From: Andrew Clough (aclough@mit.edu)
Date: Tue Apr 02 2002 - 22:22:22 MST
>I wonder whether this comes from an intuitive support by Extropians for more
>people, which is something I fully support. The more I've read about and
>thought about the "population problem", the less I've been able to find any
>way to justify restriction of population. Go into the "overpopulated" future
>and hand-pick 9 of 10 people to remove from existence; that's what a policy
>of population restriction does by implication (and it's what Jared Diamond
>must be able to do, by extension, in the present, except his ratio is
>something like 99 from 100). I guess if you follow a philosophy derived from
>humanism, you must come to the conclusion that people (sentients and
>potential sentients) are the primary objects in your philosophy. When can
>your philosophy direct you to limit their numbers (ie: cause some potential
>people to never exist) to achieve some other end? This is what Eliezer
>refers to as subgoals stomping on supergoals.
Not that I don't agree with the sentiment (I do), but I think its not
nearly as bad to prevent someone from coming into existence, rather than
killing them off while they are around. Of course, going back to a
pre-agricultural society would entail murder, but I think its a completely
different story to restrict it now. Extrinsically bad, yes, for reasons I
don't think I need to repeat here. Intrinsically bad, yes, but only
because you are coercing existing people, not because you are murdering
unborn people.
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