posted by Ex-Ancap on July 5th, 2023 at 2:31PM
Dennis: You listen here, and you listen good.
First, there is only one solution. And I've described it. There is precisely one way that we can have long-term prosperity, a complex civilization, and basically have a future. And that is to regulate ourselves. To regulate our own population. This is not a radical departure from what we have been doing. It is in some ways, but it doesn't require any radically new mechanisms of social control, any radically new technologies, or even any new moral principles or even a big change in our values.
Because most people already value human existence, value our civilization, and don't want billions of people to die. And don't want to go back to the Dark Ages. Most people don't want those things. So you know, you could have a debate about that, but I'm just saying most people already agree that the outcome would be preferable.
https://zerocontradictions...overpop-solution
And have we done things like this before? Have we regulated reproduction? Yes, for almost all of our history, we have regulated sex. So it's not a radical departure in that way. I mean, we still do regulate sex. You can't rape. I mean, you're not supposed to, and you get in trouble if you do. You're not supposed to have sex with people below a certain age. Right? So this is not some huge leap, some huge dramatic thing, like, wow, we're doing something we've never done before. Regulating reproduction? No, we already do that, sort of. We regulate sex. And we used to have marriage, which regulated reproduction. We regulate lots of other aspects of human behavior. We don't give people the freedom to go around killing other people. So this would just be extending that principle to the creation of new life.
You don't have an unlimited right to kill people, and you don't have an unlimited right to go around making people. It's really not that complicated. And it's not a big leap away from what we already believe. Even eugenics is not something that's dramatically new. It was a fairly accepted belief until recently that eugenics was a good idea.
Population control, most people already believe it's a good idea. If we don't do it, the Chinese will anyway. So it's like somebody's going to do this, because not everybody is as ideologically blinded as we are to this kind of solution and to the problem. The Chinese are well aware of the problem and the solution, and they've done something like it already. So if they can do it, I think we could probably do it.
What else? The fact that it has difficulties is not an argument against doing it. Pretty much everything that is worth doing involves some difficulties. And does it have unintended consequences or whatever? I don't know. It's going to have consequences, not really unintended ones,
I don't think, because it's very simple. But even if there are some unintended consequences, they can't be worse than the known consequences of not doing it. And the known consequence of not doing it is global civilizational collapse, billions of people dying, and a permanent dark age.
So it's hard to imagine unintended consequences that would be worse. And that's another one of these blanket arguments, like, oh, it's going to have unintended consequences. Well, that's an argument for caution when it comes to changing things that are already working. You know, that's an argument against unbridled optimism about progress. But that's not an argument against action. We still have to act in the world.
You know? It's like, I don't lie in bed all day because, well, if I get up and I go and make myself breakfast, oh, there could be unintended consequences. Oh, maybe I shouldn't apply for this new job because, oh, there might be unintended consequences. I don't know, I shouldn't date this girl because what if there's unintended consequences? Fuck, what if this girl gives me AIDS or something? That could happen. It could. Yeah, it could. That's life.
But, you know, the alternative is, well, I'm going to stay in bed for my entire fucking life until I die of starvation, or I'm never going to date a girl because I might get AIDS, so I'm going to die a virgin. Yeah, I think sometimes you just say, well, fuck the unintended consequences. I'm going to take the slight risk for the big reward. I'm going to take the chance of stubbing my toe to escape from the lion.
You know? It's really not fucking, like... It's just really not a good argument against doing something when you're facing a disaster. To say, well, there might be unintended consequences of doing something. Okay. So, fucking what? Uh, it might be hard to do. Yeah, it might be hard to get the political will to save humanity from itself,
But yeah, so what? The alternative is not saving humanity from itself and going down with a fucking Titanic. So to use another analogy, it's like you see the iceberg and you know it's going to hit the Titanic, and you go and you start telling people, we're going to hit an iceberg. I plotted our course. I can see the iceberg. It's right there. We're going to hit it pretty soon.
