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by sleazy_b 863 days ago
Do you have children? How do you propose to convince or force others not to have children without devolving into something that could reasonably be called “eco-fascism”?
3 comments

Pretty easy really - promote social programs that lift the standard of living and promote easy access to quality education.

You can look at, say, Hans Rosling presentations over the past decades and see just how highly correlated education and women's rights are with reducing population expansion rates.

Free quality public TV | streaming doesn't hurt either.

How is that easy to accomplish nationally let alone globally? What if there’s places that buck the trend, or don’t want to incentivize low birth rates in this way?
Taxes, sanctions, globalization. The idea, as I understand it, is that instead of using old fascism with boots and shootings, you just use new fascism with “economic realities” which basically do the same through starvation and homelessness. It works in the west, all you have to do is to give free youtube and tv to everyone in less developed regions, so they’d want that lifestyle badly.
How do we get people to do anything? Violence.

Unfortunately in our flesh and blood world as much as we have a dalliance with forming a society it still all comes down to violence at the end of the day. We hate it, but it's true.

Keep in mind my definition of violence is expansive, not only drawing blood but I would count imprisoning someone (who has broken laws) against their will as (a necessary) violence.

It's easier than devolving into literal facism which was the first bar you set.

It's easy enough that the bulk of G20 countries got there sans the USofA which still struggles with public healthcare.

Of course doing something isn't as easy as sitting around doing nothing save moving a bar along and just asking.

Projection wise, for now, globally we're headed to peak and decline in population so much of this jawing is moot.

They got there by getting us to the point we’re at now, by burning fossil fuels and offloading many of their social ills to other regions. By all means, let’s improve education and get more money in people’s pockets. But degrowth is much more likely to be accomplished through fascism than by raising the standard of living globally in a way that preserves regional independence.
I agree that only an overwhelmingly powerful state apparatus could tear people away from their fast food and cat videos. And cars. And heat.

‘You will own nothing and you will be happy. For the good of the planet, of course.’

Came here to promote Hans Rosling's work, highly recommend taking a look at it for how global stats improve across the board over time.
Why would they need to be convinced or forced? Birth rates are declining around the world, in almost every culture. Having fewer children appears to be a choice that people are happy to make for themselves.
People have having less children than replacement levels in all the developed countries. Probably all that is needed for the same to happen in Africa and the like is similar development.