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>The global economy already produces enough for every man, woman and child. But does it produce enough for every man, woman and child in a sustainable manner,
by gph 9y ago
>The global economy already produces enough for every man, woman and child.
But does it produce enough for every man, woman and child in a sustainable manner, and will it be able to keep up with the Malthusian population growth that would continue unabated if every person on earth was perpetually guaranteed to get "enough"?
The answer to both of those is no. While there is certainly a lot of inefficient busy work amongst the workforce of developed nations, to say that most people on earth waste their lives doing unnecessary work is an extraordinarily myopic claim that's been bandied about since that one guy wrote an article about BS jobs. Everyone latches onto that meme and assumes the majority of work being done is absolutely worthless, but they really have nothing to back that up except their own personal experience as a middle class corporate drone.
- jes5199 9y agoMalthus was wrong: access to birth control correlates with wealth
- gph 9y agoMalthus was temporarily wrong at best. You are taking an extremely narrow slice of human history and extrapolating the future from it. Without a controlling global enforcement of birth control (none currently exists and undoubtedly won't any time soon), then those who don't use birth control (whether driven through cultural or biological means) will have more fecundity and quickly outbreed and replace those that do. And if everyone is guaranteed equal sustenance and resources it will very quickly devolve into a Malthusian situation. tl;dr Give everyone and their offspring guaranteed sustenance and the Catholics and Nigerians will take over in a couple generation. Nothing about the OPs post said give everyone enough wealth and force birth control so that they only reproduce at a replacement rate.
- DoubleCribble 9y agoNot if the LDS Church has anything to say about it. I can't speak to the fecundity of the modern Nigerian family, but I'd wager the average American Catholic family is smaller than the average American LDS family , and by significant margin. Anecdotally, a former colleague (an LDS member) recently welcomed his 11th child. Apparently, a family with 11 kids was neither extreme nor unusual in his ward.
- gph 9y agoHah, yea I was just going with Catholics since they've been burned into the collective conscious as anti-birth control. Seems most of them don't actually listen to the Pope much these days.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jes5199 9y agothis is the same as the argument that gay people will die out because they don't reproduce