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It's not gonna happen, most people still don't grasp the stakes at play nor how they are contributing in the worst ways possible. On one side you have sometime

It's not gonna happen, most people still don't grasp the stakes at play nor how they are contributing in the worst ways possible. On one side you have sometimes a bit too righteous vegans getting their third child, going "I'm saving the planet by teaching my children the right way to live!" On the other side, you have nationalist sentiments going "I need to get as many children as possible or else our ancestry is dying out/our people are being replaced by foreigners!". Throw in a good bit of religious anti-contraception and abortion sentiments, heavily propagandized among the poorer parts of the world, and the end result is still the same: Unchecked population growth due to large parts of humanity still seeing procreation as some kind of quantity contest where everybody wants to become the next Genghis Khan [0]. At this point, the only thing I'm unsure about is how far we gonna take it before nature is gonna cull the herd globally, but I seriously doubt we'll ever make it past the 10 billion before that's gonna happen. [0] https://www.nature.com/news/genghis-khan-s-genetic-legacy-has-competition-1.16767 https://www.nature.com/news/genghis-khan-s-genetic-legacy-ha...

goldfeld 8y ago
If someone is determined to be an example of sustainable living, having extra kids might be productive, even very much so, as it helps the signal-to-noise ratio of good values spread faster in the population; think of it as a multiplier. The actual weight of having more people is a rounding error compared to all the extra people who on top of it have questionable ethics and morals all around (most people including or especially westerners. Sure, poor people in developing countries are hopeless, but people from rich countries have more leverage used to exploit others.)
- freeflight 8y ago
  > as it helps the signal-to-noise ratio of good values spread faster in the population This only works if the "don't care" population doesn't outgrow them. You are pretty much betting on speeding up, outcompeting them, but that in itself is only contributing to the overall problem. Especially considering that the "don't care" approach requires less effort, as in time and resources for the individual, thus is more likely to be practiced succeed and given on to the children, of which they very likely will have more. Because even children are something that needs to be "invested in" to actually meaningfully contribute when they are adults, instead of being another "net negative" to the sustainability of humanity on this planet.

goldfeld 8y ago

If someone is determined to be an example of sustainable living, having extra kids might be productive, even very much so, as it helps the signal-to-noise ratio of good values spread faster in the population; think of it as a multiplier. The actual weight of having more people is a rounding error compared to all the extra people who on top of it have questionable ethics and morals all around (most people including or especially westerners. Sure, poor people in developing countries are hopeless, but people from rich countries have more leverage used to exploit others.)

freeflight 8y ago
> as it helps the signal-to-noise ratio of good values spread faster in the population This only works if the "don't care" population doesn't outgrow them. You are pretty much betting on speeding up, outcompeting them, but that in itself is only contributing to the overall problem. Especially considering that the "don't care" approach requires less effort, as in time and resources for the individual, thus is more likely to be practiced succeed and given on to the children, of which they very likely will have more. Because even children are something that needs to be "invested in" to actually meaningfully contribute when they are adults, instead of being another "net negative" to the sustainability of humanity on this planet.