I enjoyed your response, and I particularly liked the style. However,
my little tirade is hardly a reasoned argument. It was an instant
hip-shot response, typed as fast as I could type. I was hoping to
stimulate just the kind of message you wrote.
It appears that our biggest point of disagreement is really a matter
of time scales. I really don't think that ideas about ethics,
government,
etc. percolate as fast as technology changes. I understand your point
that birthrate goes down when women can get even a small amount of
education on birth control and family size economics, even in very
poor countries, but the people that control the money for such
educational efforts have a different agenda. You first have to change
their aganda, and that takes time. My argument is not really that I
think technical advance is good, but rather that IMO the the most
likely consequences of technical advance are less bad than the
most likely consequences of a failure to advance.