What other pains and pleasures are there other than those in a life of one who has been subjected to life? — Isaac


The pains and pleasures caused to others, obviously. — Bartricks

All of whom have been born, presumably. Or are you including Jesus - yes, I didn't think of the immaculate conception of the spirit of the son of god. My mistake. Oh, and there's androids too. I see I've just not thought this through properly...

No, I said that's one way in which one might come to deserve pleasure, I did not say that it was inevitable that it would. — Bartricks

So now some people who are born do not deserve pleasure as a result of their being made to suffer. Poor sods. What did they do have such a reward taken away, was it something in a past life?

Some of the undeserved suffering a person who has been subjected to a life here will endure may well make them deserving of subsequent pleasures. That is not being denied. — Bartricks

So how much? You've not answered my question about your deserve-o-meter. How much is one entitled to in compensation for being born, and how much does one actually get (and is there somewhere I can make a claim if I feel I've been short-changed)? Presumably you've done the maths, let's have it laid out for us.

that even if 'all' of the pleasures in a life come to be deserved in that way, it would probably still be immoral to create that life, because it is generally wrong to do bad that good may come of it. — Bartricks

Why is it 'bad'? Your whole argument for it being 'bad' is that it causes undeserved suffering, but only undeserved pleasure in balance. If it actually delivers deserved pleasure in balance, then there's nothing left making it 'bad' is there. So this counter doesn't work.

People who were screwed up in childhood 60 or 70 years ago have not necessarily become 'unscrewed' over the years. It took me a long time. And despite everything, young people are still getting screwed up. — Bitter Crank

My wife's a child psychologist, and although she now works with very young children, she did a stint with adolescents, so we had a fair bit of dinner-table discussion of the issues (anonymised, of course!).

Children can be severely traumatised by parents arguing, by 'scary' teachers carrying out legally sanctioned punishments, by school bullies, by poverty, by emotional blackmail... These are all very serious causes of trauma and, as I've said, awakening sexuality is also responsible for its fair share of later trauma.

Yet in our responses to, and about, the child, the first group in that list are all too often shrugged off as 'part of life' whilst the second is increasingly seen as something slightly short of the primary work of the devil on earth (Qanon's chosen crime-de-jour is no accident).

There's no easy answer, but I definitely think we should be careful when condemning exploitation not to equally condemn non-exploitative activities associated with it. Sexual exploitation is not like child soldiers, where both the exploitation and the task at hand are equally bad tout court. An older person exploiting a younger person for sex is evil, but that younger person fantasising about consensual sex with an older person is not even wrong, let alone evil. When we condemn the former, we all to often condemn the act sought as well as the method by which it was sought. All this does is make the child believe that the feelings they are getting during their sexual awakening are themselves evil. That is it evil, as an act, to have sex with someone older than them and so there must be something wrong with them for fantasising about it, or developing feelings for someone older whilst under the age of consent themselves.

Quite frankly, if we have such a epidemic of paedophilia in our society that we have to risk screwing up people's attitudes to sex almost permanently just to stamp it out, then we really ought to be looking at why more than we ought to be just fighting the symptoms off the back foot.

The bigger the group, the more standardized the solutions. Not so great. — synthesis

People didn't come up with unified governance for a laugh. They came up with it to resolve conflicting individual solutions, so you're simplistic conclusion that standardised solutions are less well-adapted to each individual is just trivially true, and irrelevant unless you tackle the problem of conflict between the solutions of particular individuals with regards to shared or disputed resources - which is all government is ever about anyway.

if everybody pretty much takes care of themselves, you don't have to worry about taking care of the needs of a future generation. — synthesis

Again, this simply doesn't follow. You've provided no evidence at all that this is the case. what is it about everybody currently living taking care of themselves which somehow magically takes care of the needs of generations yet to come?

Do you really believe that you know what's better for everybody else? — synthesis

Yes. Within my field of expertise, anyway. What makes you think individuals have some sort of clairvoyance telling them what's best for them in the future. I'm genuinely baffled as to how you might think, for example, that a theatre director knows what taxation regime best promotes sustainable growth, or an accountant knows what fuel ratio produces the least long-term change in the earth's atmospheric conditions. Why on earth would they?

Good point now that I think about it. Ignore my previous response. — khaled

I'm afraid I didn't get a chance to properly read your previous response (other than to spot that this one is a slightly edited version), so consider it ignored (by chance).

