3 ms·

What does me thinking that there are too many people in the world have to do with some sociopathic racist American?

noduerme 5y ago
Simply that that's where this type of thinking leads, once you begin reducing living people into the category of "too many". I think it's okay if you want to pay people not to have children. I don't have kids and it annoys me to pay for other people's kids. But when you begin speaking of the world in terms of overpopulation -- of too many living people -- the next question is "who should be eliminated?" So who do you think should be eliminated? I think if you hate your own kind enough to want them dead, then you've gone too far -- this road leads you to become like the sociopathic racist. //--> Me, Jew whose great-uncle and aunt survived Auschwitz. The world was made better, for other people, because they survived.
- mrtranscendence 5y ago
  It's possible to think that the world is overpopulated in the sense that a world with fewer people would suffer less environmental degradation and have higher levels of happiness on average, while at the same time denying that some living people should be eliminated. I think it's probably a good thing that developed nations tend to reach a point where population levels start declining. Does that mean I want to kill off grandma early? Not at all, that's absurd. I think there are too many pure bred dogs, too, but I'm not going to start murdering golden retrievers.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    I mean, it sounds ridiculous when you put it that way, but it also sounded ridiculous in the 1930s. We're still within living memory of a time when such ideas of how to improve the world and give people more living space were discussed in polite society before polite society started politely shooting and gassing Jews and Gypsies. Reducing the human population so us and our kids have more land and resources sounds great but how? To the Germans, they didn't care how. They didn't really want to hear the details. Americans are exactly the same. Oh, look, there's all this open land with no one living here! Just some buffalos and savages right? Oh no, that was terrible? You think that was all criminal? How could those people have been so cruel - wiping out whole races to take their land! You would never do that! So now, in the name of ECOLOGY you just want EXCESS PEOPLE TO MAGICALLY DISAPPEAR, no specific plan, just would be nice if they vanished, because there's too many for your taste or what in your opinion the world should be like? And this is supposed to be a liberal or humanistic notion? No, it's exactly the notion of the white American settler or the quiet German. "Too many of this or that - we need more space and more nature - of course I wouldn't kill those dirty people, but it would be great if they disappeared. Better for the planet and the environment, you see."
    - mrtranscendence 5y ago
      > So now, in the name of ECOLOGY you just want EXCESS PEOPLE TO MAGICALLY DISAPPEAR Is this a statement about me specifically? I don't want excess people to disappear, and I didn't claim that. I think I made it clear (but I'll make it clearer now) that I wouldn't condone any plan that reduced the population via the premature ending of life, up to and including a magical Thanos finger snap. My point was that this does not conflict with the notion that, had fewer people been born with all else being equal, the resulting world would have certain positive ecological qualities in comparison to the world we have now. Would it be better for me to deny this? It seems self-evidently true, and I feel it every time I look at a radar map and think about how much green space my home region has lost over the past few hundred years. I'd keep it to myself if I really thought it was a slippery slope to a world of eugenics, but I don't think that's necessarily the case. I don't want to make anyone disappear -- but I do think a world of declining birth rates would probably be a net positive.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  I didn't say anything about eliminating anyone. I said there are too many of us. It's dramatic and disingenuous to suggest that "I think there are too many humans" implies "I think that we must decide which humans to eliminate". You seem concerned about the legacy of the Nazi agenda. That's understandable. But I do not personally have any "final solution" in mind. I had in mind things like "shifting our economic system to reduce reliance on growth to maintain prosperity". It also acknowledge that it's very human and natural to want to reproduce, and that you mostly shouldn't force people not to.

Simply that that's where this type of thinking leads, once you begin reducing living people into the category of "too many". I think it's okay if you want to pay people not to have children. I don't have kids and it annoys me to pay for other people's kids. But when you begin speaking of the world in terms of overpopulation -- of too many living people -- the next question is "who should be eliminated?" So who do you think should be eliminated? I think if you hate your own kind enough to want them dead, then you've gone too far -- this road leads you to become like the sociopathic racist. //--> Me, Jew whose great-uncle and aunt survived Auschwitz. The world was made better, for other people, because they survived.

mrtranscendence 5y ago
It's possible to think that the world is overpopulated in the sense that a world with fewer people would suffer less environmental degradation and have higher levels of happiness on average, while at the same time denying that some living people should be eliminated. I think it's probably a good thing that developed nations tend to reach a point where population levels start declining. Does that mean I want to kill off grandma early? Not at all, that's absurd. I think there are too many pure bred dogs, too, but I'm not going to start murdering golden retrievers.
- noduerme 5y ago
  I mean, it sounds ridiculous when you put it that way, but it also sounded ridiculous in the 1930s. We're still within living memory of a time when such ideas of how to improve the world and give people more living space were discussed in polite society before polite society started politely shooting and gassing Jews and Gypsies. Reducing the human population so us and our kids have more land and resources sounds great but how? To the Germans, they didn't care how. They didn't really want to hear the details. Americans are exactly the same. Oh, look, there's all this open land with no one living here! Just some buffalos and savages right? Oh no, that was terrible? You think that was all criminal? How could those people have been so cruel - wiping out whole races to take their land! You would never do that! So now, in the name of ECOLOGY you just want EXCESS PEOPLE TO MAGICALLY DISAPPEAR, no specific plan, just would be nice if they vanished, because there's too many for your taste or what in your opinion the world should be like? And this is supposed to be a liberal or humanistic notion? No, it's exactly the notion of the white American settler or the quiet German. "Too many of this or that - we need more space and more nature - of course I wouldn't kill those dirty people, but it would be great if they disappeared. Better for the planet and the environment, you see."
  - mrtranscendence 5y ago
    > So now, in the name of ECOLOGY you just want EXCESS PEOPLE TO MAGICALLY DISAPPEAR Is this a statement about me specifically? I don't want excess people to disappear, and I didn't claim that. I think I made it clear (but I'll make it clearer now) that I wouldn't condone any plan that reduced the population via the premature ending of life, up to and including a magical Thanos finger snap. My point was that this does not conflict with the notion that, had fewer people been born with all else being equal, the resulting world would have certain positive ecological qualities in comparison to the world we have now. Would it be better for me to deny this? It seems self-evidently true, and I feel it every time I look at a radar map and think about how much green space my home region has lost over the past few hundred years. I'd keep it to myself if I really thought it was a slippery slope to a world of eugenics, but I don't think that's necessarily the case. I don't want to make anyone disappear -- but I do think a world of declining birth rates would probably be a net positive.
nerdponx 5y ago
I didn't say anything about eliminating anyone. I said there are too many of us. It's dramatic and disingenuous to suggest that "I think there are too many humans" implies "I think that we must decide which humans to eliminate". You seem concerned about the legacy of the Nazi agenda. That's understandable. But I do not personally have any "final solution" in mind. I had in mind things like "shifting our economic system to reduce reliance on growth to maintain prosperity". It also acknowledge that it's very human and natural to want to reproduce, and that you mostly shouldn't force people not to.