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Your comment deserves so much attention and praise, it's difficult to put into words. It never ceases to amaze me when I look around and see psuedointellectual

by pvnick 13y ago

Your comment deserves so much attention and praise, it's difficult to put into words. It never ceases to amaze me when I look around and see psuedointellectual arguments for shrinking the population (read: genocide), mandatory birth control, totalitarian systems of government. All to protect against some theoretical future event - global warming, running out of space, not having enough meat to put on our cheeseburgers. Technological advancement and human good-will has historically been way more than enough to thwart these dangers. Look around. We're living in a world in which smallpox has been completely eradicated. Amazing! And peak oil? With all the advancements in solar energy coming out of our ivy league universities that seams so silly now. And yet we frequently hear so-called "enlightened" individuals calling for policies that immediately lead to suffering and death out of fear that the future holds certain doom.

jrs99 13y ago
I'm not saying that it's a good policy to limit children. But more to spark dialogue. It's an interesting question. What happens when there are 100 billion people on this planet, and if possible, what happens if one day there are 1 trillion people. Does it one day make sense to say you can't have more than 1 kid? Is it amoral?
- twerquie 13y ago
  > Is it amoral? Yes for two reasons. A) You're telling other people what they can do with their own bodies, and that is fundamentally wrong (see the ridiculous abortion debate in the USA). B) It's impossible to apply the rules evenly and fairly, creating (at best) destructive social imbalance and (at worst) an opportunity for slippery-slope eugenics.
  - Double_Cast 13y ago
    I don't think eugenics will be the biggest issue. At that point, I'm pretty sure everybody will openly declare war on everybody else over limited resources. Basically the Civilization V/Minecraft experiments. It'll probably happen sooner than we expect over bodies of fresh water.
  - jrs99 13y ago
    i understand why you think it is amoral. However, your definition of something being moral or not is very different from someone else's. Someone might think it is amoral to abort at 8 months, while there certainly are many that think it is perfectly fine to abort at 8 months. Other people are certain that you are killing a human being. My own view is that none of us actually knows whether it is moral or amoral to abort at any given month. You have to really think of a world with hundreds of billions on it and how that possibly would change the morality of something.
angersock 13y ago
Technological advancement and human good-will has historically been way more than enough to thwart these dangers. Erm, that works well and good, until it doesn't, and then you're fucked. The point is that these advances don't come in a timespan of weeks or months, but years or decades (or centuries!), and when we finally see a problem concretely manifest we may well have no alternative but very nasty population reduction--the trauma of which may result in a near irreversible backslide to barbarism.
Double_Cast 13y ago
"No matter what the technology, a sustained 2.3% energy growth rate would require us to produce as much energy as the entire sun within 1400 years." [1] I recently came across this blog in an HN user's comment. I found the writing clear, detailed, and well supported with math. The author has a PhD in astrophysics, so I imagine he deserves greater credibility than a pseudointellectual. So here's what this guy is arguing in the first post: as we extrapolate our current economic growth rate, we begin to run up against thermodynamic limits. Therefore, it's absurd to extrapolate that our economy will grow at the same pace forever. That is, technology can't fix everything. I would agree that outright genocide is a bad idea. But I think population control has its merits. On another note, can someone explain to me how the Irish Potato Famine was the result of population policy? As far as I know, the Irish screwed up because they put their eggs in a single basket. I don't see how this is relevant to eugenics. [index] http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/post-index/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/post-index/ [1] http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-e...
- twerquie 13y ago
  I hate to come off as anti-intellectual, but science is bound by the burden of proof and has no capacity to account for human ingenuity or dramatically different models of consumption, production and growth. Yet history shows we can expect precisely these kinds of changes, every time. There is lots of writing and historical context for how Malthus and his theories influenced the day of the potato famine, google around for it and draw your own conclusions.
  - Double_Cast 13y ago
    "but science is bound by the burden of proof" ... to prove what exactly? That humanity will inevitably overcome the issues which overpopulation begets? That our population will plateau before we reach 250 billion if we close the gender gap? I feel like your comment was really vague, and you answered jrs99's question somewhat obliquely. So I don't know what you're arguing. But if your Amazon link is anything to go by, I assume you predict a decrease in the world's population. Also, I don't think we can continue to extrapolate history as you imply. I used to think that our age was no different than any other age. I used to think "Humans have always had the same needs, right? Technology simply gives us more effective ways to satisfy them. Technology changes, but Humanity's needs have stayed relatively consistent." Randell Munroe's project "Time" changed my opinion. To roughly paraphrase, "Whatever civilization comes next won't have fossil fuels to jump-start another industrial revolution." And I began thinking "Huh... I guess that makes sense. Fossil Fuels make us pretty unique, doesn't it? There's a pretty low probability that we'll find an energy source more dense and convenient than Fossil Fuel. Things like solar and fission are certainly nice. But if they packed the punch that Fossil Fuels did, they'd have dominated our economy already! So does Fossil Fuel represent a limiting reagent (chemistry term) on what Humanity can achieve?" I think you and the astrophysicist can agree that something has to give. And perhaps closing the gender gap will plateau the population before we reach 250 bil. But given this fails and the population reaches 250 bil and we live in dystopia anyways (like jrs99 originally asked), do you still believe that eugenics are inherently immoral? [I'll take up that offer and start reading up on the famine.]
twerquie 13y ago
Thanks! My comment is basically a tl;dr of a book I read called "The Coming Population Crash and Our Planet's Surprising Future" (http://www.amazon.com/The-Coming-Population-Crash-Surprising/dp/0807001228 http://www.amazon.com/The-Coming-Population-Crash-Surprising...). Terrible title for a great book that isn't nearly as alarmist as it sounds. If anything it covers how we're not breeding to replacement numbers and are facing labour shortages as our current population ages in the developed world.

