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The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

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Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#101

Post by littlestymaar »

keiferski wrote: post #41
wsc981 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the right circumstances, birth control happens automatically. As people get more wealthy, there seems to be less incentive to have lots of children. Perhaps due to better healthcare (less deaths in childbirth) and more securities for old age (eg. pensions). Seems Africa is at the moment the only continent that still has population growth (and quite massive). https://www.statista.com/statistics/272789/world-populat…

I think this is more a consequence of consumerism and the media-nature of modern society and not directly from increased populations. It just seems that way because science allowing for larger food crops, less child mortality, etc. coincided with the rise of media technology.

You are both (at least party) wrong since the demographic transition started as early as 1750 (in France) long before childbirth started to fall and even longer before media technology (unless you count the printing press as one, but then how come the transition happened more than a century later elsewhere in Europe?)

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#102

Post by kerkeslager »

AlexandrB wrote: post #71
kerkeslager wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I think there's hope. People learn and change. I've been speaking pretty openly about how shitty the effects are of the pro-corporate, anti-human ideology that's prevalent on HN for a few years now. I've noticed more people joining me in speaking out, and less push-back. I made an aside comment a few days back about corporations being willing to murder for profit, and someone else linked a bunch of examples…

I've got some bad news for you about corporations: they're not sentient - some human made the decision to prioritize profit over human lives. Governments and other institutions do this as well (not just for profit, but perhaps for other reasons) because they're also run by humans. It's going to be pretty hard to find a human institution that's morally pure in the way you want.

"Other human institutions cause harm, therefore it's okay for corporations to cause harm"? Really?

I'm not trying to find a human institution that's pure, nor do I believe any other human institutions are pure. I'm trying to get people to a) stop believing that corporations are morally pure, and b) stop doing nothing about the fact that corporations aren't morally pure.

EDIT: Let's not go the direction where you assume I don't know that governments are imperfect too.

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#103

Post by kerkeslager »

keiferski wrote: post #84
smokel wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be interested in pragmatism.

No, people that write comments like that one tend to be into Ayn Rand and think her pseudo-intellectual philosophy is something worth building a worldview around. The keywords, belligerence, and lack of actual intellectual engagement ("this is all stupid nonsense not worth talking about" is a key tell) are all there.

Dear God no. I am not into Ayn Rand.

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#104

Post by keiferski »

littlestymaar wrote: post #101
keiferski wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is more a consequence of consumerism and the media-nature of modern society and not directly from increased populations. It just seems that way because science allowing for larger food crops, less child mortality, etc. coincided with the rise of media technology.

You are both (at least party) wrong since the demographic transition started as early as 1750 (in France) long before childbirth started to fall and even longer before media technology (unless you count the printing press as one, but then how come the transition happened more than a century later elsewhere in Europe?)

France is discussed here as being somewhat of a unique case:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_France

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#105

Post by simonh »

keiferski wrote: post #78
simonh wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the mechanism by which consumerism and media lead to lower child births though? It's easy to see that in poorer countries with minimal or no pensions or social security having more children leads to greater productive capacity for the family, and a better chance of the parents being cared for in old age. Family connections are crucial support networks everyone relies on. Each extra child is another insurance p…

Maybe it's not so much that media technology itself leads to lower child births, but that the particular media being pushed results in lower child births. Consumerism is the vehicle by which this happens, because corporations have little use for the family unit and much use for individualized consumers that buy , not make things. My interpretation is that there are innumerable cultural things that are popular nowaday…

I just did some digging around on the research on this and that doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere, and it's a well studied issue. After all, for example existing housing stock hasn't got any smaller so that's easy to correct for in the data. The main correlative factors seem to be economic affluence, higher education levels meaning more women have careers, and access to birth control.

I really don't but the corporations pushing an agenda theory. Like all conspiracy theories, people doing the conspiring would have to actually conspire. They would to communicate about it, lots of people would know, some of them would change their minds, there would be leaks, especially for a conspiracy that has broad reach and engages with huge swathes of public culture communications.

