A cleansing [rar]

[loomer]

You're a moron. Did it ever occur to you that the little girl who makes pottery and sells it for a ball of rice a day wants to live just as much as everybody else. Of course not, everybody who doesn't have a first world standard of living must obviously be unhappy with their circumstances enough to agree to suicide. And if you are saying do it without their agreement, then well you are advocating murder.
.

And if that little girl has AIDS and has to support her entire family? Or if she doesn't, and isn't, and is leading a happy life when thousands of people around her have to search through the garbage for food, and struggle to even survive?

If you had to risk being beaten, shot, stabbed and even set on fire because you were homeless, barely able to eat and contracting half a dozen diseases every year and there was no apparent way to correct the problem in less than several generations, and next door the neighbor amputated his wife's legs because she got gangrene, himself, with no anesthetic because the hospitals are so poor, wouldn't you be willing to accept death as a solution? I know I would.

[Frank Hipper]

You're a moron. Did it ever occur to you that the little girl who makes pottery and sells it for a ball of rice a day wants to live just as much as everybody else. Of course not, everybody who doesn't have a first world standard of living must obviously be unhappy with their circumstances enough to agree to suicide. And if you are saying do it without their agreement, then well you are advocating murder.
.

And if that little girl has AIDS and has to support her entire family? Or if she doesn't, and isn't, and is leading a happy life when thousands of people around her have to search through the garbage for food, and struggle to even survive?

If you had to risk being beaten, shot, stabbed and even set on fire because you were homeless, barely able to eat and contracting half a dozen diseases every year and there was no apparent way to correct the problem in less than several generations, and next door the neighbor amputated his wife's legs because she got gangrene, himself, with no anesthetic because the hospitals are so poor, wouldn't you be willing to accept death as a solution? I know I would.

The millions upon millions of people who endure such conditions every day don't commit suicide because...?

[brianeyci]

You're a moron. Did it ever occur to you that the little girl who makes pottery and sells it for a ball of rice a day wants to live just as much as everybody else. Of course not, everybody who doesn't have a first world standard of living must obviously be unhappy with their circumstances enough to agree to suicide. And if you are saying do it without their agreement, then well you are advocating murder.
.

And if that little girl has AIDS and has to support her entire family? Or if she doesn't, and isn't, and is leading a happy life when thousands of people around her have to search through the garbage for food, and struggle to even survive?

If you had to risk being beaten, shot, stabbed and even set on fire because you were homeless, barely able to eat and contracting half a dozen diseases every year and there was no apparent way to correct the problem in less than several generations, and next door the neighbor amputated his wife's legs because she got gangrene, himself, with no anesthetic because the hospitals are so poor, wouldn't you be willing to accept death as a solution? I know I would.

You cannot make that choice for them dingbat. Let's take another look at what you said.

Sterilize it with something that only kills humans that has magically been invented, and drop it on places where the inevitable fate of the population is extinction anyway

Now maybe you mean run a plebicite and get a 100% agreement to mass suicide, but I doubt it. This level of arrogance I have not seen. You live in a major city? Go outside and talk to some homeless. Some choose to live despite their conditions. It doesn't take a lot to imagine some choose to live despite some of the things you said, and for the others you cannot make that choice. So many slippery slopes I have not seen the whole year, Christmas is early.

The fact that the poor choose to live anyway instead of putting a bullet through their brain should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that it means they want to live, I guess not for you.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Simply to play devil's advocate here, they may be too weak from malnourishment to muster the strength to off themselves, too dim to come up with a plan to do it, or lacking the resources to do it. Still, it should be simple enough in the third world to put yourself in harm's way, so it's not much of an argument.

[Seggybop]

Radical? Yes. Insane? Yes. Better than creating a problem of enormous scale in which warfare and starvation result in slow, painful deaths for many? Yes.

This is as likely the ultimate fate of mankind as a whole. If what you say is right we might as well kill everyone in the world now and be done with it.

[Sikon]

Radical? Yes. Insane? Yes. Better than creating a problem of enormous scale in which warfare and starvation result in slow, painful deaths for many? Yes.

This is as likely the ultimate fate of mankind as a whole. If what you say is right we might as well kill everyone in the world now and be done with it.

