Inmendham commented on the episode of Exploring
Antinatalism podcast with David Benatar.
And it’s quite a decent comment.
But there is one thing that irks me the wrong
way.
It’s Gary’s take on handling the poor.
I’ll play the relevant fragment and then
show what’s wrong with it and what the proper
strategy looks like.
It’s a strategy based on what we know about
development of nations across time regarding
some important features.
Check the links below.
You’ll find there awesome talks and relevant
articles, and the tool I used to record graphs
and animations you’ll see later.
I highly recommend you check them out.
Here’s what Inmendham has to say about the
poor:
"And... and you can see where you're allowed
to be quite illogical in those circumstances,
where you don't put it into the real world,
put it into real circumstances of actually
doing what you wanna do, which is real prevention.
So it's almost like this idea that "oh, poor
people aren't to blame, and they shouldn't
be punished.”
Yes, all those things are true, but the practical
fact is if you feed them and give them guns
they'll be a menace.
It's just a fact.
OK, so if you give them the capacity to make
more of a mess, they will.
So if you actually wanna prevent starvation
you don't do it by feeding the hungry.
It doesn't solve the problem.
It makes the problem worse.
So those are practical realities that have
to be the framework for conversation about
how... what the law should be.
So it's, anyway, it's very... he wants to
run away from any statement that antinatalists
wish to impose on the current perpetrators
in any way.
Like, they're gonna go out and start arresting
the rapists and stuff.
No, they're just not rapists themselves.
You know, they do their little vegan thing
and their little "life is bad" thing and leave
it at that.
And, frankly, that's not gonna fix the problem,
that's not gonna do the job.
I mean, like I said, I don't wanna be a hypocrite
about it - in a way we don't have to do anything,
but stop the ignorant poor.
If you stop them the world population declines.
It's just a fact.
The game is over.
So if you can abolish ignorance breeding ignorance
- you know, in the sense of poverty, creating
impoverished minds that can't figure out something
better to do with their life, that think their
life is over when they're sixteen and start
making these decisions about "I'm a very good
procreator.
I know how to be a parent".
You know, sure you do.
So that's another conversation to be had with
people - it's about their gross incompetence."
I
can summarize Gary’s points as:
- if you feed the poor, they will continue
making a mess,
- if you want to prevent starvation, you don’t
feed the hungry - it only makes the problem
worse,
- we only have to stop the ignorant poor - the
world population will decline.
I’ll start with the last item.
You have to have a plan on how you’re going
to “stop the ignorant poor”.
If you don’t, then you’re not saying anything
useful.
What does it even mean “to stop the poor”?
It doesn’t mean anything.
It’s not a sentiment that anyone can act
on.
What about feeding the poor?
I’ll address the more general point, which
is the quality of life of a population.
This can be ascertained through some metrics:
calories per day, various health indicators
such as health of the children and child mortality
rate, income and wealth, education - especially
for women, access to contraception, abortion,
family planning, integration of women into
the labor force, age at first marriage for
women.
You can actually measure these things across
time and across countries.
Let’s start with food.
We have Kenya from Africa, India from South
Asia, Mexico from North America, United Arab
Emirates from Middle East in West Asia.
We start in 1961 with between 2000 and 2300
kilocalories per person in Kenya, India, Mexico,
and with 6 to 8 children per woman.
We start the clock... and immediately Mexico
shoots to the right - they get more food per
person per day.
With that, they have fewer babies.
You see the trend also in India and in United
Arab Emirates.
In the 90s we get data from Ethiopia.
And they make astounding progress.
They go from around 1500 kilocalories to 2200,
and from 7 children per woman to 4.
This is a very strong correlation between
access to food and fertility rates.
One of the most important indicators of health
of a population is child mortality.
In 1970, between 8 and 16% of all infants
in the selected countries die.
They die young.
They die due to malnutrition, starvation,
disease, parasites, diarrhea.
An average woman has between 6 to 8 children
in her life.
Start the clock.
We move left.
Fewer and Fewer infants die.
With that, fewer and fewer children get born.
We end in 2015.
Around 0,5% to 4% of infants die.
