I used to say that too. However, I could not get over this part: are you volunteering to be one of the 1-2 billion in the die-off so that rest of humanity can survive with this current lifestyle?
Barring people who are already suicidal, I doubt anyone would want to volunteer. This is a hard problem, well beyond the concerns of political correctness.
Um, you don't have to have people currently living die. Even if you found 5-6 billion people to sign up to die tomorrow, what would you do with their bodies? How would you provide for their children, if any? Would you allow parents to sign up their whole families? etc. etc. I'm pretty sure the GP was just talking about capping reproduction for a while.
I was responding to this: "But honestly,if we reduced the population to around 1-2 billion, we could all afford to live like we do today, ... "
However, you bring up some good practical points of the consequences. A person's life ripples out and touches other people around him.
As I said, this is a hard problem, not one solvable simply through a die-off or a cap on reproduction. At the heart of the problem is that each of us are self-centered to the point of ignoring anything beyond ourselves. We're already zombies in a culture of mindless consumerism.
In First World countries, if you take away an individual's "job", "work", and "productivity", then that individual is lost. He does not know why he is here or what his purpose is. All he knows is that he needs to pay his rent and mortgage, watch TV, raise a family, and go shopping. People who do not fit that mold is either outcast or assimilated. Braaaaiinns. A few people might see beyond it thinking, let's do a startup! but end up mindless hitting the refresh button to see new comments on HN.
Heh, zombie apocalypse is already here, and we didn't even see it coming. Though we did make some great TV shows about it.
Barring people who are already suicidal, I doubt anyone would want to volunteer. This is a hard problem, well beyond the concerns of political correctness.