You don’t need everyone, just a majority. There is no value in arguing with people who think this is sustainable.

Right past self employment and small business to fully on the dole? This country has a labor problem because it has a monopolization epidemic. It's what no court or advocate seems to consider when it endorses these mega mergers strictly for the impacts it has on one market, the products, and entirely ignores impacts on the other, which is labor.

I believe it’s your duty on the earth to provide value in some way. We need to stop reproducing tbh. The animal kingdom operates differently than humanity. They self regulate. We do not. We just keep going and sucking more from this place and there is no equilibrium.

>We need to stop reproducing tbh.

I love my family, thanks. You do what you want.

> The animal kingdom operates differently than humanity.

But probably not out of consciousness nor choice. When you study ecosystems, boom and bust cycles are quite common. Visions of "harmonious" nature are greatly exaggerated -- and BTW will get you a tongue-lashing from Werner Herzog.

When you do see an ecosystem in relative harmony, just wait a while :P Even when it seems "calm", I would not tend to attribute that dynamic to "good actors" in any anthropomorphic sense -- as in various species consciously moderating their actions.

Evolving species can face rather brutal environments. Eeeking out an existence seems to have nothing to do with long-term plans. (Aside: this is not to say there is no cooperation between species!)

Now, I'll try to state perhaps a variation of what the above comment might have meant (I'm not sure)... growing too quickly and overcommitting resources is a risky endeavor. Relentless optimization over short time frames can little to brittleness and hurt long-term adaptation.

Last thing: I've studied enough mathematics and optimization to know that it is probably non-obvious -- if not altogether impossible -- to figure out the "optimal" time horizon. Optimization is only solvable if one assumes a particular formulation of a time horizon (or probabilistic blend of time horizons).

> I believe it’s your duty on the earth to provide value in some way.

I agree to some degree in an ethical sense, but not absolutely. Some have more ability and opportunity to contribute than others. And, the devil is in the details. Additional, I am not necessarily willing to extend such views of one's _ethical_ duty in such a way to _operationalize_ them as a political philosophy or to state them as _normative_ on the economic level.

When I hear simplified statements along the lines of "if person X (or category of people Y) can't pull their weight, they'll get what they deserve" I don't hear anything resembling ethical insight nor wisdom; I mostly hear the fearful rationalizations of short-term thinking.

I didn't ask to be born therefore I have no duties to you or to anyone other than myself. You accepted no duty to ensure my life was protected from harm or that it's circumstances were fair. You can talk sensibly about global reproductive control once you've ensured that everyone's life is fair and just.

Humans are animals. We individually self regulate or we would die. We collectively don't which is why we were able to make things like the internet. Other species that operate under collective terms don't either. They don't seek equilibrium, they are simply hapless victims to it.

> I didn't ask to be born therefore I have no duties to you or to anyone other than myself.

I reject the form of this claim. Duty is precisely the kind of thing you owe due to your continued existence. It has nothing to do with your lack of choice in springing yourself into existence to whatever place you were born.

If you want to reject the notion of duty, logically speaking, I think you'll need another argument, but I suspect it won't be based in anything resembling ethics as we know it -- I suspect the only logically valid arguments against duty presuppose that only one individual matters (the individual being you, of course, that most important of all beings).

> I didn't ask to be born therefore I have no duties to you or to anyone other than myself.

You may not feel such a duty. But it doesn't mean such a worldview is in your own rational self-interest. People in society aren't overly pleased by those who are overly individualistic. When people notice others who aren't contributing much, it can have negative consequences. Sure, free riding happens, but it doesn't make it ethical.

Animals eat each other. They feed other animals. They spread seeds to propagate plant life. Their decomposing bodies fertilize the earth. There is an ecosystem that exists.

Humans don’t have any predators. We’ve created a society where everyone feels entitled to exist. Animals don’t feel entitled to exist. They fight daily to survive. We fight daily to play the game that us humans created. It’s not real, it’s all fabricated: 401k’s, board member seats, search engine optimization, globalization, offshore manufacturing, advertising revenue, taxes, traffic lights, the NFL, American idol, TikTok dances, Prada clothing, Stanley cups, business casual, country clubs.

We have created the mess we are in. And there is too much momentum/inertia to shift course. We (as a society) will keep running on this treadmill until we collapse from exhaustion and hubris.

> Animals eat each other. They feed other animals. They spread seeds to propagate plant life. Their decomposing bodies fertilize the earth. There is an ecosystem that exists. Humans don’t have any predators. We’ve created a society where everyone feels entitled to exist. Animals don’t feel entitled to exist. They fight daily to survive. We fight daily to play the game that us humans created. It’s not real, it’s all fabricated...

This is moral confusion. Nature does not set the ethical standards to which we aspire. See the naturalistic fallacy.

These things you mention are honestly more examples of fabricated concepts. Are you a religious person by chance?

The term "socially constructed" is well-understood by many, including myself. Your use of "fabricated concepts" is not clear, however. Care to define it?

There are well-developed branches of ethics that are uncoupled from any religious assumptions. Including systems of ethics that reject various forms of moral relativism.

> These things you mention are honestly more examples of fabricated concepts. Are you a religious person by chance?

If you are trying to insult me, you should stop that behavior.

I am genuinely not.

Ok, thanks. Why did you ask the question of e.g. am I religious? Is there a connection?

> We (as a society) will keep running on this treadmill until we collapse from exhaustion and hubris.

This is false certainty. You don't know what will happen; you haven't even given a handful of possible future scenarios. Society could go on for some time with rising inequality with tragic consequences, sure. Or we could grow out of this phase in hundreds of different ways. Or we could obliterate ourselves in nuclear war. There are many possibilities. Don't fixate on one.

Will humanity (or some creation or derivative of ourselves) outlive our solar system? Now _that_ is a fun question to explore.

They self-regulate? That is bullshit, the environment regulates them.

Correct. The animal kingdom as a whole self regulates. We are effectively playing god every day and circumventing the natural processes of the world.

If we all stop reproducing, that will indeed be the Final Solution to the Human Question.

Given the state of the world not reproducing is providing value. I think we should pay people to not do a lot of things. Like say every year you don’t have a kid or don’t get on an airplane you get a bonus from the government.