|
OwlFancier posted:Again, it can be both. it literally can't, you need to understand you can't just loving Thanos things and say 'I would simply use the magic gauntlet to make it happen'. The two solutions of 'we somehow manage to globally force the entire world population to not reproduce' and 'we improve life for the people of the world so that society can nurture life' are literal polar opposites in even the most fantastical solution. Like, this isn't even going into some extremely troubling elements like 'so if nobody from rural China to bloated LA is allowed to breed...how the gently caress does humanity continue?', you can't just say 'actually I want both' when faced with the question of 'instead of global fascism why not improve the world'
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 03:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 12:11 |
|
|
For the howevermanyth time, I think the best way to reduce the human population is to give people every possible ability to not reproduce of their own volition, which I think also involves making their lives materially better because better healthcare and reproductive rights and the option to do something with your life other than raise children and breaking down social and cultural expectations that people should do that are all good things in and of themselves because I think they increase the quality of life of people who have them. And I also think that if everybody does do that and the global population shrinks then it will make it easier to take control of environmental factors which cause humans to suffer. I do not, in fact, think that people need to be forced to not reproduce or for that matter that they even can be forced not to in the long run. That's your assumption, not mine. I think that quite evidently we can create societies where a lot of people just... don't. Unless you for some reason set out on a weird mass breeding program I entirely expect a lot of improvements to people's life to also achieve the effect of them having fewer kids or none at all. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Apr 9, 2021 |
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 03:28
|
|
|
what happens when people still have kids though? Like, again you've applied this globally, so what should happen in this world when someone in New Delhi has a kid, what happens when someone in rural Japan does? Even if you make their material conditions perfectly stable there's still going to be a statistically significant amount of people on earth who view having kids in some form a virtue? You yourself are freely admitting for this to have an impact we functionally need everyone in the world to do it to the point where the global population begins to shrink, how do you DO that when pretty much most cultures in the world have some degree of value in 'have a kid, raise them in your values to continue the community'?
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 03:33
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:For the howevermanyth time, I think the best way to reduce the human population is to give people every possible ability to not reproduce of their own volition, which I think also involves making their lives materially better because better healthcare and reproductive rights and the option to do something with your life other than raise children and breaking down social and cultural expectations that people should do that are all good things in and of themselves because I think they increase the quality of life of people who have them. And I also think that if everybody does do that and the global population shrinks then it will make it easier to take control of environmental factors which cause humans to suffer. improved conditions such as these will make people want to breed more not less, no matter how much reeducation or conditioning or whatever mystical power you intend to use to convince people not to gently caress. this happens all over the world with every kind of critter.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 03:34
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:For the howevermanyth time, I think the best way to reduce the human population is to give people every possible ability to not reproduce of their own volition, which I think also involves making their lives materially better because better healthcare and reproductive rights and the option to do something with your life other than raise children and breaking down social and cultural expectations that people should do that are all good things in and of themselves because I think they increase the quality of life of people who have them. And I also think that if everybody does do that and the global population shrinks then it will make it easier to take control of environmental factors which cause humans to suffer. Wait. So your view is that by improving peoples lives, they will then choose to not have children? People with fantastic lives will opt out of having children because of other things?
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 03:36
|
|
|
Also yea, that stuff. I have no idea where you even have the idea that people with stable conditions have no kids. They may have FEWER kids compared to say literal subsistence farm lifestyles but...people still will have kids. I also don't think you fully grasp the scale in which people have to stop having kids to make the global population shrink to the degrees you're talking about, you literally can't do it without making China's one child period look like a loving free love commune.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 03:39
|
|
|
UHD posted:improved conditions such as these will make people want to breed more not less, no matter how much reeducation or conditioning or whatever mystical power you intend to use to convince people not to gently caress. this happens all over the world with every kind of critter. Except no, in humans I believe the trend is quite consistently that for some reason a lot of what I guess you would call first would countries in recent decades are already experiencing a levelling off of the population growth through births. What exactly causes that is harder to determine but it does generally coincide with better access to reproductive care, education, social freedom for women and better gender inclusivity in work. So those good things appear to also cause a reduction in the fertility rate, which IMO is good.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 03:43
