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Great! We need more people on this planet for sure, that's the one thing we don't have enough of!
this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2025
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No reduction in population matters until we kill all the oligarchs and maaaaybe until we start ending states. Any perceived slack in emissions will be absorbed.
Well one could argue that all of these problems are intertwined- capitalism lies at the root of it all. It promotes an exponentially accelerating concentration of wealth, and requires perpetual growth regardless whether that growth is meaningful, useful, or benign.
You cannot genuinely address overpopulation as a problem until everything else is well on its way to being solved. It cannot be done.
The overpopulation becomes an excuse for genocides become an excuse to fix nothing. It is literally not an addressable problem you can even think about fixing in a productive manner until capitalism inequality and the abundant acceptance/organization/tools of coercive powers are well on their way to being solved.
To do so is just genocidal black-lung propaganda.
You're both right. That's why it's such a thorny problem.
I'm not saying it isn't an issue, I'm saying its impossible to address and maybe less than useless to try right now for reasons stated.
Did you forget the /s ?
Generally there are two attitides: should other people have kids? And should I have kids?
If someone is deciding if other people should have kids... that becomes genocide, euthanasia, and similar pretty quickly. If someone is deciding if they want kids e.g. continue a positive culture, give back to all who gave to you, sacrifice happiness for meaningfulness; then that is a personal question.
If there is any hint of racism, then i think we should not be deciding if someone else can have kids.
At some point I think it becomes a matter of self preservation, our planet can't handle us at scale, and we should be looking into ways to control the global population. It would clearly have to be equal for all, but the possibility for abuse is not a good enough argument against it in my mind. If other people's choices endanger mine and other people's lives, then consent is no longer a requirement.
I know it sounds harsh, but the situation is honestly extremely dire. Do I think it will realistically happen? No. Do I think we are realistically looking at a global collapse of our biotope? Yes.
Totally dire, but one billionaire 'life' emits as much as like a million human lives. Talking about population level controls before hunting down every last one and gassing its bunker with chlorine and aerosolized datura is just an excuse to be racist.
To say nothing of modal shifts capitalism etc
Edit: I do think we need fewer people, but that can be accomplished passively and gently by increasing education and bodily autonomy. Panic about that, especially in the English language without mention of other shit is just the biggest red flag.
Absolutely. In fact, I'd argue that capitalism is the biggest contributing cause of uncontrolled population growth as the system is predicated on perpetual growth- that's why everyone is freaking out about diminishing nativity statistics, we don't need more people, it's the machine that demands quarterly flesh to keep it from imploding.
Panic about that, especially in the English language without mention of other shit is just the biggest red flag.
What the fuck even is that sentence. Regardless, more than one thing can be a problem at the same time, and more than one solution available.
'Overpopulation' when coercive power exists is just using climate crisis as an excuse for genocide, and genocide as an excuse to fix nothing.
It's not a problem that can be addressed, genuinely, or is safe to consider, until we're starting to get diminishing returns on everything else.
You're presuming that any measure to control population growth by necessity ends with genocide, which is an untenable proposition. This whole thread spawned from a discussion about China's one-child policy, which is a direct counterexample to that claim, as it did not lead to genocide.
presuming that any
Read what I said. Clauses and all.
As-is I don't know who you're responding to.
Most of the article just reiterates a truncated history of the program. Nothing in it indicates a large social media upheaval. There's two short anonymous social media quotes included in the body of the report.