7 ms·

I say all of this as a thought experiment. But: > Sad thing is, the vast majority of people are oblivious or flat out don't care. I mean, if we're making ment

I say all of this as a thought experiment. But: > Sad thing is, the vast majority of people are oblivious or flat out don't care. I mean, if we're making mental jumps to wiping out billions of people - I'd argue that, does it even matter? Ie, in your example human life largely doesn't matter. Human survival maybe, but clearly not billions of lives. I'm not saying this negatively either, just acknowledging what topic we're discussing. So if we're throwing away cultural norms on what we consider valuable, such as human life, why even care about nature? Our species? Other species? The planet? It's an honest question. I imagine you could argue that human life is still the most important thing, but we simply can't exist with 7 billion people. Perhaps 6 Billion people need to die. Regardless, I struggle to be emotionally invested in a situation where I decide 6 billion people die. 6 billion to save 1 billion? That's a tough pill to swallow. It's not like killing 1 person to save a million. Mentally I think I struggle at that thought so much that I'd almost rather choose inaction, passively killing 7 billion people, so I can't feel responsible for the decision to kill 6 billion people. Interesting thought analysis nonetheless.

ryanmercer 8y ago
>So if we're throwing away cultural norms on what we consider valuable, such as human life, why even care about nature? Our species? Other species? The planet? We have no issue eradicating mold that enters our homes, bacterial infections, viruses but people don't hesitate to create 800,000 something tons of plastic a day that mostly ends up in the trash, we don't mind pumping 40 gigatons of carbon in the atmosphere, we don't mind over fishing, depleting soil, throwing out food that we couldn't be bothered to eat, buying electronics designed to be thrown away after 1-3 years, etc. We're already wiping out billions of people. We're just making it slow and painful. Cancer rates are increasing decade after decade, climate change is a very real thing that is going to start getting noticeably worse, we're one decent crop failure away from sparking a regional or even world war. I'm not advocating we gather up 9 out of every 10 people and euthanize them, but it would be more humane than the myriad of slow and miserable deaths we are setting ourselves up for. The next several decades are going to be quite interesting, and almost certainly not in a good way. As a species, we have to wake up. We have to get the majority to not only acknowledge the issues we immediately face but to actually try and work on slowing and ultimately reversing them. We have freemium apps raking in millions and millions of dollars a day but we''re painfully under-funding attempts at renewable energy and carbon sequestration and sustainable manufacturing.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
_red 8y ago
One of the results of "loss of god / religion" (I'm not religious, just saying) is that humans have replaced those myths with "science and nature". So, its perfectly congruent for true believers to advocate the death of billions if their god is being threatened. No different then fire and brimstone of old testament. Strangely many such people are proclaimed atheist who don't recognize they have just selected a different mythological system to follow.
PavlovsCat 8y ago
In the movie Dr. Strangelove the president was very upset by the idea of choosing who lives and who dies, which is when Dr. Strangelove brightly exlaims "that could easily be done by a computer". Decades later, Deep Impact doesn't bother with the qualms, and just has the president solemnly proclaim on TV that a computer will randomly select people, on top of a fixed pool of "VIP", and the people watching TV are all just... sad, and hope they get picked. Not one person goes "What? What did he just say?". This "meme", that a catastrophy destroys all but a selection, is as old as the Bible, i.e. of Noah as well as the Book of Revelations. Flood myths in general are fascinating, some even have "the bad guys" surviving the flood they themselves caused. edit: I tried to find the "bad guys surviving the flood" one, I'm 99% sure it was on here http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html But I couldn't easily find it again, it's such a giant page. I think it involved lying to the gods about who caused the flood (or other issue), who then punish the wrong guys, while the actually guilty people survive. Could have been about two island peoples, one good one bad, but I'm not sure, it's been quite a while since I read that page.
titzer 8y ago
> Regardless, I struggle to be emotionally invested in a situation where I decide 6 billion people die. 6 billion people will die. Heck, 7.5 billion will die. Everyone dies. The question is not when, but how, and how do they live their lives. I think we should pursue a solution not of genocide, but one of mass sterilization. We should choose about 100 million people from all over the Earth that will represent the genome of the next generation of humanity and sterilize everyone else. And contrary to the closet racists' wet dream, this should be done in exactly the opposite way: we should strive to maximize genetic diversity and make sure that everyone has a pretty close relative represented. It would have to be massively automated, driven by genetic data, and highly, highly scientific. That's the only non-morally-horrendous depopulation solution that I can think of. It would solve our population problem in ~60-70 years, naturally. Humanely I would say. To some, it might be liberating even. The need to not ever worry about supporting children, or really, about the future at all. They don't have to live with a lower standard of living (by much). They don't have to figure out how to compete with 8, 9, 10 billion other people trying to claw their way up to the western standard of living. The childless could focus on bringing meaning to their lives in other ways, can invest in the next generation in other ways, and can transcend their biological destiny, which seems to be a cruel joke programmed into us from the very first bacterium. It'd be like creating a living ark within humanity. And the resources left over, designed to support 8 billion, need only support 100 million. There'd be a plethora of energy and real estate. A lot of the Earth could be turned back to wilderness. And humanity would take a smaller role. By choice. Instead of it being forced on us by the system collapsing on our heads.
- wild_preference 8y ago
  Good luck sterilizing people against their will.
  - titzer 8y ago
    TBH I know it's a crackhead plan. But then again I'm not sure this generation is all enthused about having kids. It costs a lot (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cost-of-raising-a-child-parents-save-up/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cost-of-raising-a-child-parents...), and if there were economic incentives that encouraged volunteering, that might actually get takers.