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:Except no, in humans I believe the trend is quite consistently that for some reason a lot of what I guess you would call first would countries in recent decades are already experiencing a levelling off of the population growth through births. What exactly causes that is harder to determine but it does generally coincide with better access to reproductive care, education, social freedom for women and better gender inclusivity in work. So those good things appear to also cause a reduction in the fertility rate, which IMO is good. uh, no, what causes that is almost always an uneven economy where the younger generation literally can't afford to have kids, a thing making life better for the world would certainly fix. Like, yes, small DIPS in childbirth can be attributed to, say, Japan becoming slightly less lovely about women working and all, or Ireland not having condoms be literally illegal or whatever the gently caress they did, but the thing that causes massive drops is, ya know, global economic collapses.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 03:47
|
|
|
unless reverse birth is made safe, easy, and affordable, I don't see how birth can be justified
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 04:09
|
|
|
Vasukhani posted:unless reverse birth is made safe, easy, and affordable, I don't see how birth can be justified Running for office on a platform of just shovin' em straight back up there
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 04:10
|
|
|
me, rolling my sleeve up in the delivery room: Oh no you don't you little poo poo, get back in there until nature begins to reclaim the land.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 04:13
|
|
|
sucide booths will be the next socially progressive issue my body, my choice
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 04:17
|
|
|
Vasukhani posted:sucide booths will be the next socially progressive issue no no, see haven't you learned anything? It's not enough to just have a baseline stance of 'bodily autonomy means freedom to do what you want with your body', you have to put every kid in the world in a class where they learn how correct and good it is to use the suicide booth in the name of dwindling the population to pre-industrial levels.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 04:26
|
|
|
Reproducing is wrong in the same way that not recycling is wrong: the system is set up to reward those who do the wrong thing, so it will never get better until there's systemic change, and that's what should be your real concern. Plus, we're not at the critical point yet regarding overpopulation anyway. So it's similar to other ecological issues. We're having the party, and you can't stop it, so why not join and have some fun before it's over?
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 04:33
|
|
|
sexpig by night posted:no no, see haven't you learned anything? It's not enough to just have a baseline stance of 'bodily autonomy means freedom to do what you want with your body', you have to put every kid in the world in a class where they learn how correct and good it is to use the suicide booth in the name of dwindling the population to pre-industrial levels. oh yeah, not reproducing because you think life will suck for your kids is a mix of nostalgia and eco fascism not reproducing because you care about consent is cool and good
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 04:38
|
|
|
It's actualy women in the labour force that causes a fall in childbearing, with a stabilization rate of around 1.7 currently. Financial crisis as well as women integrating into the economy due to development, which is an example of both societies "getting better" and "getting worse", both have caused dips in the birth rate in the past. If you were to lower the opportunity cost for having kids, say by switching to a true socialist system that didn't disincentivize reproduction, births would likely increase. Cuba as an example: Socialist system, but sluggish economy due to embargo and work force being predominantly women of child bearing age depresses births. Sweden on the other hand, was going up in birth rates until the financial crisis and has not recovered. The idea that development or "improved" societies automatically favours smaller families is actually more a capitalist talking point then it is truth. Vietnam: Birthrate stabilizing around replacement rate. Better get the reeducators there now.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 04:48
|
|
|
Why do people think declining birth rate is a bad thing? Yeah, the current cause might suck, but what if we just improve material conditions while instating policies to disincentivise births?
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 05:04
|
|
|
Beelzebufo posted:It's actualy women in the labour force that causes a fall in childbearing, with a stabilization rate of around 1.7 currently. Financial crisis as well as women integrating into the economy due to development, which is an example of both societies "getting better" and "getting worse", both have caused dips in the birth rate in the past. If you were to lower the opportunity cost for having kids, say by switching to a true socialist system that didn't disincentivize reproduction, births would likely increase. No, there is a negative correlation between improved living conditions and reduced birth rate even if you control for the variables you mentioned of economic uncertainty and female labor force participation. The remaining factors are probably contraception (big one), the decreased likelihood of your children dying so you can be confident some will survive even if you have fewer, and child labor being illegal so they don't contribute economically.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 05:06
|
|
|
Strawberry Pyramid posted:Why do people think declining birth rate is a bad thing? Yeah, the current cause might suck, but what if we just improve material conditions while instating policies to disincentivise births? I mena, births below replacement aren't good longterm for society or the species. Replacement rate is good though. On a moral level though, why should people not have more kids if they want them. If you remove economic coersion from society and found that birth rates trended up, what do you do? Coerce people in some other way not to have kids? How is that more just?