by pvnick 13y ago

jrs99 13y ago

I'm not saying that it's a good policy to limit children. But more to spark dialogue. It's an interesting question. What happens when there are 100 billion people on this planet, and if possible, what happens if one day there are 1 trillion people. Does it one day make sense to say you can't have more than 1 kid? Is it amoral?

twerquie 13y ago
> Is it amoral? Yes for two reasons. A) You're telling other people what they can do with their own bodies, and that is fundamentally wrong (see the ridiculous abortion debate in the USA). B) It's impossible to apply the rules evenly and fairly, creating (at best) destructive social imbalance and (at worst) an opportunity for slippery-slope eugenics.
- Double_Cast 13y ago
  I don't think eugenics will be the biggest issue. At that point, I'm pretty sure everybody will openly declare war on everybody else over limited resources. Basically the Civilization V/Minecraft experiments. It'll probably happen sooner than we expect over bodies of fresh water.
- jrs99 13y ago
  i understand why you think it is amoral. However, your definition of something being moral or not is very different from someone else's. Someone might think it is amoral to abort at 8 months, while there certainly are many that think it is perfectly fine to abort at 8 months. Other people are certain that you are killing a human being. My own view is that none of us actually knows whether it is moral or amoral to abort at any given month. You have to really think of a world with hundreds of billions on it and how that possibly would change the morality of something.

angersock 13y ago

Technological advancement and human good-will has historically been way more than enough to thwart these dangers. Erm, that works well and good, until it doesn't, and then you're fucked. The point is that these advances don't come in a timespan of weeks or months, but years or decades (or centuries!), and when we finally see a problem concretely manifest we may well have no alternative but very nasty population reduction--the trauma of which may result in a near irreversible backslide to barbarism.

Double_Cast 13y ago

"No matter what the technology, a sustained 2.3% energy growth rate would require us to produce as much energy as the entire sun within 1400 years." [1] I recently came across this blog in an HN user's comment. I found the writing clear, detailed, and well supported with math. The author has a PhD in astrophysics, so I imagine he deserves greater credibility than a pseudointellectual. So here's what this guy is arguing in the first post: as we extrapolate our current economic growth rate, we begin to run up against thermodynamic limits. Therefore, it's absurd to extrapolate that our economy will grow at the same pace forever. That is, technology can't fix everything. I would agree that outright genocide is a bad idea. But I think population control has its merits. On another note, can someone explain to me how the Irish Potato Famine was the result of population policy? As far as I know, the Irish screwed up because they put their eggs in a single basket. I don't see how this is relevant to eugenics. [index] http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/post-index/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/post-index/ [1] http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-e...

twerquie 13y ago
I hate to come off as anti-intellectual, but science is bound by the burden of proof and has no capacity to account for human ingenuity or dramatically different models of consumption, production and growth. Yet history shows we can expect precisely these kinds of changes, every time. There is lots of writing and historical context for how Malthus and his theories influenced the day of the potato famine, google around for it and draw your own conclusions.
- Double_Cast 13y ago
  "but science is bound by the burden of proof" ... to prove what exactly? That humanity will inevitably overcome the issues which overpopulation begets? That our population will plateau before we reach 250 billion if we close the gender gap? I feel like your comment was really vague, and you answered jrs99's question somewhat obliquely. So I don't know what you're arguing. But if your Amazon link is anything to go by, I assume you predict a decrease in the world's population. Also, I don't think we can continue to extrapolate history as you imply. I used to think that our age was no different than any other age. I used to think "Humans have always had the same needs, right? Technology simply gives us more effective ways to satisfy them. Technology changes, but Humanity's needs have stayed relatively consistent." Randell Munroe's project "Time" changed my opinion. To roughly paraphrase, "Whatever civilization comes next won't have fossil fuels to jump-start another industrial revolution." And I began thinking "Huh... I guess that makes sense. Fossil Fuels make us pretty unique, doesn't it? There's a pretty low probability that we'll find an energy source more dense and convenient than Fossil Fuel. Things like solar and fission are certainly nice. But if they packed the punch that Fossil Fuels did, they'd have dominated our economy already! So does Fossil Fuel represent a limiting reagent (chemistry term) on what Humanity can achieve?" I think you and the astrophysicist can agree that something has to give. And perhaps closing the gender gap will plateau the population before we reach 250 bil. But given this fails and the population reaches 250 bil and we live in dystopia anyways (like jrs99 originally asked), do you still believe that eugenics are inherently immoral? [I'll take up that offer and start reading up on the famine.]

twerquie 13y ago

Thanks! My comment is basically a tl;dr of a book I read called "The Coming Population Crash and Our Planet's Surprising Future" (http://www.amazon.com/The-Coming-Population-Crash-Surprising/dp/0807001228 http://www.amazon.com/The-Coming-Population-Crash-Surprising...). Terrible title for a great book that isn't nearly as alarmist as it sounds. If anything it covers how we're not breeding to replacement numbers and are facing labour shortages as our current population ages in the developed world.