Some simple facts about the future people would rather not face

[Disco Pickle]

Pickle, do you think the choice that Pent puts forward is a false dichotomy?
what would you suggest?
because tick tock tick tock

I do think it is a false choice.  I can't remember the exact term for the type of argument you're making P3nt but LMNO probably knows it.  You're saying there's only 2 options and putting forth yours as the only reasonable solution when there are others. 

Look, I get it, there's a severe problem maintaining a survivable ecosystem for a dominant species with no natural predators and I have said before somewhere else here that a population of people that doesn't choose to control it's own expansion and breeding leaves the door open for the state to eventually step in and do it for them.

I'm not sure what the solution is.  I'll give it some thought and come back tomorrow, it's quitting time.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

Well the question really comes down to this.  At what point does the survival of humanity as a whole outweigh the survival of individuals?

In order to ensure the survival of humanity, are any steps necessary acceptable?  How is euthenasia or sterilization any worse when if things like that are not at some point enforced everyone is going to die anyway?

I am no advocating either sterilization or euthenasia.  I do think however that a child limit is going to have to be put in effect or we all (well our descendents) are never going to have a chance!

[LMNO]

Pickle, do you think the choice that Pent puts forward is a false dichotomy?
what would you suggest?
because tick tock tick tock

I do think it is a false choice.  I can't remember the exact term for the type of argument you're making P3nt but LMNO probably knows it. 

(it's most likely some variation on a false dilemma... but only if you can provide a well-founded third scenario)

[P3nT4gR4m]

Well the question really comes down to this. At what point does the survival of humanity as a whole outweigh the survival of individuals?

In order to ensure the survival of humanity, are any steps necessary acceptable?  How is euthenasia or sterilization any worse when if things like that are not at some point enforced everyone is going to die anyway?

I am no advocating either sterilization or euthenasia.  I do think however that a child limit is going to have to be put in effect or we all (well our descendents) are never going to have a chance!

The crux of the matter and why I'm convinced that humanity is pretty much fucked. The answer to your question is never or, to be more accurate, so rarely as to be practically nil. Most people only think of themselves as part of the human race until it becomes mildly inconvenient for them to do so. That's why they insist on driving the 2 minute walk to the shop, despite the fact that they've been told it kills the ozone layer. Short of the whole world being overtaken by a benevolent dictator (yeah right) this will not change. The human capacity for burying it's head in the sand is truly limitless and they will always choose a minutes luxury now in exchange for a thousand years of torment and hell starting a couple of years from now.

I mean for fuck sake, we're talking about how to limit population growth and the best we can come up with is clubbing babies to death or mass castration. It should be as simple as making an announcement - "hey guise, we need to stop breeding or we're all going to fucking die" if that simple step isn't enough to solve the problem instantly then your race is too fucking retarded to survive. Mass extinction is better than they deserve

[Kai]

What I don't understand is why so many people would rather there be MORE PEOPLE than a sustainable population. What, exactly, are the benefits of having more people? Why is it treated like a tsunami, uncontrollable and unaddressable, rather than as something fundamentally easier to solve than the problems of disease, shortage, and famine?

This really is the crux right here. But whenever I bring up mandatory birth control, everyone looks at me funny.

[P3nT4gR4m]

What I don't understand is why so many people would rather there be MORE PEOPLE than a sustainable population. What, exactly, are the benefits of having more people? Why is it treated like a tsunami, uncontrollable and unaddressable, rather than as something fundamentally easier to solve than the problems of disease, shortage, and famine?

This really is the crux right here. But whenever I bring up mandatory birth control, everyone looks at me funny.

What the intelligent, sentient minority tend to overlook is that we're dealing with the strongest urge on the face of the planet. Crystal meth? Heroin? Nicoteen? Food? mere trifling casual interests when compared to the reproductive imperative. So it stands to what loosely passes for reason on this ball of shit that the enabling of this crazed fucking urge will be held as more sacrosanct than the survival of our very species as a whole. Remember - every baby is a bona-fide miracle^tm No, not a bog standard chemical reaction like the intelligent observer may be mistaken for thinking but rather an honest to fuck MIRACLE and sacred and mystical and given to us by GOD.

