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While I completely agree we are in unprecedented times of our own[1] making... I will call into question the idea of a 'background extinction rate of 1 species

While I completely agree we are in unprecedented times of our own[1] making... I will call into question the idea of a 'background extinction rate of 1 species /1000 years'. We currently have a deeper understanding of our planet's ecosystem compared to any time in our recorded history. If someone from 1000 years ago observed an extinction, it does not mean there were not many other species coming to a natural end. [1] We are a product of nature, the current imbalance of primary predator over the food chain is a product of both our intelligence and growth. It's a well understood predator/prey cycle. You cannot have who were are without what we cause, as much as we'd like to think otherwise. The issue, fundamentally, is 7 billion humans on the planet. Doing something about that number would no longer make us human. Fasten your seatbelts, there's some turbulence ahead, putting your trays in the upright position will have little effect on the outcome.

mbenjaminsmith 10y ago
> Doing something about that number would no longer make us human. I really struggle with this. Apart from "evil" countries like China we do very little to try to steer the reproductive outcome / health of our own species. We aggressively breed domesticated animals and plants but apart from class stratification we do almost nothing to ensure a positive genetic future for ourselves. Why not? I'm not suggesting we prevent certain people from having kids (who? who decides?) but awareness of really basic concepts like "kids are expensive, have fewer or none if you're poor" simply aren't out there or are ineffective. My wife and I (I'm an entrepreneur and a software engineer, my wife is GM of a company in architectural design) very deliberately decided to have one child. Our nanny on the other hand has three (grown) children. They're all in the same income bracket as she is and all having children of their own. It's pretty well known that smarter / better educated people have fewer kids. That means that our current 7 billion is mostly those least equipped to raise the next generation and also those most likely to increase its size. Again, I'm not suggesting we have the government try to regulate reproductive rights. (Governments rapidly accumulating power via technology is another problem we have to deal with as a species.) But what about global awareness? Or what about incentivizing the poorest people to have fewer children via social programs, education, etc. And, just in case: No, you can't compare what I'm suggesting to Nazi Germany. This has nothing to do with race. I don't think race is even a meaningful concept when discussing humans. This is about us taking responsibly for our future and the health of the only planet we'll be able to call home for the foreseeable future -- by raising awareness of our collective responsibility to future generations, our strengths and weaknesses as custodians of. [Edit] Was really hoping to spark a meaningful discussion here. I think this is the elephant in the room wrt our future as a species -- as important as curbing CO2 emissions or detecting / destroying the next killer asteroid. 1. Just for the record, no, I did not call China evil. I thought that was self evident. I guess not. If I thought Chinese people were evil my son wouldn't be half Chinese. 2. Yes, there are a number of reasons poor people have more children than they should. None of those negate what I am saying. I'm suggesting we need to educate the poor on choices that will benefit themselves, their children and the human race as a whole.
- Ygg2 10y ago
  That won't work. In nature, the less likely you judge your children chances of survival, the more you have. Other reason is that poor people use their children as a form of labor. There is however one thing you can do and that is - send all your money to poor people and reduce their natality number.
- fsloth 10y ago
  Apart from "evil" countries like China I know you put 'evil' in quotes but I still find this trivializes the governance of a country of over billion people and three millenia of continuous government (yes, the communist party may not be called a dynasty but if you look at it from historical perspective it's a direct continuation of the bureaucratic autocratic system that's dominated the area before Plato and Aristotle ). Or what about incentivizing the poorest people to have fewer children via social programs, education, etc. IMO, there are two main reasons for high birth rates: 1. lots of children are a form of capital in capital poor areas 2. there is very little else to do than breed in the evenings. 3. these two create a behaviour pattern in society where having lots of children is the social proven option. If one does not want to go the china way then one needs to affect these causes directly. For 2. I suppose giving entertainment would lower birth rates. For 1 - well, I have no idea what to do with that apart from supporting economic growth.
  - lunchTime42 10y ago
    I dont trust you to hold back on the lottery tickets and not start a civil war - so to secure my future, i got to put lots of lottery tickets into the pot. Gametheory makes us do it.
    - lunchTime42 10y ago
      Imagine a civ where this scenario ran away- for thousands of years. Behaviour optimized towards this.
- saiya-jin 10y ago
  the thing is, people are deeply irrational on many, many levels. emotions take over our decisions, which seems to be the case for most of population quite often, and quite a few times for the rest too. you & your wife might be very rational compared to average, but "crowd" isn't. otherwise they wouldn't consider some soccer games most important thing in the universe for a few weeks in a year, wouldn't give a damn about terrorism, would lead healthier lives, wouldn't think with their d*cks and so on. over longer term, it's a zoo out there, however nice we want to paint our civilization so far. it's rule of the stronger, as it has ever been, and power in numbers will over time prevail over some more rational approach (as yours). if times will get really rough medieval-style, mortality will sort this out anyway. I used to care a lot about these things, worried and afraid and so on. not anymore - apart from nuclear holocaust/massive meteorite/supervolcano, mankind will in some way survive. and since we have no clue what will happen tomorrow, no need to worry and just do what you feel is right for you. or something like that
Scarblac 10y ago
And 1.5 billion cows (more than humans by mass), 1 billion pigs, even though we're omnivores.
ForHackernews 10y ago
> The issue, fundamentally, is 7 billion humans on the planet. Doing something about that number would no longer make us human. It's extremely easy to do something about that: Just encourage development, educate women, and provide access to effective birth control. In every single industrialized nation where women are empowered to make choices about their fertility, they're choosing to have fewer children. Experts disagree [0] about when the world population will peak (as early as 2055 or more like 2100) and how high it will peak (~8 - 10 billion) but everyone agrees that it will peak, and then decline thereafter. If you want to help that happen faster, we need to support development, education for women, and access to birth control in places like sub-Saharan African and Southeast Asia. [0] http://www.cnbc.com/id/101018722 http://www.cnbc.com/id/101018722
- radiorental 10y ago
  You're not wrong about how to reduce population growth, possibly even reverse it a little over a long enough time period. However, the current load is straining ecosystem. There's too many of us as-is. The question I ponder is, would we be where we are today (science, understanding, etc) if it not for the fact there's so many of us. What's the magic number of sustainable people on the planet and does that mean a collapse in the levels of trade that support the advancement of science? Fwiw, I think we're doomed. We're about to find out what the 'great filter' looks like. Somewhere down the road, whatever comes after us, and something will, something will get another stab at it. Hopefully they learn from us. I'm in the George Carlin Camp on how to save the planet - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTIsI95IscY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTIsI95IscY

