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[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 93 points 1 week ago

Scientists argue that the indiscriminate use of Earth’s resources by humans has led to environmental effects, ranging from biodiversity loss to climate change.

Motherfuckers will find it easier to imagine genociding half of humanity than ending capitalism.

[-] Olap@lemmy.world 28 points 1 week ago

Lol, what do you think indiscriminate use of resources is? That's literally capitalism!

[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Unless you're an ecofascist neonazi, in which case the same phrase gets interpreted as "use of resources by the wrong kind of people".

[-] bluefootedbooby@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 week ago

Well, noone needs to get genocide, just stop making more

[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 week ago

Oh you mean eugenics and reproductive control. Yea, also genocidal.

[-] bluefootedbooby@sopuli.xyz 9 points 1 week ago

Jfc, I'm not castrating anyone, just asking nicely - consider not making more. Maybe 8 billion is plenty.

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[-] realitista@lemmus.org 10 points 1 week ago

Genocide is unneeded. Population levels decline naturally as people urbanize. Just keep moving people into cities and industrializing farming and the problem will solve itself.

[-] wheezy@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 week ago

Not with capitalism. Look at countries that do not take in many immigrants. South Korea and Japan are the results of what you're talking about.

It's not just about industrialization. The exploitation of labor under capitalism still requires bodies to build its alter. The contradictions of capitalism are the primary problem. Value comes from labor. The profits of capital come from labor. They don't want "less people". They just want you to hate other workers and see them as "the problem".

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[-] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 36 points 1 week ago

Actually, we'd only need to lose 50 maybe 100 people. Total.

[-] Tango@piefed.ca 16 points 1 week ago

Nah, their fortunes would just go to their heirs and you'd still have the same problem with roughly the same number of people. The solution is a system of regulation and taxation that stops incentivizing the pursuit of profit over all else. For example, shareholders should not be able to profit when workers don't. Real estate owners should not be able to engage in cartel-like behavior, collaborating with each other to fix prices.

[-] wheezy@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

It's easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine a world without capitalism.

We don't give their heirs wealth my dude. It's a revolution. You round up the ruling class and seize their wealth and give it back to the masses that produced it.

I know "that'll never happen". Said every person throughout history just before a revolution.

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[-] Visstix@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

I dunno. Let's try the first plan and see how it goes first.

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[-] DisasterTransport@startrek.website 30 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Oh yeah? Which half? WHICH HALF MOTHERFUCKER?!?💢🪿🔪

[-] VoteNixon2016 12 points 1 week ago
[-] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 week ago

By 2200, if you read the article. So basically have less children.

[-] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

So basically have less children.

[-] DisasterTransport@startrek.website 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

What they are describing is a natural reduction in population that occurs automatically when countries become more economically developed. Trying to steer this is gonna have downstream impacts. You are not going to roll out these reforms everywhere all at once, so where are you going to start? Because if democracy and a global economy are still going to exist in 2200, relative population sizes matter. If, say, India develops their rural regions, does a 180 on feminism, and halves their population in the process, but Pakistan doesn't, that's going to have geopolitical ramifications, and not good ones. This kind of thinking scares me, no matter what the framing is. People are good, and we can have more of them, and we should have more of them. We just need to be smarter about how we use our resources.

[-] Siegfried@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

You cannot build a policy in such a way that population halving is distributed equitably unless you run a global forced sterilization lottery. Which has its own ethical problems. Maybe we could, idk, all agree to eat beef twice a month instead of every day and stop throwing shit fits over renewables and nuclear before economics and water scarcity makes fossil fuel plants impossible to support. Just a thought.

[-] CobraChicken3000@lemmy.ca 29 points 1 week ago

Study reveals that humans are the main cause of human-caused environmental effects.

[-] SaorSol@startrek.website 22 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Funny how they leave out that taking just 1% of the wealthiest for a nice dirt nap would help more

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[-] aproposnix@piefed.social 22 points 1 week ago

Just waiting for Theil or some other tech bro to start a company called "Vault-Tec".

[-] Loce@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

I fully expect project code name Thanos.

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[-] tigermountain@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago

I'd like to volunteer to start the list with about a hundred people we can get rid of right now.

[-] metermatic26@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

The president of the United States of America beat you to it.

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[-] filister@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago

Halving the population would definitely help, but some country populations have a lot lower impact than others.

The real problem is the consumerism mentality, where we need to buy even bigger cars, TVs, houses, clothes, etc.

This is what destroys our planet. And even if the population halves, this trend can negate much of the effect.

[-] benjirenji@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 week ago

True. Remove the US and we're halfway there already.

[-] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago

The US is bad, but when you look at CO2 emissions it is still just at 12.7% of global emissions for example. Not even close to half. Obviously on a per capita bases that is still crazy high.

[-] benjirenji@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 week ago

Your data does not include all the imported goods and land use required for Americans, but merely territorial emissions. US lifestyle is particularly wasteful, so yes, we'll be halfway there counting also all the imported trash that no longer needs to be produced and shipped.

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[-] Apocalypteroid@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

Isn't climate change going to take care of this for us? Parts of the planet are becoming uninhabitable, food crops are failing, fish stocks are on the verge of collapse.... We are going to struggle to feed 10 billion people unless things drastically change!

[-] AA5B@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Historically when people are desperate , die younger, they responded by having more children

[-] Apocalypteroid@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

Historically, that might be true, but that is because historically it made sense to have more children in order to eventually gather more food or earn more money. Birth rates are dropping all over the place. Even in countries like India with traditionally very high birth rates. We are entering into a post-ubundance world, resources like food and clean water are becoming increasingly scarce and increasingly expensive. It makes no sense having babies if you're not sure you're going to be able to feed them.

[-] impairedimperator@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 week ago

Historically, when birds struggle to find food they kick eggs out of their nests. Historically, when guinea pigs struggle to find food they eat their young.

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[-] metermatic26@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago

Capitalism called.

They said “no”… ☹️

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[-] Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Who gets to have kids? I saw that "high income nations" use more resources. But "low income nations" have significantly higher birth rates. So, who gets to have kids and who decides?

[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

White centibillionaires with a background in apartheid of course.

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[-] tal@lemmy.today 13 points 1 week ago

I am not particularly sympathetic, but there is a group that takes this quite seriously:

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

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT[A]) is an environmental movement that calls for all people to abstain from reproduction in order to cause the gradual voluntary extinction of humankind. VHEMT supports human extinction primarily because it would prevent environmental degradation.

[-] PostProcess@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

Can I get a snap?

[-] qevlarr@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

Malthusianism is fascist bullshit. Who has to go? This will be used for genocide if we allow any "there's simply too many people" narrative to subvert climate discourse.

We can feed, clothe and shelter everyone easily and comfortably. But we can't all have the luxuries of the most wealthy. Tough shit. That doesn't mean poor people having children has anything to do with our situation

[-] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 10 points 1 week ago
[-] belastend@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 week ago

Great, start with yourself then.

[-] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 week ago

So let's extrapolate here. Getting rid of all humans would help the earth even more? Sounds about right.

[-] human@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago

I hope when it's my turn they do it quickly.

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this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
105 points (100.0% liked)

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