RE: [pf] Risks, imposed or chosen

by David A

18 December 2000 12:04 UTC

Betsy Barnum wrote:
>> There's no end to the separations...and doing so over time 
>> would mean that we would have production levels akin to 1900 
>> instead of the enhanced levels we have today. Which means we >> couldn't 
>> feed the population levels we have today.
> 
> Maybe this wouldn't have been such a bad idea! As Daniel Quinn says, > 
> the more food we produce, the more the population grows. Slowing 
> down food production (not now, so people starve, but earlier) might > 
> have staved off the overpopulation we now have on Earth.

But Betsy, pursueing such a course would have meant that many of us may 
well not have been born, and some of us would certainly not have been 
born. Is that something you'd choose/would have chosen?Or, are you 
willing to end your life today for the sake of reducing the world's 
population and our impact on the environment? 

I know that none of us have had a choice about being born, but it was a 
choice made by our parents, and on back, just as it was your choice to 
have children. Since you made that choice (for which, don't get me 
wrong, I certainly don't blame you), I think to be intellectually honest 
you have to admit that it would have been impossible to slow down food 
production in response to population pressures. No one else wants to see 
their children starve any more than you do, or choose not to have 
children any more than you didn't.

David