7 ms·

I don't understand this sentiment. Farming is critical for society. However, we don't require everyone to pull on their overalls and work the land. Security i

I don't understand this sentiment. Farming is critical for society. However, we don't require everyone to pull on their overalls and work the land. Security is critical for society. However, we don't expect every person to pick up their machine gun and jump in a trench. Society is nowhere near a population level that is dangerously low. In fact, we are more concerned with overpopulation and overconsumption. If you have children, that's great! Congratulations! Enjoy! But it was your choice - not one forced upon you by some dire social need.

CydeWeys 6y ago
You're not getting the point that, in the aggregate, it is NOT a choice to have farmers, soldiers* , and yes, parents. On an individual level it might be a choice, but society necessarily needs to be structured to get enough of each of those occupations, i.e. to have sufficient numbers of people making each of those choices. And the required population percentage of parents is at least 50X higher than for farmers and soldiers. And overpopulation/overconsumption isn't a problem. What is a problem is unsustainable growth. Life is much more pleasant today for most people than it was centuries ago because simply having more people allows for more technological development, more sub-specialization, and better efficiencies of scale, and thus paradoxically with more people everyone can have a much higher standard of living than with fewer people. In other words, it isn't zero sum. If the world's population starts rapidly declining then that will be a significant decline in the average standard of living, not an improvement. * I don't want to get into the argument here whether soldiers are actually necessary; let's just assume for this argument that they are, or replace them with construction workers or whatever.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  >And overpopulation/overconsumption isn't a problem. What is a problem is unsustainable growth. Life is much more pleasant today for most people than it was centuries ago because simply having more people allows for more technological development, more sub-specialization, and better efficiencies of scale, and thus paradoxically with more people everyone can have a much higher standard of living than with fewer people. The equation isn't so simple. Life is also much more pleasant today because we are enjoying benefits today at the expense of the future generations' environment. Just like governments can excessively borrow from future taxpayers and then drown them if the growth doesn't pan out, so can consumption of resources if mitigation or reversal of environmental change not favorable to humans doesn't pan out. Also, by definition, "over"population and "over"consumption are a problem, otherwise they wouldn't be "over". All life is constrained by the parameters of the system in which it exists, including humans.
oblio 6y ago
Modern technology means that 2% of the citizens of a developed country can feed the rest. That's why nobody wants/needs the average J. to farm. Modern technology means that only a small percentage of citizens are enough to defend the rest. That's why nobody wants/needs the average J. to fight. If all of a sudden, say, 50% of the people having children now, in developed countries, would decide to not have children, we'd probably have societal collapse. That's what happened in societies where the population went down by huge percentages in a short time span. Housing markets would collapse, education systems would collapse, healthcare systems would collapse, demand for a million types of things needed by babies and children would collapse (and taking with it many, many professions), etc. Even if you don't want to have kids, remember: 1. You were once a kid. 2. Your lifestyle is made possible by people that choose to have kids. Especially women, who sacrifice a lot for kids. At least be respectful to them.
- mdorazio 6y ago
  > If all of a sudden, say, 50% of the people having children now, in developed countries, would decide to not have children, we'd probably have societal collapse. No, we wouldn't. We would have a massive increase in immigration to offset the difference. > 2. Your lifestyle is made possible by people that choose to have kids. Especially women, who sacrifice a lot for kids. At least be respectful to them. What does this have to do with anything? I guarantee part of your lifestyle is also made possible by people who can't or don't want to have children. This has nothing to do with any argument either way.
  - oblio 6y ago
    > No, we wouldn't. We would have a massive increase in immigration to offset the difference. Sorry, but this is so naive. Or I guess, a superiority complex? Where do you think you will be able to import ~160 million people from, for the US, within a relatively short time span? With comparable cultural and educational backgrounds, skill sets, etc. This would be unprecedented in the history of the world. At least for peaceful migrations. Keep in mind that all developed countries are having demographics problems and therefore competing over migrants compatible with their current populations. And let's not even open the can of worms of what the locals would think about such tectonic population shifts. A much smaller but similar situation happening over a longer time span (60 years) brought you Trump.
myko 6y ago
> Farming is critical for society. However, we don't require everyone to pull on their overalls and work the land US society heavily subsidizes farming at the government level
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  Also, "we don't require everyone to pull on their overalls and work the land" is flat out just a bad argument, because modern farming with its high degree of mechanization and vast efficiencies of scale doesn't remotely work like that. Go back several centuries though before modern farming technological development and the majority of people are in fact doing manual farmwork out of necessity.
- room500 6y ago
  Good point. That was probably not the best example :) Though I would point out that government subsidies are more to do with the guarantee of the food supply and less to do with incentivizing individuals to work the farms. My point was more around the parent comment that "society generally needs X, therefore anyone doing X should be applauded" We have a huge number of needs in society - and yes, that includes enough children to keep the future viable. However, I disagree that on an individual level, having children is fulfilling some duty.
monoideism 6y ago
> Society is nowhere near a population level that is dangerously low. I'd suggest looking into the economics of social security (even if you won't need it, most people will), as well as what happens to societies with plummeting birth rates.
RHSeeger 6y ago
Both the examples you mentioned are cases where everyone in society pays to help those that do perform those roles. They seem like poor choices for counterpoints to helping people who are raising children.

