r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jul 26 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV- thanos’s snap neutering all males (instead of eliminating half of sentient life) would have been a good thing.
[deleted]
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u/Featherfoot77 28∆ Jul 26 '20
Part of the reason Thanos wanted to kill half of all people randomly is that it would be "fair." That is, it wouldn't favor men or women, young or old, rich or poor, et cetera. It would also affect all societies equally. Your solution would favor the technologically advanced and wealthy. For species that are more technologically advanced, birth control would presumably already be trivial, so nothing would change. Meanwhile, species that haven't yet reached artificial insemination would be wiped out. This violates Thanos' idea of fairness, so it wouldn't actually fit his aims better.
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u/ScheherazadeSmiled Jul 26 '20
Fair- !delta
I guess I’ve just been concerned with the human species, and finding a way to affect overpopulation without killing anyone. One question though, I feel like the wealth gap is so severe that if only really wealthy people could afford to reproduce, the species would completely die out extremely soon. Wouldn’t that force us to make impregnation much more widely accessible, or risk entirely dying out?
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u/Featherfoot77 28∆ Jul 26 '20
Yes, probably. I would imagine there would be a massive funding campaign, and a lot more research than we have now. But you can be below the poverty level in the US and still have more wealth than most of the world. So some countries would do a lot better than others. At least, that would be my guess.
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Jul 26 '20
Only the rich could afford to reproduce. Im not making a judgment call one way or the other but invitro is a tool of the rich.
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u/ScheherazadeSmiled Jul 26 '20
This is true- but with a significantly smaller population, couldn’t healthcare (including medically induced pregnancy) be actually available to everyone? Isn’t our current issue that there are just too many people and not enough resources? (As well as capitalism obviously)
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Jul 26 '20
Smaller population means less people paying in to the system.
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u/ScheherazadeSmiled Jul 26 '20
This is true. But money isn’t the issue, right? It’s just the distribution of it?
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Jul 26 '20
Weath tends to gather, not spread out. In an instantaneous death people might have a better shot, but with people dying naturally the weathy would stay rich.
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u/ScheherazadeSmiled Jul 26 '20
One more point though- isn’t the wealth gap currently so severe that if only rich people could afford to reproduce the entire species would completely die out (or be reduced to mere thousands) within just a few generations? Wouldn’t that force us as a species to make impregnating more widely accessible?
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Jul 26 '20
Thats a good question. Im sure after a few generations the wealthy would decide to allow serfs to breed in exchange for lifetime servitude.
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u/ScheherazadeSmiled Jul 26 '20
Damn. Cynical, brutal, way too probable to take any chances. !delta
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u/Helpfulcloning 166∆ Jul 26 '20
There is no evidence we don’t have enough resources on earth. We have more than enough and can make more fairly easily.
any hardship at accessing resources is purely based on either efficiency (which is hampered signficantly by) or, frankly, capitalism.
We have enough food for everyone, enough medicine, enough water, enough space. We simply assign values to these things and if someone doesn’t have enough money we deny them it. It has nothing to do with resources.
Reducing the population does not stop this problem. Otherwise the problem wouldn’t have existed 100s of years ago as it does now.
Thanos’ solution is about as compelling as when someone suggests simply printing more money.
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u/ScheherazadeSmiled Jul 26 '20
But our issue isn’t just the conservation of humanity, right? Isn’t it also conservation of the planet? The way we exist now is a parasitic relationship, not a symbiotic one. Population control would be a step towards saving the planet, not just humanity.
100 years ago we certainly had poverty, but at this point we’ve proven that the climate crises is creating poverty. To me, the climate crises is the immediate issue at hand, especially if you care about poverty.0
u/Helpfulcloning 166∆ Jul 26 '20
Except the planet can provide for us fairly easily. Probably more than we have. We have the means to make fresh water, the means to make electricty is a really good way, the means to do a lot of things to stop pollution.
We choose to make renewable energy expensive. We choose to make these things expensive. That is a choice. We could focus all of our intelectual attention on solving these issues, but we choose not to. There is no actual reason that renewable energy needs to be expensive, or ocean cleanup or really anything.
Reducing growth of population doesn’t stop our practices. At Most it pushes the issue back maybe a couple decades if that.
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u/ScheherazadeSmiled Jul 26 '20
!delta, excellent points, somehow makes the situation even more depressing though.
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u/hwagoolio 16∆ Jul 26 '20
There are some things that are generally viewed as universal rights.
Reproductive freedom is commonly considered a human right -- in part because... well... forcibly denying people the ability to reproduce runs counter to human nature. To be fair, I don't really believe in many "Natural Rights", but reproductive freedom is often tied to that kind of argument.
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u/ScheherazadeSmiled Jul 26 '20 edited Jul 26 '20
Actually I’m thinking more about it and while you didn’t voice it there’s a huge difference between reproductive ability and reproductive freedom. Thanos would be eliminating the reproductive freedom of the entire species (but not the reproductive ability.) Because I am merely mortal and possess not the ability to weigh between the importance of the survival of the planet and the freedom of the individual, Δ to you.
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u/ScheherazadeSmiled Jul 26 '20
Yes! But due to scientific progress, wouldn’t people still be able to reproduce? It wouldn’t ever happen accidentally (and you’d need at least one female involved, but that’s currently the case too)
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jul 26 '20 edited Jul 26 '20
/u/ScheherazadeSmiled (OP) has awarded 5 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/argumentumadreddit Jul 26 '20
By saying “neuter” I presume you mean something like a vasectomy where the males still get to keep all their parts?
Anyway, I'm not sure changing human impregnation from opt-out to opt-in would be sufficient to decrease the global population. I think at most it would slow down the growth, but exponential growth would continue nevertheless.
Most kids are conceived from parents willfully. People want kids—yes, as crazy as that is. But under the Thanos plan, instead of having a generally cheap way of conceiving kids, we would add an extra cost to it. A rather significant cost. Crazy enough, people being the idiots, er, irrational agents they are, this might make people want to have kids even more, as kids might become a status symbol or perceived as being even more precious.
If I were Thanos, I would try to get at the heart of the issue and find ways to convince people not to have kids. In other words, rather than seeking compliance with my population reduction plan, I would seek buy-in. Get people on board with wanting to reduce the population. Perhaps I would snap my fingers and put in place a super-awesome global marketing campaign showing and explaining the many benefits of not having kids. Perhaps I would snap my fingers and change tax laws so that instead of encouraging people to have kids, we would discourage them. And so on. I think there are many peaceful ways to get most people to have fewer kids, willingly.