Setting aside the reductio ad absurdum of genocide, this is an unfortunately common viewpoint. People really need to take into account the chances their child might wind up working on science or technology which reduces global CO2 emissions or even captures CO2. This reasoning can be applied to all sorts of naive "more people bad" arguments. I can't imagine where the world would be if Norman Borlaug's parents had decided to never have kids out of concern for global food insecurity.

▲

freedomben 8 days ago | parent | next [-]

It also entirely subjugates the economic realities that we (at least currently) live in to the future health of the planet. I care a great deal about the Earth and our environment, but the more I've learned about stuff the more I've realized that anyone advocating for focusing on one without considering the impact on the other is primarily following a religion

▲

mapontosevenths 7 days ago | parent [-]

> It also entirely subjugates the economic realities that we...

To play devils advocate, you could be seen as trying to subjugate the worlds health to your own economic well-being, and far fewer people are concerned with your tax bracket than there are people on earth. In a pure democracy, I'm fairly certain the planets well being would be deemed more important than the economy of whatever nation you live in.

> advocating for focusing on one... is primarily following a religion

Maybe, but they could also just be doing the risk calculus a bit differently. If you are a many step thinker the long term fecundity of our species might feel more important than any level of short term financial motivation.

▲

freedomben 7 days ago | parent [-]

> To play devils advocate, you could be seen as trying to subjugate the worlds health to your own economic well-being, and far fewer people are concerned with your tax bracket than there are people on earth.

Well, if they choose to see me as trying to subjugate the world's health to my own economic well-being (despite the fact that I advocate policies that would harm me personally in the name of climate sustainability), then we're already starting the discussion from bad faith (literally they are already assuming bad faith on my part). I'm at the point where I don't engage with bad faith arguments because they just end up in frustration on both sides. This whole modern attitude of "if you disagree with me then you must be evil" thing is (IMHO) utter poison to our culture and our democracy, and the current resident of the White House is a great example of where that leads.

> In a pure democracy, I'm fairly certain the planets well being would be deemed more important than the economy of whatever nation you live in.

Yeah, for about 3 days until people start getting hungry, or less extreme, until they start losing their jobs and their homes, or even longer term when they start to realize that they won't be able to retire and/or that they are leaving their kids a much worse situation than they themselves had (much worse than the current dichotomy between Boomers and Millenials/Zoomers). Ignoring or disregarding Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a sure way to be surprised and rejected by the people. We know that even respectable people will often turn to violence (including cannabalism) when they get hungry or angry enough. We're not going to be able to save the planet if there's widespread violence.

> Maybe, but they could also just be doing the risk calculus a bit differently. If you are a many step thinker the long term fecundity of our species might feel more important than any level of short term financial motivation.

I think this actually pointed at our misunderstanding (I know you're playing devil's advocate so this isn't addressed to you personally, rather your current presentation :-) ). I'm not talking about short-term financial or even economic motivation. I'm looking medium to long term, the same scale that I think needs to be considered for the planet. Now that said, banning all fossil fuels tomorrow and causing sweeping global depression in the short-term is something I would radically oppose, because it would cause immense suffering and I don't believe it would make much of a dent in the climate long-term (as it would quickly be reversed under the realities of politics) and it would absolutely harm the lower income brackets to a much greater proportional extent than the upper income brackets who already have solar panels and often capable of being off-grid. Though, even they will still run out of food when the truck companies aren't able to re-stock local grocery store shelves...

	▲	mapontosevenths 7 days ago \| parent [-]
		> I'm at the point where I don't engage with bad faith arguments because they just end up in frustration on both sides. I agree, and that's almost exactly why I replied to your statement that anyone who saw it differently than you did was "just following a religion" (to slightly paraphrase). They aren't, they just have a different perspective on the situation and have just made different calculations regarding the risk/reward ratio. > Ignoring or disregarding Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a sure way to be surprised and rejected by the people. >I'm looking medium to long term, the same scale that I think needs to be considered for the planet. I don't think they ARE ignoring Maslow's hierarchy. It seems to me, that they just see the environmental destruction as being a more immediate concern than you do. You seem to have a "we'll fix it when it's more convenient" stance. That doesn't work for the folks who believe we'll all be starving within a decade or less, or who believe that it will NEVER be more convenient. To them this is near the top of the hierarchy. At the end of the day, I'm very much on your side of the argument. I think we do have some time to sort it out, and I suspect that we will eventually make significant progress towards those goals (despite modern Republicans Ostrich based approach to risk). However, I understand why other people disagree, and I respect that. There's even some science that agrees with the "sky is falling" crowd. It's certainly not a totally irrational stance.

▲

mapontosevenths 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> this is an unfortunately common viewpoint

Not everyone believes that the purpose of life is to make more life, or that having been born onto team human automatically qualifies team human as the best team. It's not necessarily unfortunate.

I am not a rationalist, but rationally that whole "the meaning of life is human fecundity" shtick is after school special tautological nonsense, and that seems to be the assumption buried in your statement. Try defining what you mean without causing yourself some sort of recursion headache.

> their child might wind up..

They might also grow up to be a normal human being, which is far more likely.

> if Norman Borlaug's parents had decided to never have kids

Again, this would only have mattered if you consider the well being of human beings to be the greatest possible good. Some people have other definitions, or are operating on much longer timescales.

▲

freejazz 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Insane to call "more people bad" naive but then actually try and account for what would otherwise best be described as hope.

	▲	inasio 7 days ago \| parent [-]
		The point is that you can go "from more people bad" to "less people good" in just a few jumps, and that is not great.

▲

Dylan16807 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> People really need to take into account the chances their child might wind up working on science or technology which reduces global CO2 emissions or even captures CO2.

All else equal, it would be better to spread those chances across a longer period of time at a lower population with lower carbon use.