Laying Blame: Population vs. Consumption

[NoOneMan]

35. So your answer is "yes"? All our improved happiness (if we have any) is worth climate change?

Or are you just not going to try this one and insist we keep "progressing" toward more unprovable "happiness"?

And no, defining happiness is not whatsoever like defining a unit of measuring length.

Quick thought....let's say you take a tiger, put it in a zoo behind bars, double its lifespan, give it medicine when sick, give it something comfortable to lay on, etc, can you guarantee that your caged tiger is happier than your wild tigers? Or does caging and tending to the needs of a tiger not make them "happier" because they are a wild animal and it is against their nature to live like that? Is it according to man's nature to live like this? Are we maximizing happiness by prolonging lives in an artificial world of consumer products that may not improve our happiness measurably? If we are even improving it (impossible to prove), is it worth the ecological destruction we have wrought?

Have you ever been to a poor country

I haven't been to Africa. I've done some work in Mexico slums a bit, which is pretty bad in certain areas.

sounds like someone who's never had much contact with deprivation

Oy, hows that? The person arguing that humans have promoted misery is the one without contact to deprivation? Normally its the opposite IMO.