To think pronatalists are on to something?

apparently the Beaker people modified Stonehenge but did not build it...also the integration of the Neolithic and Beaker peoples was not a violent event. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2021/february/ancient-burials-stonehenge-cultures-merged-in-bronze-age.html

I thought we needed to reduce the population because of climate change and everyone's climate footprint. Either we do or we don't, which is it? Surely a world with less people in it would be better for all sorts of reasons, including how much humans impact the environment and the only reason people are pro-natalism is because some rich and powerful people need more cheap labour to exploit and Government have acted incredibly short-termist by giving all the money and wealth to the older generation to get votes so that no other generation can afford to buy a house, let alone have kids. Now they find there is a crisis in terms of elderly care and pension funding so need to bring in more people to look after them which just causes even more issues in terms of pressures on an already creating infrastructure and social cohesion.

Also what happens with the already massive excess amount of people when technology/AI takes over and there are no jobs for all these surplus people? The only people who benefit from pro-natalism seem to be the rich and powerful with a vested interest.

I think we’d be better off making it financially easier for more couples to have 1 or 2 kids than having a bunch of weirdos have 10 each…

It’s obvious why most people care- they feel that their family- children, grandchildren or great grandchildren are threatened. Humans generally care about their progeny- they can conceive of a time far enough into the future that things could be difficult (because of climate change), for people they love and feel a connection to

They are not threatened though? Climate change is happening but it can ofc be managed through better infrastructure.

Tbh there has never been a better time to be a human being, like, ever. Do you think Britain was better in the 70s? (I wouldn’t know, my country was a total impoverished shithole at that time, pretty much everyone is better off today).

It seems like you lament all the things we’ve done on Earth, to make human beings survive and now thrive.

If the alternative is a planet untouched by humans that will just die off in another billions years due to the sun’s natural star cycle … then who cares?

I find this couple's viewpoint interesting- they've definitely thought stuff through, even though I don't agree with them. Regarding the hitting a child across the face in front of someone- Well, I'm autistic and I, too, treat my DC exactly the same way in front of people as I do at home, I'm not a hypocrite (but I don't hit them).

Declining population is a positive thing in the long run- we just need to face up to it and manage it so it doesn't cause individual suffering. Societies should devote more of their budgets to caring for the ageing- if they can find money to fight wars, they can find it to look after the elderly. Immigration will be helpful in the medium term, and in the long term a smaller human population will be great for both us and the planet.

So care about nothing because one day it will all end?
Nah, I'll keep caring in the interim thanks. Otherwise what is the point.

You will die, you are alone
There is no God upon his throne
Impose thy will upon Earth's mess
Else your life is meaningless
No hell below, no heaven above
Life life now and act with love

Recipe for Humanity
Grayson Perry

I just don’t understand why you are so precious about it, considering that, in the same time it took life to evolve to this point, it will all be eaten up by the sun’s natural star cycle.

It’s obvious why most people care- they feel that their family- children, grandchildren or great grandchildren are threatened. Humans generally care about their progeny- they can conceive of a time far enough into the future that things could be difficult (because of climate change), for people they love and feel a connection to.

Conversely, very few people have the same feelings about humans they will be genetically related to in a million year- it’s too ‘future’ for that. So they think “fair enough we will be wiped out at some point, but I don’t want it to happen to my family if I can do anything about it”.

Ah, that's not true. Apparently the majority of our DNA can still be traced back to the Beaker people, builders of Stonehenge! What I do not know is how far the Beaker people extended. Europe? Africa?

Yes, I said “a sense off… leaving things as we found them” because I meant just that- humans think in terms they understand. They feel that they ‘inherited’ a planet with a certain amount of liveability and they feel they want to leave a planet with the same amount of livability for their grandchildren etc.

You are right- it isn’t actually literally possible!

We can't speed the process along

We can’t speed a mass extinction event like an asteroid along.

I think beyond that the question wanders into the realm of philosophy.

You could take the view that we are very definitely, unnecessarily and quickly moving along the process of creating a planet that humans can’t live comfortably on- global warming, raising see levels, less physical land for living on and growing food, more floods/fires etc etc.

On the other hand you could take the view that human evolution is natural, therefore the destructive nature of humans towards the planet grew naturally, therefore if we burn it to the ground a million years before an outside event would have done it anyway- well that is just the natural result of end stage human evolution.

I'm not saying we are needed for the natural world to survive. I'm saying we are messing it up whilst we are here

I just don’t understand why you are so precious about it, considering that, in the same time it took life to evolve to this point, it will all be eaten up by the sun’s natural star cycle.

Nothing can be preserved for very long. So we may as well use it for our purposes.

I already said this up thread, but I'll say it again.....

I just hope we humans don't mess up too much of it before we become extinct. Watching what we're doing to the world can be pretty frustrating to say the least.

I'm not saying we are needed for the natural world to survive. I'm saying we are messing it up whilst we are here.

