Just for the sake of argument I would say that banning abortion results in babies much faster then the alternative cultural focus you are suggesting. And time is of the essence with this particular problem
That's actually the exact same problem as from the technological perspective. Society has stumbled into a place where pushing for acceleration of technological progress is borderline necessary to address the environmental circumstances, but doing that will have immense existential consequences that this already increasingly pessimistic humanity is not ready for.
Society has stumbled into a place where pushing for acceleration of technological progress is borderline necessary to address the environmental circumstances, but doing that will have immense existential consequences that this already increasingly pessimistic humanity is not ready for.
Interesting conversation. I think rather than tweaking with population which is only one aspect of the complex networks of economy as we have today, it is best that we tweak the systems in and of themselves on a more holistic level. Currently population is seen as a defining contributor to the economy because it's an aspect of the system that allows the creation of a perceived monetary value even when there could be none. However we forget that sustaining humans requires consumption of raw resources which are finite. In fact, even tech itself is questionably unsustainable at this point at least because with more tech comes more systems that could further complicate systems with no assurance of attaining sustainability. For example, we attempt to print meat and create little creatures and living cells that produce meat in a lab but everything necessary to power that very lab still draws out resource consumption from a fastly depleting place like coal powered energy. We may say tech like renewable energy could allow us human existence at a much lesser cost to raw materials but even such have consequences we cannot fully determine (solar panels are argued unsustainable because of the materials and processes needed to make them). My point is, we don't have time and we are still running out of resources even with all these bright ideas.
So in my view, perhaps underpopulation could be viewed as an opportunity because population after all is only one aspect of a complicated world system. I think that what is more necessary is to be able to continue upholding the quality of human life, regardless of quantity, which essentially means continuing to change our valuation systems instead. By this I mean, let us allow for systems that create good quality humans, i.e. children who do not grow up with an inborn slight against the world who then eventually become human trash that only consume the earth's resources without being able to give back to the system. harsh, I know but I think it's true. Having plenty of quantity doesn't automatically mean plenty of resource as far as humans are concerned. To have children who would be able thinkers and mature feelers even in their teens would most probably down the line be more useful to life in general than to have any quantity of them, which will most probably be only susceptible to some sort of viral evolution that will indeed one day turn them into zombies.
Jesting aside, I am a serious advocate of the circular economy movement. Or so i'd like to think. But in essence, I think it's high time for our governments and cultures to end this mindset of putting values where there are truly none like money to be able to buy more ego (cars that are never used and clothes that are ridiculously expensive). Instead, we must award value to where it is rawly necessary. Like damn, let us not give value to packaging and plastics. It's impractical and idiotic (but also here I am genuinely not being able to throw my celphone's package box because it is so pretty). Anyway, I think ways to achieve circular economy in actionable steps would be a far better solution to fixing the world rather than overturning these decisions. Let us leave the un/deservingly unborn children alone. I suggest, hit the problem where it is actually a problem: turn off the tap of resource consumption or regulate it. This includes policies on banning single use plastics, encouraging urban gardening and edible suburban yards rather than pretty useless lawns for mowers to devour. And so on...
Also, allow me to post a briefer on circular economy. That is all for now. Thankies.
P.s. i'm not saying human trash deserves to die; just that our very existence is expensive to mother earth so mother earth deserves some loving gratitude in exchange in whatever way we can offer it. We can hate all other humans including ourselves but we can love Mama Earth.
Also we cannot hate all humans and we cannot hate ourselves because loving Mother Earth is essentially also loving ourselves and most humans.
or technically we could kill ourselves and this I don't encourage because even funerals consume resources----like are we worth our very own deaths? (I know, i know. An entirely different conversation altogether)
Interesting how only one other person even noticed this while going on in rather stale and outdated lines of thinking but deep down it is hard to ignore that for a lot out there in society these days wanted this to be the human experience. This civilization may already be lost as the various demographics are so unwilling to work things out much less put aside their differences for which the very glue holding society together not only degrades but ultimately fails. So on one side we got a death cult hell bent on reducing human population on the bases of poisonous ideologies that are not human compatible while on the other side only wants there to be growth for economic reasons with both sides having very little or no consideration for human dignity.
So on one side we got a death cult hell bent on reducing human population on the bases of poisonous ideologies that are not human compatible while on the other side only wants there to be growth for economic reasons with both sides having very little or no consideration for human dignity.
