Yet, every time someone condones something like this, claiming the slippery slope will never happen, it usually does.
People never thought that government would start trying to ban what you eat. Look at New York City now. They're about to criminalize people for having a SODA, larger than 16 oz. And, they're aiming for popcorn and certain milk products next.
Then, there's the North Carolina school that took a kid's home lunch and replaced with chicken nuggets (charging the parent of that child for it, to boot).
As for your condom question, now we have at least three cases of people, trying to kill their unborn babies, because they're girls.
That's the same foolishness they do in China, with politicians here (Democrat and Republican) SCREAMING that this is not only sexist but a human rights violation. There have even been cases where babies have been killed after they're born. Yet, the mother gets off, simply because the cord wasn't cut. And, of course, you have the botched abortion deals, where the babies are completely out of the womb but they get whacked anyway.
Of course, people back in the day said abortion would NEVER lead to infanticide, selective abortions, partial-birth abortions, or anything like that. This was simply a slippery slope argument, which was false. Yet, here we are and it's happening RIGHT NOW.
Your overpopulation spiel is inaccurate for one simple reason: We have PLENTY OF RESOURCES. The issue is that those resources are mismanaged and wasted. Look at the countries where too many people are starving, and you'll find that virtually every one of them has corrupt government and/or socialist policies that trap people in squalor. That's why many people in such countries risk life and limb to come here.
As much as I enjoy arguing, I am initiating a tactical withdrawal here because I honestly do not know whether the planet is overpopulated at this point and don't feel like doing the relevant research. Plus, what TA is arguing for is incredibly unrealistic; if he thinks such a policy is viable then he is living in an alternate universe very different from ours (or he is simply an idiot, a distinct possibility).
In any case, the primary point of my post was to point out some logical aspects of what you said, and these are still relevant.
1. You said that "much of the world's woes" existed before we had the population we currently have, as if this fact disputes the notion that a burgeoning population is a problem. In fact, the two ideas are mutually compatible: we can have the same old problems that aren't related to population size,
plus new ones that are. So, your statement doesn't refute anything.
2. I think you're confused about the nature of slippery slopes. A fallacious slippery slope argument looks like this: "If X is allowed, then inevitably Y will occur," where Y is an extreme on the far end of a continuum with X, and where there isn't an accompanying demonstration plausibly showing X will lead to Y. So, your examples regarding food, while interesting, aren't relevant (there is no antecedent "If X is allowed" for these occurrences).
3. The above definition makes clear why your implying that once we start curbing future populations we'll begin killing people of
this population for the sake of population control is a fallacy: you claim that an extreme at the far end of the spectrum from 'controlling future population levels' will occur,
without giving a single reason to suppose that it would.
4. Your example of abortion isn't relevant either. Isolated incidents of infanticide do not constitute a
successful slippery slope argument, because 1) the relevant slippery slope arguments in this case try to say that abortion will lead to the
widespread killing of actual infants, not that it will lead to isolated incidents (otherwise they are trivially true), and 2) just because infanticide has occurred doesn't mean it was caused by abortion's being made legal. Infanticide wasn't invented with abortion's becoming legal and therefore the argument is only successful if there was compelling evidence
at the time the argument was made (when abortion was about to be made legal) that widespread infanticide would occur. In other words, if you say "If X, then Y" and X happens, then Y happens, that doesn't mean there is any causal connection between them; I can say that if Romney gets elected, there will be an economic recession sometime in the next century, and both may come true, but that doesn't mean that I was right (as the example makes clear there is no connexion whatsoever between my claims).
