So. All opposed. Interesting.
I don't understand what makes childbearing so sacred. It's open season on regulating anything else.
Population Control Solves Alot of Problems
Becouse it opposes one of the fundamental right of every human, that is the right to self determination of his own destiny, including deciding if and when to reproduce.
Sooner or later we might arrive to the point that regulating childbearing will be a necessity for the good of the whole planet, but before that time comes I still have the hope that we will find a way to leave this rock and avoid this issue at all.
Sooner or later we might arrive to the point that regulating childbearing will be a necessity for the good of the whole planet, but before that time comes I still have the hope that we will find a way to leave this rock and avoid this issue at all.
Infringing on others self determination (let's call it liberty) is wrong no matter at what scale. Runaway global population that bled living resources dry would make 10 child families excessive exactly because said largess would effectively be at the cost of others' liberty.
That said, IMO there'll always be a few global train wrecks at any given time. People are stupid. They lack thorougness in discipline and information. They generally only cultivate enough wisdom to satisfy some mediocre level of achievement almost invariably relative to their local ambient standards.. not universal time (historical) and space (other cultures, etc) standards. Only enough to get by day to day. Like low level Maslow rating; a vulgarization but that's the trend.
But enough other people are driven, for whatever reason (need or want), to continually improve on things will keep at least a portion of the world population high and dry (a relative thing, look at evolution of value of living standard across all of history), enough to motivate another substantial portion of the whole population by wagging that carrot within their potential reach but beyond their mediocre habits' allowance. Technology to travel off the Earth, to produce food, to capture pollution and natural energy, to efficiently dispose of waste and recycle some of it, efficiency in manufacturing, and so on, will continually grow.
Education is the key - if there is any one single critical factor. It remains to be seen whether the non linear trends of progress like Kurzweil and co have popularized will hold long enough to trump pollution, population, and any climate challenge. Just getting out into space isn't the final chapter of humanity's existential limbo. cf all sorts of sci fi explorations of space opera WMDs etc.
That said, IMO there'll always be a few global train wrecks at any given time. People are stupid. They lack thorougness in discipline and information. They generally only cultivate enough wisdom to satisfy some mediocre level of achievement almost invariably relative to their local ambient standards.. not universal time (historical) and space (other cultures, etc) standards. Only enough to get by day to day. Like low level Maslow rating; a vulgarization but that's the trend.
But enough other people are driven, for whatever reason (need or want), to continually improve on things will keep at least a portion of the world population high and dry (a relative thing, look at evolution of value of living standard across all of history), enough to motivate another substantial portion of the whole population by wagging that carrot within their potential reach but beyond their mediocre habits' allowance. Technology to travel off the Earth, to produce food, to capture pollution and natural energy, to efficiently dispose of waste and recycle some of it, efficiency in manufacturing, and so on, will continually grow.
Education is the key - if there is any one single critical factor. It remains to be seen whether the non linear trends of progress like Kurzweil and co have popularized will hold long enough to trump pollution, population, and any climate challenge. Just getting out into space isn't the final chapter of humanity's existential limbo. cf all sorts of sci fi explorations of space opera WMDs etc.
More like 30 years I think. The Cultural Revolution was brutal.Skipjack wrote:So in the past 40 years, their life expectancy has increased by 40 years?If people are living longer that will happen until the population gets old enough where they balance.
I seriously doubt that.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Producing offspring is the meaning of life. If you do not pass on your genes, you are a biological failure. If you willingly do not pass on your genes, you have failed all your ancestors that faught to live long enough so they would be able to pass on their genes and those that fought and died for their children, so that they may live and pass on their genes.
These are ancestors that go back to the very first self replicating organic molecules that formed in the ancient ocean. By willingly giving up your right to pass on your genes, you betray all of them.
From a biological perspective that makes you worthless as an individual.
These are ancestors that go back to the very first self replicating organic molecules that formed in the ancient ocean. By willingly giving up your right to pass on your genes, you betray all of them.
From a biological perspective that makes you worthless as an individual.
Ok and all population increases before that ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ChinaDemography.svg ) were just due to their unlimited breeding and all after that just due to increased life span?More like 30 years I think. The Cultural Revolution was brutal.
I somehow doubt that. Again if the one child policy actually worked, why do they have 1.8 children per woman and not 1.0? And again, dont forget that these are official numbers. Any dictatoric regime will always (for many reasons) have numbers that confirm their policies. It is important for them to be "successful".
To "work" the policy only needs to bring the rate below 2.1 - replacement rate. How far below 2.1 you get will determine the population bulge for increased longevity.Skipjack wrote:Ok and all population increases before that ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ChinaDemography.svg ) were just due to their unlimited breeding and all after that just due to increased life span?More like 30 years I think. The Cultural Revolution was brutal.
