This reads more like sci-fi fantasy than a typical comment on hackers news.
CRISPR would have been a ‘sci fi’ fantasy years ago. And it’s now reality. Environmental stewardship as fantasy is the sad reality we face now.
I don't care how many hours you've logged on "ML SAAS" it's not where you think it is
My gardener has 5 children and three grandchildren at age 48. This is irresponsible procreation. An average 2.1 replacement rate in a family unit that doesn’t rely on welfare still relies on tax subsidies, incentives and free public schools.
Both are unsustainable. When there is no cost and only rewards for irresponsible procreation that is resource hogging from the commons, there will be a quick deterioration of available resources for all.
When there is want and scarcity and more demand in the apex predator population, they start stripping the habitat and resources of the species below them in the food chain.
That will eventually threaten the apex predators survival. This is more ‘killing the golden goose’ of Aesop tales than ‘blade runner 2049’ adoption of Philip k dick’s sci fi story.
If I were to explain to a child about apex predators, I would bring up sharks..if sharks eat all the little fish in the sea, when they are out of little fish in the sea, they will die because they won’t have anything more to eat to survive.
Of course, consumption per capita is still a concern, and global population is still a concern, but it's hard to fault your gardener for having 5 children if you live in an industrialized country with below replacement rate fertility.
> An average 2.1 replacement rate in a family unit that doesn’t rely on welfare still relies on tax subsidies, incentives and free public schools.
This is a totally different kind of commons. Personally I'm much less concerned about funding public schools than I am about overfishing, habitat destruction, etc.
1. Industrialized countries consume more than the rest of the world.
2. Consumption is many times higher in countries with lower replacement rates.
3. Richer countries typically import and overfishing and destroy habitat of over populated high density developing nations with already depleted resources.
4. China is a special case. China exports a lot of our conspicuous consumption. China in turn imports a lot from developing as well as developed world with its bolstered purchasing power. It takes a lot of maintain 1.4 billion people.
5. One other (bad) solution is to make every nation self sustainable and close borders. And allow them to determine their own replacement rate via births and immigration.
6. Overfishing happens in Asia to feed Americans. Habitat is destroyed in Latin America to feed the China and the rest of the world.
7. Habitat is the most important thing when it comes to resource allocation and resource conservation and exploitation. I like E.O.Wilson’s Half Earth policy because it’s an elegant and fair solution.
7. You should be concerned about funding public schools because the subsidized cheap frozen fish fingers is what’s causing overfishing elsewhere in the world. More children at a higher consumption strata = more habitat destruction.
America IS the 1% of the world. A poor child in America has more resources and nutritional calories and dollar spent/per head than 80% of the world’s children.
8. While there are a lot of begging bowls out in America(and other rich countries), the begging bowls in the rest of the world that sells their resources to America have deeper begging bowls that often don’t get filled.
8. One way to NOT incentivise over population and irresponsible procreation at a macro level is for America and other rich countries to curtail consumption and stop economic exchange of goods that are hostile to habitat preservation. (Example: palm oil)
> You should be concerned about funding public schools because the subsidized cheap frozen fish fingers is what’s causing overfishing elsewhere in the world. More children at a higher consumption strata = more habitat destruction
Funding public schools is orthogonal to whether that school churns out cheap frozen fish fingers. You could add funding on the stipulation that the funding needs to be used on sustainably grown local produce, for example.
> One way to NOT incentivise over population and irresponsible procreation at a macro level is for America and other rich countries to curtail consumption and stop economic exchange of goods that are hostile to habitat preservation. (Example: palm oil)
I'm sorry, you're suggesting that if rich countries stop trading environmentally hostile goods this will disincentivize reproduction locally? How do you reason this? Am I going to have less children because I eat local organic produce?
A good example is our smart phones. I am old enough to remember when there were only land lines. And not everyone had one. Now everyone from India to Africa to USA and even our homeless in CA have a smart phone. Smart phones that are indispensable now use rare metals that are mined. Cell towers have to be placed to ensure connectivity. People have to afford the bills. Every like, upvote, reply, games, online order, tweet is a tiny bit of a carbon foot print.
And consumption grows exponentially. More people means more jobs and more services. Larger carbon footprint. More consumption. More to support that population. We don’t live on 500 sq.ft, air and sunlight alone. It takes a lot to sustain humans.