For that to be the fate of mankind is unlikely. Even a cursory look at history shows the opposite trend. There was proportionally more suffering in the past.

[loomer]

Very well, I henceforth concede my views as the points that have been made have shown me to be far too naieve for my own good.

[Chiaroscuro]

Haha what I love most is that you guys are all assuming that Seggybop would ACTUALLY sterilize all the people of the undeveloped nations, given the chance. Obviously, there's no way of doing that, and therefore he is not discussing this as something that he is going to bring to pass (but wants our opinions on first). He's just throwing it out there as a moral question, like those things where they ask "If there was a hedgehog eating up your neighbors' garden, would you shoot the hedgehog or let them starve?"
So yeah. In short, it's totally pointless to be getting all worked up about it and saying "You're a twisted fuck, I can't believe you would do that" when he's just coming up with a hypothetical situation, not planning on putting it in motion.
I actually think it would be better to do the opposite. If one could sterilize all of the people from developed nations, then the whole abortion/abstinence arguments would be moot, we could concentrate on world peace rather than overpopulation, and we could adopt many of the homeless children from developing nations.
Plus, some people just shouldn't reproduce. Like our president.

[Simplicius]

Haha what I love most is that you guys are all assuming that Seggybop would ACTUALLY sterilize all the people of the undeveloped nations, given the chance. Obviously, there's no way of doing that, and therefore he is not discussing this as something that he is going to bring to pass (but wants our opinions on first). He's just throwing it out there as a moral question, like those things where they ask "If there was a hedgehog eating up your neighbors' garden, would you shoot the hedgehog or let them starve?"
So yeah. In short, it's totally pointless to be getting all worked up about it and saying "You're a twisted fuck, I can't believe you would do that" when he's just coming up with a hypothetical situation, not planning on putting it in motion.

The reaction comes, I suspect, from the 'it's not really so bad, after all' tone he takes toward the bottom half of the first page. Examining the consequence of such a program - whole societies dying slow, miserable deaths - it's not hard to conclude that it really is so bad.

I actually think it would be better to do the opposite. If one could sterilize all of the people from developed nations, then the whole abortion/abstinence arguments would be moot, we could concentrate on world peace rather than overpopulation, and we could adopt many of the homeless children from developing nations.
Plus, some people just shouldn't reproduce. Like our president.

There wouldn't be much point, really. The populations of first world countries are already aging, and birth rates are dropping. The net result, I believe, would be broadly similar to what would happen if the third-worlders were sterilised, except that the first world is currently or imminently processing its late middle-aged and elderly through its respective health care systems, while third-world populations have some time to go before their masses of youngsters become masses of old folks.

If developing and poor countries account for most of the world's population and highest birthrates, then a sterilisation program among the wealthiest countries is going to do little to address overpopulation, and will do nothing to address the problems of territory and resource allocation which will continue to spark wars as long as there are people to fight over them.

As others have stated, and better than I could, a sterilisation program wouldn't represent any sort of solution to humanity's problems, even if its target populations are changed.

[brianeyci]

In short, it's totally pointless to be getting all worked up about it and saying "You're a twisted fuck, I can't believe you would do that" when he's just coming up with a hypothetical situation, not planning on putting it in motion.

Nobody called Seggybop a twisted fuck until Segs called Ender "empty headed" for not thinking like Hitler. Hipper called the idea reprehensible, not the person.

You're a cuntrug who either can't read or thinks that insulting the idea is the same as insulting the person. Next time use direct quotes, because it's obvious you can't paraphrase for shit.

[SirNitram]

I split most of Chia's whining to HoS, because bitching that this place is exactly as flame-ridden as is warned is the stupidest shit I've seen all day. And I worked the phones today.

[Seggybop]

Nobody called you a twisted fuck, nobody called Segs a twisted fuck, until he called someone empty-headed for not being able to think like Hitler. Get it? You made a strawman of everybody's position against the op, and you were caught red-handed.

And you're making a strawman of why I said that. He said something I perceived as thoughtless, so I called him so. Saying that he didn't think there was much of anything worse than the OP, it seemed to me that he really didn't engage in much thinking on the subject at all, and really just wanted to assert his superior morality. Or do you really believe he's mentally incapable of conceiving of anything much worse than the OP?

