. . .hes just doing his part to help humanity survive the loomingunderpopulation crisis?

++++++++Peter Watts: Attack of the Hope Police: Delusional Optimism at the End of the World?Apr 30, 2019Institute of Advanced Studies Koszeg (iASK) Felsobbfok Tanulmnyok Intzete

8:38 (/58:31)

Now the other assumption on the part of the give us solutions brigadeis that we dont already have solutions, that solutions have not beenstaring us in the face for decades. . .

(9:22)

And above all, stop breeding. I could fly back and forth acrossthe Atlantic every week for a solid year and my carbon footprint wouldstill not be anywhere close to the Godzilla-size bootprint thatpeople stamp onto the planet every time they have a kid.

But oddly, these do not seem to be the kind of solutions that theoptimism brigade are in the market for. . .

(23:14)

My fear isnt just that people will see it and deny the facts, myfear is that even if people accept the facts, they just wont act onthem. The current US administrations position on climate changeis a classic case in point. Now a lot has been made of Donald Trumpspersonal repudiation of climate change as a climate hoax and so on.The fact is, the Trump administration does not deny climate changeat all. The Trump administration is on record as admitting that theyexpect the worlds temperature to increase by 4 degrees Centigradebefore the end of the century. And they continue to dismantleenvironment protections not despite that insight, but because of it.Were already screwed, you see its already too late. Its toolate to save the planet, so why bother hobbling short-term economicprofits with a bunch of pointless environmental regulations that wonteven really change anything?

I said before that we werent scared enough. Why is that? Why arewe so blind to such an existential threat? Why is it that when afriend of mine, a university professor not a stupid man by anystretch of the imagination why is it that when he inseminates hiswife with twins, an act which is exactly as remarkable as two dogsfucking in the street and far, far more destructive ecologically he not only doesnt think theres anything wrong with that, heactually goes onto social media and brags about it? And why is itthat when he does that, everybody piles on with Oh my God, youregonna be a dad! and Oh, daddy times two! and Oh, you must beso proud!? Why is it that nobody ever says Wow, 7.6 billionisnt enough for you?? Why is it that nobody ever says Well done,dipshit! By the time your precious twins are in their 20s, theywill be fighting over the last government rations down at the armory,if they havent already been wiped out by some mutant strain ofmonkeypox, or starved to death because wheat rust took out theworlds grain supply.? And why is it that if anybody did doany of that they would be immediately set upon as an asshole anda jerk? Not because what they said was necessarily wrong, butbecause even facing an imminent environmental apocalypse, due entirelyto the weight of our own numbers and our own first-world consumption,producing more of us is somehow not only still considered an inalienableright, but somehow morally praiseworthy? Why is it that columnistsin progressive, climate-change-recognizing papers write snippy editorialsin which they insist that Not only will climate change not stop mefrom having kids, but shitting on people who have decided not toreproduce, calling them shamers and virtue signallers? Howcan Emma Teitelhttps://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2019/03/13/climate-change-will-not-stop-me-from-having-kids.htmlbe so goddamn stupid? How can all of us as a species be sogoddamn stupid?

Well, as it turns out, because nature kind of built us that way.Up until quite recently, delusional stupidity was a survival trait. . .

[Steven Pinker sez] Brains are not truth detectors.They are survival engines. They were shaped by natural selection.They are wired to promote immediate fitness. If believing a liehas helped you spread your genes throughout our evolutionary history,then your brain will probably continue to believe that lie withall its furry little heart. And the obvious biggie here isMy genes are more special. My child is the center of the universe.My family is the most important thing. And its trivially easyto see how natural selection would make us, shape us, to believethat kind of stuff, even though we now have evidence that statisticallyparents are more miserable with their lives than non-parents are.