Since there will be future generations regardless of what you do it’s good to try to create a “family tree of harm reducers”. Since by doing so, by following CN strictly or near strictly, at every step you will always be reducing harm. And since genocide and AN compliance are both impossible then NOT having that family tree around is the more harmful option, since every generation the number of people in the room grows ad infinium, and so does the number of people that you harm by having the child but a lot more slowly (by definition). Would be a pretty small one though due to the nature of CN. — khaled

Yes. Oddly enough, even though I don't have the same ethical system as you, this is very much the picture that I come to also. For me it's more about duty derived from natural virtues, than it is about reducing harms. I know we could get into these differences, but all I really wanted to point out here is that it's noteworthy that our two, quite different approaches, have landed on a similar outcome. Although it may be nothing but a meaningless coincidence, of course.

AN increases harm significantly, then goes to 0. CN keeps a mostly steady level of harm going forever. It is clear which is more harmful overall. — khaled

Yes, I think that's right (within your system). It's one of the reasons why I don't hold with that system alone, it leads to conclusions I find unpleasant, so I assume something must be wrong somewhere. I use my sense of what 'feels' right a lot in ethical decisions, partly because calculating it rationally is fraught with potential errors, and if I went against my gut but later found I was wrong, I'd feel worse than if I went against my calculation but later found it was right. I don't know why.

But considering real conditions, and not idealizations, it is clear that the next generations will exist anyways. In this case it also becomes clear that new people are added to the room each generation you consider. So applying CN is better in real scenarios, applying AN is better in ideal scenarios. — khaled

(I like 'CN' - good coining of a term!). Yes, whichever angle you approach this it seems to lead to the same outcome and I think that's fundamentally because we are a social species whose reproduction of new generations is continuous, rather than sporadic. If either of those two factors didn't exist I'd have a much harder time arguing against AN on their own terms. If we all got together at some point and said "shall we have another generation?", then I can well imagine ANists being at that meeting making a strong case for "no", but as that's not what happens, the arguments don't really apply.

I've been working on ways to get inhaled medications to poor kids with asthma. — frank

Good for you, well done. I'm not sure what that has to do with what I was arguing about though. Maybe I've not been clear. What I'm talking about is the narrative we allow to develop. Everyone interprets the world through a narrative (by 'interpret' here, I mean to make rough and ready decisions about appropriate responses) and that narrative is largely socially constructed. As you said yourself, our individual actions are just a drop in the ocean (no less worthy for it, though), but one of those individual actions is to be part of forming the social narratives that are available. That people can read about 22,000 children a day dying and yet think an appropriate response is to carry on as normal is allowed them by one of the available narratives - "it's too complicated", "I'm doing my bit in giving x to y", "there's more important issues right now", "it's naive to think we can do anything"...etc.

The point I'm making here is about the methods being employed to silence the dissenting voices regarding the pandemic response. Don't get me wrong, I'm no free-speech fundamentalist, nor am I an anti-masker or anti-lockdowner, so I have absolutely no concerns about the fact that these people need to be silenced. But the method matters, a lot. Because once this crisis is over 22,000 children a day are still going to be dying from poverty. We don't, ethically, get to absolve ourselves of responsibility for those people just because there's another crisis around which is also killing 10,000 or so a day.

The narrative being used is dangerous.

The few nutjob anti-maskers are not to blame for the overburdening of hospital services (all societies have nutjobs and failing to plan for them is our fault - as non-nutjobs, not theirs) - decades of chronic underfunding is to blame.

The Disney-esque nastiness of the virus is not to blame for the number of deaths - chronic failures in community healthcare, poor working conditions, junk food manufacturers, urban slums, poor geriatric care, racist housing policies and, again, chronic underfunding of hospital services are.

It is not an unfortunate shock that this virus emerged and took us by surprise - it is the direct consequence of stripping global monitoring services to the bone in order to present tax cuts as an electoral bribe to greedy voters.

The pharmaceutical industries are not saviours, in it with the rest of us - they spent billions lobbying to get this exact result with immunity from any responsibility despite not even testing the vaccine properly and stand to make billions out of the roll-out of a product which has not even been proven to help reduce the transmission, or hospitalisation, delivering protection overwhelmingly to wealthy countries while the poorer ones can go hang because there's no profit in helping them.

