I agree resources are woefully mismanaged.

B, before we go any further, I\'m not making a

political argument, but a biological and pragmatic one -- an important distinction. It doesn\'t matter whether

it\'s mismanagement or not, in other words. The scarcity is there, and the world is overpopulated, given

current and recent historic human behavior. Neither the starving person nor the animal facing extinction cares

why it is cursed that way. The biological reaction is the same, as if it were overpopulation by necessity.



I have in mind a complex set of dynamics. You are quite right to point out the tendency of an individual

subpopulation that is facing immediate, acute mortality threats to counter with increased breeding. I wish I would

have thought to mention it. But we are facing no such threat here. We\'re fat and satiated. Yet the biosphere

still contains the overpopulation information. Like any system where equilibreum is at stake, there are forces and

counter forces in our natural environment(e.g., global warming together with unusual cold spells). \"Underfed\"

and \"overpopulated\" are two different, though related problems, for example. Perhaps we have to tease out more

than one force at work when thinking of third world situations (the good ol\' scientific practice of isolating

effects). What about situations where populations are pathologically overcrowded but relatively well fed? Urban

situations seem to provide the cleanest examples here. What is happening in Tokyo or Hong Kong? Perhaps Mexico City

isn\'t quite so clean (no pun intended) an example, because of the Catholic influence. I still think it\'s an

interesting possibility.