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#106

Post by kerkeslager »

keiferski wrote: post #79
kerkeslager wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also worth thinking about in this context is the so-called “repugnant conclusion”: I disagree, elaborate ponderings in the absence of non-hypothetical evidence are not worth talking about. I mean, read the section, "Arriving at the Repugnant Conclusion" with any critical eye at all and it becomes clear that it's total nonsense. They're treating "postponing a pregnancy" (not even aborting an existing pregnancy to ha…

If you don't have much interest in philosophy and don't care for thinking deeply about problems, why engage at all? Move over the comment in silence and leave it for people that are willing to think more about a topic. I assure you, Parfit and the other philosophers mentioned are not "stupid" and have thought about this far, far longer than your 3 minutes of read-and-dismiss. This "hostile anti-intellectualism" is so…

> If you don't have much interest in philosophy and don't care for thinking deeply about problems, why engage at all?

I am very interested in philosophy and I do care for thinking deeply about problems.

But if you want to talk about philosophy I do insist that we philosophize about evidence that exists in reality, not about hypothetical situations with no connection to reality. And no deep thought was had in coming up with the "repugnant conclusion".

> I assure you, Parfit and the other philosophers mentioned are not "stupid" and have thought about this far, far longer than your 3 minutes of read-and-dismiss.

The thought "delaying sex is murder" is not the product of an intelligent mind, and more time spent coming up with that idiotic idea does not make him seem more intelligent.

Do you actually even disagree with me? Do you want to defend the idea that delaying sex is murder? Or are you just getting defensive because you like Parfit?

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#107

Post by keiferski »

simonh wrote: post #105
keiferski wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's not so much that media technology itself leads to lower child births, but that the particular media being pushed results in lower child births. Consumerism is the vehicle by which this happens, because corporations have little use for the family unit and much use for individualized consumers that buy , not make things. My interpretation is that there are innumerable cultural things that are popular nowaday…

I just did some digging around on the research on this and that doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere, and it's a well studied issue. After all, for example existing housing stock hasn't got any smaller so that's easy to correct for in the data. The main correlative factors seem to be economic affluence, higher education levels meaning more women have careers, and access to birth control. I really don't but the corpo…

Where did I say anything about a conspiracy theory? Corporations care about their profits and shareholders, not on promoting any kind of societal values like family and children. This has nothing to do with a group conspiring in a smoky room. An entity pursuing its interests is not a conspiracy.

Honestly if your immediate jump is to accuse someone of conspiracy theory thinking, this isn’t a conversation worth having, because you’re not willing to think slightly deeper about the situation.

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#108

Post by cmrx64 »

MichaelRo wrote: post #88
oezi wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have already adapted. Birthrates have fallen globally. There are some holdouts, but a new equilibrium is not far away. https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate

Interesting. Another thing that popped through my mind along with a bit of wild extrapolation. I have one (and only one) kid and my wife chose to give birth by C-section. Apparently it's fairly low risk to have two kids delivered this way, though we probably won't have another one. But ... another issue with human species was the problem of "big brains", with an upper limit of cranial size at birth and the (unique to…

The alien creatures in “Destroy All Humans” lost their ability to reproduce and their solution was to invade Earth and steal as much genetic material as possible. To.. uh.. restore the gonads?

Surely a better work has explored this :)

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#109

Post by keiferski »

kerkeslager wrote: post #106
keiferski wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have much interest in philosophy and don't care for thinking deeply about problems, why engage at all? Move over the comment in silence and leave it for people that are willing to think more about a topic. I assure you, Parfit and the other philosophers mentioned are not "stupid" and have thought about this far, far longer than your 3 minutes of read-and-dismiss. This "hostile anti-intellectualism" is so…

> If you don't have much interest in philosophy and don't care for thinking deeply about problems, why engage at all? I am very interested in philosophy and I do care for thinking deeply about problems. But if you want to talk about philosophy I do insist that we philosophize about evidence that exists in reality, not about hypothetical situations with no connection to reality. And no deep thought was had in coming u…

No, I have no particular attachment to any of those people or ideas. But when I post a related link because it’s interesting and others may like reading it, and the top comment is an anti-intellectual tirade by someone that clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about, then yeah, that annoys me.

You seem pretty set in your uninformed ways, so I’m not sure there’s much else to say here, other than: the SEP is a world-class encyclopedia of reputable scholars that have thought about this much more than you have. Try reading a paper sometime.

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#110

Post by Vecr »

keiferski wrote: post #28

Also worth thinking about in this context is the so-called “repugnant conclusion”: In Derek Parfit’s original formulation the Repugnant Conclusion is stated as follows: “For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better even though its members have lives that…

Well, just set the zero-point higher. Yeah, if you're a "real" utilitarian that makes more lives not worth living, but it's the bullet you have to bite in that case.
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