And after all this is done, after the vaccine has finally had an effect (presuming it can keep up with mutations and can eventually get to the poorer countries - two big presumptions)...what are we left with as a narrative for the population to reach for when reading about the 22,000 children a day dying of poverty. The 22,000 that have been dying still every day throughout this crisis and will continue to do so afterwards?

We have a narrative which says that global catastrophes just come out of the blue, there's nothing we can really do about them, the few dissenting individuals who don't comply are largely the ones responsible if government plans don't work out and our best course of action is to wait for one of the giant multinational industries to find a solution.

So now - really - how do you think people's response to hearing 22,00 children a day die from poverty is going to have changed?

These children largely die from some disease or other - well diseass just spring out of nowhere don't they, and there's nothing we could have done about that, was there?

These children largely die as a result of failures in government policy - well, governments make good plans, but it's mostly a few nutjobs not complying that spoils them isn't it?

The diseases they die from are largely a result of the poor living conditions they are forced into - but no, living conditions don't affect your vulnerability to disease anymore , diseases are caused by the lack of a profitable pharmaceutical remedy, aren't they?

Their poverty is often the direct result of multinational companies resource-stripping - but hey the big multinationals saved us from coronavirus didn't they, their involvement here can only be a good thing, let's see if they can come up with a solution to this one.

It matters how we talk about things.

They did it because they had the benefit of knowledge gained from countries that learned it the hard way, the first one being Italy. — frank

Nonsense.

Here's an article from 1988 warning of the risk of pandemic diseases.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/373248

The world was famously pre-warned of this one

https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/11/3/210

And yet why were emerging virus programmes like the USAID programne, or the global virome work cut back to the point of barely functioning...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/25/health/predict-usaid-viruses.html

...money.

The glint of a few pence off the tax bill. It's really not that hard to explain why Italy was so unprepared. It costs money to be prepared and people were not willing to pay it.

But hey you can stick to your narrative of the big bad virus coming out of nowhere with no-one to blame for its spread but the tinfoil-hat wearing anti-vaxxers. I'm sure the pharmaceutical industry will be along soon on their white chargers to save us all, and then we can get back to business as usual... killing 22,000 children a day from poverty and no-one giving a shit because they're not white middle class taxpayers.

How would you respond to that? — khaled

First, I'm not sure I completely follow you, so this may not really address what you're saying but...

It seems as though you're applying a different weight to the harm reduction in the new population. If you have two children the risk you took of having miserable ones will have reduced harm in the 98, so still an ethical choice. But the problem you're raising (if i've understood it correctly) is that in doing so you guarantee another 2 miserable people (assuming a fertility rate of exactly 2), yet your actions were only justified by benefitting an original 98. The further you look into the future the worse this balance starts to look.

But, barring either genocide or a 100% compliance with AN regulations, you know there's going to be a generation 2, and a generation 3, and so on. So your actions ensuring two further kids to supply these further generations with sufficient numbers are justified by the same logic. Having a child now reduces suffering in their generation, but it also ensures that there are people willing to have children themselves to reduce suffering in the following generation.

Since you can be almost certain that no matter what you do, these generations are going to happen anyway, you can be almost certain that setting in motion a chain of events to ensure a continuous supply of harm-reducers is a moral choice.

This is still subject to, and makes even more clear, the it requires a reasonable assumption of at least average quality children, and no action to significantly worsen the miserable/happy ratio, or, for that matter, the extent to which people are more likely than not to reduce harm by socialising. None of these are a given.

if they're already doing it, there's no headway for the future. The short-termism of capitalism demands that, if further profit can be made, it be made now. — Kenosha Kid

I suppose if I were to support the theory, I would say that the process is still underway. From a social-psychological perspective, these things would, in theory, take several generations to happen so if it were an attractive goal for industry, I don't think there's necessarily any reason to think they've reached the maximum extent of their potential reach in this respect.

What would be an interesting consequence of this hypothetical is that unless all the industry leaders got together at some big s.p.e.c.t.r.e-style conference to set this year's stupidity targets, then the process, as an organic one, would eventually undermine their own intentions. Completely stupid populations create unstable conditions which are bad for businesses.

Advertising could be more effective by being unregulated. Smoking might become healthy again — Kenosha Kid

Yes, I think that's a very real concern. Let's not forget the biggest genocide the world has ever known was commited by British American Tobacco. It never ceases to amaze me what people can be convinced to do by a bit of manufactured peer pressure.


