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[ChairmanPoo]

No. Scientists are really suggesting that runaway effects will go in earnest by then.

https://www.livescience.com/ghastly-future-global-crises.html

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/01/210113144456.htm

None of this is likely to kill someone in a developed country in the next ten years. Longer than that? Yep. Right now? Nope.

You're wrong, of course. It's already killing bunches of people in the developed world

[Arx]

Sure. But not so that someone who isn't already feeling the effects can say they'll be dead in a decade so confidently they should quit their job.

[martinuzz]

We are too many.  I am starting to lean more and more to supporting a global limit of 1 child per person (so for a couple, that's two kids).
Enforced with mandatory contraceptives.
This will bring world population down, because there will be plenty enough people who have 1, or no children voluntarily.

It might sound bad, but the alternatives to cull human population (whether by the hands of man or by force of nature) are much much worse.

[ChairmanPoo]

We are too many.  I am starting to lean more and more to supporting a global limit of 1 child per person (so for a couple, that's two kids).
Enforced with mandatory contraceptives.
This will bring world population down, because there will be plenty enough people who have 1, or no children voluntarily.

It might sound bad, but the alternatives to cull human population (whether by the hands of man or by force of nature) are much much worse.

Jesus wept. And this from the guy that was decrying me as a totalitarian DDR sympathizer for supporting Taiwanese style virus suppression. 🙄

No offense, but have you ever considered that your worldviews might suffer from a lack of self-consistency? I don't see any way to reconcile decrying a lockdown during an immediate crisis as something abhorrently repressive and advocating goverment control of citizen's reproductive organs in the same breath.

[martinuzz]

I have never decried a lockdown. I am 100% in favour of stern measures, but with a limit, namely constitution and citizen's rights.
I have opposed your view that our governments don't do enough, yes. I consider our lockdown already pretty stern.

[Vector]

OK, well, this is going to sound really dumb, but he's worried about AI going amuck and is planning to work unpaid on controlling that somehow?

look, I never said that my friends were smart, just that the conversation made me sad

[Arx]

Honestly as far as things to cause me acute death in the next decade go I can certainly understand putting AI above climate change.

...I mean, I've spent enough time in AI research to really question whether that's the best use of his time unless the government is doing a really good job of keeping the fun stuff off arxiv, but one of these things is more predictable than the other.

[scriver]

I'm too dumb for AI to be any danger to me.

[Secretdorf]

OK, well, this is going to sound really dumb, but he's worried about AI going amuck and is planning to work unpaid on controlling that somehow?

look, I never said that my friends were smart, just that the conversation made me sad

He's been reading too many apocalyptic theory blogs like me.

[TD1]

namely constitution and citizen's rights.

....

What part of "state-run fertility police" isn't anathema to both constitution and citizens' rights? As they currently stand, of course.

[martinuzz]

I guess current constitution wouldn't allow it, no.
As for citizen's rights, it doesn't take away the right to have children and reproduce, it just puts a reasonable limit on it, so there is some planet left for the next generations.

[Rolan7]

Families in the USA are currently subsidized in many ways.  We could roll back some of those subsidies, particularly for large families, without infringing on anyone's rights (current children would obviously be "grandfathered in" to the subsidies.  For fairness, and also because it's *new* births we want to stop encouraging).

Far nicer *and* more effective is properly funding (and allowing, FFS) family-planning options and education.  Financial hardship hasn't historically stopped people from having children, but people tend to have smaller families when they're given the fair choice.

Also adoption should be generally encouraged and supported more than it already is.  It's a form of helping the community, and it should be seen as such.  Or we could just turn couples away for being LGBTQ I guess (fuck'n Trump...)

[Bumber]

Don't developed countries already have low birth rates? They need immigration to keep up with labor demand.

[MrRoboto75]

Don't developed countries already have low birth rates? They need immigration to keep up with labor demand.

Basically.

Most forms of pop control are "we need less people poorer than me" with a scooby doo villain mask on, anyways.

[Rolan7]

Don't developed countries already have low birth rates? They need immigration to keep up with labor demand.

Which is a win-win!  Immigrants get to share in the proceeds of colonialism (starting at the ground floor, for now, but megawealth is untenable), and global population growth evens out by choice rather than force, war, or die-off.  It's certainly better than Americans feeling pressured to have a half-dozen children to work their farms while exploiting other nations.

Edit:  THIS vvv!  Education is proven to help reduce family size far more than financial difficulty does.  Plus the access to family planning options too.