But thats only one example out of a bunch of em. Heres anotherone. Give somebody a choice between five bucks today and twentybuck in two weeks, and most of the time they will choose the smaller,more immediate payoff. Now the technical term for this ishyperbolic discounting. . . You give somebody a choice betweena reduced standard of living today and environmental apocalypse in20 years, and you dont even have to guess what theyre gonna do.Cause the numbers are already in. Because its 20 years away.Because, you know, somebody will come up with something in themeantime. Because its all probably a Chinese hoax anyway. . .++++

On the other hand (from the Alt-Right, Intellectual Dark Webpoint of view):

++++++++Jordan Peterson Population Collapse Is ComingFeb 18, 2022Chris Williamson

Jordan Peterson responds to Elon Musks population collapse prediction.What is the global population doing? Does Jordan Peterson think there aretoo many people on the earth? Are Elon Musks population collapse andpopulation decline predictions going to happen?

Williamson: Rolling the clock forward, you and Elon [Musk]tweeted recently about population collapse. You think itsgonna happen, then?

Peterson: Oh, well, Ive thought for at least ten years thatthe biggest problem in 50 years is that theres just not enoughpeople.

Williamson: I remember hearing you say a few years ago that youthough wed peak about 9 billion. . .

Peterson: Yeah, we probably wont hit 9. Yeah. And Idont have stats, because. . .

Williamson: Think about how crazy it is to think that we mightbe living on Earth, right now, at the time with the most number ofhumans that are ever going to exist at one time, ever.

Peterson: Yeah, thats highly probable. And you know, and thepopulation. . .

Williamson: That blows my mind.

Peterson: . . .the population collapse in developed countries isprecipitous.

Williamson: Right.

Peterson: Its like we fall off a cliff, because theres no kids. . .

Williamson: Everyone knows this from the pandemic, the r-nought number.If fewer people are reproducing, next generation you have fewer peopleto reproduce as fewer people are reproducing, and they oof .

Peterson: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I. . .

Williamson: And you think. . .

Peterson: Well, I I worked on a UN committee, about its gotta be10 years ago now to help draft the UN Secretary Generals report onsustainable economic development, and so I looked at all sorts of things,like that. I was very curious, for example, about. . . Because,people have been beating the overpopulation drum since. . . well, itreally kicked in in the 1960s, you know, because there were direpredictions by the year 2000 the Club of Rome came out and saidwell, therell be riots and mass starvation and mass movement ofmigrants, and all the things you hear about climate change becausetheres too many people on the planet, and that just didnt happenat all. That was just it wasnt just wrong, it was anti-true.It was absolutely wrong. What happened instead was that everyone gotway richer. And the bottom section of the population in terms ofeconomic distribution got lifted out of poverty. Inequality stillexists, but thats that power-law phenomenon we already talked about.Not that thats trivial, its just unbelievably difficult to determinewhat to do with. There are solutions but, certainly getting rid ofcapitalism isnt the solution. And so, I looked at population trends,and first of all found not that this is an act of genius or anything that, as soon as you educate women, the size of the family shrinksprecipitously. Like below replacement. And thats partly becausewomen have other options, thats a huge part of it. . .

Williamson: Were seeing this play out, hm?

Peterson: Oh yes. I mean, all the countries in the West areway below replacement. Koreas way below replacement South Korea.Japan, way below replacement. Yeah, yeah.

Williamson: I think the number one, number one on the planet is might be Chad? Chad? Chad, the country? Uh. . .

Peterson: In terms of growth?

Williamson: Uh, eight children on average.

Peterson: Yeah, I think Nigeria will have more people in it thanChina by the end of the century. So, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and Musk you know, hes a far-looking man, and so hes looking around theapocalyptic corner, lets say: Oh, oh! Were running out ofpeople! And what that means, of course, is that you run out ofyoung people, right? You dont run out of old people first,cause everyone who is here now is gonna be 30 years older in30 years, and itll be young people we dont have enough of,and of course young people are the ones who do the innovation,and are going to do most of the heavy lifting, etc. And so, theresgonna be a terrible shortage of young people.

Williamson: Well, you see this with some of the things that Iposted with that O[ffice for][National][Statistics] data 50.1 percent of women childless by 30 and both men and womenare replying to that tweet saying Well good! Theres too manypeople on the planet in any case.

Peterson: Yeah. I know, I know.