Millgram (of obedience study fame) had a really interesting way of looking at issues like these (the system undermining its own existence). He posited that our economic society has become sufficiently complex that no individual can clearly see the bigger picture of what success in their particular job is actually for. The consequence being that each individual can quite vociferously pursue a take which actually undermines their own position simply because their task (and more importantly their reward structure) is couched in small-picture terms, yet the consequences of their success at it affects the big picture.

How many iPhones can you release in a year before idiots stop queueing around the block the day before release day? — Kenosha Kid

I think Apple are on a mission to find out!

Seriously though, it's long been a pet theory of mine (I don't know about the economic viability of the approach, but I certainly know about about the psychological viability, and in that respect it would definitely work).

It seems to me there are these two factors -

1. the rate at which new, useful technology is invented (associated with the rate at which new needs arise).

And

2. the rate at which products need to be sold to generate sufficient economies of scale to make them profitable, bearing in mind the demand generated by the strength of (1).

That these two completely unrelated factors should just happen to coincide such the firms can continue to profit from new and useful technology seems unlikely in the extreme. Hence the need for something to plug the gap...

...So along comes advertising and built-in obsolescence...

...But who, in their right mind is going to fall for that...

...So along comes Twitter and all is well again...

if everyone abides by the rule: "Only have children when it is likely that doing so prevents more suffering than the alternative" then it becomes sustainable. Even a population of 1 billion would suffer less than the original 100 if everyone abides by the rule. — khaled

Yes. But you make a good point nonetheless. I don't think there's nothing good to take away from antinatalist arguments (of the kind you presented anyway). In some respects I worry that arguing too hard against antinatalism (again, only of the variety you presented), might be itself problematic for this exact reason. There definitely are serious ethical considerations to be taken into account when contemplating having a child and these shouldn't be swept away in any attempt to counter the less palatable arguments of antinatalism. The problem of excessive population growth is certainly one such issue. I think a certain amount of population fluctuation is inevitable as people try to estimate what birth rate is required to ensure a new generation given their circumstances, but making private decisions to have a large number of children in a country where the birth rate far exceeds the death rate is, I think, unethical. There's clearly already going to be a sufficient next generation to serve the community's social needs, there's no need to increase it, and thereby increase the demands placed on the following generation to supply for.

If, when I am 80, this situation comes around again, you tell my great grand kids I love them and wish them the best future and put me down. — Book273

Mine starts to kick in at 75, but yes I agree with you here. The euthanasia laws in our country are a disgrace, however, and very difficult to legally circumvent. I'd like to have put in clauses about painless medication in cases where temporary life support might be considered, but apparently I'm told such clauses are difficult to enforce.

Ideology is the greatest danger; in this case individualism preventing folk taking personal care and faith in the free market preventing preparation and adequate responses. — Banno

Indeed. It's only that I see a lot of talk about the former and very little about the latter.

Brisbane locked down hard for three days after one case. Long enough for tracing to be done, End of outbreak. — Banno

Brilliantly done. Fast, hard and accompanied by tracing. A good example of a working tool being used properly.

just because life was bearable to you until now, it doesn't follow that it will stay that way. All the risks that may befall your child may still befall you in the future — Olivier5

It's not about the risks it's about the reasons to take them. The argument presented is that once living you may have reasons to take those later risks (the things you actually know that you're actively enjoying) whereas the potential child is not currently enjoying anything and so cannot be presumed to have any reasons of their own to take the risks associated with that enjoyment.

Really it would be better if you just read the thread before rehashing the arguments from pages back. We don't need to go over them all again, the argument has very much moved on.

If life could be full of harms, and if that risk justifies not giving life to a child, why should the lives of AN be an exception? Why should they opt to live, when "life could be full of harm"? — Olivier5

This doesn't even make sense on a first read, let alone the second that you should have given it before posting. That a thing could be harmful is completely resolved once immersed in that thing. "the water might be cold!" [gets in] "Oh no, it's fine".

Also harmful to a child is parents flying into hysteria with their child, having discovered that they were engaging in voluntary sex play. — Bitter Crank

Not that it's much related to the discussion, but just to say this is a really important point that is often overlooked in discussions about this, understandably, very sensitive topic.