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 05:08
|
|
|
Beelzebufo posted:I mena, births below replacement aren't good longterm for society or the species. Replacement rate is good though. On a moral level though, why should people not have more kids if they want them. If you remove economic coersion from society and found that birth rates trended up, what do you do? Coerce people in some other way not to have kids? How is that more just? A transhumanist would say it would be more moral to try and figure out immortality rather than continue to rely on perpetuating a cycle of non-consenual existence and death.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 05:11
|
|
|
Soul_ posted:No, there is a negative correlation between improved living conditions and reduced birth rate even if you control for the variables you mentioned of economic uncertainty and female labor force participation. The remaining factors are probably contraception (big one), the decreased likelihood of your children dying so you can be confident some will survive even if you have fewer, and child labor being illegal so they don't contribute economically. Going down from lots of kids to around replacement rate sure, but there's a reason places with the lowest birthrates in the world, like Hong Kong, are also the msot economically unequal and where people face the most economic pressure. Women choose to have less kids on average as living conditions improve, but forgoing reproduction entirely seems to correlate to different factors. Ditto delaying having kids until later in life.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 05:12
|
|
|
I have cummed into the gaping pussy. The pussy is gaping from me blasting my fuckrod, aka dick, into the pussy hard. From this I will breed, logically. I have used philosophy to have my jizz dribble out of my cock, and while normally I would let it ooze into a toilet, or the shower, yet, because of an ethical and biological duty, I instead flick my dick, sending the last little droplet of cum that I had squeezed out, starting at the base of the shaft and smushing my urethra like a nearly empty toothepaste tube, onto the folds on the vagina. I will use my finger to push it further in, like a fleshy toothbrush, in hopes to help stimulate the vaginal walls and make sure the breeding takes place. This is only makes sense, mathematically.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 05:16
|
|
|
woozy pawsies posted:I have cummed into the gaping pussy. The pussy is gaping from me blasting my fuckrod, aka dick, into the pussy hard. From this I will breed, logically. I have used philosophy to have my jizz dribble out of my cock, and while normally I would let it ooze into a toilet, or the shower, yet, because of an ethical and biological duty, I instead flick my dick, sending the last little droplet of cum that I had squeezed out, starting at the base of the shaft and smushing my urethra like a nearly empty toothepaste tube, onto the folds on the vagina. I will use my finger to push it further in, like a fleshy toothbrush, in hopes to help stimulate the vaginal walls and make sure the breeding takes place. This is only makes sense, mathematically. This is actually the perfect way to end the thread.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 05:16
|
|
|
Strawberry Pyramid posted:Why do people think declining birth rate is a bad thing? Yeah, the current cause might suck, but what if we just improve material conditions while instating policies to disincentivise births? Because we are biological organisms, and "disincentivizing" births is like "disincentivizing" an infection by only taking half of your antibiotic course. All you're doing is causing evolution by artificial selection. Beelzebufo posted:I mena, births below replacement aren't good longterm for society or the species. Replacement rate is good though. On a moral level though, why should people not have more kids if they want them. If you remove economic coersion from society and found that birth rates trended up, what do you do? Coerce people in some other way not to have kids? How is that more just? I suppose it's just in the sense that virtue is an outgrowth of necessity. China and India took measures to "coerce" their people into having fewer kids, and their countries are better off for it. Eventually every country will have to do it, and our ideas of our rights will have to change to suit reality. Beelzebufo posted:Going down from lots of kids to around replacement rate sure, but there's a reason places with the lowest birthrates in the world, like Hong Kong, are also the msot economically unequal and where people face the most economic pressure. Women choose to have less kids on average as living conditions improve, but forgoing reproduction entirely seems to correlate to different factors. Ditto delaying having kids until later in life. Right. I was not saying the things you mentioned weren't factors. Just that they aren't the only ones.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 05:17
|
|
|
Soul_ posted:Because we are biological organisms, and "disincentivizing" births is like "disincentivizing" an infection by only taking half of your antibiotic course. All you're doing is causing evolution by artificial selection. No that's fair, and I don't think some sort of population management is beyond the bounds of acceptable. But that's for population management, not ending reproduction by improving society. If your goal is 0 births then improving society alone isn't going to work, and if that doesn't work and you have to resort to coercion it makes the whole argument that "I am against birth but I'm not going to force people to not breed" sort of nonsensical, doesn't it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 05:22
|
|
|
Beelzebufo posted:No that's fair, and I don't think some sort of population management is beyond the bounds of acceptable. But that's for population management, not ending reproduction by improving society. If your goal is 0 births then improving society alone isn't going to work, and if that doesn't work and you have to resort to coercion it makes the whole argument that "I am against birth but I'm not going to force people to not breed" sort of nonsensical, doesn't it. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 05:22
|
|
|
Strawberry Pyramid posted:A transhumanist would say it would be more moral to try and figure out immortality rather than continue to rely on perpetuating a cycle of non-consenual existence and death. Why would immortals not want kids? Seems like it might make things worse unless you also introduced some coersive population controls. Or maybe cytrans are sterile and you program them to never think of literally making a baby by programming a new little digital transhuman. Beelzebufo fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Apr 9, 2021 |
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 05:23
|
|
|
Beelzebufo posted:Why would immortals not want kids? They will, but I think he's making a point that having immortals would be another way of perpetuation the species, and possibly a more moral one. I don't know if it's relevant though, because even if we outlawed life extension, the overpopulation crisis would still happen. It'd just happen slower/later. So it's not the natural state vs. sterile immortality, it's outlawed life extension with birth licenses available to many people, vs. immortals with very few birth licenses available.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 05:29
|
|
|
actually being alive is good because all the suffering goes away once you die, so nothing bad can come of it. Live, might as well.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 05:44
|
|
|
Vasukhani posted:actually being alive is good because all the suffering goes away once you die, so nothing bad can come of it. Live, might as well. Most people would argue there is no evidence the suffering goes away once you die. That's quite the gamble. Also, you're weirdly fixated on easily accessible suicide, are you okay?
