Overpopulation: You get to cast the deciding vote.

[Pyrrho]

@Pyrrho, have you replied to my longest post? If so, could you link me (because I can't find)? If not, could you please reply?

Here you go:

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Neither way inherently would mean that humanity would die out.  When animal populations become too great, the natural result is not necessarily extinction.  But it does mean things like starvation for many individuals.

Indeed it means, and it is already happening - Particularly in countries where resources are scarce and the economy doesn't work.

Do you seriously want me to give a response to that?  Are you advocating that as a solution to overpopulation?  Is that what you would like, and wish that I had that as a poll option?

I wouldn't favor that solution - Obviously - But why not? The cost for implementing a measure monitoring how many offspring people have is so high that in the long run it wouldn't compensate us - Financially - You are concerned about overpopulation and how to counter the problem, and since you are perfectly ok with controlling people's lives to the highest degree and even support forced sterilization, I don't see how executing people would be less valid - Both measures are characteristic of authoritarian States, and ultimately it's about a cost/opportunity ratio to determine what's best.

The reason to not favor that solution is because it is probably the most immoral choice.  The idea is to take the least objectionable action, not to be the most efficient or necessarily the easiest option.  The scenario is based on the idea that other methods, that were less objectionable, were tried, but were not adequate to deal with the problem.

I object to your characterization of this as "controlling people's lives to the highest degree".  There is no indication of any abridgment of free speech or any other unrelated right.  It is focussing on one thing and one thing only, for a particular purpose.  And it is only selecting it as a last resort, not as something inherently desirable.  Indeed, the setup is based on the idea that it is a bad thing to try to force people to not have children, as otherwise it would not be a "last resort" type of strategy, but one embraced early on.

It is a "lifeboat ethics" kind of question, not one in which there are good options.

Why do you imagine it is not about morality?  Do you believe that people are only faced with options in which at least one of the choices is purely good?  Is your life that way, such that for every decision you make, there is always at least one unalloyed good option?  Do you believe everyone's life is that way?

Certainly not, everyone needs to make less good decisions and evil is kinda' relative to some extent, but there are limitations to everything

The story would have to be much more detailed to give definitive answers to those questions.  But you do realize that hiding a bunch of children is not easy for most people?  That many of them are likely to be found out if they try to hide it, right?

Since it is not mandatory by law to even get medical appointments when you are pregnant, there's no way to know how many kids families have - Unless you do like the good old inquisition - Offer rewards to neighbors who denounce families with an illegal number of kids, and you'll see that in a few days you'll have lots of letters. Yes, it does sound like the inquisition in Portugal when people told priests that their neighbor ate pork meat and wasn't a good law abiding Christian.

Presumably, the world is a very crowded place for this last resort option to be considered.  So it is likely that someone will know, and likely that someone will inform.  But there are censuses taken in which people can have a good idea of how many people are present.  And also, it is very likely that we would have food rationing at this point (as was done in WWII in quite a few places).  After all, the worry is that people will starve, so there is not enough food around to feed many extras.  If your household supposedly only has 3 people, you would get the rations for 3 people.  If you have more people there, you will have a problem.

Of course, if you mean that some people will be able to break the law and get away with it, of course, that is always the case.  One would have to take that into consideration when one is making one's policies for the number of restrictions, which means that the restrictions on numbers of children would have to be greater than it would have to be if no one cheated.  And, of course, there would have to be consequences for those who are caught, beyond simply being made sterile.

My guess is, in a real world case of this, people would resort to capital punishment for all sorts of things, as is presently the case in overpopulated countries (like China).  When there are too many people, people tend to hold human life to be cheap, which is a very unfortunate consequence of having too many people.  However, we are discussing an idealized situation, and one could have prison for people who break such laws.

Remember, too, that the other option, of not forcing sterilization, means people are starving, due to there being too many people to feed.  This means people will be murdering each other over food, and will likely also resort to cannibalism.  So we are not talking about imposing something bad for no reason, but for the sake of avoiding something that is likely to be worse.

Of course, if you mean to suggest that someone somewhere will be able to cheat whatever system is in place and not get caught, isn't that true of every system and every law that people make?

Yes, but for some systems, particularly ones that restrict people's rights a lot, people have a tendency to find loopholes and rebel themselves against the State. There are a lot of people in society that hate authoritarian measures and would do anything to invent some tool or mechanism that allows people to lie to the State and hide how many kids they have.

Efforts would have to be made to enforce the law.  Since we are dealing with a lack of sufficient food, the food rationing that would probably be necessary would be a serious problem for people having more children than they officially have, as they would not be getting food for them.

As for people rebelling against the state, what happens to them now?  That is what would likely happen in this case.

How about this:  If you vote to force people to not have more children, you get to pick all of those things for yourself, in any way you like.  We can leave it that way for the purpose of the poll, and, if you wish, you can tell us how you would like these things to be arranged.

