I’ve often said to people that while overpopulation may be a problem, there are lots of problems in life, and lots of solutions. Regardless of any other considerations, constantly killing off the oldest generation is the absolute WORST solution to the overpopulation problem, and the only reason anyone accepts it at all is because they’re so used to it.
He’s retreated to the Boredom Argument, which I’m also in the process of poking, but I think I’ve succeed on those first two points.
My first argument was about getting him to treat his objections as problems to be solved rather than excuses to die. That didn’t quite get through to him on its own, but I pointed out how there are already foreseeable solutions and none of them are actually worse than the continuing loss of life.
There were several arguments traded, including my pointing out that despite saying that he, personally, didn’t want to die, he was arguing as if he hoped it was impossible.
Just pointing out that there were (less than ideal, but workable) solutions available today for the overpopulation issue got him to back off on that point. (The specific possibility I suggested was the immortality treatment being made contingent on birth control, along with a law that said “immortals can only have babies if they’re not on earth” to finally get the general population investing in real space travel/colonization.)
He was a bit more stubborn on the societal stagnation, but I pointed out that society doesn’t exist without the people in it and his concept was more about meta-society than actual society. I got him to admit that he, personally, wouldn’t willingly die for the sake of an acceleration in the social advancement of meta-society. But the argument that finally broke through and made him retreat to the Boredom Argument was this:
I’m not arguing that new people aren’t necessary, merely that the conscious sentient humans who already exist shouldn’t be destroyed just so the new people can come into existence a bit sooner in a worse world.
I’ve already started working on his boredom argument, but I think he’s going to be a bit more stubborn about that one. He as good as refused to read passed the first few paragraphs of Prolegomena to a Theory of Fun, complaining of “wordiness”.
Of course, but the one that got through to him was pointing out that boredom would be a marked improvement for a lot of humans alive today, who live lives of active misery rather than just up and dying and that’s when they’re going to die in just a few decades anyway. It follows that Boredom Argument proponents are vastly underestimating the human survival instinct.
I second this request. I’ve brought up transhumanism with ~10 of my friends, and every single one immediately jumped to this objection and thought of it as a knockdown argument against cryonics/life extension. I’ve experimented with a handful of replies (“birth rates fall as societies industrialize”, ”who are we to impose our values on the future and decide who gets to live?”, etc.) but in all cases I was unable to prevent overpopulation from becoming a stopsign.
What would happen if you tried the flip side: “religion is necessary because there is no other way to have a sustainable population level, even of hundreds of thousands—the population would shrink to zero”.
Atheists have a low birth rate. I’ve heard the argument—why would world population grow to Malthusian catastrophe with life extension of a significant population?
Both statements depend on the fallacy that if one thing in a complex system changes absolutely nothing else will change, so the present equilibrium will spiral into a worst case scenario with no one consciously averting it and no self corrections within the system whatsoever.
Since the subject content triggers a mental block, you have to find the same rhetorical mechanism with benign content to form an analogous case they commit to, then show how the cases are analogous.
If you manage this in practice, tell me how.
I’ve often said to people that while overpopulation may be a problem, there are lots of problems in life, and lots of solutions. Regardless of any other considerations, constantly killing off the oldest generation is the absolute WORST solution to the overpopulation problem, and the only reason anyone accepts it at all is because they’re so used to it.
He’s retreated to the Boredom Argument, which I’m also in the process of poking, but I think I’ve succeed on those first two points.
My first argument was about getting him to treat his objections as problems to be solved rather than excuses to die. That didn’t quite get through to him on its own, but I pointed out how there are already foreseeable solutions and none of them are actually worse than the continuing loss of life.
There were several arguments traded, including my pointing out that despite saying that he, personally, didn’t want to die, he was arguing as if he hoped it was impossible.
Just pointing out that there were (less than ideal, but workable) solutions available today for the overpopulation issue got him to back off on that point. (The specific possibility I suggested was the immortality treatment being made contingent on birth control, along with a law that said “immortals can only have babies if they’re not on earth” to finally get the general population investing in real space travel/colonization.)
He was a bit more stubborn on the societal stagnation, but I pointed out that society doesn’t exist without the people in it and his concept was more about meta-society than actual society. I got him to admit that he, personally, wouldn’t willingly die for the sake of an acceleration in the social advancement of meta-society. But the argument that finally broke through and made him retreat to the Boredom Argument was this:
I’ve already started working on his boredom argument, but I think he’s going to be a bit more stubborn about that one. He as good as refused to read passed the first few paragraphs of Prolegomena to a Theory of Fun, complaining of “wordiness”.
have you used the “If you run out of things to do at age 10 000 you can always resume the ageing and die THEN” argument?
Of course, but the one that got through to him was pointing out that boredom would be a marked improvement for a lot of humans alive today, who live lives of active misery rather than just up and dying and that’s when they’re going to die in just a few decades anyway. It follows that Boredom Argument proponents are vastly underestimating the human survival instinct.
I second this request. I’ve brought up transhumanism with ~10 of my friends, and every single one immediately jumped to this objection and thought of it as a knockdown argument against cryonics/life extension. I’ve experimented with a handful of replies (“birth rates fall as societies industrialize”,
”who are we to impose our values on the future and decide who gets to live?”, etc.) but in all cases I was unable to prevent overpopulation from becoming a stopsign.
What would happen if you tried the flip side: “religion is necessary because there is no other way to have a sustainable population level, even of hundreds of thousands—the population would shrink to zero”.
I feel like I don’t understand your point—can you clarify? Why would the population shrink to zero without religion?
Atheists have a low birth rate. I’ve heard the argument—why would world population grow to Malthusian catastrophe with life extension of a significant population?
Both statements depend on the fallacy that if one thing in a complex system changes absolutely nothing else will change, so the present equilibrium will spiral into a worst case scenario with no one consciously averting it and no self corrections within the system whatsoever.
Since the subject content triggers a mental block, you have to find the same rhetorical mechanism with benign content to form an analogous case they commit to, then show how the cases are analogous.
Gotcha, thanks for expanding that. I will definitely give it a try.