You're doing this again. Malthus was wrong with his prediction, but he wasn't wrong with noticing obvious limits to growth. It takes special effort to consciously stop noticing it.
> We will engineer ways to feed ourselves, generate potable water, control our climate, clean our air, and thrive -- all with a human population that monotonically grows over long periods of time.
You say that like you had any proof for it. Taken at face value, Malthus sounds much more probable than your "don't worry, future generations will somehow fix it".
> What does that even mean?
It means: just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
> The fact that the same people who fight for esoteric rights of privacy and free speech disproportionately flip their semantic switch to cast the most fundamental human right in scare quotes is difficult to fathom.
I don't flip any switch because I personally don't fight for privacy. I see the current levels of it as a historical anomaly, and generally something we need to outgrow as a society in order to progress.
> We throw the entire concept out because it is intellectually rancid. The taboo is justified. We should not touch eugenics, just like we should not touch proposals for disenfranchising women or chattel slavery.
No, this is dangerously irrational way of thinking. A hundred years ago you would taboo women voting. Two hundred years earlier you would taboo the concept of freedom of black men. What you're doing is just selectively tabooing your cherished belief out of fear your rejection may be wrong. If the belief is valid, it can stand on its own strength, it does not need protection from being discussed.