Alright - Since you asked - I didn't vote yet but let's assume I vote to force people to not have more children - Here are some points I consider relevant:

- Most western States (I'm using them as a model because I live in one and I can't really talk about what happens in China or India) have some sort of higher law, usually a constitution, whether it is written in a book or sparse by several documents (the UK has the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, etc.) - Most of these documents that benefit from legal superiority in our hierarchy (essentially constitutions are above national, regional and local laws) and of the primary characteristics of modern constitutions is the adherence to the declaration of human rights and generally a high emphasis on fundamental rights, both individual and collective (the common good). There are a lot of laws and principles that result from modern western constitutions and one of them is that usually the State shouldn't severely limit people's private and individual lives(choices) unless it is absolutely necessary and justified.

Per hypothesis, it is absolutely necessary to avoid massive starvation.  How can anything be more necessary than that?  Also, for the sake of the hypothetical, the governing body has the authority to make this decision.

So what bothers me here is - How would western States, with liberal individualistic constitutions that praise individual liberty and abhor authoritarianism and State control - Justify from a legal standpoint the implementation of this measure? I'm not 100% sure about this, but most likely, to implement such measure a democratic State would have to become not fascist but strongly authoritarian at least - A democratic State with a constitution could never implement this measure. Moreover, it's a terrible slippery slope - If the government has power to control how many children I have, why can't it control everything else.

Right now, the government has a good deal of control over you.  Why is it that it cannot control everything else about you?

- The biggest problem, in case we've reached a point where the population was so big we needed to control offspring, is how to implement the measure - what technology shall we use?

If we do not assume any advances in technology, we would be talking about vasectomy and tubal ligation.

And with who's money?

Tax money.  I am all in favor of taxing the rich the most, but there is no requirement in the scenario for whose taxes are highest.  In any case, with a one-world government, a lot of money could be saved on not having nuclear weapons and other such things that would be pretty useless for dealing with citizens.  So all of the money that currently goes to those things could be spent on these surgeries.

Also, it is more expensive to deliver a child in a hospital than to have sterilization surgery, so it will save money over not doing it.

The cost would be pretty high. How would we know who has kids? Maybe we could force people to go to medical appointments anytime they're pregnant but it's a measure without any actual guarantees of working since it's relatively easy to disguise a pregnancy. We run the risk of people revolting against this and even covering each other up and having more kids than necessary

- This measure would hit mostly the lower end classes, the very poor (those who have more children) - Rich and middle class individuals have no problem with not having more kids than they should, and they may even not have a lot of them without this law, but the lower end socio-economic class would struggle against this and, as I've said before, there's no use in having an army and implementing this measure if you have a big part of the population picking up guns to rebel against you (assuming inequality keeps rising as it is right now and with overpopulation it would rise even further)

I personally would like to see much greater steps taken to greatly reduce income inequality.  Frankly, if things keep going as they are in the world, I will be ready to sharpen the guillotines myself.  However, it is a separate issue from the topic of this thread.

One of the reasons that poor people in the world today often have many children is a lack of access to birth control.  That is not the case in the hypothetical of this thread, as that was something provided already, as you can see if you take another look at the opening post.  And also people have been getting paid to get sterilized, so if one is poor, having more children is not, in the hypothetical, the most practical option.

As far as your repeated comments about rebellion go, I am not convinced that that would happen on a large scale.  And if it did, that would be a kind of solution to the problem, in that a lot of people would be killed.  I would not regard that as a good outcome, but it is the sort of outcome typical of people rebelling against the state.

- I find the probability of this happening in democratic countries very low to even consider a reality - As you know, I am Portuguese - Back in the day when we were a dictatorship a lot of people were poor, so basically they had like 5-10 kids, everyone had lots of kids and the fact the latter were a source of income because you could work as long as you were 10 years old didn't help - After the revolution, women's emancipation and rights, free education and so on people stopped having so many kids - The average number of kids Portuguese people have right now, if I'm not mistake, is about 1.7 (it's not even 2!), and we didn't need economic measures to stop having kids, we simply needed healthy emancipation of women and women pursuing careers, as well as people having a sense of morality and planning better when to have kids and how to provide correctly for all of them instead of simply having 10 kids just to work for income.

The likelihood of the situation is something that I make no claims about.  As you say, when people are raised out of poverty, they tend to have less children.  And when women are educated, the birth rate also goes down.  All of those types of things are good for more reasons than just the effect on the birth rate.  The hypothetical, though, is asking, what if those sorts of things are not enough?

Right now, we face the contrary problem as the rest of the world (and a part of Europe is in the same situation) - Too many old people, too few young, our successive governments need pro-birth policies but they've failed over and over and over again - The result we're seeing is that because we have lots of oldies and most are retired and receive a pension, but few young people discounting for social security, we need to cut pensions for old people and this worsens the economic condition

- Most of all, we need to know to what degree overpopulation is a problem - there's no doubt that China and India have too many people, but for the most part people overly exaggerate on overpopulation - What people don't realize is that we have enough resources to a significant part of our current population, I can't say for certain that we can feed everyone in China or India, but the biggest problem is the fact 1% of the world controls the wealth and there's very high disparities. We can't fucking live like this forever, eventually we will have to stop consuming excessively like we do in the west or else we will die. In fact, I find the possibility of dying for a lack of resources due to extreme capitalism far more dangerous than overpopulation itself.

