> First of all, it disregards the tremendous disaster that global heating and destruction of the natural world are leading towards. 30 years from now, large parts of humanity will probably find it hard to get water or food, let alone contraception.
Large parts of humanity have always had a problem getting water or food and it had nothing to do with global warming, rather politics, governance, and culture. These will always be a bigger problem.
>Large parts of humanity have always had a problem getting water or food and it had nothing to do with global warming, rather politics, governance, and culture.
Yes. But not relevant. One has to remove such constants in order to see what's new.
So, while "Large parts of humanity have always had a problem getting water or food and it had nothing to do with global warming", now it also HAS to do with global warming.
Increasingly smaller fraction of humanity is has a problem getting water or food, from almost everyone not that long ago, through 40% of the world population in the 1980s to less than 20% nowadays. This change is due to economic growth, which in turn is influenced primarily by the technological progress, also by politics, governance, and culture, as you say, but also by the population growth--when there are more people the economy grows faster.
Also note that regardless of what you think in general about the impact the growing number of humans has on the economic growth, it's hardly debatable that if Richard Stallman specifically had decided to have children, his children would have very likely contributed much more than an average human, just like RMS himself has.
So in reality his decision was exactly counterproductive providing parts of humanity with water or food.
To all the parents out there (I am not one): Thank you. You don't know me, but your decision to have a child is as good as if you donated maybe $1e-4 to my 401(k). And everyone else's. If you live in the US, more. If you are a very smart and hard working person, even more. By caring for your own child, you're also feeding some hungry child in Africa 25 years from now. Richard Stallman should be grateful to you.
Comments
> First of all, it disregards the tremendous disaster that global heating and destruction of the natural world are leading towards. 30 years from now, large parts of humanity will probably find it hard to get water or food, let alone contraception.
Large parts of humanity have always had a problem getting water or food and it had nothing to do with global warming, rather politics, governance, and culture. These will always be a bigger problem.
>Large parts of humanity have always had a problem getting water or food and it had nothing to do with global warming, rather politics, governance, and culture.
Yes. But not relevant. One has to remove such constants in order to see what's new.
So, while "Large parts of humanity have always had a problem getting water or food and it had nothing to do with global warming", now it also HAS to do with global warming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertification
Increasingly smaller fraction of humanity is has a problem getting water or food, from almost everyone not that long ago, through 40% of the world population in the 1980s to less than 20% nowadays. This change is due to economic growth, which in turn is influenced primarily by the technological progress, also by politics, governance, and culture, as you say, but also by the population growth--when there are more people the economy grows faster.
Also note that regardless of what you think in general about the impact the growing number of humans has on the economic growth, it's hardly debatable that if Richard Stallman specifically had decided to have children, his children would have very likely contributed much more than an average human, just like RMS himself has.
So in reality his decision was exactly counterproductive providing parts of humanity with water or food.
To all the parents out there (I am not one): Thank you. You don't know me, but your decision to have a child is as good as if you donated maybe $1e-4 to my 401(k). And everyone else's. If you live in the US, more. If you are a very smart and hard working person, even more. By caring for your own child, you're also feeding some hungry child in Africa 25 years from now. Richard Stallman should be grateful to you.