Middle ground between antinatalism and natalism?

[-Astoria-]

Is VHEMT relevant?

I'd probably say not for the past few decades, judging by their website.

[Galiantus III]

Attempting to find a balance assumes we can't expand our own carrying capacity. With advancements in automation, and our desire to colonize space, the concept of overpopulation is bound to change a lot. One thing I will say is society has taken the position of trying to protect people from their own stupid decisions. If there is in fact a carrying capacity at play here, what you would want to do is let people make stupid decisions for themselves, so death is more often a consequence of personal stupidity combined with the forces of nature, rather than people committing violence against each other.

[Lanoraie II]

If you're even asking this question, you're already wrong. Any government or system that believes it has the right to interfere in people's reproductive decisions is a tyrannical monster that must be destroyed.

This is a nasty individualist take on something that affects literally every other person on Earth. Overpopulation MUST be regulated to ensure a future for ALL humans. If you can't be comfortable with the idea of strict limits on how many kids can be born a year, you're more concerned about muh liberties than the safety of the world we live on. Which tells me you'd be a pretty awful parent anyway.

[Eahland]

If you're even asking this question, you're already wrong. Any government or system that believes it has the right to interfere in people's reproductive decisions is a tyrannical monster that must be destroyed.

But what if it's a matter of mass death and breakdown of society? It's easy to kick the overpopulation can down the road, until we HAVE to start limiting reproduction or people die. The rate of population growth is not sustainable, and I doubt enough people will do their part to fight it.

It isn't. Thanos is a comic-book supervillain, not a guy who has a point.

Population growth is a self-correcting problem — and I'm not talking "Malthusian die-off" here. The developed world's birthrate is below replacement. Populations in the developed world are shrinking, or growing only because of immigration from less-developed parts of the globe. In other words, the parts of the world where individual lives have the largest resource footprint have the smallest, even negative, population growth.

See, in pre-industrial societies, birthrates are high, but actual population growth is low. There isn't reliable birth control. Infant and childbirth mortality rates are high. The investment of time and resources to turn a newborn into a productive member of society is low. There's economic encouragement to have a bunch of kids to provide farm labor, but expect that a lot of them won't survive to reproductive age themselves. And without reliable birth control, it's hard to be sexually active and not have a bunch of kids. But because so many of them die young, actual population growth is slow.

On the flip side, in modern societies, the time and resource investment it takes to turn a newborn into a productive member of society is large. This means that children are an economic load rather than a source of cheap labor. In combination with reliable birth control and other medical advances meaning that most children will survive to adulthood, the socioeconomic pressure is not to start having children young and have a lot of them, but to have fewer children later in life when the parents are more established and have resources to support them. And that means that while a greater percentage of children survive to adulthood, the birthrate is also much lower, and so actual population growth slows and even starts to drop.

Where the explosive population growth happens is in transitional societies, where the medical technology to prevent infant and childbirth mortality is in place, but the society hasn't adjusted to that, perhaps due to reactionary religious organizations preventing access to birth control or education. And the solution to that is not to go full ecofash and start dictating people's reproductive decisions, but simply to allow them to make their own choices. Because it turns out that most women don't actually want to spend their entire lives, from menarche to menopause — or until they die in childbirth, whichever comes first — barefoot and pregnant.

[GuessTheAltAccount]

The problem is the consumer doesn't care if it isn't clean or renewable. At least not enough to do something about it, anyway.



Bill "having more people isn't green" Maher isn't an incel.

Yes, but I’m not talking about him.

Doesn't matter if you weren't talking about him. The fact that people like him fly in the face of your characterization of antinatalists discredits you.

[The Land Named Bob]

Is VHEMT relevant?

What I'm looking for is a balance between that extreme and normalcy, to result in a stable population with minimal use of birth control.

[Eahland]

Is VHEMT relevant?

What I'm looking for is a balance between that extreme and normalcy, to result in a stable population with minimal use of birth control.

You will not have a stable population with minimal use of birth control without horrific childhood mortality rates.