And it's going to be all your fucking fault, Mr. Anarcho-Capitalist. You're such a pathetic joke!
First, there is only one solution. And I've described it. There is precisely one way that we can have long-term prosperity, a complex civilization, and basically have a future. And that is to regulate ourselves. To regulate our own population. This is not a radical departure from what we have been doing. It is in some ways, but it doesn't require any radically new mechanisms of social control, any radically new technologies, or even any new moral principles or even a big change in our values.
Because most people already value human existence, value our civilization, and don't want billions of people to die. And don't want to go back to the Dark Ages. Most people don't want those things. So you know, you could have a debate about that, but I'm just saying most people already agree that the outcome would be preferable.
https://zerocontradictions...overpop-solution
And have we done things like this before? Have we regulated reproduction? Yes, for almost all of our history, we have regulated sex. So it's not a radical departure in that way. I mean, we still do regulate sex. You can't rape. I mean, you're not supposed to, and you get in trouble if you do. You're not supposed to have sex with people below a certain age. Right? So this is not some huge leap, some huge dramatic thing, like, wow, we're doing something we've never done before. Regulating reproduction? No, we already do that, sort of. We regulate sex. And we used to have marriage, which regulated reproduction. We regulate lots of other aspects of human behavior. We don't give people the freedom to go around killing other people. So this would just be extending that principle to the creation of new life.
You don't have an unlimited right to kill people, and you don't have an unlimited right to go around making people. It's really not that complicated. And it's not a big leap away from what we already believe. Even eugenics is not something that's dramatically new. It was a fairly accepted belief until recently that eugenics was a good idea.
Population control, most people already believe it's a good idea. If we don't do it, the Chinese will anyway. So it's like somebody's going to do this, because not everybody is as ideologically blinded as we are to this kind of solution and to the problem. The Chinese are well aware of the problem and the solution, and they've done something like it already. So if they can do it, I think we could probably do it.
What else? The fact that it has difficulties is not an argument against doing it. Pretty much everything that is worth doing involves some difficulties. And does it have unintended consequences or whatever? I don't know. It's going to have consequences, not really unintended ones,
I don't think, because it's very simple. But even if there are some unintended consequences, they can't be worse than the known consequences of not doing it. And the known consequence of not doing it is global civilizational collapse, billions of people dying, and a permanent dark age.
So it's hard to imagine unintended consequences that would be worse. And that's another one of these blanket arguments, like, oh, it's going to have unintended consequences. Well, that's an argument for caution when it comes to changing things that are already working. You know, that's an argument against unbridled optimism about progress. But that's not an argument against action. We still have to act in the world.
You know? It's like, I don't lie in bed all day because, well, if I get up and I go and make myself breakfast, oh, there could be unintended consequences. Oh, maybe I shouldn't apply for this new job because, oh, there might be unintended consequences. I don't know, I shouldn't date this girl because what if there's unintended consequences? Fuck, what if this girl gives me AIDS or something? That could happen. It could. Yeah, it could. That's life.
But, you know, the alternative is, well, I'm going to stay in bed for my entire fucking life until I die of starvation, or I'm never going to date a girl because I might get AIDS, so I'm going to die a virgin. Yeah, I think sometimes you just say, well, fuck the unintended consequences. I'm going to take the slight risk for the big reward. I'm going to take the chance of stubbing my toe to escape from the lion.
You know? It's really not fucking, like... It's just really not a good argument against doing something when you're facing a disaster. To say, well, there might be unintended consequences of doing something. Okay. So, fucking what? Uh, it might be hard to do. Yeah, it might be hard to get the political will to save humanity from itself,
But yeah, so what? The alternative is not saving humanity from itself and going down with a fucking Titanic. So to use another analogy, it's like you see the iceberg and you know it's going to hit the Titanic, and you go and you start telling people, we're going to hit an iceberg. I plotted our course. I can see the iceberg. It's right there. We're going to hit it pretty soon.
And it's going to be all your fucking fault, Mr. Anarcho-Capitalist. You're such a pathetic joke!
