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Comment by point78 | Hacker News Reader

Trim the world population

Sadly, our system of infrastructure funding is predicated on increasing populations and growing tax bases. A population decline would result in bankrupt cities and even worse infrastructure problems.

With a future of climate-induced migrations, we will likely face these problems anyway as people leave areas and never come back (or simply die) after "edge case" disasters strike.

There are better solutions to climate change. But access to solid sex education, free birth control, and legal and safe abortions would go far to aid in a lot of issues, over population included. It wouldn’t even require any draconian measures, just give people the tools for proper family planning.

You realize that the latest global 2050 population estimates while being more or less unchanged in total (11B+), had an upward prediction for Africa as a direct consequence of the Trump administration's changes in support for birth control programs in the region?

Sorry for the missed date. Obviously this was the 2100 projection, not the 2050 one. reference: JPFP The Japan Parliamentarians Federation for Population NEWS LETTERNo.60 August 2017 “World Population Prospects: Have their continuous upward revisions ended?"

http://www.apda.jp/pdf/e_newsletter/enews_no60_en.pdf

"Furthermore although Africa’s total fertility rate (TFR) is falling if only moderately, it is still high, at around 5.0. This means that alongside promoting economic development in Africa, it will be prudent to strengthen support for expanding RH services there, including family planning. A source of concern for Africa’s fertility rates from now on, however, is that the reactivation by the Trump Administration ofthe Mexico City Policyis an obstacle to any such strengthening. This decision taken by the U.S. will have a major impact on Africa’s population issues, and policies will be needed to counter that."

I don't get this argument. How are we going to decide who is trimmed? Who does the trimming? How will they be trimmed? It's a non-starter. Sure we may have too many people but who would actively support killing people? especially when the people causing the most damage are the wealthiest that read sites like this

I think -- hope -- they meant trimming future growth via abstinence. Not killing people.

There are people in this thread explicitly advocating killing people.

> Sure we may have too many people

Don't just assume this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usdJgEwMinM

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