4 ms·

The population growth rate needs to be controlled, even reduced, to reduce the pressure on natural resources and slow down the climate change. John Baez, mathe

by aborsy 3y ago

The population growth rate needs to be controlled, even reduced, to reduce the pressure on natural resources and slow down the climate change. John Baez, mathematician at UCR, talks about this approach among a number of others, such as, reducing air travel for conferences.

adastra22 3y ago
[flagged]
- nine_k 3y ago
  Real gentlemen start with themselves. Not having children is one such choice.
  - adastra22 3y ago
    I sincerely hope that in 50 years when the concern over population growth has been shown to be misguided, just as it has in the last 200 years since Malthus predicted the Earth could only support a few hundred million people, you won’t be sad and alone regretting a missed opportunity.
    - nine_k 3y ago
      As a father of two, I also hope for a non-doom scenario.
    - amenhotep 3y ago
      It seems to me that you guys inadvertently expose a kind of fundamental selfishness when you post like this. Like, it sounds as if a significant part of your reasoning on having children is the belief that you are creating a person who will be biologically obligated to like you and fulfil your emotional needs - thereby saving yourself from being sad and alone. I don't think it's common for child free people to share this belief. I would even hazard a guess that for many this train of thought is more associated with how they feel about pressure from their own parents to fulfil their emotional needs by creating more new people. That kind of self-interested argument doesn't land very convincingly on people who feel that their future state of being sad and alone or not is their responsibility and nobody else's.
      - adastra22 3y ago
        Well that’s not how I think about children, or how very many if any parents I know think about children. The entire premise of your comment is way off base.
- aborsy 3y ago
  The rate of the growth can be reduced. After a generation or two, so does the total size.
  - wonderwonder 3y ago
    Who gets to decide who can reproduce and who cant?
    - arbitrary_name 3y ago
      No one has to decide. It's as simple as not actively encouraging unsustainable growth and letting people choose. No one is advocating forcing anything on anyone.
      - wonderwonder 3y ago
        I think only a very small number of people are encouraging unsustainable growth and I doubt many people are having kids because of it. The earths population is growing because people, particularly people in the 3rd world have a good amount of kids. Respectfully, I think you are over complicating the situation. People in many parts of the world, simply enjoy sex and having kids. Not due to lack of birth control, simply due to the desire to have children. Its that simple. Its only when you make it to the first world with our stresses and self induced neurosis does the fertility rate fall. Humans are part of nature and one of our instincts is to reproduce.
        defrost 3y ago
        Of the 190+ countries across the globe it appears that the Central African Republic is the only (at the very least one of the few) country that does not have a fertility rate (in births per woman) that is not trending down: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?most_recent_value_desc=true https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?most_rec... Declining fertility rates is not confined to first world countries.
      - usrusr 3y ago
- defrost 3y ago
  Television and education appear to do the job well enough thank you. There's no need to posit the only choice involves genocide.
  - adastra22 3y ago
    When we solve aging in the coming decades the replacement rate will move to be newr zero.
- chaostheory 3y ago
  No need. You apparently haven’t heard of the age depopulation bomb. https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/beware-depopulation-bomb-birthrates-c0c39497 https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/beware-depopulation-bom...
- orthecreedence 3y ago
  You could start by not incentivizing population growth as many states do. Why does every response to "we should probably not multiply exponentially" need to be some variation of "oH sO YoU wANt GENOCIDE?!?!11"
  - adastra22 3y ago
    Because a lot of the degrowth movement does want radical population decrease that we are never likely to see without such drastic measures. Those harmful ideas need to be countered before they become reality.
    - orthecreedence 3y ago
      I think the assumption that the only way to have a working economy is to multiply indefinitely is the only thing that needs to be countered seriously.
- arbitrary_name 3y ago
  Interesting that another account posted this exact response slightly further up. It's a non sequitur designed to degrade the conversation and it implies that having reservations about constant growth within the current paradigm is somehow akin to desiring large scale mass killing? Bizarre and troubling.
  - adastra22 3y ago
    It is a sincere and honest question. Misplaced concern about overpopulation has already caused world bank loans to be tied to population management quotas, which have been met through the creative means of forced sterilization of indigenous/minority women in Central America and South Asia. AKA literal genocide. A political movement to “decrease the Earth’s population” is extremely bizarre and troubling, and deserves being called out for what it is.
    - okwhateverdude 3y ago
      Cool, then we're on the same page for other ecology management issues too, right? All of that "let's sell licenses for hunting other animals" we should simply stop, right? We should just let the world sort itself out since we've never had any success in managing populations of other animals either through protection or hunting, right? Humans are not some unique, special animal. We're a very invasive, ecology modifying organism. We already have rules on where humans can and cannot live, where resource extraction can happen and how much. It may be uncomfortable to consider, but yes, we absolutely should manage our own population so we don't fuck up our one, and only, spaceship that's flying through a universe that is very hostile for us. Metastatic growth is simply unsustainable. Running our civilization like a capitalistic business ignoring externalities and borrowing against the future that needs constant growth to sustain isn't a great idea. That will crash.

