• Pladermp@aussie.zone
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    1 year ago

    You said it was unconscionable to have children, so by your metric no-one should have children. If you’d like to walk that back and concede you were being hyperbolic feel free to so!

    Again, I agree with you, I agree that a smaller population would be a Good Thing. But the shock to society/civilisation of even a 50% reduction in birthrate could be just as savage as the impacts of climate change. We’d be back to encouraging elders to commit suicide rather than being a burden on society.

    I also think that there’s not a lot of point to civilisation if we aren’t aiming for people to be happy and fulfilled, and for a lot of people raising a family is the biggest contributor to their happiness and fulfillment. You dismissing that of hand and judging those people for wanting what makes them happy seems pretty mean and uncaring.

    The existence of theoretical solutions is very different from the probable solutions given the various complex competing interests and short-sighted myopia dominating the majority of decision makers.

    Again, I agree! But I do think that the existing technical solutions should be proof against the despair that you are peddling.

    • kromem@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      by your metric no-one should have children

      Yes, I agree, right now no one should have children. If in a decade we have benevolent AIs doing work for everyone and universal basic income and peace on Earth, this should probably be reassessed. But as of this moment right now, everyone should not have children. What I’m saying is that your argument this would have higher odds of disaster than other things is baseless as we both know that not everyone will stop having children even if they should.

      We’d be back to encouraging elders to commit suicide rather than being a burden on society.

      We literally already are back at that with some of what’s going on with the euthanasia program in Canada in practice, even if that wasn’t in the intended design.

      for a lot of people raising a family is the biggest contributor to their happiness and fulfillment

      Sure about that?

      Most people think of their children as making their lives better. Yet many studies have found that those without children value their lives more than those with children.

      I do think that the existing technical solutions should be proof against the despair that you are peddling.

      Well I’ll keep in mind that cures for cancer in mice should be proof against despair should anyone I know or love come down with it.

      • Pladermp@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        Well I’ll keep in mind that cures for cancer in mice should be proof against despair should anyone I know or love come down with it.

        Yes, if your loved one comes down with a cancer that can be cured by applying existing technologies, not ones that have been tested in mice, but ones that are currently being used successfully to treat patients you should not despair!

        Worry? Stress? Generally be concerned? Fucking riot if the government starts limiting/preventing access to that treatment? Yeah sure, that would be a healthy response. But despair? No way!

        • kromem@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Oh, so there are scalable technologies to bring climate change back to decades earlier levels in existence already and not just in theory in research? Is that what you’re claiming?

          • Pladermp@aussie.zone
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            1 year ago

            Not to reverse current climate change, but we aren’t living in the Mad Max reality just yet.

            But the technologies needed to seriously limit climate change and achieve Paris agreement commitments do exist. It’s really just employing solar, wind, and batteries at scale, electrifying what we can, and using biofuels for the rest.

            And the IPCC plans don’t require people to give up having families for a generation.