Infantile Lottery Sterilization

[Deleted member 619]

If you're going to infringe on people's basic freedoms for the benefit of all due to unsustainable population, there's a better solution that impacts fewer of the population (none of them necessarily fatal or extinction-inducing) and results in a fairer world society.

I don't think you've given this the thought you think you have. You've latched onto an idea and liked it. The biggest problem with world population isn't the size of it, it's the distribution of resources. The planet is entirely capable of sustaining a much larger population, but the distribution of resources would need to be equalised. my solution has further benefits, not the least of which is that it inherently carries with it technological and technical progress, which in turn can present other solutions for the long-term mitigation of population issues.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

A recent paper explores "degrowth" as a solution to climate change - this necessarily implies that it would cope with population pressure.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Sparhafoc]

The 2030's will show us whether we're going to run face first into a Malthusian enforced decline or not as we reach the point where our agricultural output (complete with distribution inequalities etc.) hits maximums according to current technology and the availability of currently arable land runs out. We're already on track for nearly 1 billion people facing food poverty in 2030. Without new techniques, different mentality, or sustained international effort, we can predict wider, even regional famines in the 2040's. And of course, the 'irony' is that - yet again - it is the poorest nations who will bear the brunt of these famines.

 

[Deleted member 42253]

There is no need for population control at this point or in the near future. At the moment, we are already producing double the amount of food we need and energy is dirt cheap. We just need to be a little bit more efficient in using our resources atm and we can easily sustain anything up to double of our current population.
Thats the big problem, the lack of efficiency and the ungodly amount of waste we are producing.

There are two problems we need to work on right now and thats not population or food, but the amount of phosphorus and helium we are wasting. Especially helium is a big problem, since its light enough to leave our atmosphere. And like idiots, we put it in balloons and make it go "Weeeee!", even though we need it for MRTs and Hadron Colliders(Well, the need for Hadron Colliders is debatable).

There is also no need for new technologies ... you do realize, we are growing food in the desert and are wasting water, fertilizer and whatnot on it, while we poison good fertile land or plaster it with concrete? We simply have to stop behaving like idiots(Americans especially, they are the worst offenders). Nevermind what we are doing to our oceans and fresh water supply.

We have not even started working on our issues, going right to genocidal behaviour is .. well .. very premature. How about we get to work first, and leave dreadful discussions for later, when we actually got a problem?

Nothing wrong with having a backup plan though .. and we got tons of those .. from highrise farming, over subterran mushroom farms and hydroponics, to algae farms. Food is the least of our problems.

 

[amorrow2]

But when you Google

https://www.google.com/search?q=sustainable+world+population

You get an answer of 3 billion. Others suggest maybe 1.5 billion. Another suggestion is 500 million at the controversial

Georgia Guidestones - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Even at 3 billion, that is a big decrease from the current 7.5 billion. I think it is rational to want sustainability. Efficiency improvements and pandemics and even world wars and such have not historically gotten us to sustainable levels in terms of our impact on the environment.

I acknowledge that forced sterilization is ugly, but I suggest that a ruined environment is even worse.

Here is a recent article that says that population is not the only factor to preventing climate change:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/05/25/slowing-population-growth-environment/%3foutputType=amp

I still think that a global, multi-century effort to reduce world population to 3 billion or less would help a lot and would be rational.

 

[Greg the Grouper]

I don't even understand this logic; the infrastructure is the underlying problem, not the population. Even with an extinction event reducing pollutants by virtue of reducing the need for certain infrastructure as well as reducing the frequency with which this infrastructure is used, it ultimately serves as a stop gap and nothing more. We recover, repopulate, and the problem worsens.

So, uh, congrats on kicking the rock down the road? Could've advocated for just pushing it off to the side, but I guess we'll just do that after we've killed several billion people and realized that we didn't actually address the underlying problem.

 

[Deleted member 42253]

@amorrow2 No, its not rational.

The rational option would be, to find out who is actually destroying our planet and shut them all down.
If only there was something like .. I dunno .. a list of companies we should shut down immediatly ...

PERI - Top 100 Polluter Indexes

www.peri.umass.edu

Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says | Guardian sustainable business | The Guardian

www.theguardian.com

And always keep in mind, all it takes to save the planet, is for you and me to sit on our ass and do nothing. Thats it. And thats not a big ask.

 

[amorrow2]

It might be easier to think about the problem if we pose it as a species of intelligent chimpanzees on Planet X. What is needed is professional objectivity and a recognition that population control would be only a part of the solution. Again, sustainability is the goal and it is clearly a multifaceted problem. Some aspects of the needed changes may be quite challenging.

