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[ChairmanPoo]

That takes so much work. Why not send the surplus children to a sausage factory and then feed the rest?
It would be easier, more efficient, and would create jobs

[NullForceOmega]

Look, I get exactly where you are coming from here, there are no good solutions to our civilization's woes.  But there are estimated to be around 153 million orphans worldwide, this number is obviously incomplete as many places that have major problems with orphans (China, most African nations) do not have reliable numbers to work with.  But even if you take a pretty liberal estimate of 300 million orphans globally, you aren't even coming close to population maintenance for the places on Earth that might actually be able to DO SOMETHING about these problems (tho' I sure as hell won't hold my breath for it.)  And we cannot afford to let our technological nations pull a Japan unless we really are willing to write off our civilization, which I am absolutely opposed to.

As far as the genocide option goes, I don't oppose this viewpoint entirely, but I also refuse to accept it unless all other options (of which there are painfully few and most are beyond unlikely to happen) are explored, attempted, and exhausted.

[Rowanas]

That takes so much work. Why not send the surplus children to a sausage factory and then feed the rest?
It would be easier, more efficient, and would create jobs

Goddamnit, I was, for a single post, trying to be a reasonable human being, and you go and suggest something that is unworkable.  We need to grind the -elderly- up into sausages, they're the ones fucking our economies to death.

Look, I get exactly where you are coming from here, there are no good solutions to our civilization's woes.  But there are estimated to be around 153 million orphans worldwide, this number is obviously incomplete as many places that have major problems with orphans (China, most African nations) do not have reliable numbers to work with.  But even if you take a pretty liberal estimate of 300 million orphans globally, you aren't even coming close to population maintenance for the places on Earth that might actually be able to DO SOMETHING about these problems (tho' I sure as hell won't hold my breath for it.)  And we cannot afford to let our technological nations pull a Japan unless we really are willing to write off our civilization, which I am absolutely opposed to.

I don't have enough data to refute your point, I can only say that I reckon we could maintain our civilisations with smaller population numbers. Don't know how much smaller, or if it's true, but there might be a study or two somewhere.

[ChairmanPoo]

That takes so much work. Why not send the surplus children to a sausage factory and then feed the rest?
It would be easier, more efficient, and would create jobs

Goddamnit, I was, for a single post, trying to be a reasonable human being, and you go and suggest something that is unworkable.  We need to grind the -elderly- up into sausages, they're the ones fucking our economies to death.

Have you smelled the elderly? Would you really like to eat that?
There is a reason why roast lamb is a popular dish and "roast mutton from the oldest sheep we found" isn't.

[NullForceOmega]

The problem is that we are already losing vital basic skills like machining and numerous other trades, this doesn't sound like a problem on the surface but those lower level skills are the foundation of the upper tier technologies, without an adequate (and adequately educated) population you cannot maintain that upper level tech indefinitely (in fact in just a few generations you start to regress), and automation doesn't help matters any.  There are absolute thresholds for the population needed to maintain a technological level.

This is exactly why Japan is throwing an absolute fit about it's population losses, they KNOW that they don't have enough children to replace the elderly skilled people they are going to lose soon.  That 153 million I cited above?  It would take half of that just to keep Japan's population stable.  This is a serious problem if we do want to try to fix anything, because our current tech won't be able to do it, we need the platform of all those people to let our scientists and engineers and (ugh) statesmen do their thing, or we cannot even attempt to deal with the problems.

[Il Palazzo]

Have you smelled the elderly? Would you really like to eat that?
There is a reason why roast lamb is a popular dish and "roast mutton from the oldest sheep we found" isn't.

Mmmyeah. Make the unwanted children wanted by bringing out their youthful scrumptiousness.
Just remember to buy free-range. It wouldn't be moral otherwise.

[Yoink]

We could enlist all the orphans. General Dav MacShoutington has enough paternal instinct to go 'round for the whole army.   

[dragdeler]

-snip-

[NullForceOmega]

Will you put that goddamn whetstone down and stop trying to sharpen that edge to monatomic?  It's never going to happen.

[George_Chickens]

My dad used to say "SLAUGHTER. SLAUGHTER. SLAUGHTER.". He's dead now. Hahaha, I like that.

[LordBaal]

My dad used to say "SLAUGHTER. SLAUGHTER. SLAUGHTER.". He's dead now. Hahaha, I like that.

Did he, on frequent basis took the skulls of his fallen enemies?

[Hanslanda]

My dad used to say "SLAUGHTER. SLAUGHTER. SLAUGHTER.". He's dead now. Hahaha, I like that.

Did he, on frequent basis took the skulls of his fallen enemies?

He put the laughter in slaughter.

"ARE YOU SCARED?!"
"Y-Y-YES... OH GOD..."
"Good. You're on scare tactics."
"...Really?"
"NO! *SPLAT* BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"

[Teneb]

The problem is that we are already losing vital basic skills like machining and numerous other trades, this doesn't sound like a problem on the surface but those lower level skills are the foundation of the upper tier technologies, without an adequate (and adequately educated) population you cannot maintain that upper level tech indefinitely (in fact in just a few generations you start to regress), and automation doesn't help matters any.  There are absolute thresholds for the population needed to maintain a technological level.

This is exactly why Japan is throwing an absolute fit about it's population losses, they KNOW that they don't have enough children to replace the elderly skilled people they are going to lose soon.  That 153 million I cited above?  It would take half of that just to keep Japan's population stable.  This is a serious problem if we do want to try to fix anything, because our current tech won't be able to do it, we need the platform of all those people to let our scientists and engineers and (ugh) statesmen do their thing, or we cannot even attempt to deal with the problems.

Clearly we should send all the world's orphans to Japan. It's the only way.

[ChairmanPoo]

Sausages teneb. Delicious organ sausages.

[Trekkin]

The problem is that we are already losing vital basic skills like machining and numerous other trades, this doesn't sound like a problem on the surface but those lower level skills are the foundation of the upper tier technologies, without an adequate (and adequately educated) population you cannot maintain that upper level tech indefinitely (in fact in just a few generations you start to regress), and automation doesn't help matters any.  There are absolute thresholds for the population needed to maintain a technological level.

This is exactly why Japan is throwing an absolute fit about it's population losses, they KNOW that they don't have enough children to replace the elderly skilled people they are going to lose soon.  That 153 million I cited above?  It would take half of that just to keep Japan's population stable.  This is a serious problem if we do want to try to fix anything, because our current tech won't be able to do it, we need the platform of all those people to let our scientists and engineers and (ugh) statesmen do their thing, or we cannot even attempt to deal with the problems.

I'd be interested in a source for any of that, particularly these "absolute thresholds."