Whilst child molestation is obviously evil and should be prevented, if the very assignation of sexuality is allowed to be determined by strict application of age boundaries and not by the growing child themselves, you end up with deep psychological problems. How is a young adult supposed to have a healthy sex life after the age of consent (in their particular country) if, prior to that age, they have it rammed down their throats that being thought of as a sexual person is so manifestly evil that it should be punished with widespread contempt, yet come the magic 'day-of-change' suddenly they're supposed to now have a positive and guilt-free image of their own sexuality.

On the other side of the coin are children who mature late, in sexual terms, who are left with absolutely nothing to protect them from being seen as sexual objects because no-one is actually asking the child, but deferring to the arbitrary number written on the statute.

Coercing someone into doing something they don't want to do (or can't make a fully informed decision about) is evil, doing so with something as intimate as sex even more so.

Treating sexual desire and the thinking of oneself sexually as something which itself is evil outside of certain prescribed life-stages is nothing but a deeply damaging hang-over from puritanism.

It's a mistake to conflate the two. A mistake which causes a significant number of serious psychological problems for our adolescents. As if they didn't have enough of those already.

"Lock down hard and early" is a future principle that I don't think anyone sensible could now deny. But it unfortunately doesn't help us decide the best course of action now, when those lock-downs haven't happened or have been insufficient. As Banno's data shows, once the virus is endemic in the community lock-downs have a significantly smaller impact on the progression of the virus, partly because the baseline numbers are bigger, but mostly because, as the scientist quoted says, the centres of spread are often "the very places that you can’t shut down, even in the strictest of lockdowns"

Lock-downs are still an important part of the solution, but to treat them (as our government here in the UK are doing) as it's only weapon is beyond reckless. We need massive investment in healthcare and community services and we need it yesterday, yet it is almost completely absent in the Hollywood version of events being portrayed by the majority of the media.

On a related note. There's finally some kickback from the medical community over this childish narrative of the big evil virus and a disobedient public being responsible for all the worlds ills...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/23/covid-dont-blame-public-overloaded-hospitals-icu-medics-tell-nhs-staff

Capitalism creates a situation where every single service is cut to very bone, without a shred of (inefficient) capacity built in. Creates a population strung out on junk food and TV. Puts minority groups into poverty that the Eastern block would have been ashamed of. Packs children into classes with barely enough teachers to stop a riot, let alone manage a pandemic. Packs the elderly into homes with the bare minimum of services to keep them alive. Packs the workforce into jobs which extract every ounce of effort out of them for as little return as possible... And then when a virus comes along and knocks the whole precarious structure over we blame the fucking virus. and who do we laud as the saviours of this debacle. The very capitalist industries who created the whole fucking thing in the first place.

if you have less people to sell shit to, you have less profit. — Kenosha Kid

The alternative is to make the remaining population so stupid that they'll keep buying the same shit over and over again with the increased wages they're getting form a better employment market...

...I wonder if we can muster any evidence of that happening...

The idea is that you want to simplify processes, that is, individualize them — synthesis

Nope, still missing a link I'm afraid. Simplify, yes. Indiviualise...? That's neither the same as simplify, nor does is relate in any way that I can see to 'simplify' Making each individual person solve the problem for themselves might simplify a problem or it might not, it really has no intrinsic bearing at all of the complexity of the problem solving task.

Joe Blow is in a much better position to ascertain the needs for himself and his family than is a politician attempting to make the same decisions for a million of his closest friends and neighbors. — synthesis

Maybe (though I wouldn't always agree), but we're talking about the needs of a future generation here, not Joe Blow and his wife. Why would he be any better judge of that than the (hopefully well-informed) politician?

You're mistakenly assuming that I am talking exclusively about the pains and pleasures contained in the life of the one who has been subjected to a life — Bartricks

What other pains and pleasures are there other than those in a life of one who has been subjected to life?

Assume, very implausibly... — Bartricks

Why 'implausibly'? You've admitted the being subject to unjust suffering puts someone in a position of deserving happiness. You've said that to that be born is to experience unjust suffering.

To be honest I think your deserve-o-meter must need recalibrating because I put all the figures for everyone who's ever lived and everyone who will ever live into mine and I get a 6.24 for deservedness, which is actually slightly higher than the 6.15 reading I'm getting from my suffer-o-meter on suffering. Maybe just pop all those figures in again and recalculate, you might need to send yours back.

