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Comment by jdc0589 | Hacker News Reader

its really hard to have a serious conversation about population control. It's just one of those topics that immediately label you as some kind of crazy murdering nut-job in the eyes of lots of people.

Honestly, it may not have been super effective for certain reasons, but China's child limit laws are about the least crazy solution I can think of.

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Population control probably isn't necessary. No one (informed) thinks that the human population is going to grow out of control. It's likely to become stable at around 10-11 billion within 100 years. Birth rates are declining in developed countries and the undeveloped world is rapidly developing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_grow...

It isn’t necessary only if massive inequality persists, and our tech just plain saves us all. What a crazy fucking bet when the stakes are the future of human civilization.

Honestly, evolution says that it won't. Long-term, breeders will "out-compete" those that limit their household size. Without external political forces or wholesale genetic engineering, we're in for a rough ride.

There are various examples where breeders did not outcompete, and instead a population settled on a low birth rate. Any animal that is not predator-dominated, really, but the best-known examples are New Zealands Kakapo [1] and Panda bears [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakapo#Breeding [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_panda#Reproduction

Hans Rosling has done some research and ted talks about this: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_...

> stable at around 10-11 billion within 100 years

but is that small enough or soon enough to avoid environmental catastrophe?

I think many people probably like the idea, but are worried about implementation.

Example: I think everyone should be sterilized at birth, but it should be reversible at no cost to them. But I can't think of a single government that I'd trust to enact this policy correctly without falling into a Eugenics system.

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