trust as a source of credible information: Theology, Philosophy, or Science. Theology and Philosophy are very broad, but I distinguish Science from the other two because only science has practical methods of verification (through empirical method, logic and reason). So in the most simple way of putting it: how much of the information do you get you would rather verify for yourself if you can?

It doesn't need to be all to complex, or filled with exceptions if the other party is not attempting to "shut you down" but maximize communicated ideas. The other party assumes the more reasonable aspect of conclusions, if not they will double check.

3) Given the time and the political constraints of the participants, narrowing it down to RHB is more practical a topic to examine compared to the breadth of Poverty Alleviation.

Notice that all the politicians are more scared of what the Bishops would say about them on their pulpits and their uncertain effect, than the rationality that the Asia Pulse Survey says that about 70% of the population is ASKING for RHB.

"overpopulation then mean the opposite of ur definition.
– unsustainable growth of family size/population
– said growth that they cannot afford…"
My definition of what Over population.. quoting my post

"… to sum it simply, that there is an amount of population that cannot be adequately and sustainably supported. "
How different is it?

Another instance of voluntary information sabotage, a very plain one. Maybe its just a mistake, but the overwhelming pattern of inquiry is getting pretty obvious.

" 1) what makes it unsustainable? by webster, it means, its growing now, but one day it will stop. sustainable is a growth that goes indefinitely."
It is unsustainable because its Growing now, but growing in a way that it creates great social inequity, suffering, and a waste of resources through the poor distribution of reasources.

Given the context of this question and how I've met you half way understanding your points without "reducio Absurdium" I'm beginning to question if you are doing the same.

"2) if something is growing, how could they not afford it? if they truly couldnt afford it, then it wouldnt be growing. the kid would die first.

i think u mean here is that the standard of living of each child is falling. think of this as “malthusian level of sustenance”. "

It doesn't just start in the action Reproduction. Family begins with the accumulation of resources in order to provide basic necessities and afford a sufficient quality of life. there are plenty of laws that protect family creation: Paternity/Maternity Leaves, tax benefits etc.

Many Factors go into planning a sustainable growth. Bottom line – it is growth that can have the minimalist negative accidental circumstance. Families can tell when X no. of children will drive them to poverty. Children eat up resources, time, and opportunity cost. So people take actions to prevent a situation that is detrimental to all.

If a basic economic unit, a classic extended family, has the parents, the father/mother side grandparents, their 3 children surviving in a combined household income putting them barely at working class. One child is born, this tips the resources down a notch, Another child, brings the resource down again. This can also be a Single Parent sibling joining the economic unit but whose over all contribution drags down the total resources of the unit per capita.

With diminished resources we have diminished options: health care and effective health, stress, insurance, and more possibly poverty. The resulting limited options raises the chance of: criminal deviance, death, perpetual ill health etc.)

It doesnt work the way you say. You didn't read the UP report, clearly. And clearly you haven't taken your own initiative to study the matter on your won.

Is this some kind of semantic manipulation. You are smart enough to get my points and smart enough to Voluntarily manipulate the context of the questions towards an absurdity you can see for yourself. Which makes me highly suspect of your intentions to Learn or to Troll.

"“there is over population in war-torn/famine ravaged africa”
because it fits both ur criteria — a boom bust cycle in population numbers, and bare-level sustenance level of quality of life.

but does this fit the Philippines?"

Populations have a necessary infrastructure and institutions to support it. These are Markets, Government, and Services. In war torn Africa, these necessities are reduced and they are unable to support a "rate of growth" in the population caused by a downwards spiral of poverty.

We share the same symptoms and mostly the same causes. Overpopulation in War-torn Africa is not that much different from the Philippines, what is fundamentally the same is the social inequity and the downwards spiraling poverty.

Dude, I have to explain every point like I was your professor. Strangely I didn't get my information just from someone's explanation. I dug it up and read current events.

You're smart enough to figure it out yourself, but there is a necessary amount of Basics you need to finish before we continue because I'm repeating various points you should have already taken in school. I'm not pissed at you, I'm pissed at your school in failing to prepare you to be able to understand these concepts.

