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> we should continue policies which abuse the young to the point they are too distressed to breed Fertility rate: Finland 1.35, Austria 1.46, Switzerland 1.48,

> we should continue policies which abuse the young to the point they are too distressed to breed Fertility rate: Finland 1.35, Austria 1.46, Switzerland 1.48, Norway 1.53, Kenya 3.4, Nigeria 5.3, Somalia 5.98: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d... Quality of life rank: Finland 11/80, Austria 13/80, Switzerland 1/80, Norway 3/80, Kenya 79/80, Nigeria 80/80, Somalia unranked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where-to-be-born_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where-to-be-born_Index Quality of life and fertility seem to be very strongly anti-correlated. It does not seem like any sort of "policies which abuse the young" are needed to reduce population - education, gender equality, and some baseline material security suffice. That the countries least desirable to live in have the highest fertility, and that there is a global ecological catastrophe slowly unfolding, are both well-documented common knowledge, that you became instantly ignorant of when they became inconvenient to your argument. I would ask you to explain why you think "policies which abuse the young" are what people have in mind, or why they are needed, when obviously what has been shown to work and is popular is raising living standards. But I won't, because given the above, I already know the answer: it's much easier to argue for perpetual population growth if you can pretend the only alternative is "abuse the young to the point they are too distressed to breed".

zmgsabst 4y ago
> that there is a global ecological catastrophe slowly unfolding, [is] well-documented common knowledge I find it strange you can’t show me actual support for that then, after my repeated requests — are you sure it’s not a widely held dogmatic belief? > I would ask you to explain why you think "policies which abuse the young" are what people have in mind, or why they are needed, when obviously what has been shown to work and is popular is raising living standards. Surveys of young people point to financial distress as why they don’t have children. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/upshot/americans-are-having-fewer-babies-they-told-us-why.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/upshot/americans-are-havi... The entire system is set up in a way which is crushing the middle class (in the US and likely other developed nations), causing them to choose not to breed. The evidence suggests that people aren’t having as many kids as they would like due to policies which harm them (eg, high taxes) — policies which people support here despite knowing that they’re driving those outcomes. > I already know the answer: it's much easier to argue for perpetual population growth if you can pretend the only alternative is "abuse the young to the point they are too distressed to breed". This is you creating a strawman to avoid recognizing the negative impacts of your own policy and the harms it’s causing to humanity.
- car_analogy 4y ago
  > I find it strange you can’t show me actual support for that then, after my repeated requests — are you sure it’s not a widely held dogmatic belief? Modern extinction rates average around 100 E/MSY. This means birds, mammals and amphibians have been going extinct 100 to 1000 times faster than we would expect. - https://ourworldindata.org/extinctions#are-we-heading-for-a-sixth-mass-extinction https://ourworldindata.org/extinctions#are-we-heading-for-a-... Just under 3% of the world's land remains ecologically intact [..] The study paints a gloomier picture than previous analyses of wilderness areas, focused on human impact on habitat, which estimated that 20 to 40% of the earth's terrestrial surface has been little affected by humans. - https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/15/world/intact-ecosystems-report-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/15/world/intact-ecosystems-repor... I.e. the overly optimistic studies showed that ~70% of Earth's land has been significantly affected by humans. > Surveys of young people point to financial distress as why they don’t have children. Clearly young people in Somalia are financially better off then, and we should emulate their policies.
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
    > the overly optimistic studies showed that ~70% of Earth's land has been significantly affected by humans Okay — why is that a catastrophe to which the solution is reducing human population? > Clearly young people in Somalia are financially better off then, and we should emulate their policies. Sarcasm doesn’t detract from my point that policy and cultural choices in developed nations dominate why people aren’t having kids. I think you lack a reply now that data agreed with me.

zmgsabst 4y ago

> that there is a global ecological catastrophe slowly unfolding, [is] well-documented common knowledge I find it strange you can’t show me actual support for that then, after my repeated requests — are you sure it’s not a widely held dogmatic belief? > I would ask you to explain why you think "policies which abuse the young" are what people have in mind, or why they are needed, when obviously what has been shown to work and is popular is raising living standards. Surveys of young people point to financial distress as why they don’t have children. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/upshot/americans-are-having-fewer-babies-they-told-us-why.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/upshot/americans-are-havi... The entire system is set up in a way which is crushing the middle class (in the US and likely other developed nations), causing them to choose not to breed. The evidence suggests that people aren’t having as many kids as they would like due to policies which harm them (eg, high taxes) — policies which people support here despite knowing that they’re driving those outcomes. > I already know the answer: it's much easier to argue for perpetual population growth if you can pretend the only alternative is "abuse the young to the point they are too distressed to breed". This is you creating a strawman to avoid recognizing the negative impacts of your own policy and the harms it’s causing to humanity.

car_analogy 4y ago
> I find it strange you can’t show me actual support for that then, after my repeated requests — are you sure it’s not a widely held dogmatic belief? Modern extinction rates average around 100 E/MSY. This means birds, mammals and amphibians have been going extinct 100 to 1000 times faster than we would expect. - https://ourworldindata.org/extinctions#are-we-heading-for-a-sixth-mass-extinction https://ourworldindata.org/extinctions#are-we-heading-for-a-... Just under 3% of the world's land remains ecologically intact [..] The study paints a gloomier picture than previous analyses of wilderness areas, focused on human impact on habitat, which estimated that 20 to 40% of the earth's terrestrial surface has been little affected by humans. - https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/15/world/intact-ecosystems-report-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/15/world/intact-ecosystems-repor... I.e. the overly optimistic studies showed that ~70% of Earth's land has been significantly affected by humans. > Surveys of young people point to financial distress as why they don’t have children. Clearly young people in Somalia are financially better off then, and we should emulate their policies.
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  > the overly optimistic studies showed that ~70% of Earth's land has been significantly affected by humans Okay — why is that a catastrophe to which the solution is reducing human population? > Clearly young people in Somalia are financially better off then, and we should emulate their policies. Sarcasm doesn’t detract from my point that policy and cultural choices in developed nations dominate why people aren’t having kids. I think you lack a reply now that data agreed with me.