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Overpopulation: You get to cast the deciding vote.
Poll: Overpopulation is a serious problem and you get to cast the deciding vote. Which do you choose? This poll is closed.
It is more important that people can decide how many children they want to have, than that they can have enough food to eat. So I vote that there will be no forced restrictions on having children, and so millions of people will starve to death.
36.00%
9
36.00%
It is more important that people do not starve to death, than that they have the freedom to reproduce at will. So I vote that there will be forced restrictions on having children, and so people will be forcibly made sterile once they have children.
RE: Overpopulation: You get to cast the deciding vote.
July 11, 2015 at 6:05 pm
Pyrrho Wrote:
(July 11, 2015 at 4:26 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote: ...
Losing the right to bear children, as per context, is not the same as being tortured for life. Nor is being tortured for life as likely to happen as death, given certain variables, such as population growth and unavailability of resources.
I don't see what it brings to the conversation to point out that there might be worse things than death or extinction.
I was expressing disagreement with a principle that you claimed:
(July 11, 2015 at 12:07 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote: ...
If I had the choice between extinction and anything else at all, I would choose anything else. This is obviously the thing to do.
That is why it was brought up. If you believe your principle is irrelevant to the topic, why did you bring it up? And if it is relevant, then whether it is true or not is surely relevant.
That is not exactly a principle of mine, I may have omissed something so as not to make the mistake of pointing out the obvious. See what I mean?
Note: From now on, where I shall talk about extinction and survival I will also be implicitly making the reference to their individual counterparts, death and life, and vice versa, that is, unless otherwise stated. This is done for the purpose of intelligibility.
What I meant was, if I had the choice between extinction and survival, barring a scenario where survival would be undesirable overall, of course, I would choose the survival of the species. It is hard to imagine a scenario in which everyone's life would be hell, with no hope for redemption[excuse the reference to The Shawshank Redemption; big fan!], and it would be even harder to implement such a state of affairs in the current universe, what with its entropy principle and everything else. Some would say even impossible. But you seem to give it credibility, apparently.
Pyrrhp Wrote:
The best current scientific evidence suggests that everything will die. That is why I believe it.
Regardless, I will be dead anyway, so it is irrelevant to my life.
What scientific evidence suggests that everything will die? I know of no such evidence. Nor do I accept your eschatological premise. You sound like a religious nut.
You can't possibly know whether you'll ever die or not. And you won't ever know know, either, obviously.
Pyrrho Wrote:
I have over 500 "alerts." I ignore them.
Ok. I get why you do that, but how do you browse then, if I may ask?
It would be wonderful to get some tips, seeing how I'm a
RE: Overpopulation: You get to cast the deciding vote.
July 11, 2015 at 6:11 pm
(July 11, 2015 at 6:05 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote: What scientific evidence suggests that everything will die? I know of no such evidence. Nor do I accept your eschatological premise. You sound like a religious nut.
You can't possibly know whether you'll ever die or not. And you won't ever know know, either, obviously.
Everybody dies. Myself, probably of old age. Everybody else, when the sun dies. The universe is expanding at an accelerated rate which means that eventually it will not have enough localized energy to do any work, so no new stars and everything will just cool down and shut down. Everything ends eventually.
You make people miserable and there's nothing they can do about it, just like god.
-- Homer Simpson
God has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.
-- Superintendent Chalmers
Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. There are some things we don't want to know. Important things.
-- Ned Flanders
Once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral.
-- The Rev Lovejoy
RE: Overpopulation: You get to cast the deciding vote.
July 11, 2015 at 6:18 pm
(July 11, 2015 at 6:11 pm)IATIA Wrote:
(July 11, 2015 at 6:05 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote: What scientific evidence suggests that everything will die? I know of no such evidence. Nor do I accept your eschatological premise. You sound like a religious nut.
You can't possibly know whether you'll ever die or not. And you won't ever know know, either, obviously.
Everybody dies. Myself, probably of old age. Everybody else, when the sun dies. The universe is expanding at an accelerated rate which means that eventually it will not have enough localized energy to do any work, so no new stars and everything will just cool down and shut down. Everything ends eventually.
You might not die of old age. You might get treatment or medication to extend your life indefinitely.
Everyone might not die when the sun "dies". We might prevent that from happening in the future, or we might protect ourselves from it happening while at the same time inventing a way to sustain ourselves without the help of natural sunlight, or we might even travel to a new sun. You just don't know, do you?
Is that definitely the case, about the universe? Is it so sure a thing that there's absolutely no arguing about it? I doubt that.
RE: Overpopulation: You get to cast the deciding vote.
July 11, 2015 at 6:28 pm
(July 11, 2015 at 3:22 pm)KUSA Wrote: I think if we ever get to the point where forced sterilization is necessary we should start with people that have low IQ levels. Let the smart people have kids and let the stupid ones go extinct.
I was wondering when eugenics would make its appearance.
RE: Overpopulation: You get to cast the deciding vote.
July 11, 2015 at 6:35 pm
(July 11, 2015 at 6:05 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote: ...
Ok. I get why you do that, but how do you browse then, if I may ask?
