Yes, GregaryB - how do you propose that your wonder virus would be disseminated? By that I mean who decides which particular dollop of humanity gets it added to their cordial?
Perhaps we could have a reverse lottery or draw straws.....

Btw, regarding China's one child policy - around 117 males are born for every 100 females, which is a significant discrepancy.

Thanks Poirot, I'd completely overlooked that gender discrepancy. It makes my point about a coming disaster a bit more likely and a lot more complicated. So there would be even fewer people in the next (much-reduced) generation to raise taxes from, in order to finance the legitimate benefits accruing to a rapidly growing older population. And fewer still marriages producing one-child-per-family in the next generation - after all, what's the likelihood that only children (marrying only children) want to have more than one child themselves - that's if they want children at all ?

As fewer young Chinese would be requiring basic services, more sophisticated services could be funded, such as university education for many more. As labour becomes more scarce, wages would rise (as they are now). Of course, what might happen is that low-wage enterprises in China (Chinese and overseas') AND young high-skilled and professional Chinese would migrate overseas, the enterprises to lower-wage countries, such as in S-E Asia and eventually in Africa, the skilled population to Western countries. So there would be a smaller population still, to support those stay-at-home older generations.

We'll see :)

Joe

Joe/Loundmouth you are an imbecile!

There is no antidote to or vaccine for a cold virus! So the west/Anglo-Saxons will not be exempt!

Natural immunity would eliminate it from your body within a week or so with no side effects, except for residual and temporary fertility suppression.

Clearly it would be disseminated first in those parts of the world where population growth is most rapid - the third world.

But also clearly a cold virus will not remain contained in these regions for long. But never the less the greatest impact on fertility will be felt in those regions that require fertility reduction the most.

I am not interested in the fairness of who gets infected first or human reproductive rights with this. In the larger picture of the common long term good of our species and civilization, this is irrelevant!

I am only interested in arresting and reversing population growth as quickly and efficiently as possible so as to avoid far worse injustices and human rights abuses that pretty much all of you acknowledge will come if we do nothing or fail to sufficiently reduce fertility via education and family planning.

It is like the current ETS debate - no one wants to make the first sacrifice. But perhaps it is necessary to enforce the first sacrifice on some one and then people soon realize that is is not that bad after all and get used to it.

Loudmouth/Joe I will happily concede that my virus idea is an infringement of individual reproductive rights, but for the greater good of civilisation and human kind.

But I will not accept your misrepresentation of my idea as 'culling', murder, eugenics or what ever invalid term you care to apply to it.

All you are doing is attempting the equivalent of the racist slurr in order to veto any further discussion of the matter.

"Btw, regarding China's one child policy - around 117 males are born for every 100 females, which is a significant discrepancy.Posted by Poirot"

GOOD!

Hopefully the lasting effects of this will at least halve China's population in 50 years or so.

The world will be better for it!

You must all know by now that I am not intimidated by racist, eugenic, nazi or genocidal slurs.

So you may as well give up on that strategy for intimidating me into not voicing my view that involuntary fertility control, primarily targetted at the third world but not limited to it, may be necessary.