Not that I don't regret making that comment, as in retrospect it wasn't a wise thing to do at all, but don't complain about someone misrepresenting while simultaneously doing it yourself.

I really ought to stop responding but I wanted to clarify on this one thing.

[brianeyci]

You really ought to reply in the HOS because the post you are referring to is now HOSed. I hate semantic whores, and genocide obviously refers to Hitler, if not Pol Pot, Stalin, Rwandan genocide perpetrators, and so on. And when you say to someone they have "total lack of thought" you are waving your dick around and people will diss you back. Here's a hint, maybe it was the worst idea "ever in this forum" ever think of that.

Of course, you don't want to post in the HOS, afraid of something there maybe, I wonder why.

[Ender]

Nobody called you a twisted fuck, nobody called Segs a twisted fuck, until he called someone empty-headed for not being able to think like Hitler. Get it? You made a strawman of everybody's position against the op, and you were caught red-handed.

And you're making a strawman of why I said that. He said something I perceived as thoughtless, so I called him so.

Lets reflect on the irony of you failing to consider the suffering forced sterlization and the subsequent genocide inflicted will have on others and calling me thoughtless because I didn't waste brain cycles scheming to hurt them wven worse.

Saying that he didn't think there was much of anything worse than the OP, it seemed to me that he really didn't engage in much thinking on the subject at all, and really just wanted to assert his superior morality.

More like I was trying to get you to actually think about what you were gushing about doing.

Or do you really believe he's mentally incapable of conceiving of anything much worse than the OP?

Most people do have a block on inflicing excessive violence and suffering. Hence the need for basic training, you need to get people over the hump of killing others.


I really ought to stop responding but I wanted to clarify on this one thing.[/quote]

[K. A. Pital]

I wonder why people focus entirely on what suffering would be inflicted on the victims (the populations of developing countries to be wiped out), I would rather reference the suffering that the perpetrators of this will endure when their governments and economies collapse due to subsequent economic and social shocks.

Of course, the less people you wipe out, and the less involved they are in the world economy, the less effect it would have (for example, wiping out the autharkian North Korea would barely have an economic effect). But then the point becomes moot. Whom to wipe out and whom to let live? If we're leaving only developed nations who have very low poverty, economic collapse is unavoidable, just as is social collapse.

[brianeyci]

I wonder why people focus entirely on what suffering would be inflicted on the victims (the populations of developing countries to be wiped out),

Because this isn't News and Politics with a fifty page discussion about labor value theory. Science logic morality keyword morality in this case and violating other people's bodies whose only crime is living in poverty without their consent is wrong. Any more need to be said? I do not think so.

I would rather reference the suffering that the perpetrators of this will endure when their governments and economies collapse due to subsequent economic and social shocks.

I wouldn't.

Even if you managed to prove that sterilizing whole swaths of population would increase the GDP of the world, it would still be wrong if said population was forced to do it against their will. If a woman has a right to an abortion she has a right to keep her tubes untied. That's a different beast than a one child or two child policy.

[K. A. Pital]

brianeyci
Are you taking personal snipes or what? There are different moral codes. The moral code "the good of my country(ies) and my fellow humans can be achieved at the gross expense of others" is the code Seggybop implied in the very opening. He's sterilizing entire populations so that a certain developed country (or the "developed civilization") does not - allegedly - need to tackle those problems any more. Utilitarianism actually would allow for such, if I understand it's system correctly.

This is an obviously inhumane moral code from the very start, so there's no need to discuss the validity of such in terms of morality.

I merely attempted to show that the plan is not only morally invalid (which you and any other person with half-a-brain could realize from the very first post, and no need to explain it to me, because so can I), but also logically invalid even under the corrupt moral code itself.

So don't take snipes at me. This dragged for 2 pages even if it's clear from the start that morally it's wrong, and I merely decided to show that it's not just morally wrong since morality is relative, but also logically absurd even under flawed morality.

[brianeyci]

This was already done with post number two by U235 and post number 3 by me (hint why I mentioned AIDS and countries with large numbers of adult working population killed). Only after those points were ignored did the discussion move on. So excuse me that I interpret your point as "economics is the only thing that matters" instead of "not enough discussion about economics." You were not here for the whole thing it dragged onto four pages after a lot of the thread was HOSed see the HOS. Like I said even if you managed to prove the GDP of the world would increase by sterilization, it would not be moral to do so. It's like arguing whether or not T850 could kill Palpatine in his office when Arnie wouldn't even make it past the front gate--why should I discuss economics at all when the op doesn't even pass a litmus test of human rights. But I did try to take the op at face value Stas.