It would be wonderful to get some tips, seeing how I'm a
Mostly, I click on "Today's Posts" and look at all of the pages on that, and on "My Posts" and look at each page until I encounter a page in which I have no unread threads.
I used to look at each forum that interested me individually, and occasionally still do that, but it is now fairly rare. Of course, to start a thread, I still do that.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
RE: Overpopulation: You get to cast the deciding vote.
July 11, 2015 at 6:40 pm
(July 11, 2015 at 6:28 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote:
(July 11, 2015 at 3:22 pm)KUSA Wrote: I think if we ever get to the point where forced sterilization is necessary we should start with people that have low IQ levels. Let the smart people have kids and let the stupid ones go extinct.
I was wondering when eugenics would make its appearance.
Yup, seems like the next logical step, in this sort of thinking. Scary stuff, if you ask me.
"Of course, everyone will claim they respect someone who tries to speak the truth, but in reality, this is a rare quality. Most respect those who speak truths they agree with, and their respect for the speaking only extends as far as their realm of personal agreement. It is less common, almost to the point of becoming a saintly virtue, that someone truly respects and loves the truth seeker, even when their conclusions differ wildly."
RE: Overpopulation: You get to cast the deciding vote.
July 11, 2015 at 6:45 pm (This post was last modified: July 11, 2015 at 6:46 pm by IATIA.)
(July 11, 2015 at 6:18 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote: You might not die of old age. You might get treatment or medication to extend your life indefinitely.
Not going to happen. I have a living will to eliminate that scenario or any others.
excitedpenguin Wrote:Everyone might not die when the sun "dies". We might prevent that from happening in the future, or we might protect ourselves from it happening while at the same time inventing a way to sustain ourselves without the help of natural sunlight, or we might even travel to a new sun. You just don't know, do you?
Without the sun, we have no energy and the sun will die because it is out of fuel. Will not be able to fix that.
excitedpenguin Wrote:Is that definitely the case, about the universe? Is it so sure a thing that there's absolutely no arguing about it? I doubt that.
Yes.
In the long run, humankind will be long gone anyway.
You make people miserable and there's nothing they can do about it, just like god.
-- Homer Simpson
God has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.
-- Superintendent Chalmers
Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. There are some things we don't want to know. Important things.
-- Ned Flanders
Once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral.
-- The Rev Lovejoy
RE: Overpopulation: You get to cast the deciding vote.
July 11, 2015 at 6:56 pm
(July 11, 2015 at 6:40 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:
(July 11, 2015 at 6:28 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote: I was wondering when eugenics would make its appearance.
Yup, seems like the next logical step, in this sort of thinking. Scary stuff, if you ask me.
And why do you think that is "the next logical step"? It certainly was not in my mind when I created this thread, which was a reaction to your response to my post in your thread in which you focussed on what I suggested was a bad last resort to avoid catastrophe.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
RE: Overpopulation: You get to cast the deciding vote.
July 11, 2015 at 7:00 pm
(July 11, 2015 at 6:35 pm)Pyrrho Wrote:
(July 11, 2015 at 6:05 pm)excitedpenguin Wrote: ...
Ok. I get why you do that, but how do you browse then, if I may ask?
It would be wonderful to get some tips, seeing how I'm a
Mostly, I click on "Today's Posts" and look at all of the pages on that, and on "My Posts" and look at each page until I encounter a page in which I have no unread threads.
I used to look at each forum that interested me individually, and occasionally still do that, but it is now fairly rare.
I do exactly that, except for the unread threads part. You mean you look until you encounter a page on which there's no threads you haven't kept up with, right? Your wording here is a little misleading. But thanks a bunch for that, I'll implement that ASAP =D [And I suppose this is done so as to ignore threads in which you would have to necropost in order to participate in, right?]
I used to look at each forum a lot, also. I gave up pretty quick, though, upon others reinforcing this feature(tnx becca!).
RE: Overpopulation: You get to cast the deciding vote.
July 11, 2015 at 7:04 pm (This post was last modified: July 11, 2015 at 7:10 pm by Catholic_Lady.)
(July 11, 2015 at 6:56 pm)Pyrrho Wrote:
(July 11, 2015 at 6:40 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: Yup, seems like the next logical step, in this sort of thinking. Scary stuff, if you ask me.
And why do you think that is "the next logical step"? It certainly was not in my mind when I created this thread, which was a reaction to your response to my post in your thread in which you focussed on what I suggested was a bad last resort to avoid catastrophe.
When we start treating people like cattle by forcefully taking away their basic rights by performing irreversible surgical operation on their bodies against their will, it can open up a whole can of worms. Eugenics being one of them.
And as PT and I both suspected would happen, someone already brought it up just a few pages into the thread.
EDIT TO ADD: And as you can see in the post made right after this one, a second person also seems to have no problem with it. I rest my case.
"Of course, everyone will claim they respect someone who tries to speak the truth, but in reality, this is a rare quality. Most respect those who speak truths they agree with, and their respect for the speaking only extends as far as their realm of personal agreement. It is less common, almost to the point of becoming a saintly virtue, that someone truly respects and loves the truth seeker, even when their conclusions differ wildly."
