It is for a lot of people who can't stand but meddle, apparently.

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http://amssolarempire.blogspot.com

Which is almost exactly what I said in the preceding post:

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

And which people that "meddle" are you referring to, in this particular instance?

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

I'm just thinking of all those people who think the future needs to be planned out and controlled in detail from any given central authority. They basically want a static world where no more people are born than a given quota so as not to "consume resources".

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http://amssolarempire.blogspot.com

There are reasons to think that breeding like rabbits can be harmful when a limit is reached.

Do you support this group's activities? They are currently attempting to get rid of the "abstinence only" message given to Uganda, and wish to have condoms and safe-sex resources sent to this location.

Is this wrong, and if it is, why?

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

Not at all. "This group" is providing Ugandans more information, hence more control over their own lives. Note that it is not FORCING condoms and birth control on anyone.

And yes, I think China's enforced one-child policy is wrong -- and is already showing undesirable unintended consequences. That is, undesirable even by Chinese government.

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

Yes, it is leading to quite a few abortions and the slaughter of children. There is more than one way to skin a cat, however. Or in this case, to use a condom*.

However, people do not need to be forced to not have children. Statistically, they choose to as they live in more developed countries. Take a look here, at a list of the birth rate vs. death rate by country. The U.S. has only changed a little since 1980 (and is equal to what it was in 1975), but that may change as we get rid of the "Abstinence Only!" message that is dumped upon children, and proper sex education becomes more in vogue.

Regardless, the overall trend is a dramatic decrease in population growth in a few decades, whereas the death rate stays the same. Australia dropped from around 17 births per 1000 people a year, to about 12 in 2007, whereas death rate stays around 7.5. That's a drop of 5 -- around 30%!

Austria dropped from 12.5 to 8.7. Death Rate is 9.8. Germany is... uh... kinda sporadic (EDIT: Oh, I get it. Figures are for West Germany before 1990. That explains things). But the trend is going lower today. Italy dropped from a whopping 14.8 to about 8.5. Meanwhile, in Japan, the birth rate has exceeded the death rate (and is one of the few countries in which the death rate increased rather drastically -- by a good 50%), and went from 17.2 per 1000 birth rate, to 9.2; nearly a full 50% decrease! Poland has seen a decrease about approximately the same number.

The numbers around the board all demonstrate the same trend: developed countries are featuring less and less births per 1000 population all across the board.

I really do not see any reason to force people to do what they're already choosing to do in the right environment.

Which actually doesn't demonstrate much, I know. There are still people that want to force others to not give birth. I'm just demonstrating that I'm not one of them.





*Okay, most of the other ways I can think of to use a condom don't actually help birth control, but can be quite fun at parties!

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

Quite a few interesting legal questions arise from the idea as well.

For instance, how long is a life sentence? If someone is sentenced to life in prison without parole, is it really morally correct (or for that matter, practical) to keep him locked up for 1000 years?

If you destroy the hard drive where someone's memories are stored, should you be charged with murder, or destruction of property?

If you force a sentient AI to work for you, is it slavery?

If you raped someone in a virtual world, would you be charged with rape, or digital harassment of some sort?

If you've been genetically engineered so that your DNA is different than mine in more ways than mine is to an ape, are you still human? Should I treat you as such?

I do wonder if execution might be the kinder approach. Execution for an immortal could merely mean the ceasing of being immortal, living out the rest of your natural life.
I would say assault causing grieves harm. Basically you gave them amnesia. It could also depend on how MUCH memory was lost.

Yes, the trouble being defining sentient. The way I look at it, if a computer can fool anyone its human, its human. That is after all the perquisite we use to judge out fellow humanity. But this also means it should not be copied or altered without the express permission of the AI in question.

Depends, was it really rape, or virtual role play? it would have to be a VERY deep virtual world to allow truly unwanted sex virtually. If it was, then yes.
Maybe not human, but definitely still a person. There are people who can not communicate in anyway with the outside world, and yet we treat them as humans. I don't just mean locked in patients, I also mean people with mental disabilities. However, if you transformed your self to the point that you have erased your mind, then some kind of waiver system could be set up.
These are my opinions and off the cuff ideas. I don't hold them as any kind of truth, just thoughts on the matter at hand. Feel free to disagree in any way.

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In a scenario where sentients can be up- and download and thus digitally manipulated,
criminals might rather be condemned to have a problematic behavior pattern 'removed' or changed.

That's the scariest thing I've read in this thread yet

Africa is far far away from being "overpopulated". In fact, they have one of the lowest populations of any of the continents in the world. What plagues Africa isn't too many people or "breeing like rabbits", as you put it. Africa is plagued by tyrrany, starvation, and disease. These things have zero-zip-nada to do with population or natural resources. (Though I have ideas that an economy based too-much on natural-resource wealth is far more vulnerable to sustaining tyrrany. Industrial and trade economies seem friendlier to a middle class and democratic government)

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http://amssolarempire.blogspot.com

It's not just your ideas. It's pretty much a proven fact.

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

Where do you get this information?

This Source Disagrees.

However, you ARE right... Africa won't have to worry about a rapidly growing population after all.

Actually, I said "breeding", with a d. But I wasn't talking purely about Africa then.

Do you really think that a population incline, with more and more and more people occupying the earth, really only has a net beneficial effect? Do you really think there are no negative consequences at all? How many people do you think the Earth can handle? This includes meat production (I should add that our livestock outnumbers our people 2 to 1), farms to feed us and our livestock, our cities, our transportation, our energy usage, etc. How many people?

Hm, this source seems to disagree with you.

Of course, it would be nice to live in a world where people could experience rapid population growths without ever worrying, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

It really doesn't seem to be that hard to find sources that state that overpopulation is a problem... what led you to believe that it was not?

I would agree with this... once you get past the pre-industrial to industrial transition. Workplace tyranny was pretty harsh (child labor?), and I wouldn't say that tyranny didn't exist in some industrializing countries like the U.S.S.R. Today it's not so bad, though. Except in North Korea...

China is kinda bad, but I think it'll start getting better.

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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

Africa's problem isn't a large population, but the large growth rate which is outrunning their ability to increase food production.

This is aggravated by aid programs that increase dependency on foreign aid while doing absolutely nothing about the underlying causes for the famines by giving food instead of helping to increase food production and self sufficiency.

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And the "driving on the freeway on a scooter" analogy still holds true because the pilots are sitting in 7 to 30 ton aircraft o' doom and you are running around them in your very own Meatbody, Mark I. Beep, beep.
Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

US birth rate is artifically high due to immigration. Birth rate for second generation or greater is pretty much in line with western europe. Silly sex ed ideas dont really have much to do with it.