[eli_gottlieb]

>Instead of taking wealth from the smaller number of humans who are creating that wealth and giving it to those who are not, why don't we just accept that we don't need so many of us any more? Let the extras die off naturally (note to angry skimmers: I SAID NATURALLY) and migrate to a new lower-population equilibrium.

Because we value people's lives and happiness, so "You're unemployed now, please die quietly" is actually only slightly less unacceptable than "You're unemployed now, we'll take you out behind the chemical sheds and shoot you." It's the misery and death we take chief issue with, and only a little the violence.

> And that's even before we consider the fundamental unfairness of redistribution

You mean the fundamental unfairness of forcibly giving over the vast majority of the Earth's spoils to a tiny minority who don't care about anyone but themselves? Because if you don't, we disagree on the definition of "unfairness".

> If (and it's a big if) automation is really going to put billions of people out of productive work, then the only sustainable answer to that is fewer people. Embrace it.

We can stabilize the population for ecological purposes just fine while keeping the non-parents happy and healthy for their entire natural lives (or even well beyond that).

[fredkbloggs]

If your idea of happiness and health is a bipolar world in which everyone is either:

(a) A producer, whose entire production is taken from him or her by force of arms and given to others, or

(b) A consumer, who does nothing and contributes nothing but lives off the work of others, and

in either case one lives in a horribly crowded, polluted, sweltering world, then we will have to agree to disagree. I'm not even sure which of (a) or (b) would be worse, but I know I'd choose suicide if those were the other options.

[dragonwriter]

That's cute, but I don't see anyone upthread suggesting anything like the strawman dichotomy that you react to.