[K. A. Pital]

Like I said even if you managed to prove the GDP of the world would increase by sterilization, it would not be moral to do so.

Not the "GDP" but rather the well-being of each remaining human. One could argue that there's an optimal number of humans for which the highest possible well-being can be achieved under the circumstances at a given time with current resource, so by eliminating the "over-optimum" surplus of humans we're making all remaining humans lifed to the top possible level of well-being.

Is this a flawed moral code? Yes, under codes like humanism or the various likes of it. But it's utilitarian in nature, and under utilitarianism, it would be perfectly valid. Since morals are relative, one could argue for the superiority or inferiority of this moral code.

[brianeyci]

Like I said even if you managed to prove the GDP of the world would increase by sterilization, it would not be moral to do so.

Not the "GDP" but rather the well-being of each remaining human. One could argue that there's an optimal number of humans for which the highest possible well-being can be achieved under the circumstances at a given time with current resource, so by eliminating the "over-optimum" surplus of humans we're making all remaining humans lifed to the top possible level of well-being.

Is this a flawed moral code? Yes, under codes like humanism or the various likes of it. But it's utilitarian in nature, and under utilitarianism, it would be perfectly valid. Since morals are relative, one could argue for the superiority or inferiority of this moral code.

Fine, humor me.

I am not a economist, at best I'm a wannabe mathematician, so the kind of discussion I would want would be quantification of the optimal well being of each human being. I assume you will agree on some kind of ground rule so the discussion doesn't drag on forever. The net worth of each human being as highest being the optimal well being of each human being is fine with you? Because if the ground rules are not agreed to it is like arguing with different rules of canon, I'd rather not the discussion degenerate into what is the meaning of optimal well being. All I need are some equations relating productivity to individual net worth and I can maximize with Calculus. Even a simple system of linear equations ignoring all other variables would work, equations relating number of man hours required for each dollar and the supposedly asymptotic required number of dollars to take care of each man.

No, not interested in this approach? Oh well too bad. Sorry that's the only kind of discussion I'd be interested in, because all other discussions would likely be devoid of math and degenerate into "what is optimal well being." Any useful discussion devoid of math I see has already been done by U235 in his first reply, so I see no point saying "there needs to be more economics."

[K. A. Pital]

Fine, humor me.

I'm not humoring you, merely explaining why this can have validity under some version of utilitarian code. Not even poking. Neither am I speaking about some super-economics here.

If you want a strict model, I can make one with bare arithmetics and without any "dollars". If there's a tree and two humans are required to grow all apples on this tree, and two humans can consume everything that the tree produces with no lefovers.... but overall there's 3 humans. The optimal number is 2 humans, obviously, because the third is taking away from the possible consumption of the 2, and he's not needed to make the fruit. And because if we kill a second human, the only human left would not be able to grow apples on his own and thus die of starvation, we can't also slaughter two humans, only one. That's an extreme and rough model, but it'll suffice.

So is it rational to kill the third human so that number 1 and 2 enjoy the most possible consumption for them?

[brianeyci]

Fine, humor me.

I'm not humoring you, merely explaining why this can have validity under some version of utilitarian code. Not even poking. Neither am I speaking about some super-economics here.

If you want a strict model, I can make one with bare arithmetics and without any "dollars". If there's a tree and two humans are required to grow all apples on this tree, and two humans can consume everything that the tree produces with no lefovers.... but overall there's 3 humans. The optimal number is 2 humans, obviously, because the third is taking away from the possible consumption of the 2, and he's not needed to make the fruit. And because if we kill a second human, the only human left would not be able to grow apples on his own and thus die of starvation, we can't also slaughter two humans, only one. That's an extreme and rough model, but it'll suffice.

So is it rational to kill the third human so that number 1 and 2 enjoy the most possible consumption for them?

You have just described the graph y = 2/x. If there's 1 person each person gets two apples. If there's two people each person gets two apples. If there's 3 people each person gets 2/3 apples.