Just tell me again, in case I'm putting the wrong figures in - exactly how much pleasure does one deserve as a result of being subjected to unjust suffering of being born - I've got 3.2 written here on my device's instructions, have they upped it in the upgrades?

by subjecting someone to a lifetime's existence in this world, one will be creating lots of undeserved suffering. — Bartricks

Therefore by your own definition their pleasure is deserved.

one way [to deserve pleasure] is through being a victim of undeserved suffering. — Bartricks

I am not sure I follow you. — synthesis

OK.

society is based on an infinite number of things going on at the same time. Nobody can understand this kind of complexity, yet proscribe solutions for it. — synthesis

Is a premise.

Therefore you allow those participating to figure out what works best for them in their situation (and guard against folks over-reaching and corruption). — synthesis

Is a conclusion. They're linked by the word 'therefore'

Again.

Even the simplest of things is infinitely complex — synthesis

Premise.

so the best path seems to be to allow for each participant to chart his own course (within the context of respecting others' rights to do the same). — synthesis

Conclusion. Linked by the word 'so'.

Your premises do not lead to your conclusions.

What would you say to me if I said "Lemons are yellow, therefore we should all sing the national anthem"? Something's missing, no?

Likewise with your contention.

Does that clarify at all?

Nobody can understand this kind of complexity, yet proscribe solutions for it. Therefore you allow those participating to figure out what works best for them in their situation (and guard against folks over-reaching and corruption). — synthesis

Even the simplest of things is infinitely complex, so the best path seems to be to allow for each participant to chart his own course (within the context of respecting others' rights to do the same). — synthesis

In neither version have you shown how your conclusion follows from your premise.

It's not a matter of special pleading but a different case. — schopenhauer1

Yet all you've done is describe the difference. Which is exactly the definition of special pleading. Nowhere have you explained why that difference is relevant ethically. What else do you see as the difference between 'special pleading' and substantive difference, other than that in the former no substance is given to the distinction?

You say the dignity of the sleeping lifeguard can be imposed upon to alleviate the swimmer's suffering, but the dignity of the imaginary future child cannot be, yet the only distinction you offer is that in one case you are starting a life. You've not given any reason why starting a life should have this special status whereby the suffering doing so might alleviate is insufficient to out weigh the imposition, yet with the already living, it is.

The closest I can find is "it a case of absolutely not creating unnecessary harm", but, as has been shown, this is absolutely not the case. Harm is caused either way.

I can also say the social relations lead to suffering, as much as we are drawn to them. — schopenhauer1

You could. But you'd be evidently wrong. If it we the case that social relations lead to suffering, as much as we are drawn to them then you'd expect on average about 50% of people to live as hermits. We see nothing of the sort, so the pros of social living clearly outweigh the cons, for most people.

Is it too much for your little brain to work out that carbon capture, desalination, recycling etc, require a lot of energy that wind and solar cannot provide? — counterpunch

Yes. That's why I leave that sort of thing to experts in those various fields. And you've still provided nothing to back up your assertion that no other factors are involved.

It's a tedtalk by a master statistician, and it does prove my point. — counterpunch

Where? I've watched the whole thing. Nowhere does he even mention the causes of mortality. Not even in passing or implication. Nothing. The whole lecture is about how third world countries are becoming more developed, more mid-level and that within-region variation is high. Have you perhaps accidentally posted the wrong link?

If you care about a sustainable future - why are you not delighted to learn that there's no need to stop this, carbon tax that, eat grass and cycle to work? — counterpunch

Because you've not provided a shred of evidence. Not one single tiny hint that anything you claim is actually the case.

people only starve these days as a consequence of political turmoil, war, natural disaster, disease — counterpunch


So, as you ask so nicely - watch this: — counterpunch

Watched it. No mention at all of the circumscription you put here on the factors affecting access to food. Not one.

that resources are a function of the energy available to create them, is proven by the fact that given sufficient clean energy - we could capture carbon, produce fresh water, irrigate land etc. — counterpunch

The second part is not a fact. You've not shown that energy supply is the only factor involved in assessing our ability to do these things, and on the face of it, it seems extraordinary unlikely that it would be.

So, as you ask so nicely - watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w — counterpunch

YouTube is not a source, but it's a start. Find a paper by this Hans Rosling and quote from it the parts that support your assertion...

...if you're remotely interested in taking this seriously, of course, which I've seen absolutely no evidence of thus far.

If you're going to copy and paste it - either post the original, or format the copy as intended. — counterpunch

Yep, my bad.

