It has all been on our minds, but what are the reasonable solutions?
I for one, think allowing natural selection take place is among the top solutions to over-population. Now I am not talking about letting everyone die that cannot defend themselves, but allowing peoples who cannot adapt, to survive without interference. Whether through political or spiritual reasons.
Darwin is always right at some point, but
that doesn't mean only the "toughest" people will survive or something.
While people are individuals who usually seek survival/thriving, they mostly aren't absolutely isolated because of their
social bonds.
People will use their bonds for protection, and some are more protected than others. I mean, that tough guy on the street is probably way more vulnerable (i.e. has more probability to be killed) than that thin-looking CEO (either because he lives in a less criminally-exposed neighborhood, or because he has a lot of "tough guys" who work as his security guards).
My wife is more tough-looking than me (we're both "aggressive" types but she's "tough" while I'm not). She could use her fists and send me to hospital in 10 seconds. But she still needs her family bonds for financial reasons, because if she becomes homeless her fists won't help her to live. And she does need some pushy guy to enforce a decent management of her diabetes.
It's possible and probably desirable for a state to provide vulnerable people an imperfect protection, and it is essentially a social bond like others.
But at some point doing it perfectly is impossible for economic and biological reasons. Anyway everyone is going to be "unselected" at some point, no exceptions. And overpupulation might just mean that on average people will be unselected earlier ; for some people it's you die now, for less vulnerable people it's you die 10 years before previously expected, etc.
My solution is :
everyone has to be prepared mentally for everything tragic, especially death, because they really are going to happen. Death is absolutely unescapable. And, I think my solution is extremely cheap, and doesn't need to be tied with one religion.