Any attempt to interfere with this holy miracle happening, over and over, until we're all being crushed under the sheer weight of this multicellular epiphany, is quite obviously the work of the devil, or fascists, or terrorists or some such equally dumb superstition.

[Disco Pickle]

Pickle, do you think the choice that Pent puts forward is a false dichotomy?
what would you suggest?
because tick tock tick tock

I do think it is a false choice.  I can't remember the exact term for the type of argument you're making P3nt but LMNO probably knows it.  

(it's most likely some variation on a false dilemma... but only if you can provide a well-founded third scenario)

That sounds like it.  I seem to recall either you or Dok using the latin form somewhere else but it's not important.

Honestly, my own ideas on what to do sound pretty brutal or "inhumane" when I say them but it's nothing different than what happens all over the planet with every other species.   The biggest problem as I see it is that we've tried to take as much of nature out of the life cycle of humans as possible.   We're trying to extend it, we're trying to eradicate viruses that would naturally keep our population in check, etc. etc.  In doing so we're even helping open ourselves up to mutations that could be even more deadly and threatening.  We're trying to remove the natural checks that exist in some vain hope that we'll what, eventually live forever?  Someone else here said once that overpopulation was a self correcting problem and I agree with that except we're trying to "fix" things with science that evolution took care of before us.


So let's look at some of the things we'd likely be forced to accept if we DID have state sanctioned breeding only.  

 1. Likely only the educated will be allowed to breed.  That also means only the ones who can afford to be educated can breed.  It should  
     soon follow that only those with wealth will be able to breed.  

 2. Have a family history of conginital health defects? Heart disease? Alcoholism? ANYTHING at all that might cause you to die early or breed  
     someone else who has these problems?  Well you're right out as a breeder.  You see, in our tightly controlled system of births we can't  
     have diseases and defects appearing in the select breeding population or we're likely to breed ourselves out of existence.   You might
     even say that what we really need is a "master race" or "races" of humans able to carry the rest of you into our sustainable future.  

 3. We're going to have to adopt the Chinese model of internet filtering, only it has to be world wide and god help you if you're caught going
     around the "Global Firewall."  It's really for your own protection.  Since it will take the better part of 100 years (at an estimate) to bring
     rogue breeding populations to heel (using whatever means necessary.  Remember, we're the enlightened ones trying to preserve our world
     for the future) we can't have anyone spreading images and information about these rebel breeders, infecting the civilized people with their
     lies about "freedom" and "family"



That's just a few that popped into my head but I've got a few more bouncing around that I haven't quite pinned down into words yet.

But really, if we're going to be fair about it, (totalitarian systems are only ever fair and NEVER abused by the ones running the show)
let's just take the entire premise of Logan's Run and make it our reality.

21 years is all you get.  Hope you enjoy it.  

Really, your sacrifice it's for the good of all.

[Doktor Howl]

But really, if we're going to be fair about it, (totalitarian systems are only ever fair and NEVER abused by the ones running the show)
let's just take the entire text of Logan's Run and make it our reality.

It's what humans deserve.

[Disco Pickle]

But really, if we're going to be fair about it, (totalitarian systems are only ever fair and NEVER abused by the ones running the show)
let's just take the entire text of Logan's Run and make it our reality.

It's what humans deserve.

(FTR I edited to change text to premise)

Really, it's the only fair solution.  Breed all you want because you're now the human equivalent of the mayfly, enforced by law.  

You're Your children better grow up FAST.  

[f'xd]

[Doktor Howl]

But really, if we're going to be fair about it, (totalitarian systems are only ever fair and NEVER abused by the ones running the show)
let's just take the entire text of Logan's Run and make it our reality.