What here requires a source? — counterpunch

Just in that section, there's...

In fact, resources are a function of the energy available to create them. — counterpunch

we could capture carbon and bury it, desalinate water to irrigate land, produce hydrogen fuel, recycle everything, farm fish etc - and so support human population, at high levels of welfare, even while protecting forests and natural water sources from over exploitation — counterpunch

The climate and ecological crisis is not a matter of how many people there are, but rather, that we have applied the wrong technologies — counterpunch

Then in the rest of your contribution, there's

people only starve these days as a consequence of political turmoil, war, natural disaster, disease — counterpunch

So, "Do you have any further information on that?"

Your philosophical approach is to make up empirical facts without having either the qualifications or the sources — Isaac


Such as? Provide sources! — counterpunch

I set out meaning and purpose, insofar as it's possible to discern:

I disagree with the assertion that the earth is over-populated.

An answer that does not construe the very existence of human beings as problematic.

Rather, technology is misapplied. In fact, resources are a function of the energy available to create them. Harness limitless clean energy from the core of the earth - we could capture carbon and bury it, desalinate water to irrigate land, produce hydrogen fuel, recycle everything, farm fish etc - and so support human population, at high levels of welfare, even while protecting forests and natural water sources from over exploitation.

An approach that identifies the root cause of the climate and ecological crisis, and in those same terms - describes the possibility of a prosperous, sustainable future.

The climate and ecological crisis is not a matter of how many people there are, but rather, that we have applied the wrong technologies, because we use science as a tool of ideology, but ignore science as an understanding of reality in its own right.

That so, it is not merely reproduction that furthers the interests of the species, but also - knowing what's true. By knowing what's true and acting accordingly we could secure a sustainable, long term future for humankind in the universe - and after that, who knows?

An approach with ontological implications - a way of being, that implies the existence of an ultimate meaning or purpose to be discovered.

It might be travel to other stars, other dimensions, time travel, uploading our minds into machines and living forever. It might even be God; but whatever it is, if we survive our technological adolescence, if our species lives long enough, we will find it.

And it falls upon stoney ground. I cannot explain it. Is it ego? Is it impossible for them to admit they are wrong? Or jealousy - the impossibility of admitting I am right? Is it cowardice - that they hide from reality? Or self hatred - do they think themselves unworthy of existence? How is it that, given a simple answer - they cannot, or will not see it? — counterpunch

Your philosophy. No sources.

There you go.

If you like to provide your preferred form for the citation I'd be happy to make a proper reference for it.

if you are saying - a 'healthy' infected person contaminates (sheds) lots of virus… - then no, I disagree, because healthy infected people remove more of the virus than they shed. — Roger Gregoire

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(20)30172-5/fulltext?fbclid=IwAR0ntYXSFYTQ5nEBFWn4Xv7CKW1r_9LTYTOr8z8gjQIu83V0UdkXZYLDvyQ

Do some fucking research before spouting off whatever you happen to reckon in public. Have some dignity man.

There are no sources per se - because it's my philosophical approach. — counterpunch

Your philosophical approach is to make up empirical facts without having either the qualifications or the sources to establish whether they're the actually likely to be the case or not?

I thought you'd said earlier that your approach was to take science seriously.

To be as clear as possible, I'm saying that it is not what I think of as normal (ie, a normative claim) for people of one group to want, and so engineer circumstances that, buy their well-being at the expense of some other group.

It is, however, ethically normal to want to sacrifice your own well-being to secure such an outcome for others.

I have a do-not-resuscitate plan and a euthanasia plan lodged with my solicitor, for example.

so you checked with those under 80? — Book273

No, it was an ethical point, not a statistical one.

most normal people under 80 don't really want their way of life bought at the expense of the deaths of huge numbers of people over 80. — Isaac

Do I have to keep bolding the relevant words to get you to read them all.

To simplify things, for the ethically challenged.

"Let me get that heavy box for you,"

"No, you're already carrying a heavy load, I'm fine with it"

"Really, I don't mind"...

Etc.

Maybe check before you make an assumption eh. — Book273

If you read more carefully, you'll see no such assumption has been made, and quite deliberately so. I said...

most normal people under 80 don't really want their way of life bought at the expense of the deaths of huge numbers of people over 80. — Isaac

I've bolded the relevant part. It contains no claim whatsoever about what most people over 80 think.

