bilby
Fair dinkum thinkum
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Population growth control measures are all either immoral; or are morally justified by benefits unrelated to population.
As I posted in the related thread in the Natural Science forum:
So never mind whether this or that measure to control population growth is immoral - the very idea that we should employ any measure for the purpose of controlling population growth is itself immoral.
As I posted in the related thread in the Natural Science forum:
Population IS the 'real human world'. It's the thing we are trying to sustain.
Every single medical problem you have ever had is due to your being alive. If you were not alive, none of those problems would exist. Therefore, the solution to your medical issues is to stop living.
That's (I hope obviously) a stupid argument; so how is it different from:
Every single environmental problem we have ever had is due to our population. If we did not have a population, none of those problems would exist. Therefore, the solution to our environmental issues is to reduce population.
Solutions that cause more harm than the problems they are intended to address are NOT viable solutions. They are not even SANE solutions.
Population control is insane. It's a non-solution to a non-problem.
The ONLY population control measure that I would support is for all the people who are worried about population levels to remove themselves from the population.
All the other measures that have any impact on population do so as a side effect of something that is worthwhile in its own right - education, improved life expectancy and lower child mortality, reproductive freedom, etc; Or that are clearly and unequivocally immoral - forced sterilization, genocide, war, famine, etc.
It is therefore both needless and dangerous to discuss population as a 'problem'.
It is exactly as worthwhile and sensible a discussion to have as were the learned discussions in the 1930s regarding the Jewish Problem. 'Population' is a red flag that says "dangerously inhumane ideas ahead". For every academic toying with the idea of establishing a nice homeland for the Jews in Madagascar, there are a dozen blackshirts who see the learned consideration of the 'problem' as justification for gas chambers.
Numbers are, perhaps, "relevant" (for a given value of "relevant") but cannot be addressed humanely. Other causes of environmental problems are able to be addressed humanely, and for EVERY problem, there is such a solution.
IOW, for the sake of humanity, we need to shut the fuck up about population, and start dealing with the actual problems in the environment. THAT is by FAR the best solution to the 'population problem'.
So never mind whether this or that measure to control population growth is immoral - the very idea that we should employ any measure for the purpose of controlling population growth is itself immoral.