I somehow doubt that. Again if the one child policy actually worked, why do they have 1.8 children per woman and not 1.0? And again, dont forget that these are official numbers. Any dictatoric regime will always (for many reasons) have numbers that confirm their policies. It is important for them to be "successful".
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
The animal meaning of life, yeah.Skipjack wrote:Producing offspring is the meaning of life. If you do not pass on your genes, you are a biological failure. If you willingly do not pass on your genes, you have failed all your ancestors that faught to live long enough so they would be able to pass on their genes and those that fought and died for their children, so that they may live and pass on their genes.
These are ancestors that go back to the very first self replicating organic molecules that formed in the ancient ocean. By willingly giving up your right to pass on your genes, you betray all of them.
From a biological perspective that makes you worthless as an individual.
I'm not sure I follow. The first sentence says things in an apparently human framing: "makes sense". Second seems to frame things in a universal, cosmological POV. And in that case I don't see what's especially long-lived about a blind (unconscious) process with a period (biological lifetime) infinitesimal compared to the universe's timescale.
The only thing that makes human sense is reason. Unchecked biological impulse is for animals.
The only thing that makes human sense is reason. Unchecked biological impulse is for animals.
And in that case I don't see what's especially long-lived about a blind (unconscious) process with a period (biological lifetime) infinitesimal compared to the universe's timescale.
Uhm, you still cary the genes of the very first cell that formed in the primeval oceans hundreds of millions of years ago in you.
I would call that comparably long lived. I dont think that there is anything else that a man can do that outlives that.
And we may rewrite that code sooner than later. And I don't care either way. Like I said it means little from a human POV. And even if longevity was the criteria, I don't see how we can make any predictions beyond "near future". What did cavemen or Greeks predict would happen millenia later? How long will the couple of interstellar probes we've sent out last? But like I said, I don't think that's the most meaningful criteria, as far as the meaning of life goes.
Well maybe not for everyone. I go with tried and proven. It has worked for countless generations before me and if I am good enough, it will work for at least one generation after me.And we may rewrite that code sooner than later. And I don't care either way. Like I said it means little from a human POV. And even if longevity was the criteria, I don't see how we can make any predictions beyond "near future". What did cavemen or Greeks predict would happen millenia later? How long will the couple of interstellar probes we've sent out last? But like I said, I don't think that's the most meaningful criteria, as far as the meaning of life goes.
Everything else is decoration and sugar on top for me.
But hey, if you have found a different meaning of life for yourself, more power to you.
I have not and I dont think there is one.
Tried and proven to fulfill different purposes from our own. That's one thing we do different from "lower" animals. We can break with tradition - first natural tradition (strictly eat>survive>reproduce, cradle to grave) and later with folkore ("lifestyles", philosophy, etc). Given the increasing dominance of information, over genes, as value.. It wouldn't be surprising for genes to become meaningless. Especially if they're eventually completely (or nearly completely) arbitrary (designer genomes).
The truly dominant paradigm is reason. That's the substrate for the meaning of life, if there is one. Maybe once (if) we collapse all of human thought's irrationalities into a pure (sounds like utopic eugenics but that's not exactly where I'm going with this) rational frame of thought, rooted without any interruption in genetics.. like a computer "speaking" in machine code.. then we could directly see what human reason, as we know it now, takes from genetics and where it fails to reproduce (to model) reality. Since that's the purpose of the human brain - thought experiments. Once we figure that out, and if we're still on a biological, genetic substrate, then we can write purpose made gedankenexperiment machines something like we have purpose-made electronics in (e.g.) space probe missions.
Then I can see genes being tied to the meaning of life. But right now I somehow don't get the impression that the genes we've inherited from those countless generations, all the way back to that primordial specimen, are especially meaningful for the meaning of life. Just vestigial.
The truly dominant paradigm is reason. That's the substrate for the meaning of life, if there is one. Maybe once (if) we collapse all of human thought's irrationalities into a pure (sounds like utopic eugenics but that's not exactly where I'm going with this) rational frame of thought, rooted without any interruption in genetics.. like a computer "speaking" in machine code.. then we could directly see what human reason, as we know it now, takes from genetics and where it fails to reproduce (to model) reality. Since that's the purpose of the human brain - thought experiments. Once we figure that out, and if we're still on a biological, genetic substrate, then we can write purpose made gedankenexperiment machines something like we have purpose-made electronics in (e.g.) space probe missions.
Then I can see genes being tied to the meaning of life. But right now I somehow don't get the impression that the genes we've inherited from those countless generations, all the way back to that primordial specimen, are especially meaningful for the meaning of life. Just vestigial.