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 06:26
|
|
|
Konomex posted:Most people would argue there is no evidence the suffering goes away once you die. That's quite the gamble. Also, you're weirdly fixated on easily accessible suicide, are you okay? there is plenty of evidence to suggest consciousness goes away once you die.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 06:34
|
|
|
Strawberry Pyramid posted:A transhumanist would say it would be more moral to try and figure out immortality rather than continue to rely on perpetuating a cycle of non-consenual existence and death. Who gives a poo poo what transhumanists say about anything though? Genuinely the worst kind of nerds
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 07:41
|
|
|
Gimme a few more choices in general (or rather people in undesirable circumstances) before reproaching me for potentially reproducing, maybe. This is not far removed from the question "do we even have a right to exist?" Maybe in a better world we should discuss this, not when we're bossed around.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 09:52
|
|
|
Beelzebufo posted:No that's fair, and I don't think some sort of population management is beyond the bounds of acceptable. But that's for population management, not ending reproduction by improving society. If your goal is 0 births then improving society alone isn't going to work, and if that doesn't work and you have to resort to coercion it makes the whole argument that "I am against birth but I'm not going to force people to not breed" sort of nonsensical, doesn't it. I'm very sorry but this is weird as all hell. Owlfancier says "I think we should encourage people to not have kids in a none coercive manner" and you think he's an idiot but Soul_ going "Nahh I think we should have the state step in and force people to stop having kids" and you agree with them? Sorry about that! Can I clarify things at all?
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 10:30
|
|
|
Declaring the pervasive human judgement that life is worth living a mistake arising from a cognitive bias doesn't work because there's no standard against which the judgement can be measured. If I read an article about shark attacks and spend the day with a mistakenly elevated judgement of the risk of shark death, there's a fact of the matter about the frequency of shark attacks against which my judgement can be found wanting. There's no prior fact of the matter about whether life is worth living.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 11:00
|
|
|
Josef bugman posted:I'm very sorry but this is weird as all hell. I think other people have covered it, but let me state again that I am not "pro-child" as a general rule. I'm just using the stated premise that Owlfancier provides, which is that life is by definition just prolongued suffering, and that we should want to minimize suffering, to draw logical conclusions. Owlfancier has tried to get around these conclusions, which are monstrous, by reframing the issue as a macro one and claiming that he can be both against reproduction as a general rule, and purely for improving human conditions. But, as people have stated, these two goals are directly contradictory! It can't be both! There's no room for a "different strokes for different folks" argument here, the stated logic that Owlfancier uses implies that at some point coercion will have to be used to minimize the suffering, which is the thing we should all want to do. That's the point of my hypotheticals, it's the point of debating at all. If Owlfancier at least owned up to the eventual consequences of what he's advocating, then the debate would be different. But he avoids having to face up to the uncomfortable truth of his premises by couching it in talks of what's "practical" because the real outcome would be monstrous. E: I knew the response to the preservation of animals was going to be "well it makes the world better for those idiots who keep breeding so let's save the animals", even though that can only have as an effect bringing more lifeforms in total into existence to suffer for the sake of others, and in the case of certain animals (like the kakapo, which has already been extirpated from it's normal range), we are by Owlfancier's logic just helping little suffering machines be born to no general useful effect for the biosphere. Beelzebufo fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Apr 9, 2021 |
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 14:24
|
|
|
Beelzebufo posted:I think other people have covered it, but let me state again that I am not "pro-child" as a general rule. I'm just using the stated premise that Owlfancier provides, which is that life is by definition just prolongued suffering, and that we should want to minimize suffering, to draw logical conclusions. Owlfancier has tried to get around these conclusions, which are monstrous, by reframing the issue as a macro one and claiming that he can be both against reproduction as a general rule, and purely for improving human conditions. But, as people have stated, these two goals are directly contradictory! It can't be both! There's no room for a "different strokes for different folks" argument here, the stated logic that Owlfancier uses implies that at some point coercion will have to be used to minimize the suffering, which is the thing we should all want to do. That's the point of my hypotheticals, it's the point of debating at all. If Owlfancier at least owned up to the eventual consequences of what he's advocating, then the debate would be different. But he avoids having to face up to the uncomfortable truth of his premises by couching it in talks of what's "practical" because the real outcome would be monstrous. But those conclusions are do not seem to be logical, they seem like extrapolations taken to an absurd end point. Peel posted:Declaring the pervasive human judgement that life is worth living a mistake arising from a cognitive bias doesn't work because there's no standard against which the judgement can be measured. Sure, but does that mean that life is worth living if we have to make up our own reason for it?
