Are there too many of us here (on Earth)?
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@mike lucey said:
I notice everyone is 'tip toeing' around my rant above!
I'm not tip-toeing around it- or I hope I'm not anyway? I've been reading the paper that Alan posted (which I found utterly miserable) and have been looking at many arguments for and against population growth.
@unknownuser said:
So we come to this inescapable conclusion when we try to answer the question of how many people the Earth can support--the answer can only be a counter question: "What kind of world do you want?" If you want a world where Americans can continue living pretty much as they are, then global human population is likely to be substantially less than it is now. If you wish to keep the current American standard of living where it is, while allowing the rest of the world to grow substantially in numbers, the consequence is to doom that "other world" to perpetual misery and lost expectations, while doggedly holding on to the American way of life as desperately as possible.
This is not a world I want for my children and grandchildren, nor is it one I think anyone else would care to see. The only response can be to drop all these time and energy-wasting lost-cause efforts to keep both freedoms of fertility, immigration, and affluence while continuing to grow world human population. Instead we should work to reduce the number of humans living on Earth. This can be done peacefully by conscious action, or it can be done coercively, or involuntarily--as is happening currently in Zimbabwe, with its 30% level of AIDS infection.
Grim.
But I know what kind of world I want. The problem is it seems, is that the world I want seems to be the unpopular vote- or at least many don't want to talk about it. (4 pages of debate, yet less than 700 views for this thread).
As for too much plastic? We could of course ban plastic bags, but then if we did, however would we have been able to come up with that brilliant idea about making batteries from those very bags, in the link that Pete posted earlier?
I think this is the classic trick Malthusian thinkers keep missing- the classic old schoolboy mistake, is that man has always learnt to adapt and be creative with his surroundings. We're not the only ones who are moving and developing- the rest of the world is too. During Roman times the ladies would hand bits of black rock around the necks as jewellery, knowing very little that one day we would be heating our homes or powering entire cities with. Or the strange yellowish element that made glass windows a nice colour could actually be used to generate electricity. Today we are only beginning to understand what an abundant rock we now know as Thorium, can be used again to generate almost limitless quantities of electricity, thus replacing coal.
What I am saying is never underestimate the power of the human mind and the power of human ingenuity.
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@tfdesign said:
What I am saying is never underestimate the power of the human mind and the power of human ingenuity.
I agree and do not forget the heart too
compassion is a must on this subject in my view -
Who can give someone else or an organization a right demand from someone to kill unborn child or to sterilize a person?! This is a direction this question is heading.
We should rather ask how WE can find new ways to let Earth thrive...
(Official Trailer) THRIVE: What On Earth Will It Take? - YouTube
[flash=720,578:u24ed8sa]http://www.youtube.com/v/OibqdwHyZxk[/flash:u24ed8sa].
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@juanv.soler said:
@tfdesign said:
What I am saying is never underestimate the power of the human mind and the power of human ingenuity.
I agree and do not forget the heart too
compassion is a must on this subject in my viewWhich is exactly why I and others argue for at least starting to do something about the problem now...while we have the leeway to exercise compassion, rather than waiting until humanity has painted itself into a corner and we have to helplessly watch disease, hunger and war solve the problem for us.
The human mind and human ingenuity certainly do have great potential, but we are not omnipotent. We do not have the power of psychokinesis, nor can we magic infinite resources from a finite world merely by willing it to be so.
Wanting a particular outcome does not mean that it's necessarily achieveable, however firmly we put our minds to it."You can't always get what you want."
The Rolling Stones -
Juan you are spot on. There's far too much hatred of fellow humans on this earth. Most of these haters have never heard of 'reason' (or at least they'd rather bury their head in the sand
)You know there is a website that rich westerners can go to and actually pay people to go and discourage others from having children!
