lolcatnip

I'm so tired of the "overpopulation is a eugenicist talking point" argument. Just because a group of nasty people see a potential problem and propose inhumane solutions for it doesn't mean the problem itself isn't real. There's nothing unethical about acknowledging that an ecosystem can only support a certain quantity of an organism in a sustainable way. If people are allowed to pursue their natural desire to have a comfortable lifestyle, the world can't sustain the population we have. Regardless of what anyone wants, some combination of three things will happen:

1. The human population will decrease dramatically.
2. The average standard of living will decrease dramatically.
3. We discover ways to dramatically improve the standard of living that can be maintained in a sustainable way.

Most people focus on #3, but I see no way, in timeframe we have available, to even come close to achieving what's needed to prevent a total ecological collapse that way. We're on track to see 1 and 2 happen. The only people who make it through relatively unscathed will be the ones with the most access to resources (i.e. wealth), so by allowing wealth inequality to exist, we're effectively choosing to cull the poor, which is not meaningfully different from eugenics. But without extreme authoritarian measures, we also can't stop people from trying to improve their lifestyles in unsustainable ways. OTOH there are mountains of evidence showing that, just by educating women and letting them have bodily autonomy, we can completely halt population growth.

I fear it's too late, though for that to save us, because the world population is already far too big. We probably can't convince enough people to stop reproducing to bring the population down fast enough, and even if we could, it would cause a demographic collapse where they're aren't enough young people to support the elderly population.

In short, I think we're fucked, but it would be really nice if the survivors would remember that we got here in part through unchecked population growth, and that it could be prevented from happening again by people voluntarily limiting their reproduction. We as a species are remarkably resistant to leaning though, so I didn't have high hopes on that front either.

It's very relevant. Wars are still mostly fought by troops on the ground, and you have to be able to get them to the place you want to invade. About the only other option is to try to physically destroy a hostile country with nuclear weapons, but that's pretty much guaranteed to be disastrous for all parties involved.

Before or after they put boots on the ground to "liberate America from liberal tyranny"?

Right, defending allies is sooo edgy.

The worst cops aren't always where you'd expect. Cops in Seattle and Austin are atrocious, for example, but Dallas, despite generally being much more conservative, has a much more professional police force in my experience.

It's adorable that you think Canadians would be allowed to vote. I'm not even sure Americans will be allowed to vote much longer.

The smugness of parents who say people who choose differently are selfish is a great example of how parenthood can make someone a worse person.

It's not guaranteed you'll enjoy it or be good at it. That would be a huge gamble to take with my own life, but if there's a kid involved I'm gambling with their life, too. I could never do something like that in good conscience.

And you sober up after a while and gain the ability to evaluate whether the experience was worthwhile. I'd try being a parent if I only had to commit to about 12 hours of it at a time.

My parents took me to a lot of places as a kid to make good memories for me. It didn't work. My whole childhood is mostly just a big blur in my memory.

So nobody can arrive at any conclusions about complex topics? That's like saying we can't quantify global warning because climate science is complex.