[Terruana]

Governments should not be trying to mandate how or when people decide to have kids. The only concern should be making sure that whatever kids do live in their country are receiving adequate care.

[Soviet Progonya]

Some antinatalists don't want the human race to go instinct, but believe in not reproducing or reproducing less than we do right now in order to not overpopulate. I think that reducing the number of children people can have or providing people ways of birth control so as to make sure that people who are not prepared or do not want children don't end up getting them may be some solutions. I'm not an antinatalist but I have no problem with antinatalists, as long as they aren't the ones who want extinction.

That being said, I don't think there is a middle ground between those who want extinction and everyone else. I mean, how would you even make half of the human race extinct? I think that the idea of wanting to prevent sentient sapient beings from suffering by making sure none of them get to live is pretty bullshit. Honestly I really don't get misanthropy either and I think that's what drives most of the people who want extinction.

Also I don't think the government should be involved in this.

[GuessTheAltAccount]

Some antinatalists don't want the human race to go instinct, but believe in not reproducing or reproducing less than we do right now in order to not overpopulate. I think that reducing the number of children people can have or providing people ways of birth control so as to make sure that people who are not prepared or do not want children don't end up getting them may be some solutions. I'm not an antinatalist but I have no problem with antinatalists, as long as they aren't the ones who want extinction.

That being said, I don't think there is a middle ground between those who want extinction and everyone else. I mean, how would you even make half of the human race extinct? I think that the idea of wanting to prevent sentient sapient beings from suffering by making sure none of them get to live is pretty bullshit. Honestly I really don't get misanthropy either and I think that's what drives most of the people who want extinction.

Also I don't think the government should be involved in this.

By "middle ground between those who want extinction and everyone else" I think they mean people who are probably more antinatalist than the average person, but not extinction-advocate extreme about it.

I come across as misanthropic when I speak of antinatalism, and as anthropocentric when I say wild animals aren't of enough moral character to deserve protection from hunting. What's more likely, that I'm an anthropocentric misanthrope, or that one or the other group is wrong? The reality is humanity has its positive and its negative traits, but its harmfulness to the environment is one of its negative traits.

[Ethel mermania]

We need to get the busy bodies trying to do these things out of policy making, and into something more suitable to their talent levels, dog poop cleaning

[Ayytaly]

I'm pro-natalism in regards to indigenous peoples. Restrict the non-indigenous birthrates until the natives grow between 500-2500%, depending on the tribe/ethnicity.

[Shekelesh]

Ah yes a middle ground between not having kids and having kids.

[The free romanians]

I'm pro-natalism in regards to indigenous peoples. Restrict the non-indigenous birthrates until the natives grow between 500-2500%, depending on the tribe/ethnicity.

Natives to where?
Somunds very americocentric

[Ayytaly]

I'm pro-natalism in regards to indigenous peoples. Restrict the non-indigenous birthrates until the natives grow between 500-2500%, depending on the tribe/ethnicity.

Natives to where?
Somunds very americocentric

Am aussie, m8

[The free romanians]

Natives to where?
Somunds very americocentric

Am aussie, m8

Oh
But still
New world centric

[Genivaria]

You wanna prevent overpopulation?
Comprehensive sex ed and make birth control, condoms, abortions cheap and easily accessible and the population will stabilize within just a few years.

[Suriyanakhon]

Anti-natalism is a philosophy of despair which hates the gift of life and wants to deny it to other people. There's no real middle ground you can make with such a depressing worldview.

[Horizonte Mexico]

Anti-natalism is a philosophy of despair which hates the gift of life and wants to deny it to other people. There's no real middle ground you can make with such a depressing worldview.

That's presuming there exists a before-life.

[GuessTheAltAccount]

Anti-natalism is a philosophy of despair which hates the gift of life and wants to deny it to other people. There's no real middle ground you can make with such a depressing worldview.

Pragmatism about how fewer people being born means fewer resources being consumed and less pollution being made consuming them =/= despair.