Are you expecting me to disagree with that?  I very much agree that part of what is currently wrong with the world is income inequality, and that we should take steps to address this.  We do not presently seem to be doing this in any satisfactory way.

We can guess how the world is more likely to go than the scenario of the opening post, and that is for many people to starve to death while wealthy people live in luxury.  That is how things are now.

If things continue, with more and more discrepancy between rich and poor, we may see something akin to the French revolution, in which many of the rich are killed.  Frankly, it will serve them right.  It is obscene that there are people with vast fortunes while there are others who are literally starving.  But these things are notoriously difficult to predict, so I make no definite prediction.

Two things.  First, the hypothetical is about there being one country.  Second, your claim needs additional support, because the countries in which such a thing could be done are the countries in which each individual uses more of the world's resources.  For example, on average, a person in the U.S. uses far more resources than a person in India.

Yes, that's my point, the US has more resources therefore uses more - A country in Africa with a weak economy may have too many people but they could never support this measure due to a lack of funds. The US does not need that measure as much as India or China.

With the hypothetical, it is one government.  That is important to the hypothetical.

As for your examples, China has enforced restrictions on having children.  They have far fewer people than they were projected to have by now before they took such steps.  So China is proving that such a thing can be effective.  I am not, however, suggesting that it should be done as they have done it.  But they have proven that it can be done.

Undoubtedly, if forced sterilization were implemented, there would be people who would resist.  How is that relevant to whether it is the right decision or not in the hypothetical circumstances?  Right now, many people in the U.S. are resisting the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the legalization of same-sex marriage.  Does that mean that same-sex marriage should not be legal?

You are comparing the incomparable - Same-sex marriage is simply giving equal rights to homosexuals, but it in no way significantly affects other parties in society - Mandatory sterilization is a measure that would affect a significant number of people and it would feel awful and terrible and evil. It's just not the same. I can simply oppose same-sex marriage even on religious grounds, but gays can still get married anyway - I can't oppose sterilization because the State would force me to have it.

My point was simply that people resisting something did not mean that that something was wrong.  Nothing more.

In this thread, I have set it up specifically for the question raised there.  I would hope that the hypothetical of this thread would not happen.  As for how realistic it is, I do not know.  Some people seem determined to not use birth control, no matter what.  But I do not know what percentage of the population they represent, and consequently do not know how likely the hypothetical in the opening post is to actually occur.  But for the purposes of this thread, I do not care what the likelihood is.  It is simply a question of how such a situation should be dealt with, if it were to come about.

I understand - I find it likely that eventually the government would have to provide benefits for those who have more or less kids etc, but I don't think it will reach this scenario - Worst case - People start having too many kids, and there's not enough jobs, social security can't provide welfare for everyone, therefore people will stop having kids or immigrate. Some people refuse to use birth control but are progressively entering an age of more educated sexual decisions - Europe, like I told you, has way less kids than 80 years ago and part of it is because we provide free contraceptives, decent education and try not to make it too taboo.

Indeed, I willfully made it idealized, in that I do not expect a single government of the world any time soon, but wanted to simplify the decision so that immigration was not an issue, and also to make it so that the decision would actually have the desired effect overall.  If, in the present world, one country curbs its population, that does not cause other countries to do likewise, and so the use of resources and effects on the environment and the likely starvation of many will not be stopped by the actions of one country in the world as it is now.

I strongly hope a one world government never happens.

I don't expect to actually see the scenario of the opening post in real life.  Of course, I am not young, so me not living to see something does not mean that others will not!  But I don't expect there to be one government in the world in the next 100 years, so I don't think it will play out like the hypothetical.  I think it will be worse.

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Assuming this is an extreme case scenario, I guess I could accept restricting the number of children people can have, but State of Emergency would have to be declared to ensure the government can't take away any more rights than those absolutely necessary - And a higher authority (a supreme court of sorts) composed by impartial and competent judges would have to evaluate every measure and approve it first.

Sure, there should be plenty of safeguards to try to prevent abuse.  That should be a part of everything governments do.

I think forced sterilization would inevitably lead to riots and revolutions, so a more appropriate measure should be found - Not to mention that there are ways to counter that measure, such as people procreating with others.

I don't understand your last comment.  The sterilization could be (and would likely have to be) of both members of a couple, to keep each person from having more children than they are allowed to have.  In the case of a vasectomy, it is bandaid surgery, not a big deal.  Tubal ligation is the trickier one, but is still not the most elaborate or expensive surgery.

And, again, this is a last resort method, not the first choice for how to deal with the problem.