Example: your concept of unsustainable = symptoms of Death, without even understanding why it is so? This is taught in basic Economics class.

Will you answer my question regarding what you know so that I'm can begin in something more fundamental before going into the more complex iterations?

Do you know your Economics? History? World history? How closely do you follow Political Current Events? Did you study up on Poverty, like its causes and the Political Science basics about it?

Do you know the key concepts of the relationship of Industry, Markets, Agriculture, and Human Development (in Economics)? These one's is where you seem to be lacking. You seem not to understand the basic premises established by these topics to economics?

Personally, school was terrible at teaching me stuff so I don't blame you if these subjects were in your list of priorities in college. Particularly when many of these institution have no understanding of scientific principle while spouting scientific principles.

1) "classifying this a Moral and Economic argument. Thinking that RHB has abortion."

huh? saying something is moral doesnt mean RHB is abortion. that doesnt add up.

i have NEVER said RH is about abortion. NEVER.

what makes u claim something that i have NEVER said? please dont do that.

take it easy. it is moral when you are allowing people to expand their freedoms without hurting the freedoms of other people. thats a moral decision.

morality and rational decisionmaking are NOT incompatible.

it is a moral decision to allow people to freely make decisions about their lives, based on whatever criteria they think is important, subject to not hurting the freedoms of others.

2) " Will you rather take a ideas of Philosophy, Authority or Theology over the evidence and proof if something is bad or evil for society?"

wow, this is an entirely different blog post but yes, philosophy, theology AND science are all valid, logical fields of study.

maybe not authority… hahaha…

here's why: you need values to make decisions. you need to be able to rank outcomes based on somekind of value system. you need philo or theo to rank outcomes.

3) looks like we agree on the complexity of poverty alleviation. my point was that during the debate, they should have focused on the LARGER notion of poverty alleviation.

4) "This is a tactic of arguments to hedge against being wrong on the premise, by appealing to the lack of definition and clarification. But I am working on the most basic and established premises on the first place."

oops, i wasnt being "tactical". i was curious. i'm sorry if u view questions as strategic. debate isnt about "winning" (we arent competing with each other!), its about ferreting the truth and coming to an understanding.

the lack of definition for "overpopulation" is EXACTLY my point.

the UPSE paper also doesnt have overpopulation as a concept.

YOU mentioned it. hence, i was asking YOU what overpopulation meant.

so lets chat about it…

you say "growing at a sustainable rate that families can afford."

overpopulation then mean the opposite of ur definition.

– unsustainable growth of family size/population
– said growth that they cannot afford…

which brings out some obvious questions:
1) what makes it unsustainable? by webster, it means, its growing now, but one day it will stop. sustainable is a growth that goes indefinitely.

is this what u mean? so ur saying that there will be a crash in population under this unsustainable scenario. yes?

2) if something is growing, how could they not afford it? if they truly couldnt afford it, then it wouldnt be growing. the kid would die first.

i think u mean here is that the standard of living of each child is falling. think of this as "malthusian level of sustenance".

so, i can imagine parts of war/famine ravaged africa that fit this description. i can agree with that.

"there is over population in war-torn/famine ravaged africa"
because it fits both ur criteria — a boom bust cycle in population numbers, and bare-level sustenance level of quality of life.

but does this fit the Philippines?

1) "our social inequities are measurable. I didnt say poverty = overpopulation."

very well… at what poverty level would overpopulation occur? surely philippine level… so philippine level poverty and higher is "overpopulation"?

2) "Why are you thinking in terms of “removal” of people (the removal of people)?"

because thats what reducing population means : fewer people.

3) "Things don’t work that way. What is done in our situation, once family planning and contraception is available for families to have a sustainable size, then the temporary problem of working with the current over-sized families is left to welfare. "

ah, so reducing future people so that future people have a higher quality of life. the current people are financed using money from people now. this is ok, analogous to what i said.

one observation: future adults (current babies) are a sinkhole of money. but once they've been invested in, they should be productive members of society.
so, if ur willing to spend on current kids — say their education — they should be able to support themselves.

