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[EnigmaticHat]

What we need is Doctor Moreau technology so that we can decouple reproduction from population growth

_{Psst. It's called a condom.}

I didn't say decouple sex from population growth, I said to decouple actual reproduction from it. If we had the technology to - with drugs and surgery - make people out of something not inherently or genetically sapient like the animals in Doctor Moreau, and could somehow switch to the entire population being this then they could reproduce all they wanted because their offspring would be ordinary animals. Population would be determined exclusively by the application of the aforementioned surgery

...you realize that humans did and do systematically kill off most larger life forms that aren't affiliated with us?

Spoiler: obligatory XKCD (click to show/hide)

Yes, let's have babies only to immediately kill them/let them starve because there is increasingly no place in this world for non-human, non-livestock life larger than insects.

[Baffler]

I don't know about self-control, but we do have the increases in production. Take food. US corn yields have been increasing by nearly 20% every two years. That is an absurd amount of corn. It's lower every other year, I guess because of crop rotation, but the baseline has been going up in leaps and bounds since the late 70's. That's the green revolution, and since GM corn got on the market the rate has climbed even higher. Same story with soybeans, and wheat (no GM there though, so a slightly less ridiculous number), and most other food crops. Most of it gets turned into ethanol but that's beside the point. Farms are becoming more productive and are using less resources every year. America is the biggest example of this kind of success, but other countries are exhibiting the same phenomenon to one degree or another. Once the developing world joins the Green Revolution fully, and it will sooner or later, things will certainly improve dramatically.

And before you say that increasing food security in the developing world will just make birth rates go even higher, ethical concerns notwithstanding, consider the benefits food security brings. Poor nutrition is a major contributor to a lot of the causes of those birth rates. They'll undergo the shift, and the sooner they do, the better.

[TheBiggerFish]

What about the wheat blight whatever...?
Eh.  Temporary until we adjust...

[Putnam]

that's been a problem since WAAAAY before GM crops

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gros_Michel_banana

[Orange Wizard]

more tech will just spur more kids

Quite the opposite. Developed countries tend to have either low or negative population growth (barring immigration). More tech reduces kid production, probably because of better access to education and birth control.

[Willfor]

People, when faced with high child mortality, adopt the r-selection method because there's no guarantee that the one year old you have is going to make it. Birth control is only an effective option when enough children are living past childhood for each family to feel confident. It's family-based economics and access to birth control.

[Arcvasti]

Plus babbies are basically grow-your-own-workers-just-add-time-water-food-and-other-stuff that are more beholden to you then most other people. Which is often useful when you have personal manual labour needs to fill.

[Bohandas]

What we need is Doctor Moreau technology so that we can decouple reproduction from population growth

_{Psst. It's called a condom.}

I didn't say decouple sex from population growth, I said to decouple actual reproduction from it. If we had the technology to - with drugs and surgery - make people out of something not inherently or genetically sapient like the animals in Doctor Moreau, and could somehow switch to the entire population being this then they could reproduce all they wanted because their offspring would be ordinary animals. Population would be determined exclusively by the application of the aforementioned surgery

...you realize that humans did and do systematically kill off most larger life forms that aren't affiliated with us?

Spoiler: obligatory XKCD (click to show/hide)

Yes, let's have babies only to immediately kill them/let them starve because there is increasingly no place in this world for non-human, non-livestock life larger than insects.

I don't understand the relevance of that graphic to this discussion.

As for the other thing, as unmodified animals they could simply be kicked out into the wild - or kicked out at any rate, there's increasingly little wild handily available - as soon as they mature, which wouldn't be very long in the first place. Animals don't need houses; I've never seen Jimmy Carter talk about low-income housing for opossums, raccoons, and bobcats.

[EnigmaticHat]

What we need is Doctor Moreau technology so that we can decouple reproduction from population growth

_{Psst. It's called a condom.}

I didn't say decouple sex from population growth, I said to decouple actual reproduction from it. If we had the technology to - with drugs and surgery - make people out of something not inherently or genetically sapient like the animals in Doctor Moreau, and could somehow switch to the entire population being this then they could reproduce all they wanted because their offspring would be ordinary animals. Population would be determined exclusively by the application of the aforementioned surgery

...you realize that humans did and do systematically kill off most larger life forms that aren't affiliated with us?

Spoiler: obligatory XKCD (click to show/hide)

Yes, let's have babies only to immediately kill them/let them starve because there is increasingly no place in this world for non-human, non-livestock life larger than insects.

I don't understand the relevance of that graphic to this discussion.

As for the other thing, as unmodified animals they could simply be kicked out into the wild - or kicked out at any rate, there's increasingly little wild handily available - as soon as they mature, which wouldn't be very long in the first place. Animals don't need houses; I've never seen Jimmy Carter talk about low-income housing for opossums, raccoons, and bobcats.

