AIDS

[ramonesfan]

Could AIDS be the major factor that is putting the human population in check? This is a very basic concept. Let's take an example: In a pond, the fish population is increasing rapidly. Let's say they eat algae. Eventually the pond's population of fish is too high and the algae can't reproduce fast enough to feed all the fish. A lot of fish die because there isn't enough food to support them.

Could AIDS be doing this? The human population is huge right now and it is about time something thins our numbers out.


discuss

[Skikamukazi]

RE: AIDS

No. AIDs is not killing enough people to keep the populus "in check". Well, not most of the world... Maybe so in Africa.

*note* I am in no way racist or judgemental towards Blacks. I just got done watching some Dave Chapelle is all.

[ramonesfan]

RE: AIDS

I realize it is not killing enough people. I think AIDS cases will escalate, not stay the same, not drop. The only thing i think will stop this is modern medicine. This may sound bad, but i think we should give researching cures a break. If we find cures to things such as AIDS and cancer, the population would soar.

[whorlichan]

RE: AIDS

Not to mention all that life-saving stuff we do right from birth. There's a thing called Natural Selection, and we've been screwing with it for a very long time--babies are being born that need round-the-clock healthcare that the government ends up paying for, when even 100 years ago they would not have survived more than a few days after birth.

Things that should keep the population in check--responsible decision-making, for exmaple, on the part of people who are able to become parents--aren't being done. And things that could bypass the need for responsible decision-making, such as birth control and abortions, are being denied to the people who actually want and/or need them.

AIDS is not going to cut the population as much as it should be cut. It's just going to drive people to fund "cures" that eventually breed super-diseases that no one can touch. Maybe one of those will finally drive down the numbers of people.

[ramonesfan]

RE: AIDS

It seems like we will have destroyed Earth by that time and will inhabit a different planet. The super-disease isn't going to kill off too many people for this reason. If we move to Mars or somewhere, there probably wouldn't be any diseases there. The human race would keep reproducing until we are spread across the Universe. Boy am I glad I will be dead by then.

[Skikamukazi]

Re: RE: AIDS

It seems like we will have destroyed Earth by that time and will inhabit a different planet. The super-disease isn't going to kill off too many people for this reason. If we move to Mars or somewhere, there probably wouldn't be any diseases there. The human race would keep reproducing until we are spread across the Universe. Boy am I glad I will be dead by then.

Exactly, I don't care about that. I will be dead.

[stlunatic0124]

RE: Re: RE: AIDS

Could cigarettes be doing this? Could drunk driving be doing this? Could cancer be doing this? Could another act of genocide like the Holocaust do this? You could say that for anything, I'm sure an STD isn't going to put the human race in check.

[chickendude]

RE: Re: RE: AIDS

We'll just end up building space stations and crap and have people live in orbit
Or if they find water on Mars underground we'll just go over there with our AIDS

Its more than likely going to happen, after we die, maybe even just before we die

[-Skooter-]

RE: Re: RE: AIDS

This post, this entire thread, is absolutely pointless. The fact is, HIV, and AIDS are diseases. WE have to get them, WE have to spread them. This is in no way caused by science, or relevant to the bearings of the Earth. It is something that we have spread and we have caused to be an epidemic, and in any sense, do you really think that a disease is going to knock off any mass amount of 6 billion people? Realistically, it just wouldn't work.

[Anuj]

RE: Re: RE: AIDS

Well, not too sure if any of you guys have studied surivival of the fittest, evolution, and all that lovely jazz, but eventually, if AIDs does manage to spread and basically kill everybody on the earth, there will be a few people with mutated genes which allow them to carry the virus, but not actually have any symptons of it... (oh wait, there already are people like that...)

So if two carriers mate, there might be a small chance that the baby becomes a carrier, and is not actually infected... So eventually, AIDs will just be a disease that everybody is "immune" to, in the sense that we won't be affected by the side affects of it... Because we're all carriers and can't be affected by it =\

[Skikamukazi]

Re: RE: Re: RE: AIDS

Well, not too sure if any of you guys have studied surivival of the fittest, evolution, and all that lovely jazz, but eventually, if AIDs does manage to spread and basically kill everybody on the earth, there will be a few people with mutated genes which allow them to carry the virus, but not actually have any symptons of it... (oh wait, there already are people like that...)

So if two carriers mate, there might be a small chance that the baby becomes a carrier, and is not actually infected... So eventually, AIDs will just be a disease that everybody is "immune" to, in the sense that we won't be affected by the side affects of it... Because we're all carriers and can't be affected by it =\

Bingo!

[chickendude]

RE: Re: RE: AIDS

see:
bubonic plague
beginning of Renaissance

maybe AIDS will lead to the technological renaissance because it will cut down our numbers so much that we might be smart , ok I dont know what I'm talking about

[Anuj]

RE: Re: RE: AIDS

So what you're trying to say...

is that only stupid people can get AIDS? Fraid not =\

[-Skooter-]

RE: Re: RE: AIDS

I agree, I doubt highly that everyone infected with the disease are complete idiots. I think that it's possible that they could've been a little more precautious, but hey, shit happens. On top of that, Anuj's theory seems completely exceptable. We've over come just about everything else, why not AIDS? I don't think that one disease is going to kill off even a hurtful amount of the population considering we have millions of diseases out there and everyday people die, and yet, there is no harmful decline in the population.

[GuidoHunter]

RE: Re: RE: AIDS

The modernized world has given up on population control. Earlier (and still now in the case of the more "primitive" peoples), it was done by contraception, infanticide, and war to alleviate the pressure of pushing against the land's carrying capacity.

Now we don't have that worry because we have artificially high carrying capacity which currently sustains us.

As for diseases being a population check, it's ridiculous. As Skooter said, AIDS just isn't going to kill off a substantial amount of people (at least enough to be considered population control) in this day and age just because we know so much about it and can prevent its spread. Even the bubonic plague wasn't a population check, but rather a method check. After it, everyone knew they had to be more sanitary and avoid flea-ridden rats, and the population soared.

If anything is keeping the world's population in check (even to a minor extent), it's us. In America, for instance, you rarely see parents having more than four kids when it was very common just a few generations ago. Also, China's got the squeeze on their population, so their billion won't become billions for a long time.

Oh, and whorli, a super disease just won't exist. There's always a way. =)

We also won't get rid of HIV like we did with Smallpox just because it's a virus, but containing it is certainly possible.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com