Stop Overpopulation (In a confined space)?

[Prince of Spires]

As a hobby gardener I very much doubt it. You need to work a decently sized plot of land to grow enough food to feed yourself year round. And you will be harvesting something pretty much each day. There are no shops which stock everything and no refrigerators which keep your produce fresh for a long time. Yes, there will be peaks in the amount of work you do. You'll need to grow enough grain / potatoes / whatever to last you for a year. Which means you've got a large field which needs planting and harvesting in a short timespan. But then there's your kitchen garden, you need to process excess food so you can eat during wintertime, the chickens need looking after, you need to gather enough wood to last you a year, stuff needs repairing and mending and you need to keep all sorts of animals out of your garden.

The only quiet period probably is wintertime when only a few things grow.

 

[Stevie]

I would love to know how true this was... I can't imagine anyone having much idle time. There would always be animals to tend, wood to cut, cloth to weave etc.
Sleeping is usually a good way to pass the time with little effort...

I've probably mis-read something. From what I can find out with a quick search, medieaval peasants worked about six to eight months of the year. Seems there was a lot of time off for religious holidays and the like. But as you say, there were animals to fettle and the like, which they still had to do on their days off. Where they fitted in the time to binge-watch on Netflix I don't know.

 

[JC Hendricks]

You could set up a two tiered lottery system. The first tier, the winners are given the right to have a child. If they win, the surgery/ implant that makes them infertile is reversed or removed. The second tier, is for people that have to die. This tier might not need to be used often if older people have a social expectation to volunteer, and if someone dies from a mishap or illness, it obviously reduces the need for someone to die.

This method would address both issues that affect over population: Breeding and dying.