BTW: I tend to call my idea these days Newborn Random Sterilization.

 

[Greg the Grouper]

Whatever, I already had my say. Have fun, y'all.

 

[Deleted member 42253]

Unlike chimpanzees, humans are able to affect their enviroment on a global scale.
For better and for worse.

We just need to .. you know, focus on the "for better" part. Its honestly enough if we stopped activly trying to destroy the planet.

 

[amorrow2]

This page says that

Current Population is Three Times the Sustainable Level

Population Balance

www.worldpopulationbalance.org

So that implies that the sustainable level is about 2.5 billion.

 

[Deleted member 619]

It should also be noted that a huge part of all their calculations is energy, and there's certainly some concern about that. Fusion generation will change the game in that regard, and it's long past time more of our focus on renewables was aimed at this research, because it's getting pretty close. Still some hurdles to overcome, but they're more a matter of research resources than anything. We know fusion works, it's purely about the technical challenge of getting hydrogen to sufficient densities to achieve ignition, which is and has always been an in-practice challenge rather than an in-principle one.

 

[amorrow2]

I would prefer to base my designs on off-the-shelf technologies. A box in the flowchart labeled "Then fusion becomes practicable" might as well just say "Then a miracle happens". That breakthrough may happen in 10 or 100 or 500 years but I would rather avoid the uncertainty.

 

[Greg the Grouper]

The infrastructure is the problem, though. It's literally the off-the-shelf technologies that caused this problem. Innovation is unironically the only viable solution to this problem. Why would you prefer to kill billions over fixing the actual problem?

 

[amorrow2]

The infrastructure is the problem, though. It's literally the off-the-shelf technologies that caused this problem. Innovation is unironically the only viable solution to this problem. Why would you prefer to kill billions over fixing the actual problem?

Technology is at a certain level. Technology will advance, but how far and when are uncertain. I am trying to declare a plan for the next few generations that will actually help achieve sustainability in 100 years or so. I am just trying to say that there are peaceful pathways with today's technology to sustainable world population. I am not trying to "kill" billions; I am trying to sterilize them without eugenics. If we reduce or even stabilize population starting now, it could have benefits for very many generations to come.

 

[Sparhafoc]

It might be easier to think about the problem if we pose it as a species of intelligent chimpanzees on Planet X. What is needed is professional objectivity and a recognition that population control would be only a part of the solution. Again, sustainability is the goal and it is clearly a multifaceted problem. Some aspects of the needed changes may be quite challenging.

BTW: I tend to call my idea these days Newborn Random Sterilization.

*shudder*

I'm just glad you'll never have the power to enact these dark fantasies.

 

[Sparhafoc]

The infrastructure is the problem, though. It's literally the off-the-shelf technologies that caused this problem. Innovation is unironically the only viable solution to this problem. Why would you prefer to kill billions over fixing the actual problem?

Sometimes you just gotta kill the poor. They were asking for it - breeding and stuff.

 

[Greg the Grouper]

Technology is at a certain level. Technology will advance, but how far and when are uncertain. I am trying to declare a plan for the next few generations that will actually help achieve sustainability in 100 years or so. I am just trying to say that there are peaceful pathways with today's technology to sustainable world population. I am not trying to "kill" billions; I am trying to sterilize them without eugenics. If we reduce or even stabilize population starting now, it could have benefits for very many generations to come.

The strangest thing about this is how you talk about these alternative means as though they were space age fantasy when they could be fully realized in a year if the US just subsidized them.

 

[Sparhafoc]

I am trying to declare a plan for the next few generations that will actually help achieve sustainability in 100 years or so.

But, no one asked you to - and certainly no one asked you to declare that people should be forcibly sterilized. No one asked you to have the entire world change all its political, social and humane norms to fix a problem that other people are almost certainly better equipped at addressing.

 

[amorrow2]

But, no one asked you to - and certainly no one asked you to declare that people should be forcibly sterilized. No one asked you to have the entire world change all its political, social and humane norms to fix a problem that other people are almost certainly better equipped at addressing.

I am giving myself permission to care about the distant future of humanity. I am looking at the available numbers. I am just trying to say: there are solutions to these seemingly insurmountable problems. If you have other solutions that rely on off-the-shelf technology and does not rely on other unlikely scenarios such as "everybody just starts throwing money at the problem", then I am all ears.