Now surely, such equations exist for economics? Equations that relate number of man hours per dollar with number of dollars per person? And the right answer is of course, as many apples as would be necessary for a person to survive. Is this not trivial for you? The second equation would be the number of apples a person needs to live and then you would have a system of equations and I could use Calculus or elementary methods to maximize.

And whether you use apples or man hours or dollars or anything else you have to define "well-being of each human being" or it's worthless continuing talking. I define it as the number of humans that can meet the requirements of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

Don't you see, talking about "well being" is pointless without defining it and the discussion would degenerate into what does well being mean unless you agree on some set rule. I don't see why you have a hard on for economics given capitalism is not a moral code.

[brianeyci]

Anyway I made a mistake, for 2 people for y = 2/x it would be one apple per person (obviously) and the graph would have to be defined only for x > 0, and for x = 0 y = 0. But the point is made, economics is not utilitarian any more than a free market is democracy. The best utility for me would be the maximum number of people who can live under the minimum standards of human rights, because the more people who are living under minimum conditions the less happy I am, not just a "number of people who's happy" silliness. That gets rid of the usual bullshit that you could enslave half a population as long as the other half was more happy, because there are equal numbers of unhappy and happy people.

Anyway is this not trivial for you? It is for me. And again I reiterate the point that you were wrong that there was not enough discussion of economics in this thread, there was plenty, the one post by U235 was more than enough.

[K. A. Pital]

Oh I see. You chose to resort to human rights - a subjective measure - as opposed to highest possible material consumption of resources for each human. Why? Am I any better or worse from a strictly rational point of view if one more or one less african meets the UN DHR requirements? No? Then it can't be a measure of well-being. At least, material well-being.

I define it as the number of humans that can meet the requirements of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

That's non-material bullshit from both subjective and objective points of view. No human save the person who entered the domain of UN DHR is materially benefitted by the fact that a new human can meet the UN DHR requirements. And I personally am not benefitted, material-wise, because more Africans meet UN DHR requirements - no, in fact, I can be personally UNbenefitted - for example, in the form of tax that is taken from me to give AID to Africa, so that more people there can have conditions of life meeting the DHR.

So how is "the number of humans that can meet UN requirements" is a measure of well-being of each human. Let's see. If all humans barely meet UN DHR requirements, this is the maximal number of humans to meet it, and they all meet the requirements - but barely, and there's no possible further improvement. Is that a maximal well-being of all human beings? Yes. But ONLY for this maximal number of humans.

There can exist a higher rate of possible resource consumption per human, if there were LESS HUMANS abound. This would most likely look like a gauss curve, which tracks the number of humans alive. At one end would be 1 human alive, and at the other end - the maximal number of humans alive. The maximal possible average material consumption for a human would be achieved somewhere inbetween those.

I don't see why you have a hard on for economics given capitalism is not a moral code.

I don't. I'm not even a proponent of capitalism. I'm merely showing that under certain moral codes, like maximizing avalable material resources for each human, it's perfectly viable to slaughter "waste" humans who make sub-optimal amounts of avergae material resource available to a single human. Of course, such moral systems are found repugnant.

[brianeyci]

Subjective my frickn' ass. Wasn't that the point you were trying to make in the smoking thread, that certain things are not subjective, like health? Human rights is not a subjective measure at all. You can measure how much it costs to provide lifetime medical treatment on average for a person, you can measure how much it costs for security, for a home, and so on. Talking pie in the sky with no basis in reality is total bullshit. Again the discussion has degenerated into "what is well-being" exactly like I predicted.

And I personally am not benefitted, material-wise, because more Africans meet UN DHR requirements - no, in fact, I can be personally UNbenefitted - for example, in the form of tax that is taken from me to give AID to Africa, so that more people there can have conditions of life meeting the DHR.

No, because number of people meeting the DHR makes me happy. The highest possible material consumption for each human being may make some pepole happy, but not me. In fact in general it would not make most people happy. Many people would gladly give up more money to charities if they knew it was worthwhile, and altriusm is a basic human trait or we would never have evolved into where we are now. So what is your argument then huh, the most material consumption for the most number of people would make the most people happy? Not necessarily given they would have to kill or sterlize, violating our hardwired altriusm, shit did I just shit all over your idea.

Exactly like I predicted, bullshit.