No, they need habitats, of which there increasingly are none.  Certainly no new ones.  Why would you give birth to something only to immediately abandon it, when you could just not give birth in the first place?  I mean its basically the cruelest abortion ever, "let's create a living thing with a brain, not raise it on any level, and send it out into a world where almost all of the food is used by us".  Even if you find a "wild" to release it into, of which there are certainly not enough to support all the animals your plan would create, its still competing with the animals there at a distinct disadvantage.

Even ignoring the obvious ethical problems, there's an economy to pregnancy.  Every time a woman gets pregnant she gives up biological resources to the child, goes through a stressful experience, and risks complications that could potentially result in death.  Proper medical care can alleviate these consequences, but that's just pushing the buck.  Now society is giving up resources via the time of a doctor.  It costs very real resources to get pregnant.  Why would anyone go through that if they don't get a human offspring out of it?

So again, how is this any better than condoms?

[ArKFallen]

So again, how is this any better than condoms?

Because it makes the idea of pregnancy even worse and further reinforces the desire for birth control? It also makes abortion less disturbing because you would never have gotten anything more than a pet from it unless the government approved for your infant to be lobotomized into sentience.

I mean fuck, you indirectly answer your own question here:

It costs very real resources to get pregnant.  Why would anyone go through that if they don't get a human offspring out of it?

Sounds like effective birth control.

[Willfor]

Disincentivizing sex doesn't work. That's not the same thing as birth control either. If it sounds like effective birth control to you then you have a resounding lack of awareness of why we're having these issues in the first place. Throughout history, there was a good chance that if a woman got pregnant she flat out died. If chance of death is not an effective way to prevent pregnancy then there is no way you can make sex seem like something that people shouldn't be doing.

[ArKFallen]

Disincentivizing sex doesn't work. That's not the same thing as birth control either. If it sounds like effective birth control to you then you have a resounding lack of awareness of why we're having these issues in the first place. Throughout history, there was a good chance that if a woman got pregnant she flat out died. If chance of death is not an effective way to prevent pregnancy then there is no way you can make sex seem like something that people shouldn't be doing.

It isn't disincentivizing sex, it is doing so further to pregnancy while making post-conception birth control less disturbing. That is my first 2 sentences rewritten.

The last sentence responds to why you would ever want to be pregnant. The people who just wanted to try pregnancy still do so but the result isn't a person unless they lobby the government to lobotomize it into one.

Women are currently legally allowed to surrender babies to the government regardless of circumstance with no one else having say over the new person. This is because people could no longer take cleaning babies out of dumpsters. But if any children birthed could not be functional people anyway without brain surgery...

[Reelya]

Western people already breed at less than replacement levels. Immigration is the only thing preventing declines already. "Everyone is breeding like rabbits" is bullshit, sorry that's just a made up problem that doesn't match the reality of the issues. USA, UK, Australia are on the high-end of advance Western nation's fertility rates, and none of them even produce enough babies to replace the previous generation now.

[Arx]

'Peaceful' march to Parliament seems to have gone to hell. Rubber bullets and stun grenades allegedly fired, after protesters stormed the Parliamentary precinct. Apparently there are police clashing with police. The EFF has been evicted from Parliament itself for disruptive behaviour after constantly chanting 'fees must fall'. Apparently bricks thrown. No-one actually knows what's going on. I'm not sure, but there may be protesters fighting protesters.

Welcome to South Africa, where if you don't get instant gratification you're allowed to throw a tantrum and resort to violent force first thing. This is like something out of a bad book or movie.
 
Edit: oh hey, now tear gas has been used. Just waiting for someone to die. Maybe people will actually come back to their senses then.

Edit:

Struggle hero Frank Chikane's son, Kgotsi surrounded by police at Parliament.

The irony is thick enough to choke on.

They should drag them out of parliament

I am praying that this person isn't in the crowd.

Edit: The crowd seems a lot less angry right now. Hope it sticks, don't think anyone's been seriously injured. Edit: hahaha ten more flashbangs, or so it seems, maybe not.

Hopefully final edit: They got what they wanted.

Minister Blade Nzimande is attempting to (finally) address students outside Parliament but singing makes it impossible to hear

Ladies, gentlemen, and others, South Africa.

[i2amroy]

Western people already breed at less than replacement levels. Immigration is the only thing preventing declines already. "Everyone is breeding like rabbits" is bullshit, sorry that's just a made up problem that doesn't match the reality of the issues. USA, UK, Australia are on the high-end of advance Western nation's fertility rates, and none of them even produce enough babies to replace the previous generation now.

USA is actually right about at the replacement rate since while our rates dipped in the 1970's, unlike Europe our rates then actually increased instead of flat-lining downwards to the 1.3/1.5 level. There's several reasons for this, such as high immigrant fertility rates, more religiousity, and the simple fact that we don't need to care about overpopulation as much because we have so much dang land per person still. On average our population density is still only about 1/3rd that of Europe's, whether you are looking at the entire European continent or just western Europe, specifically.