@unknownuser said:
PopOffsets is unique –we give you the option of offsetting your carbon footprint by funding family planning
A way of saying, "we're (the affluent western whitey, are) going to stop you from having one of life's most amazing gifts; children". Nice. Where's that going to end, I wonder?
http://www.popoffsets.com/what_we_do.phpIt wasn't so long ago that a certain Austrian fellow with a stupid moustache was branding similar ideas around- vis-a-vis the concept of 'eugenics'
. The principles of eugenics are horrific. Eugenics once fell out of grace because of the 1940's nazi disposition with them, but I suppose because it's now been several years since the end of the second world war, people have largely forgotten the atrocities of the nazi's, and the essence of fascist/nazi principles are once again creeping back in. -
Alan,
Believing that we are yet to be discovered gives oneself a better way to grow for one keeps aware and not closed.
One has to count with the Spirit. -
@alan fraser said:
Which is exactly why I and others argue for at least starting to do something about the problem now...while we have the leeway to exercise compassion, rather than waiting until humanity has painted itself into a corner and we have to helplessly watch disease, hunger and war solve the problem for us.
There's an answer to that...
- Disease;
We fight disease by getting behind pharmaceutical companies & development (and stop being afraid of them) and by introducing massive R&D back into British and worldwide industry- in the west at least. This for one would help boost our economy. The British are very advanced in the field of medicine. It would be a shame to export all that talent to countries like China- we should work together instead.
- Hunger;
We do the same as above with GM. (I noticed that there was only one reference to GM in that report you uploaded Alan. And of course we forget about organic food- which after several independent studies, was shown to have no extra benefits to health than food grown in large scale industrialisation). This too (GM research), would also help boost our economy.
- War;
We open all borders right across the globe allowing free movement of migration for everyone.
I know that the last point is controversial to many. But we kind of just had an open border right here in Britain! It would be interesting to know what the result of this has turned out to be.
http://www.newint.org/argument/2010/12/01/immigration-debate-open-borders-to-refugees-migrants/ -
Tom, you say,
'A way of saying, "we're (the affluent western whitey, are) going to stop you from having one of life's most amazing gifts; children". Nice. Where's that going to end, I wonder?'
Can you explain to me how offspring are a 'gift'? By definition, 'A gift or a present is the transfer of something without the expectation of receiving something in return.'
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Mike, "the gift and human right to reproduction"? I don't really understand what you are angling at, apart from maybe perhaps playing the 'selfish' card? But then I suppose it boils down to how I'd define the term 'selfish', as selfish is another term that gets branded around a lot. Greedy is another one. And eventually it boils down to one thing alone, misanthropic thinking. This is why I conclude that people who believe what Malthus wrote in his paper; "An Essay on the Principle of Population" are simply misanthropic thinkers. Many of them it seems were also a product of the flower-power generation, and after several years of Thatcherism have never really been delivered into the "promised land" (whatever that was supposed to be?).
I would imagine that if I were living in pre-Victorian times, without contraception (probably because of religious order), I may have been born into a family with many brothers and sisters. There's a strong link that bonds that older period with the modern period- poverty, as well as the appliance of modern medicine. (I note that Bill Gates is really doing a good job in the Maleria department- a disease that we westerners don't really have to worry about). I've got two kids. I'd love to have more, but I don't really have the income to support them. But if I were 10 years younger and had a £70,000/year job i'd definitely have more! My friend Lawrence on the other hand is a Christian and he has 7 kids! So perhaps the religious thing goes out of the window?
We as a type of animal with a reproductive system breed (I know mice replicate in much higher numbers, but then mice don't develop drugs that help them have a far more satisfying and stable life), are able to reproduce and the result is very beautiful- out pops a child. You can prevent this, but then what's the point in living if you can't reproduce? I'd rather be dead.
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@unknownuser said:
We should rather ask how WE can find new ways to let Earth thrive...
Brother, we're not going to thrive with David Icke! I'd rather go with the world according to Ned Flanders and have a total frontal lobotomy!!
Notice the great big Hollywood type production to that trailer? Are thrills and dark secrets the way to win arguments? And where is all this 'powerful technology beamed to us via UFO*****'?
Conspiracy theories have so far proven nothing and are not the way forward.*****U.F.O.= "United Fruitcake Outlet"
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