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this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2025
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People really believe this thinly veiled eugenics argument?
There is plenty of resources to support humanity. The issue is solely in our societal structures and our distribution of those resources causing almost half of everything we produce to become waste because it profit couldn't be extracted from it.
We could cut most of our production, reducing our environmental harm, redesign our cities so they are not sprawling wastelands of parking lots and empty lawns, and there would be plenty enough to go around. That's real long term planning we need to have.
The problem is not that we do not have the resources, but rather the way humans chose to use them. Multiply that by 8 billion and we get a problem, although realistically the bigger problem are the top 2-3 billion or so that control so many resources.
In a world with a significantly lower population, the planet could absorb the issues we cause much better.
I don't see how this fact has anything to do with eugenics 🤷
The argument that "there are too many people and we need to reduce the population" has been for decades a thinly veiled excuse to justify eugenics. Which ethnicity's population are we going to reduce? How will the social mechanisms work to reduce population? Who will hold that authority to dictate things and how will it be enforced? Historically, very violently and strictly enforced against marginalized communities. That's how.
I literally said the problem is how we use them.
So the answer is we need to work towards societal change and structure ourselves to incentivize sustainability, not overly simplistic and unethical arguments such as "reduce the population" so we can maintain our shitty practices and kick the can down the road.
It also isn't "top 2-3 billion", it's more like "top 2-3 thousand".
You are arguing a strawman. Both the article and me are talking about people voluntarily chosing to not have children. I don't see anything wrong with that, and neither with promoting the idea that this is totally ok.
And no, it isn't just the top few thousand. Even if those were gone tomorrow we would still have very similar issues realistically speaking. But sure, limiting the excesses of the top few thousands would also help and is a politically reachable goal. Solving the over-consumption of the top 2-3 billion needs an strong change in mindset, and politics alone will not be able to do that. But at least many of these 2-3 billion are already getting few children voluntarily.
Interestingly it doesn't seem like those questions need to be answered, since the birthrate is dropping all by itself for some reason.
Microplastics causing infertility is the main reason for that. Hard to have babies when men's nuts can't properly produce viable sperm or women can't properly form a placenta and their ovaries have atrophied.
There are also socioeconomic reasons where people are avoiding pregnancy, plus the breaking down of community togetherness exacerbating the "loneliness epidemic" and people just aren't meeting each other and going on dates anymore, also due to socioeconomic factors. There is also the antinatalist movement but unsure as to the size of it.
Either way, the call to "reduce populations" is a bullshit argument. Just because it is happening naturally (or due to natural phenomena as a result of the externalities from human activity) doesn't excuse the call for an authority to dictate that decision for others.
I really doubt it's microplastics. There aren't a bunch of people complaining of infertility. I would guess it's socioeconomic.
I don't think anyone likes the idea of anyone else telling them how many kids they can have, but they'll probably take that over their kids starving. Probably won't come to that.
Bruh, there are legitimate issues to reproductive health caused by microplastics. That's just a fact. Microplastics are so small they can bypass the blood-testi barrier and disrupt spermatogenesis. They also leech chemicals into the blood that mimic certain hormones, fucking up our endocrine system which has a negative effect on reproductive health as well. There actually are a bunch of people having issues with infertility across the globe, and research shows it is due to microplastics affecting reproductive health, but the current media framing of the argument around microplastics isn't highlighting that specific issue. It is being lumped in with the rest of the issues caused by microplastics and how we don't fully understand just how harmful the build up is to our health overall.
The point is that falling birth rates is a multifaceted issue. It isn't one or the other. It is both medical issues caused by microplastics and socioeconomic stresses.
Also, there isn't a dichotomy between "being told how many kids you can have" and "having their kids starve". Those two things are not mutually exclusive, so they don't have to "take one over the other". No one has to choose between the two nor should they be forced to choose by any body of authority.
Then where are all the people complaining they can't have kids even though they want them? People aren't having kids because they don't want them.
Right, they're not, but the odds of starving are lower when there are less mouths to feed. I read that pre-agriculture tribes limited their reproduction to live within their means.
Jesus fucking Christ, go read the research into the issue of rising infertility rates and see where they are getting their data from. That's where the people are. You think scientists just make these numbers up? Just because you don't constantly hear about it in the news means it doesn't happen? Are you dull?
I don't give a fuck what pre-agriculture tribes did. We don't live in a pre-agriculture society. The point is that no authority should have control over the reproductive health of another, that unethically violates the autonomy of the individual and leads to eugenics.
People are not starving due to the rising populations; this is a bullshit, shortsighted framing of the argument that is rhetorically deceptive. They are starving due to the unethical distribution of resources. They aren't starving because they have more mouths to feed, they are starving due to systemic oppression preventing them from accessing readily available resources with which to feed those extra mouths while a small percentage of humanity consumes excessive amounts of those resources while forcing wasteful production practices to chase after imaginary tokens of perceived value.
If we weren't being forced as a society to produce so much excess for these small minded moguls of industry and restructured society to incentivize sustainability over profit generation, we would have more than enough to go around.
First point, I have read a bit and I'm unconvinced. People who want kids are having them, if they weren't, it'd be all over the mainstream news. Childless people would be suing Dupont or something.
Second point, again, I agree, but there is an environmental carrying capacity and we keep degrading the environment.
