Submitted by [deleted] in lobby (edited )

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n_n wrote (edited )

Reply to comment by shanc in by !deleted20673

When political movements or leaders adopt population control as a central concern … let’s just say it never goes well. In practice, where you find concern over “population,” you very often find racism, xenophobia, or eugenics lurking in the wings. It’s almost always, ahem, particular populations that need reducing.

If your concern is the creation of new consumers and emitters, your gaze should be drawn to those who will consume and emit the most, i.e., the wealthy.

Population is a factor in environmental impact but is the least influential part.. The problem is the over overconsumption in wealthy countries.. Here in Latin America the wealthy capitalists are imposing forced sterilization in indigenous people backed by the eugenic myth of overpopulation, as I said. And by promoting that myth you are also accomplice.

I want to hear what u/Tequila_wolf and u/Ziq, who shared the article that you posted, have to said about this.

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ziq wrote (edited )

You want to know what I think about the article or the overpopulation argument?

It's not constructive to talk about overpopulation because it empowers the filthy rich eugenicists like Bill Gates, who have lots of children themselves but then insist poor (PoC) people need to stop reproducing. Then he funds shady efforts to curb PoC populations and tours the world in a private jet lecturing the poor to stop breeding.

Meanwhile his little trust fund brats are erecting gigantic mansions all over the world, cruising around on their yachts and jets, paving over their private islands, burning millions of tons more carbon than a single poor kid in the global South ever will.

Doesn't matter whether or not it's true that an ecosystem can only support so many humans, focusing on it only hurts vulnerable people and lets the billionaire industrialists make scapegoats of them. Workers are forced to huddle together on marginal land around industrial areas to try and survive. The rich forced them onto that land. The rich took away our ability to be self sufficient and autonomous and regenerative because none of those things make them money or give them control over us.

It's an easy trap to fall into when you look at the decimated ecosystems that have been stripped of all non-human life, but remember that the rich forced people to live this way, to ensure everyone would have no choice but to work for them. The rich made this mess and the best way to alleviate harm to our ecosystems is to remove the rich from the equation and shutter their enterprises so we no longer need to huddle around industrial cities begging for their scraps to survive.

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n_n wrote (edited )

You want to know what I think about the article or the overpopulation argument?

All discussed by me and manc, I calling for your mediation.

Also I will want to add that when humans practice a sustainable ways of living the ecosystem benefit greatly, in this system the population is unsustainable, but the culprit is the system.

edit: a word

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ziq wrote (edited )

You don't need mediation for a simple disagreement. Just don't yell at each other is all.

Something I've also been thinking about lately is a BBC report I heard about how hazelnut farmers in Turkey will have 10 or more children because every child can pick x nuts. The more children they have, the more profit they'll make under capitalism. They literally see their children in terms of a direct monetary value. Capitalism does that, without capitalism, they would have no need to grow and pick more hazelnuts than they'd need to feed themselves.

The same thing happened after WW2 when the Western states incentivized everyone to have large families to create workers to replace all the ones that died in the war (and to build new factories to equip new wars now that they realized how profitable war was).

Capitalism in its early stages directly creates baby booms because it needs a large work force. Then in its late stages like modern Western nations, the workforce is rapidly obsolete and the capitalists instead look to cull them.

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shanc wrote

Population is a factor in environmental impact

the eugenic myth of overpopulation

Which one is it? Is it a factor, or is it a myth?

I want to hear what ... who shared the article that you posted, have to said about this.

All rise, the court is in session...

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n_n wrote

It's a myth that overpopulation is causing climate change, mass extinction and other environmental issues.

You said:

I believe there are too many people in the world.

I'd like fewer people and more animals.

You said that and implied that because there are to many people there are fewer animals. You didn't talk about the system or overconsumption. You said specifically that you agreed with Prince William, a member of the nobility from an imperialist country which is one of the principal responsible for the ecological devastation in the world.

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shanc wrote

It's a myth that overpopulation is causing climate change, mass extinction and other environmental issues

I thought population was a factor in all of the above? I mean if there were no people there'd be literally none of those problems...

You said specifically that you agreed with Prince William, a member of the nobility

Would the court permit me to agree with the same words if they were said by, say, the author of Desert?

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n_n wrote

I said population is a factor in the way that the system works, I agree what u/Ziq said with their examples.

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ziq wrote

the world has the population it does because of civilization / industrialism / capitalism. without those things, the population would revert to its pre-industrial numbers because humans would no longer be the disposable commodities needed to power industry. our lifestyles would revert to being regenerative like the rainforest peoples instead of isolating, disconnected and destructive. we'd live as part of our ecosystems instead of safely above them encased in concrete boxes, so we'd feel everything done to the ecosystem like it was done to our own bodies and react accordingly

right now we've been forcibly cut off from our ecosystems so they can be exploited and so we can be exploited

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n_n wrote (edited )

Population is a result and not the cause is what I'm saying. There is also the issue with food waste.

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ziq wrote

When ppl ping me I just say a bunch of stuff about the topic, wasn't in response to anything you said really.

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n_n wrote

I agree with what you are saying. I just wanted to add that. ^_^

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shanc wrote

Glad we can all agree there are too many people in the world.

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n_n wrote (edited )

When we agree with that? You still aren't reading what we are saying.

Ziq said:

It's not constructive to talk about overpopulation because it empowers the filthy rich eugenicists

Doesn't matter whether or not it's true that an ecosystem can only support so many humans, focusing on it only hurts vulnerable people and lets the billionaire industrialists make scapegoats of them.

The rich made this mess and the best way to alleviate harm to our ecosystems is to remove the rich from the equation and shutter their enterprises so we no longer need to huddle around industrial cities begging for their scraps to survive.

the world has the population it does because of civilization / industrialism / capitalism. without those things, the population would revert to its pre-industrial numbers because humans would no longer be the disposable commodities needed to power industry.

Nobody agreed with you saying that there are many people in the world. We said that is irrelevant how many people are because there are not the cause of the problem. I'm not going to keep discussing with you since you don't pay attention to what we are saying.

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shanc wrote

Glad we can all agree there aren't enough people in the world

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[deleted] wrote (edited )

−3

shanc wrote

I'm just going to assume you're a FaCiSt who wants to kill people and I'll make sure to tell everyone you are.

Please don't! I'll tow the party line in the future, I promise! Just to confirm, was the correct opinion 'there are an optimal number of people in the world'?

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