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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26049 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 4, 2023

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Yes, they very explicitly do! I'm the person who came up with this "hypothetical" and I can very flatly state that it is not taking place in a science-fiction universe with AGI and dyson spheres

Well you can see I don't find myself beholden to your strict interpretation of the hypothetical.

And leaving aside futuristic things like Dyson Spheres, we're thankfully living in the !science fiction setting where we had the Green Revolution and have industrialized agriculture. There is no shortage of cheap calories on a global level.

You don't get to have infinite growth on a finite planet. Overfarming can damage environments, and if you overfish a lake to the point that the fish can't recover, you've permanently reduced the population your environment can support.

Sure. All well and good. But there are plenty of billions on the table yet, even trillions or quadrillions just on Earth if it was truly optimized as an ecumenopolis. Fuck the environment as far as I'm concerned. If it has to give so we can have more humans around, all the worse for it.

Once again, I stress that humans have existed in Malthusian conditions for most of history, and only recently broken out of it, even if that is "temporary" compared to the limits of exponential population growth. I see no reason to think that hypothetical carrying capacity will be breached before it keeps getting raised, as has been the case for about a century or so, and for a good while to go.

Does maybe a few hundred million extra Africans in a century change much? A billion or two? Not really, and I don't expect the conditions that make them be non-self-sufficient in the same manner as most other nations to cease before they balloon and outnumber all of us.

You're proposing that we spend the entirety of the world's excess on feeding more and more Ethiopians, without any care for the consequences of doing so.

What on Earth gave you that impression?

I never advocated for the largesse of the globe heading to them. At most, to the extent that Effective Utilitarians are choosing to help feed them, I don't object to them using their funds in that manner.

What happens when there's a crop failure somewhere else in the world, or a different plague/famine/war that leaves other nations reliant on charity as well?

They get shafted, and I don't care. At that point the EAs may well decide that they're not the cheapest population to prioritize, and everyone else gets a handout. Or more likely, the EAs don't have money to spare at all.

Do you walk into conversations about cars and talk about how discussing fuel economy is useless because we're going to have spaceships soon? If you want to talk about cool sci-fi novels, that's great! I mean, I like talking about them too - but a conversation about the hard ecological limits to human existence in the present isn't the place.

Fuel economy concerns matter a great deal less when we can reasonably expect energy to get much cheaper. I support it to the extent it pays for itself, and pricing in externalities.

As for the "ecological limits", they're likely in the tens of billions with minimal change to the condition of the average human and not much in the way of major change in terms of agricultural technologies. Given that I think those are inevitable, trillions or billions.

We can worry about it when we get there, or improvements stall before population growth does.

We feed them now, and then when this problem returns in the future I'll just plug in my Mr Fusion and 3d print an infinite supply of burgers for all the starving people" isn't an option that's on the table! You're advocating for more suffering and a lower total population over time due to ecological destruction.

Why not? I invite you to show me we're near nominal capacity with even current agriculture. We are clearly not optimizing for calories over all else, as we would if we had reason to.

The last time something like this happened in my social circle, it was cancer. If I was going to die at a young age, I would greatly prefer the last moments that they went through as opposed to starving to death with the rest of my family in Africa as I watch them eat the seed corn that could have helped a smaller family survive and thrive.

I have seen a great more youthful deaths from cancer than you have. As would be expected, I work in an Oncology ward.

Let me tell you that the modal passage is not something I'd call dignified.

In other words, you're arguing with a position I don't hold, and I think you utterly underestimate the nominal carrying capacity of this globe without even going into non-existent technologies.

There is no shortage of cheap calories on a global level.

Are you familiar with the way this conversation started? This is an unsustainable practice and is only possible because we are drawing down on the accumulated energy savings of millions of years. We are inflating a population bubble that will cause immense damage to the environment and its ability to support human life when it bursts. The same industrialised agriculture you're talking about, with its incredibly lopsided EROEI compared to previous farming methods, is a big part of the problem.

Fuck the environment as far as I'm concerned.

This, on the other hand, is just immensely stupid. Where does the food required to sustain you come from? Where does the oxygen you need to breathe come from? Where does the water you need to live come from? If you're working in medicine then I'm sure you know how many compounds and discoveries are either sourced from or inspired by nature. A human being is utterly inseparable from the environment, and maintaining a healthy environment is a requirement to actually be healthy yourself.

If it has to give so we can have more humans around, all the worse for it.

If the environment has to give, you don't get any more humans! Humans need the environment to survive and cannot be removed from it without killing them. "Fuck this dude's body. If it has to give so I can have more tumour mass, all the worse for it." - given where you work, I'm sure you know what happens when some part of a greater system decides to grow out of control and stop giving a shit about the environment that supports it.

You're not advocating for transhumanism, you're arguing for human extinction. A human being removed from his environment is a corpse.

I see no reason to think that hypothetical carrying capacity will be breached before it keeps getting raised,

We have already most likely breached it - current population levels are only really sustainable while burning fossil fuels, which we have a limited supply of. Even assuming alternative energy sources come online in time to save us, the soil degradation and erosion caused by petroleum-based agriculture combined with shifting weather patterns are going to be a big problem for the future. We're actually tracking the World3 Business-as-Usual model alarmingly well, and that's predicting a peak in global population in the not-so-distant future.

What on Earth gave you that impression?

The point where you entered the discussion.

Fuel economy concerns matter a great deal less when we can reasonably expect energy to get much cheaper.

I don't think we can reasonably expect that. Based on historical trends we can expect the price of energy to get more expensive to the point that it causes demand destruction, which then drives prices back down again.

not much in the way of major change in terms of agricultural technologies.

If there's no major change in agricultural technologies caloric availability falls off a cliff as petroleum gets substantially more expensive and climate change shifts weather patterns in ways that are inconvenient for current farming/river systems, rendering our current farming techniques unviable.

We can worry about it when we get there, or improvements stall before population growth does.

Congratulations! You can start worrying about it now.

I have seen a great more youthful deaths from cancer than you have. As would be expected, I work in an Oncology ward.

Let me tell you that the modal passage is not something I'd call dignified.

I suppose it might be different in , but for me the biggest contributor to whether or not I'd consider my death "dignified" would be what I leave behind for others. Dying in agony of cancer would be more dignified to me than dying peacefully in my sleep if the latter meant that I'd caused irreparable harm to the world that my descendants would have to live in.

In other words, you're arguing with a position I don't hold

I'm sorry if I misinterpreted your posts. But, sadly, I don't think your position here holds water regardless.

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