Welcome many new people :3

@Men Are Human I actually had a discussion with a feminist friend of mine who's reasonable enough to respect a good debate, and when she described a book about a society like that one, I mentioned that if there was really a society in which most people were infertile and there was imminent risk of everyone dying out, forcing fertile women to bear children would be an understandable course of action to save the society from the emergency if they did not comply to anything more reasonable. She agreed

Such an argument comes down to whether you believe the end justifies the means

And it's a very dangerous one to agree with

Any means is justified if the end is saving society from dying out. I don't think it's hard for most people to comprehend that

Can a society be said to truly survive when you have sacrificed all of its values?

That's not how it works in practice. Oftentimes really savage methods used in tougher times are abandoned one way or another when society recovers

There's a reason why most authoritarian states collapsed after the Industrial revolution

We developed beyond tough times

Just because things and people change and grow, doesn't mean that you didn't destroy the current society at that point in time.

The argument that the end justifies the means could be used for so many things, including culling large amounts of the world population to prevent resource depletion or global warming

Would you rather have a dystopia for a few decades or no society at all?

In the situation you describe, no society at all isn't an inevitability in the first place

If everyone is infertile and there is an imminent risk of there being no next generation

Yes, it is an inevitable if nothing is done

So now we have moved the goalposts from a straight choice to doing it when there is only a risk.

This is why your argument is dangerous

The goalposts were never moved

See the beginning of my argument

Your argument is that whatever is best for humanity is worth it *no matter the cost*

And that can be used to justify all kinds of abhorrent things

I believe in the concept of "only what is *necessary* should be done"

Meaning if there is nothing more reasonable or humane available as an option

It's okay to do some bad shit for a little while

Since when did extreme actions become necessary in a situation you have described yourself as a risk?

If most people are infertile

There's a risk, right?

But how much time do we have to make sure that risk doesn't develop? How likely is it the bad thing actually happens?

Obviously the standard concept of marriage collapses in such a situation

The market has failed. There's a good chance that many fertile people won't meet each other for their entire lives

There are always risks in life. You can't really justify taking extreme actions that harm others on the basis of this

Right, but the risks we face in the first world are leagues away from the kind of scenario I'm describing right now. It's a false equivalence

How is it a false equivalence? Most being infertile doesn't say all are, it is not by any means a destruction of humanity or even collapse of civilisation. Why would you jump to hurting others rather than research and innovation? Would it not be likely that the few who do choose to continue the race would survive? The principle of what action you can reasonably take in proportion to the risk is the same.

I should also say that it's highly unlikely that such a scenario will ever occur, thankfully

And you do both

You prepare for a brighter future

And you do what you have to right now

Whatever the means are for accomplishing those two things vary with the exact situation

Harming others when no one is being harmed is never an acceptable solution. You've apparently given up on any notion that people have bodily integrity. The reason I'm saying this is dangerous and the point I am trying to make is that your line is so easy to move. If it can be justified in this situation why can't it for any others in order to create your future? You have opened the gates to allowing such things.

I have to go rn, but I can continue later in debate maybe, probably should have moved it earlier