It's what humans deserve.

(FTR I edited to change text to premise)

Really, it's the only fair solution.  Breed all you want because you're now the human equivalent of the mayfly, enforced by law. 

You're children better grow up FAST. 

Oh, DP, you disappoint me so.

Grammatical butchery aside, I'm not too worried about my kids. 

[Disco Pickle]

But really, if we're going to be fair about it, (totalitarian systems are only ever fair and NEVER abused by the ones running the show)
let's just take the entire text of Logan's Run and make it our reality.

It's what humans deserve.

(FTR I edited to change text to premise)

Really, it's the only fair solution.  Breed all you want because you're now the human equivalent of the mayfly, enforced by law. 

You're children better grow up FAST. 

Oh, DP, you disappoint me so.

Grammatical butchery aside, I'm not too worried about my kids. 

Yeah sorry, I do that when I type fast and don't really re-read it.  I know better.

[Doktor Howl]

But really, if we're going to be fair about it, (totalitarian systems are only ever fair and NEVER abused by the ones running the show)
let's just take the entire text of Logan's Run and make it our reality.

It's what humans deserve.

(FTR I edited to change text to premise)

Really, it's the only fair solution.  Breed all you want because you're now the human equivalent of the mayfly, enforced by law. 

You're children better grow up FAST. 

Oh, DP, you disappoint me so.

Grammatical butchery aside, I'm not too worried about my kids. 

Yeah sorry, I do that when I type fast and don't really re-read it.  I know better.

Heh.  As an aside, the epitaph for our species should be "We Knew Better".

Seriously, I have precisely no further interest in the welfare of the human species.  99% of them are too stupid to breathe, and the other 1% are uniformly bastards. 

H.L. Mencken was a pollyanna little punk.

[Cain]

What I don't understand is why so many people would rather there be MORE PEOPLE than a sustainable population. What, exactly, are the benefits of having more people? Why is it treated like a tsunami, uncontrollable and unaddressable, rather than as something fundamentally easier to solve than the problems of disease, shortage, and famine?

Population growth tends to add to economic growth, which adds to military potential, which makes your dick bigger.

Also certain welfare and social programs to which we have become accustomed fail if the population starts to shrink.

[Cain]

What I don't understand is why so many people would rather there be MORE PEOPLE than a sustainable population. What, exactly, are the benefits of having more people? Why is it treated like a tsunami, uncontrollable and unaddressable, rather than as something fundamentally easier to solve than the problems of disease, shortage, and famine?

I like the idea of less people, I'm just not sure how we could do that ethically.

The most effective way of limiting populations is also the most ethical; with education and relief from hardship.

Yup.  When literacy and earnings reach certain points, birthrate drops off drastically.

Unfortunatey, in this post Lehman Brothers world, those two programs are first in line for "austerity cuts".  Foreign aid, which usually goes towards those two goals in foreign countries, coming in third.

[Disco Pickle]

But really, if we're going to be fair about it, (totalitarian systems are only ever fair and NEVER abused by the ones running the show)
let's just take the entire text of Logan's Run and make it our reality.

It's what humans deserve.

(FTR I edited to change text to premise)

Really, it's the only fair solution.  Breed all you want because you're now the human equivalent of the mayfly, enforced by law. 

You're children better grow up FAST. 

Oh, DP, you disappoint me so.

Grammatical butchery aside, I'm not too worried about my kids. 

Yeah sorry, I do that when I type fast and don't really re-read it.  I know better.

Heh.  As an aside, the epitaph for our species should be "We Knew Better".

Seriously, I have precisely no further interest in the welfare of the human species.  99% of them are too stupid to breathe, and the other 1% are uniformly bastards. 

H.L. Mencken was a pollyanna little punk.

Funny thing is right after I typed that, I had a similar thought, that we know better.  I mean don't we?

Then I laughed at that bit of absurdity and didn't bother sharing it.

We need a tombstone WOMP for humanity now though.