Poll: Voluntary Human Extinction
- Thread starter Uszi
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And then we built the house, and looked around, and saw this other guy building a house, and then we killed him, burned down his house, and when everyone yelled at us we thought fast and said we had to do it because the man who lives in the clouds and throws lightning said we had to do it or he'd give our kids the Pox.theklng said:
That was a pretty busy day for us. I bet we slept well that night.
I think before we wipe out humanity (or just pick the ones we really like out of the bunch).
Some Scientist needs to invent and bread some Dragons and goblins then we let these Vhemt people stupefy everyone then we can all grab some swords and battle axes and slay each other for loot and treasure.
I do like that thought of that..
Some Scientist needs to invent and bread some Dragons and goblins then we let these Vhemt people stupefy everyone then we can all grab some swords and battle axes and slay each other for loot and treasure.
I do like that thought of that..
that... wasn't my point.TheBluesader said:
my point was that whenever we started to rise above the other animals and become self aware, aware that we could be better, we also realized (consciously or subconsciously) that with improvement comes greater pastime. a pastime that is currently not being utilized to its full potential.
I'm gutted here. I do believe there should be some sort of population control. Yes it's near nigh impossible to enforce and yes it may infringe on the individuals "freedoms" but fact of the matter is, we need less people. We've ended up in the exponential growth of population that has become unsustainable. In the short term, strategically, it may not be a bad idea.ElephantGuts said:
Having said that Kulkul's point is undeniable:
Because of the exponential growth we need more people to pay for the older generations survive. It's already evident that the generations following the baby-boomers are going to dole out the cash in form of taxes.Kukul said:
So from here there are two options 1) employ population control or 2) don't prolong the life of the elderly, let them go naturally. Now I'm bracing myself for a flaming but many live way beyond their years and are sucking up resources that could be used elsewhere. By no means should they cut their lives short or be refused treatment but perhaps just let them die rather than aggressively prolonging life.
The process of procreation is great, the aftermath is not. This "aftermath" can be avoided with a little preemptive intervention.pyromcr said:
A: god damn hippies
B: i do agree we should well... to quote someone from another thread "sew her snatch shut" i think it was the 6+8=outrage thread
I mean come on, we are mass producing to our deaths, and the deaths of thousands of animals in the process. I do agree w/ china right now by only being able to have 1 child... and I'm the second child in my family (don't kill me, the rule hasn't started yet =D)
B: i do agree we should well... to quote someone from another thread "sew her snatch shut" i think it was the 6+8=outrage thread
I mean come on, we are mass producing to our deaths, and the deaths of thousands of animals in the process. I do agree w/ china right now by only being able to have 1 child... and I'm the second child in my family (don't kill me, the rule hasn't started yet =D)
Those options really suck.
Why on Earth commit mass genocide of our own species?
I don't really see why people are so concerned about our impact on the environment. In the short term it does make a difference, but at this point, of all the species that have ever lived on the Earth there is less than 1% alive today. Also at one point life came from nothing, it's not like we're going to destroy all life in existance. In the long run it means fuck all, and our impact on everything will be insignificant.
Plus its not like you could ever inforce something like that decision. At least not without going against the whole infantcide/murder thing
Why on Earth commit mass genocide of our own species?
I don't really see why people are so concerned about our impact on the environment. In the short term it does make a difference, but at this point, of all the species that have ever lived on the Earth there is less than 1% alive today. Also at one point life came from nothing, it's not like we're going to destroy all life in existance. In the long run it means fuck all, and our impact on everything will be insignificant.
Plus its not like you could ever inforce something like that decision. At least not without going against the whole infantcide/murder thing
I'm not sure I understand your point about exponential growth and taxes. Are you saying that we require exponential growth in order to retain social institutions (like Social Security)? I hope you understand that the current crisis with social security and the baby boomers is the result pricely of non-exponential growth. If had continued to grow at the rate of our grand parents then there would be no problem in funding Social Security.Puppeteer Putin said:
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I have two points to make here:
Point #1: Population control is not as important as say, education in general.
Er, I'm looking for a chart I saw online. I'll edit my post if I find it. If you find it before me, please post it: It's a bar graph comparing educated to non-educated women in six or seven countries and the number of children the average woman is expected to have.
Essentially, people have studied the relationship between the number of children women have with no education and the number of children have with more education. The study compared a bunch of countries. In the USA and many western nations, there is still a trend (women with less than a high school diploma on average have something like 3.8 children), but is not as strong as it is in some developing nations, like Nigeria or Botswana or something. In those poorer African nations, uneducated women can be expected to have as many as 8-12 kids in their life time. However, high school educated women have half of that, and college educated women have even fewer.
All this implies that beyond sex education, distribution of contraceptives, etc, a better policy is just to increase the availability of education to women (especially). This is not only easier, but has many other practical applications as well (too much education can't be a bad thing, unless you're Big Brother).
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Point #2: Populations are starting to control themselves.