Williamson: thinking how? . . this NPC [Non-Player Character, i.e. mindless]midwittery [someone who is around average intelligence but is so opinionatedand full of themselves that they think theyre some kind of genius:https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Midwit ]is so dangerous because it makes people believe that they actuallyhave something grounded backing up their claims.

Peterson: Yeah. Yeah, well, and this idea that the planet has toomany people on it, this is there is no sentiment more implicitlygenocidal than that statement.

Williamson: [laughs]

Peterson: So what do you mean too many people, exactly? And what doyou mean the planet? And what do you propose to do about that, exactly?Mass abortion, is that your answer? Or should we do something a littlemore dramatic? Maybe well just shame people out of having children.And Ive seen people do that. Literally I saw a professor, when I wasat a TED I think it was at. . . doesnt matter. There was a numberof professors talking to a couple hundred students. And one of theprofessors, who was an environmentalist activist type, and he got upon stage and shook his finger to the whole young crowd saying thathim and his wife had only decided to have one child which wasin my opinion one child too many for him. . .

Williamson: [chuckles]

Peterson: . . .and told all the young people there that if they hada shred of ethical decency that they would lim. . . severely limittheir reproductive potential, and. . . I stood up and said thatI thought that that was the most. . . one of the most appallingthings Id ever heard anyone in academia say to young people which is really something, cause they say plenty of appallingthings, and it was a very uncomfortable moment, and he huffed offthe stage. But, you know, in a frenzy, talking about how you couldnttalk about such things without being pilloried on ethical grounds,and yeah thats for sure. You come out as a, what emissary ofthe academic establishment, you tell young people that humanity isso corrupt that they should seriously consider not propagating becausethat violates the deepest of ethical norms, and you think thats agood thing and that thats your right and. . . It was just beyondcomprehension. Its beyond comprehension. But its associated with,like a deeply-rooted existential self-hatred. And I mean hatredat the level of: humanity is like a virus on the planet, that werea cancerous growth on. . .

Williamson: Alex Epstein calls this human racism.

Peterson: Hm. Hm. Right. Right.

Williamson: And its that.

Peterson: Yeah. Well, were a cancer on the planet, you know?Unchecked growth, just like a cancer. Its like thats us,eh, a cancer. Its OK, we know where your heart is located.Cause, whats the implications for a doctrine like that?What do you do with a cancer?

Williamson: Cut it out.

Peterson: Yeah, thats for sure. Poison it, or whatever, whatever.Theres nothing you dont do to a cancer. So are you gonna use ametaphor like that? Theres too many people on the planet?You gonna use a metaphor like that? You know. . . And then youregonna also decide that youre virtuous while youre using. . .Because youre on the side of the planet, whatever the hellthat means? So. . . yeah, its, its unbelievable, and a hugepart of its rooted in this existential shame and, and. . .horror at the condition of being human, and the fact that lifeis rife with suffering, and a lot of its unjustified, and. . .You know, its a Mephistophelian position, so. . . Mephistopheleswas laid out portrayed in Goethes Faust, um. . .thats the story of a man who sold his soul to the devil forknowledge. Its a story of intellectual pride, and Goethe standsin relationship to German literature in the same manner thatShakespeare stands in relationship to English literature.Goethes Mephistopheles says straight out, twice, in the play once in the first theres two books once in the first bookand once in the second Goethe has him restate it twice existence is such a foul thing because of all its suffering,essentially, that it would be better if it was merely annihilated.And thats the Mephistophelian stance this whole show should justcome to a halt, look at how corrupt people are, evil reigns everywhere,its nothing but will to power, were destroying the planetwith our unchecked ambition all rooted in greed and Machiavellianismand jockeying for position, and were so contemptible that weshould just roll up and die. And we should shame women into nothaving children, and we should shame men so they nevermanifest any planet-destroying ambition. And its unbelievablyappalling. It goes all the way down to the bottom. The bottomof things. Thats whats tearin our culture apart, thisdispute about the nature of existence at the most fundamentallevel. So and the universities have come out on thewrong side.++++

Well, you pays your money and. . .

I could almost imagine that Peter Watts was on stage when Jordan Petersongot up and objected. Theyre both Canadian. But Peter Watts isnta professor, hes a sci-fi author.

;->

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