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Population control? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_population_planning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_population_planning We will have no choice even
by 656565656565 4y ago
Population control? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_population_planning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_population_planning
We will have no choice eventually.
- philwelch 4y agoIf we have to introduce population control it will be to increase the population. All developed countries are below replacement.
- CalRobert 4y agoIs that bad? Surely we can manage with fewer than 8 billion people. A gradual reduction should be welcomed.
- philwelch 4y agoYou first.
- bilsbie 4y agoThe more people we have the more specialization we can have. Do you want 1000 people designing a jet engine or 20? What problems could we solve if we doubled the scientists and engineers working on it? Plus every new birth is a lottery ticket for our civilization getting the next Einstein.
- CalRobert 4y agoHow many people is the ideal amount?
- bilsbie 4y agoGreat question. I feel more is better at this point and we’re not near any hard limit but I don’t know what a maximum would be.
- philwelch 4y agoOur technology is keeping up with our “hard limits”. If we were politically willing to build more nuclear reactors, we’d have zero problems with energy or water (desalination). Mineral scarcity turned out not to be. Land scarcity isn’t a thing (the entire world population could live in single family homes in roughly the same land area as Texas or Ukraine). And at our current tech level and rate of innovation, we could start have undersea domes or O’Neill cylinders by the time we ran into any of those limits.
- Weatherweathe 4y agoAnd yet there is housing crisis almosy everywhere, prob govs will have to force people to move out from the big cities
- benstrumental 4y agoUntil per capita carbon emissions are below zero, falling population is a good thing.
- philwelch 4y agoI can’t think of any sentiment that I commonly hear that’s as ghoulish as that. As if the moral value of a human life is somehow less than her lifetime net carbon emissions. My only solace is the hope that people who believe that sort of thing will go extinct and be replaced by people whose values are closer to mine.
- agonmon 4y agoThat seems to be the trend. It makes sense, people who choose a laziness born of pessimism are probably not virile enough to raise children. Surprised to see this kind of thinking here though; if you are an engineer who is good at solving problems, you should raise children that are also good at solving problems. Point them at our climate/sustainability/energy issues.
- benstrumental 4y agoWe're up against massive loss of biodiversity, loss of habitable space on the planet, and an enormous amount of human suffering and loss of human life due to the current and future effects of climate change. A smaller population will not solve these problems alone, but it will buy us more time to solve them. FWIW, I'm not trying to promote anything extreme like population control policies, just pointing out that the current trend of population leveling off is generally a good thing.
- CoastalCoder 4y agoI agree that population control mostly solves our environmental issues. But I don't trust humans to make such collective sacrifices willingly. We're just too lazy, stupid, and selfish. I think the more likely outcome is that reality will control our population for us, via drought, famine, war, and epidemic.
- astrange 4y agoDegrowth is false. If we lost population, the environment would get worse - as we wouldn't be able to maintain modern technology, we'd go back to the real bad stuff like coal and wood burning. The US's total CO2 emissions have been going down for a decade or two now, even after population growth. And no, it's not because we outsourced them.
- 656565656565 4y agoI mostly agree, I added purely based on my opinion of the original posters ask
- bilsbie 4y agoThe 1700s called. They want their Malthusian catastrophe back.
- collegeburner 4y agoUhh fuck that (pun not intended). We are not the problem, America has plenty of space, there is no need. SE Asia is stabilizing. Africa has a lot of birth but also a lot of space left. There will probably be some places with "natural" population control from lack of food or from disease bht that doesn't mean "we" have to do anything. You def can't be pro-choice or anti-fascist then support population control.
- 656565656565 4y agoI never mentioned pro-choice or my stance on it or population control. For the record I support choice. I added the topic purely in response to the OP ask.
- collegeburner 4y agoI mean fair but when you say "we will have no choice" that sounds like you support it. If not apologies and my comment wouldn't really apply.
- m101 4y agoThe problem that we should be talking about is the exact opposite.
- bilsbie 4y agoYou scare me.