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Don't have kids; eat whatever you like. Your own impact pales next to N^N impact of your descendents.
by ForHackernews 3y ago
Don't have kids; eat whatever you like. Your own impact pales next to N^N impact of your descendents.
- jvanderbot 3y agoDemographic collapse is also a very bad thing. And it's even more of a tragedy of the commons than simply not eating meat/dairy.
- losvedir 3y agoWhat's the point of saving the Earth if no one is alive to experience it?
- vsareto 3y agoI feel like you zoomed right past the point of having an equilibrium between population and what the planet can support
- throwuwu 3y agoThe planet by itself can only support a few million humans. It’s human technology and intelligence that support the rest.
- jxramos 3y agoThat is an interesting distinction, the order we bring to things--nature refined and directed. Makes me recall this analogy I remember reading years ago about a Japanese Zen garden not being something you'd experience in nature but rather only from a human tended and curated garden. That image changed the way I think about nature and humans in nature.
- cpach 3y agoReplacement fertility is around 2.10 kids per woman. Most rich countries are way below that line.
- dukeyukey 3y agoAlthough that leads to the mother of all natural selection - after a few generations, you'll have selected almost exclusively for families that have lots of kids. My bet is that fertility will flatten out and recover a good bit over the next few decades.
- LightBug1 3y agoGlobal replacement rate is about 2.3 so ... I wonder when many in those 'rich' countries will learn that they need to embrace that instead of 'build the wall'. Anyway, I don't think replacement fertility is the right measure here. Replacement fertility could be crashing, but if the ratio of 'modern'* humanity is increasing as it is, then the problem remains ... there's probably a term for this if anyone knows. * (by 'modern' [super air-quoted] I mean, those who have the wants and desires and ability to get the goods and services of the 'rich' countries).
- Scarblac 3y agoFar all we know we're the only place in the universe where complex life exists, if we die other species may still stay around to experience it.
- ilyt 3y agoPretty sure humans would wipe themselves before wiping rest of the biosphere
- throwuwu 3y agoUntil they get smoked by an asteroid again. Even if nonhuman life somehow doesn’t get wiped out by other factors it’ll all die with the sun. If we are the only place where life exists then that means humanity is the only chance life has of continuing after this planet is gone.
- enraged_camel 3y agoThis type of human-centric view is exactly why we're in this mess to begin with. There are other species on this planet too, you know. What about them?
- jxramos 3y agogotta keep it pristine for those lower organisms who will have a better shot at utopia than we ever could. But seriously, I always see the planet as on a finite timescale anyways with the lifetime of our sun being the limiting factor (which is interesting because it's the sun that gives us all our energy for the most part ignoring nuclear). Once the sun goes kaput that's it, we better be intergalactic by then. So I wonder can we think of perhaps maximizing the number of civilizational hours spent under the sun on Earth. Is that a good framework to go by. Put another way say the sun goes out in the year 10,000, and we are to judge two scenarios A) humans go extinct in the year 7,500 B) humans go extinct in the year 9,000 All else being equal what scenario would people prefer and why.
- myshpa 3y agoOur civilization doesn't have thousands of years ahead of it, unless something changes radically. 7500 - 9000 is just a wishful thinking ... we won't make it there without functioning ecosystems
- mjh2539 3y agoYeah but my kids' kids are going to figure out how to make cows that can photosynthesize.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- webnrrd2k 3y agoA modest proposal -- your kids could just figure out how to photosynthesize directly.
- myshpa 3y agoMost of the carbon footprint on the planet comes from the relatively low number of people in the US and Europe. Not having kids and consuming like crazy won't save anything. https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2 https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2 Who has contributed most to global CO2 emissions? (Don't forget we've outsourced our manufacturing to China) https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-worst-places-in-the-world-hardest-hit-2021-10?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-worst-places-... Countries contributing the least to the climate crisis are feeling the worst of its effects
- dukeyukey 3y ago> Most of the carbon footprint on the planet comes from the relatively low number of people in... Europe That's not so true now, China emits as much CO2 per capita as Europe does, and quite a bit more than the greener European countries (e.g. France, Sweden, the UK). This remains even after adjusting for consumption rather than production.
- myshpa 3y ago> That's not so true now Maybe not now, I was talking about cummulative footprint. Even now China is a third of EU + UK + US together. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co2-emissions-region?stackMode=absolute https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co2-emissions-... https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co-emissions (see 1950-1980) It seems obvious that it's US & EU who made the China the polluting giant it is now.
- ForHackernews 3y ago> Most of the carbon footprint on the planet comes from the relatively low number of people in the US and Europe. > Not having kids and consuming like crazy won't save anything. Most of the people on this site are American or European. You are the problem you name.
- myshpa 3y ago
- throwuwu 3y agoIf you think that population trends are still exponential then you’ve been living under a rock
- ilyt 3y agoYup, if all countries got to the "1st world countries" birth rates the population would slowly start to drop, maybe even equalize at some point.
- throwuwu 3y agoPopulation collapse is like a banking collapse, it happens slowly at first and then all at once.
- lm28469 3y agoAt a global scale yes. Now look at specific countries/continents, some are absolutely exploding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Nigeria#/media/File:Nigeria_single_age_population_pyramid_2020.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Nigeria#/media... https://www.populationpyramid.net/africa/2020/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/africa/2020/ They currently use a tiny fraction of the energy the west does (and pollute a tiny fraction), they'll eventually catch up in "quality of life", with all the comes with it (exploding energy consumption)
- throwuwu 3y ago
- nh23423fefe 3y agois this a longtermism?