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Ethics aside, it would probably be good to conquer the population size problem. Then people can stop fighting about birth rates and immigration.
by daenz 4y ago
Ethics aside, it would probably be good to conquer the population size problem. Then people can stop fighting about birth rates and immigration.
- reb 4y agoI dunno, I can't imagine industrializing our domestic supply of infants would do anything but accelerate that particular arms race.
- irrational 4y agoWhat population size problem? Birth rates have plummeted in all developed countries. As more countries become developed the same thing will happen. The population size problem is already solved - birth control, freedom for women, middle class lifestyles, etc.
- daenz 4y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32589499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32589499
- nabakin 4y agoPopulation size isn't much of a concern right now so idk what OP is talking about, but I doubt population size is solved. Natural selection, in absence of premature death, selects for those that give birth the most. So while at the moment, we are in a sort of lull, eventually the people who have a low birth rate, will be selected out of the population. The only way this doesn't happen is with another force acting in the opposite direction. For example, maybe whatever is causing the birth rate decline now, actually counters the incentives of natural selection over hundreds or thousands of years, or the population exceeds the carrying capacity of the Earth such that premature death becomes common once again.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nashashmi 4y agoThere is no such thing as overpopulation problem. In urban planning we are always considering ways we can engineer cities to hold 100 million people to a billion people. In fact, that would be a great alternative to suburbanism and increase forestry with the extra land. So this whole random idea of overpopulation is alarmism over nothing. Granted, high population also means small 'mansions' and maybe THAT is their greatest worry.
- daenz 4y ago>So this whole random idea of overpopulation is alarmism over nothing. Underpopulation is what I was referring to. Some countries have extremely low birth rates, and stabilizing them is important.
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y agoThe population size problem is not because people can't have enough children, it's because they don't want to have (enough) children. I don't see how cloning helps with that.
- daenz 4y agoRegardless of the source of the problem, the end result is the same: not enough people. Cloning treats that symptom even if it doesn't address the source. But yes, you're left with a new problem: who will raise these new people? If it came down to it, the state. Or the state would assign children to couples.
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y agoCouples are unlikely to accept. So the only option would be for the state to raise them... I think I saw some sci fi movie where the galactic republic solved a problem with hostile robots this way..
- daenz 4y agoI was thinking more along the lines of Vivarium (very mild spoilers, sorry!), but yes.
- klyrs 4y agoIf the clones are wards of the state, then an industrialized/automated approach to child-rearing becomes plausible. Yes, this is dystopian. But if we're going to do it, we should use the Montessori model, with each cohort helping raise the next.
- ben_w 4y ago> Then people can stop fighting about birth rates and immigration. If human cloning ever becomes accepted, I suspect racism will end up promoting an even smaller gene pool than it already does, with anyone who isn't a clone of Dear Leader And His Chosen Ones forming the out-group. Such a system would still hate immigration.