4) "If you want to solve poverty, but isn’t an over-sized family unsustainable and causes poverty."

actually, from the UPSE paper link u provided, the answer is "poverty is complex" and population is one part of it, and only one part.

this is exactly what i said earlier — " it would have been more productive to talk about poverty alleviation during the debate"

as opposed to overpopulation, which is tricky to define, and is only 1 facet to the true beast we need to battle.

this is also the reason why many RH advocates (such as Rep hontiveros video in this site) that the main reason for family planning is to help families control their family size. the implicit argument is that people want fewer kids, but they cant hit their target. this is confirmed (some people report) in surveys…

overpopulation is defined based on this notion of "unwanted pregnancies". this is a moral argument, as well as an economic one.

lastly, you dont have to educate me. i was just wondering about ur notion of overpopulation. like i said, it needs to be defined, as its a slippery notion.

i think i have the knowledge to participate in a discussion on RH. did i give u an impression i could not? i am a college grad. does that info help you? if i told u i was a grade school drop out, how would ur answer be different?

i think i'm very rational. tell me please, when i'm being irrational.

why do disagreements in defintions not work? in order to even discuss, we must first agree on definitions. hence my questions.

i wish i could attend ur meeting. maybe next time.

1) Most of your questions are answered in the UP study. If searching Overpopulation, you will come up with more helpful sources by typing "population growth". Narrow it down with Sustainable, Poverty, reproduction, reproductive health, etc.

"why do disagreements in defintions not work? in order to even discuss, we must first agree on definitions. hence my questions." – GB

- This is a tactic of arguments to hedge against being wrong on the premise, by appealing to the lack of definition and clarification. But I am working on the most basic and established premises on the first place. I've minimized the use of overly complicated vocabulary (that even I can't follow) and reduced it to the simplest way to put forward my ideas. If I there are any exceptions I will add them to my explanations. If there is an exception that I failed to mention and it is too absurd to be fit in the context of our discussion, please assume it isn't. (highlight the key words and right click it, then search it)

"because thats what reducing population means : fewer people." – GB
Now this a bit of a play with semantics and is distracting to the main points of Overpopulation and RHB.

Reducing people is not the case, it is being able to have sustainable growing population. Overpopulation is not about "reducing" the no. of people or in your philosophy "Future" people instead it is about growing at a sustainable rate that families can afford.

But entertaining your distraction, Do "Future" people have more value than the People living at present suffering?

"overpopulation is defined based on this notion of “unwanted pregnancies”. this is a moral argument, as well as an economic one." – Ok, I'm talking to a religous then?

2 things. Classifying this a Moral and Economic argument. Thinking that RHB has abortion.

By this line of arguing it seems you accept and expect a particular moral view (typically that you're own) to prevail in the "rational". Why use Morality, why Not say a Rational Decision, using science, reason, evidence to determine if a course of action leads to negative effects?

So do you believe that Morality not reason should be used to see what is Good for people and not the Evidence that it what it is?

RHB is about preventing conception and giving the power of a family to plan their child birth. It never supported Abortion, and anyone who even associates it to Abortion is spreading misinformation and possibly ruining the chances of an untold no. of people at a chance to access the RHB.

I'm being led to believe you are a victim of the Catholic School misinformation and misrepresent of the RHB's objectives?

"i think i’m very rational. tell me please, when i’m being irrational." – GB

- Here is a quick way to find out if you are rational or irrational: Will you rather take a ideas of Philosophy, Authority or Theology over the evidence and proof if something is bad or evil for society?

"as opposed to overpopulation, which is tricky to define, and is only 1 facet to the true beast we need to battle.

this is also the reason why many RH advocates (such as Rep hontiveros video in this site) that the main reason for family planning is to help families control their family size. the implicit argument is that people want fewer kids, but they cant hit their target. this is confirmed (some people report) in surveys…"
- Poverty has MANY MANY causes. Apart from Status Quo (which is the Corrupt and Inefficient System), which the strongest influence. RHB is one of the easiest problems to solve working towards eliminating Poverty. Working towards a "realistic" goal, one takes the course of action that has a higher amount of certainty of making an effect NOT just tackling the biggest issue. You have to consider the entire Objective and what resources and time you have at your disposal.

Which brings me to a point of my article: Practical Solutions vs Misinformation and Misrepresentation.