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Blackcap wrote (edited )

Reply to comment by RespectWomen in Why Anti-Civ? by Defasher

Could 8 billion be sustained thusly? Almost certainly not, which I would contend is an excellent argument that human population is presently too large.

Overpopulation is nonsense, and anticaps have known that for a long time. Here’s just one example.

Why is it "nonsense"? It's a value judgement, that the human population is higher than one believes it ought to be.

All you've attempted to show is that it's possible to maximize the human population beyond current numbers and still feed everyone. That's begging several hidden premises, perhaps the most significant one being that the human population ought to be maximized.

The more land and resources that are used to sustain humans, the less there is available for other life forms. The more the Earth is subjugated into supporting humans, the less human freedom there is to head out to the hinterlands and start ones own society. In fact, that latter freedom has almost completely vanished.

How is it compatible with anarchism to assert that other life forms and the planet itself exist solely to be subjugated into supporting the needs of just one species, just because that one species can (possibly; and it's not looking good on that) get away with said effort? That sounds like the very definition of an authoritarian attitude.

And before the standard anti-anti-civ strawman is trotted out, no, I don't want to go all Pol Pot and launch a massive global genocide.

We already know that. It’s not genocide in the trust meaning of the word, it’s billions dying from the absence of medicine and insufficient food.

Did you even read what I went on to say, or were you so busy assuming that I was an evil or ignorant anti-civ anarchist that you went on to trot out that tired strawman?

I hope that your antinatalist campaign goes well.

In many ways, it is. Birth rates are already dropping. It's been shown time and time again that if women are given access to birth control and the right to use it, they typically choose to do so.

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RespectWomen wrote

Why is it "nonsense"? It's a value judgement, that the human population is higher than one believes it ought to be.

Doesn’t that prove my point?

All you've attempted to show is that it's possible to maximize the human population beyond current numbers and still feed everyone. That's begging several hidden premises, perhaps the most significant one being that the human population ought to be maximized.

I’m uninterested in maximising the human population.

The more land and resources that are used to sustain humans, the less there is available for other life forms. The more the Earth is subjugated into supporting humans, the less human freedom there is to head out to the hinterlands and start ones own society.

Then don’t seize land or resources unless the people agree to it.

In fact, that latter freedom has almost completely vanished.

I’m unsure where you are, but I doubt that we’ve used up that much area. In Britain, quite a bit is still left. (And yes, I know that the mainstream media is trash, but it’s not consistently useless.)

How is it compatible with anarchism to assert that other life forms and the planet itself exist solely to be subjugated into supporting the needs of just one species, just because that one species can (possibly; and it's not looking good on that) get away with said effort?

It’s not. We need to minimise our exploitation of other animals as much as possible.

Did you even read what I went on to say, or were you so busy assuming that I was an evil or ignorant anti-civ anarchist that you went on to trot out that tired strawman?

I did, but does it really matter what I tell you when you can just make up things?

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Blackcap wrote (edited )

How is it compatible with anarchism to assert that other life forms and the planet itself exist solely to be subjugated into supporting the needs of just one species, just because that one species can (possibly; and it's not looking good on that) get away with said effort?

It’s not. We need to minimise our exploitation of other animals as much as possible.

But, that's the hidden premise in most all arguments that human population isn't a problem. Those arguments inevitably proceed by making claims that it's technologically possible to support not only the current population, but even more people.

It's being argued that population isn't a problem because it's possible to exploit the earth to support that many people (at a given level of affluence). Therefore by those standards population won't be a problem until the earth is maxed out. There's an implicit belief here that the entire earth belongs to one species (us) and it's OK to attempt to completely subjugate it to those ends.

Whether or not it's technologically possible to sustain a given amount of humans is far less relevant to the question of what the human population ideally should be than many people believe it is. (It still has some relevance, of course, but it's hardly the only relevant issue.)

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RespectWomen wrote

Good news for you: I’m uninterested in increasing the human population. I don’t like being around little kids. You can calm down now.

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ziq wrote

I doubt that we’ve used up that much area.

Just because there is land that has yet to be developed, doesn't mean we should be developing it. That's the opposite of what we should be doing at this juncture.

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