Scott has posted a discussion of the conversation about eugenics, framed as an actual conversation. I found it thought-provoking, as he made better arguments for both sides than I am used to seeing from either.
A: Given that mild, consensual forms of eugenics have historically led to extreme, horrifying versions, we have reason to believe the topic is a slippery slope which ought to be avoided outright.
B: This proves too much, as there are plenty of other ideas with similar history but much higher body counts. Thus eugenics ought to be carefully investigated rather than tabooed outright.
In the footnotes, he also presents C: Ehrlich did nothing wrong, and sometimes expected-value calculations don’t plan for the long tails. Democracy, as a form of distributed consent, is our best way to square this circle. This (correctly, IMO) leaves Scott uncomfortable. I appreciate that he included it.
I was not at all familiar with Ehrlich’s work, or with the quintessentially-McNamara history of Indian aid programs. Both add some valuable context for the argument. Oh, and I guess Scott talks about HBD a little bit; that’ll be catnip for this community, but it’s really secondary to the main thrust. Seriously, just read the article for a better version than anything I can write.
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Notes -
I don't understand your argument. Why try to prevent famine when you could just have people die from famine? Why improve living standards when we could just live the same miserable lives that people lived for millennia? Really?
I am also sceptical of the claim that "food supply constraints automatically reduce population growth". The poorest and most famine-prone countries also have the highest population growth rates. Not fertility rates – net growth rates after child mortality and all that. Don't bring up food aid because nutrition is still inadequate even with food aid, yet this hasn't stopped the growth.
Preventing famine by irrigating, storing food better, investing in green revolution tech, educating farmers on better techniques... is all great. Pre-emptive totalitarian population control and forced sterilization (by Alex-Jones-was-right-tier chemicals in the water supply) is not worth it.
Ehrlich made out apocalyptic famines to be a near-existential threat that needed massive government intervention to fix. It's not an apocalyptic-tier problem.
Finally, food supply constraints must automatically reduce population growth is on the same level as thermodynamics. There's clearly plenty of margin where population growth is possible despite having few calories per person, or low quality calories lacking in some vitamins. But a certain amount of calories must be produced to keep people alive. It's physically impossible for the population of Niger or the US for that matter to grow beyond what food supply can be found to meet it. Population growth has a hard cap in terms of food supply but for all modern countries the primary factors are things other than food costs.
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