ryanmercer 8y ago

>So if we're throwing away cultural norms on what we consider valuable, such as human life, why even care about nature? Our species? Other species? The planet? We have no issue eradicating mold that enters our homes, bacterial infections, viruses but people don't hesitate to create 800,000 something tons of plastic a day that mostly ends up in the trash, we don't mind pumping 40 gigatons of carbon in the atmosphere, we don't mind over fishing, depleting soil, throwing out food that we couldn't be bothered to eat, buying electronics designed to be thrown away after 1-3 years, etc. We're already wiping out billions of people. We're just making it slow and painful. Cancer rates are increasing decade after decade, climate change is a very real thing that is going to start getting noticeably worse, we're one decent crop failure away from sparking a regional or even world war. I'm not advocating we gather up 9 out of every 10 people and euthanize them, but it would be more humane than the myriad of slow and miserable deaths we are setting ourselves up for. The next several decades are going to be quite interesting, and almost certainly not in a good way. As a species, we have to wake up. We have to get the majority to not only acknowledge the issues we immediately face but to actually try and work on slowing and ultimately reversing them. We have freemium apps raking in millions and millions of dollars a day but we''re painfully under-funding attempts at renewable energy and carbon sequestration and sustainable manufacturing.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

_red 8y ago

One of the results of "loss of god / religion" (I'm not religious, just saying) is that humans have replaced those myths with "science and nature". So, its perfectly congruent for true believers to advocate the death of billions if their god is being threatened. No different then fire and brimstone of old testament. Strangely many such people are proclaimed atheist who don't recognize they have just selected a different mythological system to follow.

PavlovsCat 8y ago

In the movie Dr. Strangelove the president was very upset by the idea of choosing who lives and who dies, which is when Dr. Strangelove brightly exlaims "that could easily be done by a computer". Decades later, Deep Impact doesn't bother with the qualms, and just has the president solemnly proclaim on TV that a computer will randomly select people, on top of a fixed pool of "VIP", and the people watching TV are all just... sad, and hope they get picked. Not one person goes "What? What did he just say?". This "meme", that a catastrophy destroys all but a selection, is as old as the Bible, i.e. of Noah as well as the Book of Revelations. Flood myths in general are fascinating, some even have "the bad guys" surviving the flood they themselves caused. edit: I tried to find the "bad guys surviving the flood" one, I'm 99% sure it was on here http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html But I couldn't easily find it again, it's such a giant page. I think it involved lying to the gods about who caused the flood (or other issue), who then punish the wrong guys, while the actually guilty people survive. Could have been about two island peoples, one good one bad, but I'm not sure, it's been quite a while since I read that page.

titzer 8y ago

> Regardless, I struggle to be emotionally invested in a situation where I decide 6 billion people die. 6 billion people will die. Heck, 7.5 billion will die. Everyone dies. The question is not when, but how, and how do they live their lives. I think we should pursue a solution not of genocide, but one of mass sterilization. We should choose about 100 million people from all over the Earth that will represent the genome of the next generation of humanity and sterilize everyone else. And contrary to the closet racists' wet dream, this should be done in exactly the opposite way: we should strive to maximize genetic diversity and make sure that everyone has a pretty close relative represented. It would have to be massively automated, driven by genetic data, and highly, highly scientific. That's the only non-morally-horrendous depopulation solution that I can think of. It would solve our population problem in ~60-70 years, naturally. Humanely I would say. To some, it might be liberating even. The need to not ever worry about supporting children, or really, about the future at all. They don't have to live with a lower standard of living (by much). They don't have to figure out how to compete with 8, 9, 10 billion other people trying to claw their way up to the western standard of living. The childless could focus on bringing meaning to their lives in other ways, can invest in the next generation in other ways, and can transcend their biological destiny, which seems to be a cruel joke programmed into us from the very first bacterium. It'd be like creating a living ark within humanity. And the resources left over, designed to support 8 billion, need only support 100 million. There'd be a plethora of energy and real estate. A lot of the Earth could be turned back to wilderness. And humanity would take a smaller role. By choice. Instead of it being forced on us by the system collapsing on our heads.

wild_preference 8y ago
Good luck sterilizing people against their will.
- titzer 8y ago
  TBH I know it's a crackhead plan. But then again I'm not sure this generation is all enthused about having kids. It costs a lot (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cost-of-raising-a-child-parents-save-up/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cost-of-raising-a-child-parents...), and if there were economic incentives that encouraged volunteering, that might actually get takers.