CydeWeys 6y ago

You're not getting the point that, in the aggregate, it is NOT a choice to have farmers, soldiers* , and yes, parents. On an individual level it might be a choice, but society necessarily needs to be structured to get enough of each of those occupations, i.e. to have sufficient numbers of people making each of those choices. And the required population percentage of parents is at least 50X higher than for farmers and soldiers. And overpopulation/overconsumption isn't a problem. What is a problem is unsustainable growth. Life is much more pleasant today for most people than it was centuries ago because simply having more people allows for more technological development, more sub-specialization, and better efficiencies of scale, and thus paradoxically with more people everyone can have a much higher standard of living than with fewer people. In other words, it isn't zero sum. If the world's population starts rapidly declining then that will be a significant decline in the average standard of living, not an improvement. * I don't want to get into the argument here whether soldiers are actually necessary; let's just assume for this argument that they are, or replace them with construction workers or whatever.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
>And overpopulation/overconsumption isn't a problem. What is a problem is unsustainable growth. Life is much more pleasant today for most people than it was centuries ago because simply having more people allows for more technological development, more sub-specialization, and better efficiencies of scale, and thus paradoxically with more people everyone can have a much higher standard of living than with fewer people. The equation isn't so simple. Life is also much more pleasant today because we are enjoying benefits today at the expense of the future generations' environment. Just like governments can excessively borrow from future taxpayers and then drown them if the growth doesn't pan out, so can consumption of resources if mitigation or reversal of environmental change not favorable to humans doesn't pan out. Also, by definition, "over"population and "over"consumption are a problem, otherwise they wouldn't be "over". All life is constrained by the parameters of the system in which it exists, including humans.

oblio 6y ago

Modern technology means that 2% of the citizens of a developed country can feed the rest. That's why nobody wants/needs the average J. to farm. Modern technology means that only a small percentage of citizens are enough to defend the rest. That's why nobody wants/needs the average J. to fight. If all of a sudden, say, 50% of the people having children now, in developed countries, would decide to not have children, we'd probably have societal collapse. That's what happened in societies where the population went down by huge percentages in a short time span. Housing markets would collapse, education systems would collapse, healthcare systems would collapse, demand for a million types of things needed by babies and children would collapse (and taking with it many, many professions), etc. Even if you don't want to have kids, remember: 1. You were once a kid. 2. Your lifestyle is made possible by people that choose to have kids. Especially women, who sacrifice a lot for kids. At least be respectful to them.

mdorazio 6y ago
> If all of a sudden, say, 50% of the people having children now, in developed countries, would decide to not have children, we'd probably have societal collapse. No, we wouldn't. We would have a massive increase in immigration to offset the difference. > 2. Your lifestyle is made possible by people that choose to have kids. Especially women, who sacrifice a lot for kids. At least be respectful to them. What does this have to do with anything? I guarantee part of your lifestyle is also made possible by people who can't or don't want to have children. This has nothing to do with any argument either way.
- oblio 6y ago
  > No, we wouldn't. We would have a massive increase in immigration to offset the difference. Sorry, but this is so naive. Or I guess, a superiority complex? Where do you think you will be able to import ~160 million people from, for the US, within a relatively short time span? With comparable cultural and educational backgrounds, skill sets, etc. This would be unprecedented in the history of the world. At least for peaceful migrations. Keep in mind that all developed countries are having demographics problems and therefore competing over migrants compatible with their current populations. And let's not even open the can of worms of what the locals would think about such tectonic population shifts. A much smaller but similar situation happening over a longer time span (60 years) brought you Trump.

myko 6y ago

> Farming is critical for society. However, we don't require everyone to pull on their overalls and work the land US society heavily subsidizes farming at the government level

CydeWeys 6y ago
Also, "we don't require everyone to pull on their overalls and work the land" is flat out just a bad argument, because modern farming with its high degree of mechanization and vast efficiencies of scale doesn't remotely work like that. Go back several centuries though before modern farming technological development and the majority of people are in fact doing manual farmwork out of necessity.
room500 6y ago
Good point. That was probably not the best example :) Though I would point out that government subsidies are more to do with the guarantee of the food supply and less to do with incentivizing individuals to work the farms. My point was more around the parent comment that "society generally needs X, therefore anyone doing X should be applauded" We have a huge number of needs in society - and yes, that includes enough children to keep the future viable. However, I disagree that on an individual level, having children is fulfilling some duty.

monoideism 6y ago

> Society is nowhere near a population level that is dangerously low. I'd suggest looking into the economics of social security (even if you won't need it, most people will), as well as what happens to societies with plummeting birth rates.

RHSeeger 6y ago

Both the examples you mentioned are cases where everyone in society pays to help those that do perform those roles. They seem like poor choices for counterpoints to helping people who are raising children.