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I don't see how significantly reducing the number of people on the planet is practical. Yes, current models predict global population capping, but it will stab
by lev99 8y ago
I don't see how significantly reducing the number of people on the planet is practical.
Yes, current models predict global population capping, but it will stabilize higher than it currently is.
There are two actions that modify the population count. Birth and Death. We can decrease our birth rate while increasing freedom by offering better reproductive healthcare to those without access, but I don't think it will decrease the birth rate enough to make it lower than the death rate.
To reduce the current population to a level with "far fewer" it would involve involuntarily death increasing (war, murder, fatal accidents, illness), or involuntary decrease in birthrate (China's one-child-per-family policy, forced sterilization). Both of those seem horrific to me, especially if the motivation is to give more luxury resources to the living.
- qrbLPHiKpiux 8y agoOr have a massive antibiotic resistant bacteria wipe out a significant number or the population.
- lev99 8y agoI covered that in illness. I think we are better armed to handle epidemic infectious disease than we ever have been, and a Black Plague level of population decrease is unlikely for a few reasons. 1. The disease model is very useful for identifying root causes of infection. Knowledge is a very powerful tool in prevention. 2. We have experience fighting infectious disease that do not respond to anti-biotics. They are a very powerful tool, but not our only tool. 3. State level actors, such as the United States CDC, have broad authority in the case of epidemics. Antibiotic resistant bacteria is a scenario they have war gamed many times, and a situation they monitor closely.
- jonnycomputer 8y agoWhat is the limit of the argument that we should make do with less so that more can live? Involuntary interventions are morally questionable, and often don't work in the long run. However, Europe, Japan, and the US (absent migration) have been voluntarily reducing their populations for years now, though the consequences of that shift present economic challenges. No, I do not think that the projected human population can all drive cars, have big homes, have computers and cell phones, regularly fly around the world, and eat lots of meat without irreversible ecological collapse. However, for the most part all those things are good things absent their externalities, and the externalities really are only bad because of the scale.
- lev99 8y agoMy stance isn’t that we should maximize population instead of lifestyle. My argument is that involuntary interventions are morally wrong, and the global population will not decrease without them.