Your third point is true, but I was referring to the increasingly uncertain climate future. There may come a year where there just isn't enough due to an unlucky series of crop failures.
I can't argue against the fourth point.
Bro you have way too much trust in mainstream news outlets. Things happen all the time that the media is silent on. Just because something is happening does not mean it would be in the mainstream news cycle, in fact more things happen every day that will never be reported on. That doesn't mean they aren't happening. Literally, scientific research proves as fact that there is a rising issue with infertility rates. That number has gone up, and prevailing research points to it being caused, in part, by the buildup of microplastics.
Second point, yes that's true but that is not what was being discussed. Just because that is true does not justify a body of authority to dictate the reproductive choices of individuals. Also, just because those two points are true does not make the tertiary point that "we have reached peak population capacity" true. That claim is entirely false.
Third, also true, but again that wasn't the topic and is only tangentially related to it. That's a separate discussion on climate change and its causes.
I'm curious why you feel so strongly about this, and I'm inclined to agree with you, no authority should decide if and how many children a person can have, but if everyone had eight kids it'd probably be a problem. What would you think if a democracy decided no more than two? How would that sit with you? I believe individuals should have freedom but there should be limits that are collectively agreed on.
Yea no shit, but that's a stupid hypothetical that is most likely not going to ever happen, so it isn't even worth considering.
I'd tell those people to go fuck themselves and if they force my partner to have an abortion against their will just because we went over their arbitrary limit, that I did not agree to, then there's gonna be a fucking fight for our right to have a child if we so wish.
What part of "no one should have authority over the reproductive rights of others" is unclear?
Why are you so abrasive? I'm mostly agreeing with you and you're still a dick, simply dismissing or ignoring my points. Read into carrying capacity, go offline, and have however many children you and your partner want so you won't have time to be online.
I'm dismissing your points because they are irrelevant points when you actually consider them critically.
I'm a dick because I'm tired of entertaining bullshit arguments and rhetoric throughout this thread.
You say you agree that "no authority should decide if and how many children a person can have", then provide a bullshit hypothetical, and then use it as justification for proposing exactly the thing I said I am against with another hypothetical. You absolutely do not agree with me if you think your hypothetical is okay. It absolutely is not and is a direct violation of autonomy when you think about how that decision to limit the number of children someone can give birth to would have to be enforced. Forced population control is literally eugenics in disguise.
And that's after repeatedly denying the science behind microplastics causing an increase in infertility rates from the earlier argumens. I cannot stand science denial. It pisses me off.
If you're still wondering why I'm abrasive, you're never gonna get it.
And, nah, I won't go offline, you can cope.
I honestly believe that "we" aren't going to do jack s**t. It's a process which is nearly unsteerable. People are going to live longer and longer, and use resources that would otherwise be used by children they might have had. Society is going to be burdened by caring for the old, and this is going to reduce chances of caring for the young.
In nearly every developed country, population growth is slowing or population has already started decreasing. Only in the least developed regions (some areas of Africa) does the opposite still apply, but UN predictions (made by competent people) suggest the process just reaches there later.
So, every ethnicity's population is going to be reduced. Every ethnicity can also consider if their numbers are adequate, too high or too low. If a nation feels threatened by disappearing from the maps, they can try to reorganize their society. Random ideas: a few laws that give parents various health and social security guarantees regardless of their employment status, especially in case they're single parents, then maybe create a few dating sites that actually try to help their users find people they like, etc...
Yes, everything you said is good, and we should be attempting to restructure our society to be more sustainable and ethical in our use of resources but that is a much larger political discussion about economics. I know there are currently natural and sociopolitical phenomena that are slowing down the growth of certain regions but the reasons why is a much larger, multifaceted discussion. Populations will fluctuate naturally and that's all fine and dandy.
but my point was specifically against those who call for attempting to steer the process in an effort to deliberately reduce the population through planned means which is intrinsically linked to eugenics arguments when you get down to the sociopolitical mechanisms of how that will be accomplished.
I cannot say I agree, and I think I recall that some indicators currently suggest we'd need about 3 planets to keep going at the same pace.
I think we shouldn't use up every atom on Earth to churn out more humans. Our species has experienced a massive population explosion and is at peak numbers.
Usually this kind of events are followed by a hurtful population crash. It seems considerably better if growth ends due to a (subconscious?) decision to stop expanding, rather than a war for remaining resources.
The back of the envelope calculation says if everybody on Earth lived like an average American we'd need the resources of about four Earths to cover it:
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33133712
That being said, from the same source, if everyone on Earth lived like an average Indian we'd only use half the Earth's resources and could support twice as many people.
So it's not about the number of people - it's about the standard of living those people have and the resources they use.
I think the most effective way forward is more efficient and sustainable lifeways - if the richest countries learn to consume less, if people around the world get access to better technology and better institutions to raise their standard of living without raising their resource consumption.
And it's interesting to note, the better off people are, the fewer children they tend to have. If we improve people's lives worldwide, a steadily declining population will be a natural side effect.
An incredibly difficult goal, of course, but worth pursuing.
Good thing no one said to do this. I don't appreciate bad faith reframing of my argument.
It was meant to be humorous framing, given the impossibility of making humans from magma or the iron core. :)
From my perspective it is a disingenuous, bad faith framing of my position meant to exaggerate it and mock it as if it was absurd.