5 ms·

As a counterpoint to most of the other “isn’t this good?” comments of this thread, let me say that humanity is, at its best, amazingly capable of invention and

As a counterpoint to most of the other “isn’t this good?” comments of this thread, let me say that humanity is, at its best, amazingly capable of invention and creating a wonderful culture. To have more people is to have more opportunities for those who can contribute to the progress of the world. We have shown an amazing ability to increase crop yield and, technologically, can feed the world population. That’s a feat carried out by generations of growing societies who were driven to innovate because they needed to. As long as there’s opportunities for people’s creativity there’s no such thing as the “carrying capacity” of the planet. Yes we need to take better care of each other and the earth. But “less people = good” is not the solution to that. We need to raise up our future with a commitment to people being able to address the problems around them, and not tell each other “it’d be better if you weren’t born”.

NotPaidToPost 7y ago
This is naive at best and certainly unrealistic. There is such a thing as "carrying capacity" of the planet if only in terms of quality of life. I'm sure people prefer spacious homes, space, parks, nature, wilderness, rather than being cramped in a crowd 24/7. Less people is a real solution to the main problems of today. This does not mean less opportunity. Quite the opposite this means more opportunities and better quality of life.
- hudon 7y ago
  > Less people is a real solution to the main problems of today. Here's a thought experiment: Why don't you and I end our lives right now, then? Every breath we take contributes to the carbon footprint. (please don't do it, human life is the greatest cause of human progress)
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    I believe this is a false argument. There is a difference between avoiding additional life instantiation, and nurturing existence life. All of us are worth something because of our knowledge, skills, experience, that has led us to today. Whatever that value is, it is more than that of life that hasn't been conceived yet. The less people on the planet, the more resources for those people who do exist.
    - hudon 7y ago
      > Whatever that value is, it is more than that of life that hasn't been conceived yet. Please provide some form of evidence or proof for this. I can just as well argue that because my day-to-day work is related to fixing climate issues, your life should be ended so your resources go to me so I can do my job better and grow my team. That way, you'll also stop stealing my oxygen and emitting carbon dioxide (which is putting my children in peril, and they will also be working to fight climate change so their life is worth more than yours).
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        > Please provide some form of evidence or proof for this. Killing me is murder, abortion is a medical procedure, contraceptives and other birth control methods are easily available and legal, depending on your jurisdiction. I suppose we could argue the semantics of conception and when life starts, but I'd rather not in this thread (as it will lead nowhere productive). That would seem to indicate how value has been determined at a social level.
        hudon 7y ago
        Nono it won't be murder, it will be a state-sanctioned euthanasia for the betterment of society. We should get together and allow this to happen so we can re-allocate resources away from humans that are just emitting carbon and not materially contributing to technologies that reverse climate change. Let me do my job, please, I'm trying to fix our climate.
        toomuchtodo 7y ago
        A modest proposal.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
dougmwne 7y ago
I don't think we need a higher population to "contribute to the progress of the world." The World Bank says that 10% of the world's population lives on less than $1.90 per day. Very few people are given high levels of education and career opportunities. The competition for those opportunities is getting more intense all the time. Many people are dropping out of the workforce due to lack of opportunity and hopelessness. Having an additional billion people in extreme poverty is not going to make the world a more innovative, wonderful and cultural place. If we instead focus on providing more opportunity for the people who are here, that seems much better than creating more people who will only ever have extremely limited opportunity. Most people have the innate capability to contribute at a high level, but lack the opportunity. A very small number of people, given the right resources and incentives can create massive innovations. It does not take billions.
- hudon 7y ago
  also from the World Bank: in 1990, the percentage of world population in extreme poverty was 37%. Now it is 10%. It looks like as the population is growing, we are becoming less poor, not more, which dismantles the rest of your argument.
  - dougmwne 7y ago
    I think you are actually helping to prove my point. The global fertility rate has been dropping rapidly since 1970[1]. The poverty rate has also been dropping rapidly for just about as long[2]. Isn't is possible that the increase in living standards is being driven by the decrease in birth rate? That seems more likely than more people=less poverty. [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/sp.dyn.tfrt.in https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/sp.dyn.tfrt.in [2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GAPS https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GAPS
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      > The reflex of many economists when thinking about the fertility rate is to point to income as the likely determinant. And sure enough, between countries and over time we see that higher incomes are associated with lower fertility. But good things come together – richer countries are also healthier and better educated – and so this correlation between high incomes and low fertility alone is surely not evidence that it is increasing income that is responsible for the decrease in fertility. https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-change-in-the-number-of-children-women-have https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-... (Our World In Data: What explains the change in the number of children women have?) TLDR Major contributing factors are a woman's education (educated woman have fewer children, and delay having children until later in life), access to contraceptives, a reduction in infant mortality, with social norms and increases in income and quality of life to a lesser extent. Sidenote: Thanks to Our World In Data (YC 19 NP) for performing and hosting top notch datasets and the analysis of such.
dv_dt 7y ago
I think one idea you're thinking about is the idea of Social reproduction. [1] Warning it's a Marxist idea, so if that's just going to upset you, just skip the rest of this. But the core thought is that for people to continue civilization, there are a number of areas that just need support from financial, cultural, social and human areas. It maybe needs some refreshing to more explicitly add tech and environmental areas - but really they're covered under those categories. While the eco side effects of reduced population pressure are beneficial, they are unintentional, while still letting all sorts of other industrial & financial processes continue to put pressure on problems like climate change. Reduced fertility can be bad from a social reproduction standpoint if poor financial and social conditions are what's driving down the rate. It drives all sorts of other economic and social problems (see Japan for a foreshadowing of this). Still, reduced population is something we have to work through anyway if we want to make it easier to live at a sustainable level of human civilization on the Earth. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_reproduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_reproduction
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