You think I'm wrong because you're simply incapable of following the argument. — counterpunch

The argument you were referring to in full...

I set out meaning and purpose, insofar as it's possible to discern:

I disagree with the assertion that the earth is over-populated.

An answer that does not construe the very existence of human beings as problematic.

Rather, technology is misapplied. In fact, resources are a function of the energy available to create them. Harness limitless clean energy from the core of the earth - we could capture carbon and bury it, desalinate water to irrigate land, produce hydrogen fuel, recycle everything, farm fish etc - and so support human population, at high levels of welfare, even while protecting forests and natural water sources from over exploitation.

An approach that identifies the root cause of the climate and ecological crisis, and in those same terms - describes the possibility of a prosperous, sustainable future.

The climate and ecological crisis is not a matter of how many people there are, but rather, that we have applied the wrong technologies, because we use science as a tool of ideology, but ignore science as an understanding of reality in its own right.

That so, it is not merely reproduction that furthers the interests of the species, but also - knowing what's true. By knowing what's true and acting accordingly we could secure a sustainable, long term future for humankind in the universe - and after that, who knows?

An approach with ontological implications - a way of being, that implies the existence of an ultimate meaning or purpose to be discovered.

It might be travel to other stars, other dimensions, time travel, uploading our minds into machines and living forever. It might even be God; but whatever it is, if we survive our technological adolescence, if our species lives long enough, we will find it.

And it falls upon stoney ground. I cannot explain it. Is it ego? Is it impossible for them to admit they are wrong? Or jealousy - the impossibility of admitting I am right? Is it cowardice - that they hide from reality? Or self hatred - do they think themselves unworthy of existence? How is it that, given a simple answer - they cannot, or will not see it? — counterpunch

It does not once mention Galileo, nor the oppression of the church.

It does mention a lot about geothermal energy, and how capitalist approaches can save humanity.

So no. It's got nothing to do with my not following an argument and everything to do with you talking about stuff you're unqualified to talk about without citing your sources.

Do you need a citation to prove that in 1634, Galileo was arrested and tried for heresy upon proving earth orbits the sun? Do you need a citation to explain that religion supressed science as truth? — counterpunch

No, that's common knowledge.

Do you need a citation to explain that the industrial revolution began around 1730 - using science for industrial power and profit, even while science as truth was supressed by a church that burnt people alive for heresy right through to 1792? — counterpunch

No. That too is common knowledge.

None of these fact support your conclusion. What have either got to do with the conclusion that capitalism is inseparably linked to agricultural technology, or that geothermal energy is a viable source?

Who else here supports every idea with academic sources? — counterpunch

Alarmingly few. Most do not make so many heterodox claims though.

what makes you think I'm unqualified? — counterpunch

You've already told us your educational level.

If it were that they think the answer is wrong, surely, they would explain in what way it's wrong — counterpunch

Why would they offer you that courtesy when you've not offered them the courtesy of explaining why you are right? You're totally unqualified to comment yourself and you've not provided any supporting citation from those who are. Why would we put in effort you are not prepared to put in.

How is it that, given a simple answer - they cannot, or will not see it? — counterpunch

They think the answer is wrong. It's not rocket science.

Did you somehow miss that class in your 'Other people have different opinions to you' lessons?

Literally brain damaged. — Cobra

Unbelievable co-incidence that three brain-damaged people should end up writing on the same thread, because I didn't think your posts made any sense either. It's a good job we've got you around to identify this previously undiagnosed epidemic of mental health conditions. Do you find yourself identifying brain damage in a lot of people you talk to by any chance?

saying something is wrong because it is inconsistent gets you in a lot less trouble than saying that something is wrong because it "feels wrong". So it's superior in that sense. — khaled

Yes, I agree. We find it a more satisfying argument, for sure. But consider the case of something like "I can fit this car into this matchbox". You just can't. The plain and simple fact that you can't is actually more compelling than an argument that it is inconsistent with the laws of physics because one might not fully understand the laws of physics and so leave room for doubt. One can more clearly 'see' a car can't fit in a matchbox, than one can 'see' the contradiction with the laws of physics.

I would guess that's why pfhorrest uses it as the arbiter. — khaled

I would have less issue with it if he did, but it comes along with a long line of previous argument about the means by which 'wrong' ideas can be objectively identified as such, and it had little to do with what people find satisfyingly convincing. Were that the justification, I'd probably agree, with a few caveats.