mbenjaminsmith 10y ago

> Doing something about that number would no longer make us human. I really struggle with this. Apart from "evil" countries like China we do very little to try to steer the reproductive outcome / health of our own species. We aggressively breed domesticated animals and plants but apart from class stratification we do almost nothing to ensure a positive genetic future for ourselves. Why not? I'm not suggesting we prevent certain people from having kids (who? who decides?) but awareness of really basic concepts like "kids are expensive, have fewer or none if you're poor" simply aren't out there or are ineffective. My wife and I (I'm an entrepreneur and a software engineer, my wife is GM of a company in architectural design) very deliberately decided to have one child. Our nanny on the other hand has three (grown) children. They're all in the same income bracket as she is and all having children of their own. It's pretty well known that smarter / better educated people have fewer kids. That means that our current 7 billion is mostly those least equipped to raise the next generation and also those most likely to increase its size. Again, I'm not suggesting we have the government try to regulate reproductive rights. (Governments rapidly accumulating power via technology is another problem we have to deal with as a species.) But what about global awareness? Or what about incentivizing the poorest people to have fewer children via social programs, education, etc. And, just in case: No, you can't compare what I'm suggesting to Nazi Germany. This has nothing to do with race. I don't think race is even a meaningful concept when discussing humans. This is about us taking responsibly for our future and the health of the only planet we'll be able to call home for the foreseeable future -- by raising awareness of our collective responsibility to future generations, our strengths and weaknesses as custodians of. [Edit] Was really hoping to spark a meaningful discussion here. I think this is the elephant in the room wrt our future as a species -- as important as curbing CO2 emissions or detecting / destroying the next killer asteroid. 1. Just for the record, no, I did not call China evil. I thought that was self evident. I guess not. If I thought Chinese people were evil my son wouldn't be half Chinese. 2. Yes, there are a number of reasons poor people have more children than they should. None of those negate what I am saying. I'm suggesting we need to educate the poor on choices that will benefit themselves, their children and the human race as a whole.

Ygg2 10y ago
That won't work. In nature, the less likely you judge your children chances of survival, the more you have. Other reason is that poor people use their children as a form of labor. There is however one thing you can do and that is - send all your money to poor people and reduce their natality number.
fsloth 10y ago
Apart from "evil" countries like China I know you put 'evil' in quotes but I still find this trivializes the governance of a country of over billion people and three millenia of continuous government (yes, the communist party may not be called a dynasty but if you look at it from historical perspective it's a direct continuation of the bureaucratic autocratic system that's dominated the area before Plato and Aristotle ). Or what about incentivizing the poorest people to have fewer children via social programs, education, etc. IMO, there are two main reasons for high birth rates: 1. lots of children are a form of capital in capital poor areas 2. there is very little else to do than breed in the evenings. 3. these two create a behaviour pattern in society where having lots of children is the social proven option. If one does not want to go the china way then one needs to affect these causes directly. For 2. I suppose giving entertainment would lower birth rates. For 1 - well, I have no idea what to do with that apart from supporting economic growth.
- lunchTime42 10y ago
  I dont trust you to hold back on the lottery tickets and not start a civil war - so to secure my future, i got to put lots of lottery tickets into the pot. Gametheory makes us do it.
  - lunchTime42 10y ago
    Imagine a civ where this scenario ran away- for thousands of years. Behaviour optimized towards this.
saiya-jin 10y ago
the thing is, people are deeply irrational on many, many levels. emotions take over our decisions, which seems to be the case for most of population quite often, and quite a few times for the rest too. you & your wife might be very rational compared to average, but "crowd" isn't. otherwise they wouldn't consider some soccer games most important thing in the universe for a few weeks in a year, wouldn't give a damn about terrorism, would lead healthier lives, wouldn't think with their d*cks and so on. over longer term, it's a zoo out there, however nice we want to paint our civilization so far. it's rule of the stronger, as it has ever been, and power in numbers will over time prevail over some more rational approach (as yours). if times will get really rough medieval-style, mortality will sort this out anyway. I used to care a lot about these things, worried and afraid and so on. not anymore - apart from nuclear holocaust/massive meteorite/supervolcano, mankind will in some way survive. and since we have no clue what will happen tomorrow, no need to worry and just do what you feel is right for you. or something like that

Scarblac 10y ago

And 1.5 billion cows (more than humans by mass), 1 billion pigs, even though we're omnivores.

ForHackernews 10y ago

> The issue, fundamentally, is 7 billion humans on the planet. Doing something about that number would no longer make us human. It's extremely easy to do something about that: Just encourage development, educate women, and provide access to effective birth control. In every single industrialized nation where women are empowered to make choices about their fertility, they're choosing to have fewer children. Experts disagree [0] about when the world population will peak (as early as 2055 or more like 2100) and how high it will peak (~8 - 10 billion) but everyone agrees that it will peak, and then decline thereafter. If you want to help that happen faster, we need to support development, education for women, and access to birth control in places like sub-Saharan African and Southeast Asia. [0] http://www.cnbc.com/id/101018722 http://www.cnbc.com/id/101018722

radiorental 10y ago
You're not wrong about how to reduce population growth, possibly even reverse it a little over a long enough time period. However, the current load is straining ecosystem. There's too many of us as-is. The question I ponder is, would we be where we are today (science, understanding, etc) if it not for the fact there's so many of us. What's the magic number of sustainable people on the planet and does that mean a collapse in the levels of trade that support the advancement of science? Fwiw, I think we're doomed. We're about to find out what the 'great filter' looks like. Somewhere down the road, whatever comes after us, and something will, something will get another stab at it. Hopefully they learn from us. I'm in the George Carlin Camp on how to save the planet - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTIsI95IscY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTIsI95IscY