[adastra22]

We didn’t. Not at the scale seen in the 20th and 21st centuries. You could use every acre of land to produce food for humans using the best traditional farming techniques, and only feed 4 billion people. There literally wasn’t enough biomass and replenishing reactions. The other half would have to starve.

What feeds the world today? Fixed nitrogen fertilizers made out of the combination of air and fossil fuels.

[zelphirkalt]

If only we had never increased in population count that much. We would have spared the planet from many ecological disasters. A population of 4 billion sounds like a dream right now.

[adastra22]

Are you really saying the universe would be better off without 4 billion people? Each with their own hopes, dreams, families, and hobbies. Whatever value you ascribe to nature only exists because we people are here to witness it. Doubling the number of people doubles the number of sentient beings bringing light and value to the world.

I seriously cannot fathom how someone could say that the world is better off if people didn't exist. What value system justifies that mass murder through erasure?

[acdha]

I agree with the value of people but would factor quality of life in. We’re currently projected to have something like a billion people seriously disrupted by climate change and all of us noticeably worse off which puts you in questions like how much human misery undercuts that.

Obviously the solution isn’t “kill 4B” and especially because the climate impacts and causes are very unevenly impacted - 300M Americans have generated more greenhouse gases than the billions in Africa or Asia who are being impacted first.

[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

> I agree with the value of people but would factor quality of life in.

The median quality of life is the best it has ever been for humanity.

[acdha]

It’s equally true that the number of miserable people in the world is greater, too (lower percentage of a bigger number, but it’s not evenly distributed. If you’re a Bangladeshi farmer getting wiped out multiple years running due to climate change-amplified flooding, you probably aren’t comforted by the fact that even poor Americans can watch Tik Tok.

[adastra22]

For the past couple of decades, at least, more people have been lifted out of poverty than have been added to it through population growth. So no, even by that metric things were worse off in the 70's or 80's than they are today.

[zelphirkalt]

Better off? Maybe. Probably. Murder or erasure? No.

Lets be a bit careful about putting words into other people's mouth or implying things. I intentionally phrased it that way, that it would have been nice to have avoided the current status in the first place.

I don't subscribe to the believe that more living humans equals better for the universe or even for the planet. Certainly not for the planet or other living beings on our planet.

[adastra22]

I said murder through erasure, and I stand by that accurately describing what you wrote.

You are saying that the moral value of many/most human beings is a net negative. I don't know if you don't see, or if you choose to ignore the repugnant conclusions which must necessarily derive from this viewpoint.

[zelphirkalt]

It is funny how you try to doctor your "erasure" thingy into what I wrote. It still doesn't fit.

If for you the only possible conclusion is, that we have to fix it after the fact by applying some erasure, then that conclusion is on you, not on me. I find the conclusion from "net negative" -> "must erase now!" premature at best. To imply or state, that I voted for any "erasure" is plain wrong.

I personally would rather go about it like this: "Shit happened. We were collectively very stupid. What can we do now, so that in the future we don't make it any worse?"