The couple in that article aren't any kind of movement. They are two deeply fucked up people who found each other and seem to think having endless kids will fix them. They are no different from those poor addicted or abused women who have child after child (usually to replace ones taken by social services) becuse they want/need something to love.

We are the consequences of evolution and natural selection! We didnt beam down from another planet!

We can't speed the process along. The Sun will die when the sun dies, but there are people on this thread wishing for the extinction of humans "for the sake of the planet". It will make no difference to the planet. It will only make a difference to us, as you say, so that our children and grandchildren have a habitable planet to live on while the human race continues to exist. We cannot leave things as we found them (for a start because we are all here using computers, whos microchips have been made using metals dug out of the ground), and the Earth doesn't care how it is left. It will very soon regenerate. We are a blip on the history of the planet. A giant asteroid hit Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs. There is a bloody great crater in it to show that. The planet wasn't left in the same way as it was in the times of the dinosaurs. The atmosphere completely changed for a start, yet here we are. The ice ages killed everything on the surface of the Earth. It wasn't left as whoever was living there found it. Any yet here we are.

So why do people want to preserve the Earth in the current state when it will all come to nothing anyway,

The same reason people flush the toilet after they poo- a sense of good manners and leaving things as you found them.

For the amount of future humans can imagine, other humans will be around. The humans we have now feel an affinity to the other humans coming after because they will be their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren etc, so they want them to have what we consider is a good life- which includes a liveable planet.

Obviously in the end it will be ‘pointless’, but we don’t have to speed the process along.

But it was a poor analogy, since what Copernicus was saying is an easily-provable fact, whereas what you are saying is not- there are far too many influencing factors at play.

I agree with this. 'Nature' would not be better or worse off without us.We are nature. We are the natural consequence of evolution. It would take millions of years for a species to evolve again that is as evolved as us, as they would have to start again probably from insects or sea animals. There is absolutely no reason to care for the environment apart from for the benefit of humans, while we are here. We will be here for some time, so we need to ensure the planet is habitable for us and all those who share the planet with us. There have, as others have said been 6 extinction events. That's how the planet works. There will be another one, with or without us, that will wipe out everything we know today, and something will start again. We don't need to be able to take other species off to other planets, we need to look after this planet, to make sure that humans don't burn or starve to death. Animals die all the time. They are killed by us or other animals. That is how nature works. Plants die and grow all the time. It is very arrogant to assume we are anything but a part of nature, that we are some kind of evil God creatures. We are just animals just like any other animal but we have evolved far beyond anything that has ever evolved before, to care about other things on the planet.No other creature gives a stuff about any other creature, unless they are scared it is going to kill them, or whether they can kill it for food.

Yeah, but humans are not needed for the rest of the animals and plants to survive. There is far more history before our existence where everything sorted itself out.

Pet dogs and hamsters et al might struggle for a bit- but the fact is we are just another mammal- our extinction would be just another event in hundreds of billions of years worth of such events.

It is only the arrogance of the human race that makes us think that there is no chance for the planet without us.

In any event there will be the heat death of the universe or some other sort of mass extinction event at some point, that is the natural order of things.

Why would anyone care? If the human race dies out we will ALL be dead- so what happens to the planet after that is irrelevant to all of us

Lower life forms cannot survive on Earth forever. All those billions of years of life on Earth—as far as we know, humans are the only ones with higher intelligence.

Many will be doomed to die in the next mass extinction event, hardly any will survive once the sun starts turning into a red giant (ok, it will be one billion years from now, but life has already been here for about 3 billion … ). And then it will ALL be over in 5 billion when the sun swallows up the Earth when it matures into a red dwarf.

So why do people want to preserve the Earth in the current state when it will all come to nothing anyway, with or without humans, and much sooner than we think? May as well continue to thrive on this planet and then turn barren worlds into a lush paradise if we can manage it.

I just hope we humans don't mess up too much of it before we become extinct. Watching what we're doing to the world can be pretty frustrating to say the least.

Who the fuck cares?! Why does ‘life’ need to survive?

If the earth is hit by an asteroid this afternoon and every single living creature and plant are incinerated instantly, why would that be an issue in any way? Other than it feeling a bit sad because I’m going on holiday tomorrow and I’m quite looking forward to it.

No one would be left to care.

The whole of ‘space’ is a natural entity- bits banging into other bits and changing their properties is a natural process. If in millions or billions of years that results in bare planets spinning around for the rest of eternity that’s fine.

Nature is better off without humans! The world can get back to business as usual which involves evolution and natural selection and constant change. Life flourished for many hundreds of millions of years before humans and will do after

I care what happens to the natural world, wildlife etc after I'm dead.

Why would anyone care? If the human race dies out we will ALL be dead- so what happens to the planet after that is irrelevant to all of us.

Not that it would be desolate anyway, just return to it’s natural state.

I think the solution to demographic problem is either plan to accept immigration and make it work for everyone and/or pay people £500 a month per child age 1-3, or offer free or heavily subsidsied childcare so it didn't cost anyone more than a few hundred a month. Expensive, but it would take affording to have kids from an impossibilty to a possibility for huge numbers of people.