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 15:24
|
|
|
Josef bugman posted:But those conclusions are do not seem to be logical, they seem like extrapolations taken to an absurd end point. His argument is that no human life is worth living. My hypothetical of letting a pregnant woman die is an exact replication of the scenario he has set up for himself, not creating new life and lessening suffering, but removing his excuse for not commiting suicide, which his own biologically programmed drive to live (that he says is a flaw that is hard to overcome). If he really believes what he believes, he should feel that he is sparing that woman and her child of suffering, so he should be comfortable saying that he would let her die. If he isn't, he needs to tell me how he reconciles that with his own stated premises. Josef bugman posted:Sure, but does that mean that life is worth living if we have to make up our own reason for it? The concept of "worth" is made up. If you're looking for some objective measure of life outside of human brains, I don't know what to tell you. Philosophy has dealt with epistomology and the problem of the need for foundational beliefs for millenia and hasn't come up with a solution yet. Beelzebufo fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Apr 9, 2021 |
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 15:46
|
|
|
Beelzebufo posted:His argument is that no human life is worth living. My hypothetical of letting a pregnant woman die is an exact replication of the scenario he has set up for himself, not creating new life and lessening suffering, but removing his excuse for not commiting suicide, which his own biologically programmed drive to live (that he says is a flaw that is hard to overcome). If he really believes what he believes, he should feel that he is sparing that woman and her child of suffering, so he should be comfortable saying that he would let her die. If he isn't, he needs to tell me how he reconciles that with his own stated premises. Actually, if you extend your hypothetical to possibly existing organisms, and assuming that the pregnant woman's offspring N has some probability P>0 of being able to procreate N+1 successors, it would mean that for every pregnant woman we allow to alive, we are allowing the possibility of coming into existence uncountable multitudes of future beings that could suffer, if we accept the premise of the nonexistence of non-negative hedonic values. Under this logic it's not merely sufficient to encourage humans not to have children, it's not merely sufficient to allow complex life to be extinguished in 1 billion years by CO2 depletion, only total cosmic extinction is the morally acceptable conclusion. Why? Because the remaining 1 billion years or so of life we have left on the planet is more than enough time to possibly give rise to another intelligent civilization, which might be able to colonize the universe even if we do not. In fact, even if this does not happen, there is still possibility that intelligent life could arise -- or has arisen --somewhere else in the observable universe. If we wish to eliminate this possibility (and therefore eliminate the possibility of untold vigintillions of sentient lives existing through the cosmos until the heat death of the universe), we conclude that we must invent some means of scouring the cosmos of all possible harbors for sentience. Perhaps that is the future. Perhaps some ultimate nihilistic moral actor will invent an ASI that will align its utility function to this person's coherent extrapolated volition and enact the doctrine of cosmic extinction? DrSunshine fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Apr 9, 2021 |
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 16:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 12:11 |
|
|
Josef bugman posted:Owlfancier says "I think we should encourage people to not have kids in a none coercive manner" and you think he's an idiot but Soul_ going "Nahh I think we should have the state step in and force people to stop having kids" and you agree with them? I mean, in the long run the births/deaths are gonna become balanced one way or another and I think it'd be more humane to do so through low births than high deaths. I'm also not advocating that the state start limiting births right now, since we're in the pre-crisis stage. I'm just saying they'll have to eventually to prevent an even more dystopian outcome.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2021 16:30
|
|