Exhibit A:
As I have previously stated, global population growth in the past few decades has slowed for the first time in human history. Global growth peaked 50-60 years ago with the Baby Boomers, and has since fallen. From 1940-1960 the human population tripled. Since then it has merely doubled (in twice as much time!). To be honest, I'm not particularly alarmed.
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To me, this implies that education and social instruction are much more useful and ethical then strict population control (look at the mess in China!) or something crazy like denying health care to the elderly.
No.
A) I'm not giving up sex thanks
B) What kind of crap is this??? Humans are, in fact, probably the best animl on earth. Think about it, we are many, many times more intelligent than everything else. But reading this you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.
A) I'm not giving up sex thanks
B) What kind of crap is this??? Humans are, in fact, probably the best animl on earth. Think about it, we are many, many times more intelligent than everything else. But reading this you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.
Actually we really should be partially alarmed, the declining birth rate is having a huge problem being that many people particuarly in britain are growing old and relying on pensions so the decling birth rate or settling birth rate is, or will have a huge problem with the economy. Either we should start killing off the old or stop pensions.Uszi said:Point #2: Populations are starting to control themselves.
Exhibit A:
As I have previously stated, global population growth in the past few decades has slowed for the first time in human history. Global growth peaked 50-60 years ago with the Baby Boomers, and has since fallen. From 1940-1960 the human population tripled. Since then it has merely doubled (in twice as much time!). To be honest, I'm not particularly alarmed.
I saw a similar if not so radical suggestion on a psychology forum, a fairly mature and intellectual place you'd think. The guy in question suggested a voluntary 'no more childbirth' for 5 years worldwide, in a bid to get some control over the population.
Looking at the comments section you'd have thought he'd demanded a cull of all children (which I probably still would have gone along with, heh).
Honestly, I'm happy I'm here, looking at the state of their comment section.
As for me, yeah, I did the decent thing and put on so much weight that I'm not getting any, therefore won't be adding to the population.
It's just a shame we can't get some education out to some of the third world countries and let them know they don't need to have more than a couple of kids any more.
I know children still die, but not to the extent of a few hundred years ago.
I don't think we need to be wiped out, but a pause on the growth might not hurt.
Looking at the comments section you'd have thought he'd demanded a cull of all children (which I probably still would have gone along with, heh).
Honestly, I'm happy I'm here, looking at the state of their comment section.
As for me, yeah, I did the decent thing and put on so much weight that I'm not getting any, therefore won't be adding to the population.
It's just a shame we can't get some education out to some of the third world countries and let them know they don't need to have more than a couple of kids any more.
I know children still die, but not to the extent of a few hundred years ago.
I don't think we need to be wiped out, but a pause on the growth might not hurt.
The biggest downside of a pause is that, after say a decade without reproduction, there will be a 10 year gap between this and the next generation. Worst will be the thing that generation has to deal with: people will start to drop like flies, with only a small club to clean up the mess (literally and figulary speaking). The world would collapse.SenseOfTumour said:
Anyway, yes we have to curb our population growth, or else humanity will buckle under itself. It's not the earth we have to worry about, that existed long before us and will exist long after us. Whatever we will do, the planet will recover, the question is: will we? With the current state of affairs, we're slowly destroying ourselfs.
Population growth can only be sustained by food production and resource surplus. One day our food supply will not be able to support so many people and a large chunk of the population will starve or kill each other over the available resources. Its called the Malthusian trap.
It's not pessimism, I'd have thought it was fairly obvious that increasing population causes decreasing resources and that that gradient is exponential. If we agree on that, is it too far a jump to say that this breeds increased competition for those resources? Lack of resources also leads to poor health, poverty, fighting, lawlessnes, corruption etc. This all seems common sense to me.bad rider said:
EDIT: I should just add that I'm not advocating voluntary euthanasia or sterilisation. I'd support a slowing of the birth rate through education and access to help. Unchecked the worlds headed for disaster but I've not gone wacko over it yet.
Those advocating the voluntary extinction of humanity are welcome to lead by example.
The rest of us will reap the benefits of a slowing birth rate that comes with the benefits of a higher standard of living. Western countries right now have birth rates well under replacement rates, and are growing only through immigration already. Access to modern economies (and birth control) mean that the benefit of having large families dwindles while the cost increases.
You don't need "one child" policies such as the one China imposed, or even movements like VHEMT. You just need to let women have access to contraceptives and everyone have access to clean water and fair markets. Population will return to a more reasonable figure soon thereafter.
-- Steve
The rest of us will reap the benefits of a slowing birth rate that comes with the benefits of a higher standard of living. Western countries right now have birth rates well under replacement rates, and are growing only through immigration already. Access to modern economies (and birth control) mean that the benefit of having large families dwindles while the cost increases.
You don't need "one child" policies such as the one China imposed, or even movements like VHEMT. You just need to let women have access to contraceptives and everyone have access to clean water and fair markets. Population will return to a more reasonable figure soon thereafter.
-- Steve