by aborsy 3y ago

adastra22 3y ago

[flagged]

nine_k 3y ago
Real gentlemen start with themselves. Not having children is one such choice.
- adastra22 3y ago
  I sincerely hope that in 50 years when the concern over population growth has been shown to be misguided, just as it has in the last 200 years since Malthus predicted the Earth could only support a few hundred million people, you won’t be sad and alone regretting a missed opportunity.
  - nine_k 3y ago
    As a father of two, I also hope for a non-doom scenario.
  - amenhotep 3y ago
    It seems to me that you guys inadvertently expose a kind of fundamental selfishness when you post like this. Like, it sounds as if a significant part of your reasoning on having children is the belief that you are creating a person who will be biologically obligated to like you and fulfil your emotional needs - thereby saving yourself from being sad and alone. I don't think it's common for child free people to share this belief. I would even hazard a guess that for many this train of thought is more associated with how they feel about pressure from their own parents to fulfil their emotional needs by creating more new people. That kind of self-interested argument doesn't land very convincingly on people who feel that their future state of being sad and alone or not is their responsibility and nobody else's.
    - adastra22 3y ago
      Well that’s not how I think about children, or how very many if any parents I know think about children. The entire premise of your comment is way off base.
aborsy 3y ago
The rate of the growth can be reduced. After a generation or two, so does the total size.
- wonderwonder 3y ago
  Who gets to decide who can reproduce and who cant?
  - arbitrary_name 3y ago
    No one has to decide. It's as simple as not actively encouraging unsustainable growth and letting people choose. No one is advocating forcing anything on anyone.
    - wonderwonder 3y ago
      I think only a very small number of people are encouraging unsustainable growth and I doubt many people are having kids because of it. The earths population is growing because people, particularly people in the 3rd world have a good amount of kids. Respectfully, I think you are over complicating the situation. People in many parts of the world, simply enjoy sex and having kids. Not due to lack of birth control, simply due to the desire to have children. Its that simple. Its only when you make it to the first world with our stresses and self induced neurosis does the fertility rate fall. Humans are part of nature and one of our instincts is to reproduce.
      - defrost 3y ago
        Of the 190+ countries across the globe it appears that the Central African Republic is the only (at the very least one of the few) country that does not have a fertility rate (in births per woman) that is not trending down: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?most_recent_value_desc=true https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?most_rec... Declining fertility rates is not confined to first world countries.
    - usrusr 3y ago
defrost 3y ago
Television and education appear to do the job well enough thank you. There's no need to posit the only choice involves genocide.
- adastra22 3y ago
  When we solve aging in the coming decades the replacement rate will move to be newr zero.
chaostheory 3y ago
No need. You apparently haven’t heard of the age depopulation bomb. https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/beware-depopulation-bomb-birthrates-c0c39497 https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/beware-depopulation-bom...
orthecreedence 3y ago
You could start by not incentivizing population growth as many states do. Why does every response to "we should probably not multiply exponentially" need to be some variation of "oH sO YoU wANt GENOCIDE?!?!11"
- adastra22 3y ago
  Because a lot of the degrowth movement does want radical population decrease that we are never likely to see without such drastic measures. Those harmful ideas need to be countered before they become reality.
  - orthecreedence 3y ago
    I think the assumption that the only way to have a working economy is to multiply indefinitely is the only thing that needs to be countered seriously.
arbitrary_name 3y ago
Interesting that another account posted this exact response slightly further up. It's a non sequitur designed to degrade the conversation and it implies that having reservations about constant growth within the current paradigm is somehow akin to desiring large scale mass killing? Bizarre and troubling.
- adastra22 3y ago
  It is a sincere and honest question. Misplaced concern about overpopulation has already caused world bank loans to be tied to population management quotas, which have been met through the creative means of forced sterilization of indigenous/minority women in Central America and South Asia. AKA literal genocide. A political movement to “decrease the Earth’s population” is extremely bizarre and troubling, and deserves being called out for what it is.
  - okwhateverdude 3y ago
    Cool, then we're on the same page for other ecology management issues too, right? All of that "let's sell licenses for hunting other animals" we should simply stop, right? We should just let the world sort itself out since we've never had any success in managing populations of other animals either through protection or hunting, right? Humans are not some unique, special animal. We're a very invasive, ecology modifying organism. We already have rules on where humans can and cannot live, where resource extraction can happen and how much. It may be uncomfortable to consider, but yes, we absolutely should manage our own population so we don't fuck up our one, and only, spaceship that's flying through a universe that is very hostile for us. Metastatic growth is simply unsustainable. Running our civilization like a capitalistic business ignoring externalities and borrowing against the future that needs constant growth to sustain isn't a great idea. That will crash.