That’s a decrease of up to 16 times of fewer
dead babies.
An average woman has 2 to 4 children in her
life.
That’s a massive decrease of about 2 or
3 times less children per woman.
In less than 50 years.
The better the health system, the fewer people
suffer, the fewer children die.
The fewer children die, the fewer children
get born.
What happens when you increase income and
wealth of a country?
Well, let’s find out.
Here we have Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Ukraine,
Mexico.
At the start, they’re poor.
Just like most countries.
Let’s start the clock...
As time goes on, Ukraine gets more wealthy.
We see a dip because of the first world war
and the Spanish flu pandemic.
But the progress resumes soon.
With the progress we see a dramatic fall of
the fertility rates.
From the initial 7 to around 2 children per
woman.
Around the 1970s we see that Mexico and India
start to move - they get wealthy.
And with that, the fertility rates drop.
Since the 80s Kenya follows - it’s getting
wealthy and the fertility rates drop.
From the late 90s Ethiopia joins the party
- people get wealthy and have fewer children
per woman.
We get to around 2020.
Ukraine, India, Mexico have fertility rates
between 2 and 3 children per woman.
Ethiopia and Kenya aren’t as wealthy, and
they have higher fertility rates - around
4 children per woman.
Wanna see the future?
Let’s go...
We simulate the progress of all those countries
based on the observable trend.
In 2040 we can expect Ukraine, India, Mexico
to have the fertility rate of around 2, and
women in Ethiopia and Kenya to have around
3 children on average.
This is all in line with the trend.
This is possible because the nations will
have progressed.
As the average income increases, the fertility
rate decreases.
This is observable across time, across nations,
across religions.
The more money people make, the fewer children
they have.
This is a solid trend.
Education plays a very important role.
We start in the 1970s.
People spend little time in school, if at
all.
On average they get around 2 to 4 years of
education.
A woman has around 5 to 8 children in her
life.
Start the clock.
With time we see a massive increase in education.
People spend more and more time in school.
And what happens?
Women have fewer and fewer children.
In 2015 people spend, on average, from 6 to
13 years in school.
Women have 2 to 4 babies in their lives.
When people are more educated, they can make
better decisions, they can get a better job,
they don’t need many children to sustain
the entire family.
And when they are in school, they don’t
make babies.
One of the most important indicator of advancement
of society is average life expectancy.
We start in 1900.
In the selected countries people live on average
20, 30 years.
It’s not a welcoming world...
Women have between 6, 7 children in their
lives.
As years go by, life expectancy increases.
There is a major regress for the first World
War and the Spanish flu pandemic.
After that the countries slowly move to higher
life expectancy.
Second World War pushes them back.
They get back on track fast.
When people live in good conditions and live
for at least about 50 years, there is no need
to bring so many new people into the world.
Fertility rates start to go down.
The year is 2020.
People live between 70 and 80 years.
Women can have around 2 to 4 children.
Do you want to visit the future?
We move forward.
Ethiopia and Kenya move to where India and
Mexico were decades ago.
2100.
New century.
People live between 80 and 90 years in the
select countries.
We have around 2 babies per woman.
This is the future.
The sooner and the faster the poor countries
progress in standards of living - health,
income, education - the sooner and faster
we’ll observe decreased fertility rates.
We see this happening all around the world.
We will see this happening in the future.
This is easy to see when comparing and tracking
the histories of various countries.
But this trend also holds true within countries.
As the poor in an otherwise relatively wealthy
country get a better quality of life, they
get healthier, wealthier, more educated, they
also have fewer children.
As an additional point, we can say that the
more developed are the counties, the richer
they become, the more resources they need
and their capacities to affect the environment
also drastically increase.
They destroy the environment, natural habitats,
thus decreasing populations of wild animals.
The animals don’t have a place to live,
so they don’t.
Animals also decrease in numbers.
Fewer animals get born, fewer animals suffer.
You want to decrease the birth rates?
You don’t “stop the poor” - you help
them.
You give them a hand in education, economy,
health system, civil rights, so then they
can take care of themselves.
And with that, they won’t have as many babies
as now.