Take dairy for example. Traditionally China never had dairy in their cuisine. But with a better quality of life, they need cows and fodder for cows. They can’t grow it because the aquifers are poisoned or have run dry. So the cows come from NZ and the alfafa from California sent to China during a Californian drought when we didn’t have water for our citizens but enough to fill the empty shipping containers that carried iPhones and would have gone back empty otherwise.
As quality of life increased in India, everyone drives a car when they used to have public transport. An automobile is a marker of a better quality of life. Human beings like social hierarchies and the way to exhibit this is by possessions.
As the world becomes a better place, we consume more and that has a price too: environment and habitat and eco systems.
Funding of public schools subsidizes education for all which is a noble endeavor, but it takes responsibility away from parents. When unionized public schools = unfunded pension liabilities, the education suffers. More public schools, more subsidized education = more teachers = more unfunded pension liabilities. More work to compensate for the needed taxes = more workers = more employment = more 40 hour work weeks = more commutes = more fossil fuels = more consumption. It’s a Ponzi scheme.
Cutting tax burden to only provide for free public schools will result in more responsible and mindful family planning.
Your final point: if rich countries started looking at sustainability goals, they will consume less. This would make importing more expensive. Only surplus has to be exported.
Let me explain: Commons = environment, air quality, water quality, cultivable land, natural resources. These should not be owned and traded for private profit. I am not against private profit but we can’t have private enterprise exploiting the commons for profit. That’s how we end to with nestle selling bottled water when communities have to pay more to water utilities for their potable water during a drought.
Let me clarify your understanding of my words: I am saying that when rich countries stop trading environmentally hostile goods, this will lead to less exploitation of land and sea. And habitat. And even when it does, it will be for the local population to sustain them.
If there is no market or buyers for habitat destroying palm oil or tiger bones or rhino horns, the stream of income dries up and people can realistically gauge whether their economies and environment can handle more population or less population.
I also don’t know how you went from all this to ‘eating local organic produce’ to ‘less children’. Organic has nothing to do with anything. Resources from the commons should be exploited locally only. Bounded resource exploitation reduces the false sense of prosperity.
Once people taste a better quality of life, they will never go back. Poorer countries have a better quality of life and never at par with what we have in western countries. Give them a taste of a superior quality of life and no one is going to go back to a lower quality of life.
Countries that are less populous are richer than higher density countries. Why? Because when you don’t have much to lose, you don’t know what you are missing. Increasing quality of life is more important than increasing trade of the resources of the commons.
That being said, I find this a difficult conversation to have online, because "responsible restriction of childbirth" isn't something anyone short of dangerously dictorial, can fathom to hope to achieve. It's a non starter, therefore we have to approach the problem from a end that's not so...thorny..
It's easy to say, "let's just thanos this and get it done" reset at another few thousand years..but the hard question is who gets snapped?
I never said ‘responsible restriction of childbirth’. I said ‘incentivise responsible procreation’.
I don’t know if you twisted my words on purpose or you really don’t see the difference?
Why is it genocide to offer incentives for a greater quality of life for their thoughtful and mindful roadmap to nurture their progeny and to protect the commons from over exploitation. We should be rewarding responsible procreation and parenting.
Human beings like ‘to do the right thing’. We are rationalizing animals rather than rational animals.
Supporting and incentivizing irresponsible procreation economically and empathetically simply gives people reasons to mindlessly offer themselves rationalizations to continue making wrong and harmful personal decisions.
Giving people incentives and support to provide the greatest chances of their gene pool to thrive along with the rest of the human species is a rational solution to the depopulation event that is a mathematical surety to occur within a century.
Having said that, maybe it’s also time to have discussions about ‘thorny’ subjects. The lack of open discourse is why even reasonable suggestions are downvoted here. Because there is nothing to compare common sense with..
It's fine to tow this line of thinking, but give it 100 years or so to implement.
1. Remove food insecurity. The job of the govt is to provide basic calories to ALL. In the form of credits. (Like in Switzerland)
2. The subsidized calories will come only from farms that have to follow ecological practices.
3. Housing: everyone gets to live in state housing for diff income levels. On 99 year lease at market rate. This gives generational housing security. And protects housing from speculative shocks.(like in Singapore)
4. Universal health care.
What is provided is a basic quality of life to everyone. Just as everyone deserves a basic quality of life guaranteed hybyeh govt, everyone has to display responsibility. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Downgrades to quality of life if too much is siphoned off from the commons is a reasonable and fair bargain.