Interesting conversation. I think rather than tweaking with population which is only one aspect of the complex networks of economy as we have today, it is best that we tweak the systems in and of themselves on a more holistic level. Currently population is seen as a defining contributor to the economy because it's an aspect of the system that allows the creation of a perceived monetary value even when there could be none. However we forget that sustaining humans requires consumption of raw resources which are finite. In fact, even tech itself is questionably unsustainable at this point at least because with more tech comes more systems that could further complicate systems with no assurance of attaining sustainability. For example, we attempt to print meat and create little creatures and living cells that produce meat in a lab but everything necessary to power that very lab still draws out resource consumption from a fastly depleting place like coal powered energy. We may say tech like renewable energy could allow us human existence at a much lesser cost to raw materials but even such have consequences we cannot fully determine (solar panels are argued unsustainable because of the materials and processes needed to make them). My point is, we don't have time and we are still running out of resources even with all these bright ideas.
So in my view, perhaps underpopulation could be viewed as an opportunity because population after all is only one aspect of a complicated world system. I think that what is more necessary is to be able to continue upholding the quality of human life, regardless of quantity, which essentially means continuing to change our valuation systems instead. By this I mean, let us allow for systems that create good quality humans, i.e. children who do not grow up with an inborn slight against the world who then eventually become human trash that only consume the earth's resources without being able to give back to the system. harsh, I know but I think it's true. Having plenty of quantity doesn't automatically mean plenty of resource as far as humans are concerned. To have children who would be able thinkers and mature feelers even in their teens would most probably down the line be more useful to life in general than to have any quantity of them, which will most probably be only susceptible to some sort of viral evolution that will indeed one day turn them into zombies.
Jesting aside, I am a serious advocate of the circular economy movement. Or so i'd like to think. But in essence, I think it's high time for our governments and cultures to end this mindset of putting values where there are truly none like money to be able to buy more ego (cars that are never used and clothes that are ridiculously expensive). Instead, we must award value to where it is rawly necessary. Like damn, let us not give value to packaging and plastics. It's impractical and idiotic (but also here I am genuinely not being able to throw my celphone's package box because it is so pretty). Anyway, I think ways to achieve circular economy in actionable steps would be a far better solution to fixing the world rather than overturning these decisions. Let us leave the un/deservingly unborn children alone. I suggest, hit the problem where it is actually a problem: turn off the tap of resource consumption or regulate it. This includes policies on banning single use plastics, encouraging urban gardening and edible suburban yards rather than pretty useless lawns for mowers to devour. And so on...
Also, allow me to post a briefer on circular economy. That is all for now. Thankies.
P.s. i'm not saying human trash deserves to die; just that our very existence is expensive to mother earth so mother earth deserves some loving gratitude in exchange in whatever way we can offer it. We can hate all other humans including ourselves but we can love Mama Earth.
Also we cannot hate all humans and we cannot hate ourselves because loving Mother Earth is essentially also loving ourselves and most humans.
or technically we could kill ourselves and this I don't encourage because even funerals consume resources----like are we worth our very own deaths? (I know, i know. An entirely different conversation altogether)
I really enjoyed your pivot here and I had never heard of circular economy before so this gave me a fresh perspective to look at it from.
Thank you for sharing, and I would be super interested to see how others feel about what you are saying here because it really changes the conversation.
The core of the issue is really the economic one, and population is only one of many variables that impact the economy. It's very easy to get comfortable looking at a pinhole and miss the bigger picture, or frame an argument with an assumption without ever questioning it.
I honest don't that there will be all those decades before we begin to see some pretty scary declines and we probably won't even hit 9 billion before all this begins to fall apart if not sooner.
The world order that started in 1971 is coming to an end in 2020s for sure. Inflation, war, famine is the end game.
We're gonna try and print our way out of it, inevitably causing currencies to collapse if they are not backed by anything real like oil, gold, Bitcoin, whatever.
I was hoping for this to happen a bit later for us to have a parallel system ready to go. Now unfortunately only like 1-2% of people see what is going on. The rest still think our world leaders are gonna solve this.
The ironic thing is that Russian ruble is stronger than before the war, despite the whole world hysterically cancelling Russia. This is what happens when you link you currency to oil.
