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Warm Greetings to All,

Join Plato's Cave philosophers and Orlando Stoics on Zoom this Sunday morning, March 15 at 9:00. (Informal chat at 9:00, forum at 9:15)

Plato's Cave members can reserve a place and receive zoom login information on this site and receive e-mail confirmation.

Every Sunday, a new lecture. Our meeting starts at 9:00 AM with friendly wakeup chat; then our select topic panel briefly introduces the subject at 9:15, followed by member discussion and Q&A.
Volunteer introduction panelists will meet following each forum.

This Week: (we may divide topic into several forums)
Environmental-Ethics of “Sustainability” 🆚 populations＆property

Moral‑Hazard: socialized‑losses 🆚 privatized‑gains

Judgement＆Responsibility

Population‑Ethics: limitless‑growth 🆚 degrowth

  • Limitless‑GROWTH: perhaps even limitlessly exponential‽ — arguably providing more workers to implement more sustainable, efficient, lower‑impact, more recyclable／biodegradable, or otherwise “green” technologies faster as well as at larger scale, re‑green environments subjected to desertification or cleanup or restore otherwise depleted or polluted environments, or even eventually colonize space… (which could provide orders of magnitude more of a plethora of important raw‑materials to a nearly limitless extreme with minimal environmental concerns in many cases other than potential Kessler‑syndrome effects from space debris… 𝔢.𝔤. massive quantities of rare‑earth minerals, diamonds, 𝘦𝘵𝘤.) Also consider this analysis regarding how even with known or known to be plausible tech we could potentially have a trillion people sustainably living on Earth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lJJ_QqIVnc
  • DEGROWTH: Malthusian concerns about overpopulation leading to increased consumption at developed-world levels or even more luxurious＆energy‑intensive standards of living that could lead to ecological‑collapses, mass‑destruction of critical habitats, accelerating mass‑extinctions, runaway‑pollution, shortages of clean fresh water, and just generally multifarious tragedies of the Commons, negative‑externalities, 𝘦𝘵𝘤.
  • Also, consider Derek Parfit’s original 1984 formulation of the “Repugnant Conclusion” as follows: “For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better even though its members have lives that are barely worth living” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/#AccImpSatPopEth (considering possible rejoinders, including some that Parfit himself evaluated?)
  • Utilitarian arguments for population‑reductions such as those of Mill＆Malthus… https://iep.utm.edu/mill-eth/#H11 (with the goal of minimizing less‑joyful, extremely‑impoverished, or plagued by pollution／misery／suffering lives…)
  • anti‑natalist policies (encouraging voluntary population growth stabilization to near replacement rates or even slight reductions for some generations) 🆚 pro‑natalist policies (as well as their limitations in addition to ethical concerns with distinguishing merely pro‑birth ⟦or anti‑family‑planning choices⟧ policies from comprehensively pro‑natalist＆pro‑growth policies…)
  • anti‑natalist fearmongering＆conspiracy‑theories… in some cases alleging shadowy “globalist” agendas which (if plausible) would be far more sinister than merely spreading voluntary contraception in attempt to reduce energy consumption, make sure the developed world does not become too vastly outnumbered and thus geopolitically surpassed by the developing world, and aid in global energy‑conservation＆sustainability through reduced‑consumption (particularly as the developing‑world increasingly consumes more energy on par with the developed‑world as its population grows…)
  • cultural＆policy implications of higher birthrates among the religious or the less affluent or the less educated as reproductive‑choice access spreads with development but is not universally freely available or equally broadly destigmatized across populations in many societies
  • demographic＆economic implications of a potential global human population peak (for some generations at least) of ≅ 11 billion, perhaps by 2100, projecting out from current estimates and considering ongoing economic development combined with increasingly ubiquitous spread＆availability of contraceptive technologies… followed by likely dealing global populations, potentially for many generations following that peak?〽️

Zoning＆Policy dynamics:

  • 𝐘𝙸𝙼𝙱𝚈 (“YES in my 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘺𝘢𝘳𝘥”) 🆚 𝐍𝙸𝙼𝙱𝚈 (“NOT in my 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘺𝘢𝘳𝘥”) 🆚 𝐁𝙸𝙼𝙱𝚈 (“𝑩𝒆𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒚 in my 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘺𝘢𝘳𝘥”) https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2026/02/24/g-s1-111204/is-the-yimby-movement-doomed
  • “Pride of Ownership” 🆚 renters exploited by rent‑seeking landlords, ghettoization, gentrification, issues of Eminent‑Domain＆infrastructure‑placement (redlining), 𝘦𝘵𝘤.
  • Georgist／“Geoist” LVT (“Land Value Tax”) as an arguably more just or efficient alternative to traditional property‑taxes that would discourage speculation, rent‑seeking, or other harmful behaviors in real‑estate and could better encourage localized investment into communities… and which some evangelists even hope would be efficient／effective enough to replace other tax‑revenue sources (particularly if combined with a radically smaller libertarian or minarchist government)… https://www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm
  • mixed‑income housing, developer‑profits 🆚 public‑goods incentives, multi‑dwelling lots or various degrees of communally cooperative housing or adult‑dorms, multi‑generational cohabitation households／family‑compounds

• new＆efficient construction 🆚 historical‑preservation (natural‑disaster preparedness＆efficiency 🆚 reusing＆augmenting existing structures)

Hosted by:
Plato's Cave and Orlando Stoics
https://www.meetup.com/platoscave/

Orlando Stoics are Welcome
https://www.meetup.com/orlando-stoics/

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