In the Nova program "The World in Balance", China had "big brother" everywhere including rural areas. Enforcment of the one child rule was practically universal; as least well enough to control the overall population growth.

In India now, arranged marriage is universal in the North and the husband and his mother have breeding control over the wife and she is expected to produce multiple male offspring to support them in later years. Over 25 thousand brides are burned each year if they do not comply or if dowry payments are not made. The show did not go into any detail about the punishment for "bride burning" but it came across as acceptable behavior to the authorities but is against the law.

And as we look away, an estimated 25,000 brides are killed or maimed every year in India over dowry disputes.

Intellectuals pull out their calculator and say it is less than 0.003% of India’s population.

They slide into research mode and throw a vast array of statistics about atrocities on women in USA, UK, Pakistan, and many other countries of the world.

Foundation owners refuse to help because there are so many other problems in India like street beggars, lepers, street children, bonded laborers, etc. http://rashmanly.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/15858/

No wonder people are emigrating from there in droves!!!

The only solution is the sterilization of infants.
Even that is more humane than bride burning...

That certainly is a solution. I wonder what others think the best solution for human overpopulation might be?

Sounds like NOBODY else gives a Shyt about your topig!!!

The thread is actually about doing the impossible. Topics like population control would probably (maybe) get more interest in the political threads rather than the science threads but science doesn't get a whole lot of feedback most of the time.

Controlling the population does appear to be nearly impossible. Ironically, on an individual basis, it is the easiest thing for mankind to do.

You must be kidding! Try telling the African bushmen they each have to stop fuucking their numerous wives!!!

Ha Ha! No. That would fall into the impossible for the population to do category. But any single human being who chooses to not have children at any given moment has the power to do so. That is the irony. We all have the power to change but, as a species, it is impossible.

-- in Africa?

From Nova- The World In Balance

"Kenya was the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to view runaway population growth as a serious impediment to economic prosperity, and it became the first, in the late 1960s, to begin developing a national family-planning campaign. The country's official population policy calls for matching population size with available resources, yet leaves decisions on family size up to individual families. While the Kenyan government formulates official strategies on family planning, promotion of the message and means of family planning falls mainly to local health-care offices and nongovernmental organizations. By all accounts, the country's approach has been successful. The average number of children per woman has dropped to around four from around eight in the 1980s, which constitutes one of the fastest-ever national declines in family size. Contraceptive use has grown from seven percent in 1978 to over 30 percent today. AIDS, which affects one in ten Kenyan adults, is a significant factor in both higher contraceptive use and the lower fertility rate.

As seen in the posters below, Kenya's population ads target both men and women, and tend to frame the need for family planning around the self-evident realities of population growth such as overuse of land and scarcity of jobs. The campaigns also aim to demystify contraceptive methods and provide assurance of their safety and utility, especially in rural areas, where suspicion and misunderstanding are common. To view the posters, click on the thumbnails below. "

Yep, even Africa.

Yep, you can lead a stupid cow to the water (which is neccessary for milk and tenderness of meat), but you cannot force the animal tdrinking it! So, you might as well slaughter the beast!!!

(For that purpose, the AIDS virus has been invented and introduced to Africa!!! ) Nobody could foresee it spreading all over the world -- spread around mainly by certain "risk groups"!!!

Whoa. I don't wanna stand too close to whatever you're smokin' ...

Wasn't the original analogy about a HORSE that could be led to water but not forced to drink ... ? I'm just sayin' ... how'd the AIDS virus suddenly become relevant in a discussion about invisibility and metamaterials? Jeez. Talk about divergence ...

I wan't talking to you, CHUBBY!!!
The one to whom I responded to (metalwing) undestands, and tha's all that counts!!! (you see, it's only for initiated...)
So keep you nose out of it, please, if you have no common sense of humour to play along!!!

I want to be invisible.

Actually, the OP was about mankind doing the impossible. And so far the ability of mankind to control it's own population in a global sense has, and appears to be, impossible. Jane's cryptic humor about cow's and AIDs is actually spot on regarding Africa.

Well, I suppose 'cryptic' is one way to put it ...

. . . JUST AS I TOLD YOU, Kings_Knight: