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This! [0] About 12 years ago I proposed during class in school, that to save the planet we must reduce number of people living on Earth significantly and relat

by trymas 10y ago

This! [0] About 12 years ago I proposed during class in school, that to save the planet we must reduce number of people living on Earth significantly and relatively quickly. Well the teacher thought that I was new Hitler (at least at first). Just like you said, the point is that either people shouldn't have kids at all or have no more than 1. If whole Earth's population would do this, in 30years we will see a sharp fall in the population count. And in 60years it should be reduced by 30% at least [1]. If we will not do this now - our children, or grand children will not thank us. [0] this is probably against HN ethos, though I couldn't resist [1] It's completely out of my head, though if the perfect scenario would work - I guess it's a reasonable number.

crpatino 10y ago
We need both, to reduce the total number of people AND to reduce the per capita consumption. I have seen more than enough people that claim to have no children for the sake of the Environment, only to go and buy pets and treat those like children; retarded children that will never learn to speak, walk in 2 feet, or become productive members of society, demanding constant attention for their natural lifespan, and which will age rapidly and die in their teens, - and have valuable medical resources expended in heroic efforts to futily prolongue their agony for weeks/months. You could claim that the pet dies early and does not produce offspring, but then the pet owner will likely mourn for a few weeks and then go to the pet store and start all over again.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  Well, I mean, really, the only ecologically sound thing to do is kill yourself.
bit_logic 10y ago
We don't need to do anything, the economy is already decreasing population. The dual income family has destroyed big families. It's very difficult financially to have one child and two is about the max families can handle. And dual income is necessary to survive now. Economy is getting harder and harder for everyone. The optimal strategy for families now is to put massive resources into 1 or 2 kids and hope they do ok in this coming automated economy world. Social security is on the path to collapse. It's not a giant savings account like many think. It's designed so current tax income pays for current retired generation. When the millenials retire, the system will collapse due to lower young population. But it's not just social security, the whole economy is designed like this. Population growth was a base assumption that is no longer true.
- trymas 10y ago
  It's only in the well developed western world. Third world countries have the 'capacity' to almost double world population (in case of medium growth scenario, hopefully population size will plateau at around 13 billion, I do not think that optimistic rapid decline is possible without rational action of global intervention to reduce population growth [0]), which IMHO sounds catastrophic. Because for next 50-100 years global population will be increasing rapidly and hopefully will stabilise after that, without any prospects of reduction for probably double of that time frame. Even if the population will start to decrease I think it may take at least few ages to reduce population size to what is today. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-Population-1800-2100.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-Population-1800-210... , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates

by trymas 10y ago

crpatino 10y ago

We need both, to reduce the total number of people AND to reduce the per capita consumption. I have seen more than enough people that claim to have no children for the sake of the Environment, only to go and buy pets and treat those like children; retarded children that will never learn to speak, walk in 2 feet, or become productive members of society, demanding constant attention for their natural lifespan, and which will age rapidly and die in their teens, - and have valuable medical resources expended in heroic efforts to futily prolongue their agony for weeks/months. You could claim that the pet dies early and does not produce offspring, but then the pet owner will likely mourn for a few weeks and then go to the pet store and start all over again.

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
Well, I mean, really, the only ecologically sound thing to do is kill yourself.

bit_logic 10y ago

We don't need to do anything, the economy is already decreasing population. The dual income family has destroyed big families. It's very difficult financially to have one child and two is about the max families can handle. And dual income is necessary to survive now. Economy is getting harder and harder for everyone. The optimal strategy for families now is to put massive resources into 1 or 2 kids and hope they do ok in this coming automated economy world. Social security is on the path to collapse. It's not a giant savings account like many think. It's designed so current tax income pays for current retired generation. When the millenials retire, the system will collapse due to lower young population. But it's not just social security, the whole economy is designed like this. Population growth was a base assumption that is no longer true.

trymas 10y ago
It's only in the well developed western world. Third world countries have the 'capacity' to almost double world population (in case of medium growth scenario, hopefully population size will plateau at around 13 billion, I do not think that optimistic rapid decline is possible without rational action of global intervention to reduce population growth [0]), which IMHO sounds catastrophic. Because for next 50-100 years global population will be increasing rapidly and hopefully will stabilise after that, without any prospects of reduction for probably double of that time frame. Even if the population will start to decrease I think it may take at least few ages to reduce population size to what is today. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-Population-1800-2100.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-Population-1800-210... , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates