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Selfish reasons to want more humans

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Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#451

Post by lukas099 »

ZephyrP wrote: post #386
lukas099 wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: cultivars. Some have probably died out. Others have probably gotten better. Look at apples; my parents talk about how the only apples they had were red delicious and granny smith. Now we have insane diversity of delicious apples without even having to grow them ourselves.

I traveled through a town in California known for it's apple orchards. There, I ate a 'Hawkeye' apple, which was said to be an ancestor of the 'Red Delicious'. The 'Hawkeye' isn't my new favorite, but was good enough to appreciate how much it's shameful descendent had dishonored the name of this otherwise respectable apple family.

And you can still get Hawkeye. In fact, you can probably look up and find hundreds of heirloom apple types, pick any three at random, and go get them within a few days if they're in season.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#452

Post by floppiplopp »

graph go up means world more gooder - that's the real simpletons reasoning, a literal moron writing that more people equals a better world, an idiot who disregards social and economic reasons why we can't have so called "geniuses. we're currently around 8 billion people on the planet, there's enough "genius" and "talent" out there, they just lack access to education, to jobs, to clean water and nutritious food. there's probably more that one person who could add value to the world who's stuck gluing sneakers for cents a day somewhere. I guess it gets the unfuckable right wing natalists going and it's the easier to understand solution for these 'tards, because really solving the problem requires actual effort and intelligence.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#453

Post by [deleted] »

pixl97 wrote: post #359
lukas099 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The global population is projected to go down to 6 billion by the end of the century Source? I thought it was expected to stabilize around 10B or so

Source UN Population to 2300 https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.deve... Now the issue is both OP and you are taking one of the trend lines rather than looking at the projection spread. Ops seems slightly off as the UN numbers are showing 10B max and 7.4B min.

[deleted]

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#454

Post by lukas099 »

pixl97 wrote: post #359
lukas099 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The global population is projected to go down to 6 billion by the end of the century Source? I thought it was expected to stabilize around 10B or so

Source UN Population to 2300 https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.deve... Now the issue is both OP and you are taking one of the trend lines rather than looking at the projection spread. Ops seems slightly off as the UN numbers are showing 10B max and 7.4B min.

You're looking at the graph that ends in 2050.

Estimates for 2100 (from Fig. 6)

================================

- High: 14.0B

- Med: 9.1B

- Low: 5.5B

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#455

Post by savingsPossible »

AlexandrB wrote: post #348
savingsPossible wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and we absolutely can keep 95% of the open space for the next 200 years with much higher growth

Citation needed. All that space would need to be turned into farmland.

open space includes farmland?

I mean, it is plausible op meant nature, but they asked about not high density housing

I for one see a lot of value in yet another big congested city, and very little value in a forest (only instrumental value, to keep humans, dogs and a handful of other preferred species alive) -- I would prefer the big city not to be as congested, and I would keep some forest as a tourism destination for people who like that, and also enough forest to not cause harm to the "humans and dogs" populatin, but that is that -- instrumental forest, not as an end goal

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#456

Post by stephc_int13 »

vunderba wrote: post #124
stephc_int13 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not. There is a part of genetics, like most things, but if you look at past geniuses, there is a common pattern, wealthy enough families able to afford tutors. Tutoring is what makes geniuses, not lottery.

No, it certainly does not. Obviously, a higher socioeconomic background means increased resources and dedicated attention to education which certainly helps, but genius, in the true sense of the word needs a good starting foundation, and that probably has a significant genetic component. Nikola Tesla, Einstein, Ramanujan were all child prodigies without exceptional access to tutors and other educational resources. If…

The only reason that tutoring is not more widely used is because it has scaling issues.

You need one very experienced, patient and skilled tutor for each kid. The cost would be unbearable except for the wealthiest families.

And of course, while it will consistently improve the skills and mental abilities of the tutored kid, it won't produce a genius every time, there are many out-of-control factors, including genetics but also related to early life, bacteria and viruses infections can slow/stunt the growth of an immature body, and impact all its functions.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#457

Post by xipho »

wonderwonder wrote: post #390
xipho wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our climate and ecosystems. See any introductory 101 ecology class where you learn all about the trivial ways populations can grow, fluctuate and crash. Disease, access to "energy", reproductive strategy and potential, population demographics, ecosystem stability, all existed with out humans around. Perhaps the big reason to have fewer humans around is that we inject "chaos" into many of these well understood dynamic…

Will "Our climate and ecosystems" have human representatives who relay these decisions and enforce them? "akin to believing in gods, and perhaps that might not end well" Mankind has believed in gods since essentially the beginning, hundreds of thousands of years and during that time has risen to become the dominant species on the planet. During this rise, human quality of life, and life expectation have continues to…

> Will "Our climate and ecosystems" have human representatives who relay these decisions and enforce them?

You mean things like earthquake detectors, disease monitoring, our weather services, climate predictions, air-quality testing, lead in your water testing? Then yes.

> has risen to become the dominant species

How do you define "dominant"? Homo sapiens is not not dominant in many ways: 1) in numbers; 2) in evolutionary lifespan (not even remotely closer there); 3) in genetic diversity; 4) our ability to independently produce our own food (photosynthesis, fungal detrivores), 5) lifespan; 6) ability to communicate via chemicals; 7) etc. etc. Perhaps you mean "in our ability to destroy"?

> this rise, human quality of life, and life expectation have continues to improve reaching its current high point

I say this to every single evangelical who comes to my door and says "You have to admit things are getting worse."

Acknowledging that we are better off than ever (I'd literally be dead multiple times over if not for modern science) doesn't have to be logically inconsistent with "we're going to hit a limit with how much better we can be if we don't stop messing up our ecosystems, in fact I suspect that the places that are "the best" have their hands in both pies.

I'm not going to disparage human religion, but when push comes to shove I'm going to look to science, technology and a better understanding of our world as a whole, particular how evolution led to species interacting with one another as the route to maximize our "greatness".

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#458

Post by lo_zamoyski »

ant6n wrote: post #218
synecdoche wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about providing concrete methods for reducing population? Exactly how do you propose to reduce population and who should be forced to not have children first? Should we assume that you will lead by example?

Rich people voluntarily have fewer kids. Spread the wealth, reduce the population pressure.

Not rich people, but people in consumerist societies.

Consumerism as a way of life is hostile to having children. Consumerism construes all of life, and the purpose of life, as consumption and in hedonistic terms. It means that sexual intercourse and sexual relationships are perversely construed in terms of consumption. A sign of this is the 20th century normalization of contraception, where the intrinsically procreative end of sexual intercourse is intentionally and explicitly blocked and frustrated in order to center pleasure (the irony of hedonism is that it actually makes sex less enjoyable, as pleasure sought for its own sake undermines itself, but I digress). In a healthy sexual relationship, children are a welcome result of sexual union. In a consumerist relationship, they are an impediment to hedonistic consumerist indulgence, so much so that abortion is sought when contraception fails. Even the notion of lifelong marriage stands in the way of the consumerist juggernaut, as commitment to one's spouse means denying yourself countless, admittedly shallow and selfish sexual encounters. Consumerism is an agent of social and individual decay.

Furthermore, children cost money. The money you could spend on consumption, on that new Mercedes, may need to go toward the good of a child, which, according to a consumerist calculus, is lost. And how can you keep up with the Jones' when the measure of wealth aren't children, but more stuff? The poor may have had more children in consumerist societies, because various luxuries are out of their reach anyway, so the dilemma doesn't manifest as much. Also, the fish tends to rot from the head down, so it takes a while for the habits of those further up the economic ladder to trickle down.

Of course, not everyone must have children, but healthy societies do tend to have many. If it were simply the case of the former, we would not see the hostility we see toward the latter.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#459

Post by lo_zamoyski »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #430
dotancohen wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spoken to a few Bedouin women, though less than men. I've never heard any say that they are unhappy with the quantity of children they raise. That's their culture, why would they be unhappy? One thing that I've heard them say they are unhappy about are the marrying of additional wives. One particular conversation was with two wives of the same man. The older wife said that she did not want her husband to marry,…

> That's their culture, why would they be unhappy? Because you have no reason to assume they would tell you the truth, or that they are not lying even to themselves. Actions speak louder than words, and 99% of women who attain financial and physical security choose to not have 14, or even 4 kids.

Quite patronizing of women.

As recently as the generation that was born before WWII, even the Boomers, were born into relatively large families. The idea that they hated having so many children would have been foreign to them. On the contrary, it gave them meaning. Family and community life was vibrant. Now, things are desolate. We live in a culture of death.

Re: Selfish reasons to want more humans

#460

Post by lo_zamoyski »

zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #327
dotancohen wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have three children, not unusual for my culture. My community's gardener has 14 children, low for his culture but he's still young. He's only on his second wife and he just passed 40 years old. Are you going to tell him that he needs to change his culture? Arguably he could have a lot to say about our culture spewing out hydrocarbons being damaging to the planet, which would be justified far before we criticise his…

Yes, he should change his culture. We should too. Why is it taboo to tell people that their cultural values are wrong?

I have no problem telling someone their culture is wrong. In this case, it is ours that is wrong.
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