NotPaidToPost 7y ago

This is naive at best and certainly unrealistic. There is such a thing as "carrying capacity" of the planet if only in terms of quality of life. I'm sure people prefer spacious homes, space, parks, nature, wilderness, rather than being cramped in a crowd 24/7. Less people is a real solution to the main problems of today. This does not mean less opportunity. Quite the opposite this means more opportunities and better quality of life.

hudon 7y ago
> Less people is a real solution to the main problems of today. Here's a thought experiment: Why don't you and I end our lives right now, then? Every breath we take contributes to the carbon footprint. (please don't do it, human life is the greatest cause of human progress)
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  I believe this is a false argument. There is a difference between avoiding additional life instantiation, and nurturing existence life. All of us are worth something because of our knowledge, skills, experience, that has led us to today. Whatever that value is, it is more than that of life that hasn't been conceived yet. The less people on the planet, the more resources for those people who do exist.
  - hudon 7y ago
    > Whatever that value is, it is more than that of life that hasn't been conceived yet. Please provide some form of evidence or proof for this. I can just as well argue that because my day-to-day work is related to fixing climate issues, your life should be ended so your resources go to me so I can do my job better and grow my team. That way, you'll also stop stealing my oxygen and emitting carbon dioxide (which is putting my children in peril, and they will also be working to fight climate change so their life is worth more than yours).
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      > Please provide some form of evidence or proof for this. Killing me is murder, abortion is a medical procedure, contraceptives and other birth control methods are easily available and legal, depending on your jurisdiction. I suppose we could argue the semantics of conception and when life starts, but I'd rather not in this thread (as it will lead nowhere productive). That would seem to indicate how value has been determined at a social level.
      - hudon 7y ago
        Nono it won't be murder, it will be a state-sanctioned euthanasia for the betterment of society. We should get together and allow this to happen so we can re-allocate resources away from humans that are just emitting carbon and not materially contributing to technologies that reverse climate change. Let me do my job, please, I'm trying to fix our climate.
        toomuchtodo 7y ago
        A modest proposal.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]

dougmwne 7y ago

I don't think we need a higher population to "contribute to the progress of the world." The World Bank says that 10% of the world's population lives on less than $1.90 per day. Very few people are given high levels of education and career opportunities. The competition for those opportunities is getting more intense all the time. Many people are dropping out of the workforce due to lack of opportunity and hopelessness. Having an additional billion people in extreme poverty is not going to make the world a more innovative, wonderful and cultural place. If we instead focus on providing more opportunity for the people who are here, that seems much better than creating more people who will only ever have extremely limited opportunity. Most people have the innate capability to contribute at a high level, but lack the opportunity. A very small number of people, given the right resources and incentives can create massive innovations. It does not take billions.

hudon 7y ago
also from the World Bank: in 1990, the percentage of world population in extreme poverty was 37%. Now it is 10%. It looks like as the population is growing, we are becoming less poor, not more, which dismantles the rest of your argument.
- dougmwne 7y ago
  I think you are actually helping to prove my point. The global fertility rate has been dropping rapidly since 1970[1]. The poverty rate has also been dropping rapidly for just about as long[2]. Isn't is possible that the increase in living standards is being driven by the decrease in birth rate? That seems more likely than more people=less poverty. [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/sp.dyn.tfrt.in https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/sp.dyn.tfrt.in [2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GAPS https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GAPS
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    > The reflex of many economists when thinking about the fertility rate is to point to income as the likely determinant. And sure enough, between countries and over time we see that higher incomes are associated with lower fertility. But good things come together – richer countries are also healthier and better educated – and so this correlation between high incomes and low fertility alone is surely not evidence that it is increasing income that is responsible for the decrease in fertility. https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-change-in-the-number-of-children-women-have https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#what-explains-the-... (Our World In Data: What explains the change in the number of children women have?) TLDR Major contributing factors are a woman's education (educated woman have fewer children, and delay having children until later in life), access to contraceptives, a reduction in infant mortality, with social norms and increases in income and quality of life to a lesser extent. Sidenote: Thanks to Our World In Data (YC 19 NP) for performing and hosting top notch datasets and the analysis of such.

dv_dt 7y ago

I think one idea you're thinking about is the idea of Social reproduction. [1] Warning it's a Marxist idea, so if that's just going to upset you, just skip the rest of this. But the core thought is that for people to continue civilization, there are a number of areas that just need support from financial, cultural, social and human areas. It maybe needs some refreshing to more explicitly add tech and environmental areas - but really they're covered under those categories. While the eco side effects of reduced population pressure are beneficial, they are unintentional, while still letting all sorts of other industrial & financial processes continue to put pressure on problems like climate change. Reduced fertility can be bad from a social reproduction standpoint if poor financial and social conditions are what's driving down the rate. It drives all sorts of other economic and social problems (see Japan for a foreshadowing of this). Still, reduced population is something we have to work through anyway if we want to make it easier to live at a sustainable level of human civilization on the Earth. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_reproduction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_reproduction

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]