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The Forum > Article Comments > There are too many people in the world > Comments

There are too many people in the world : Comments

By Everald Compton, published 14/6/2011

Politicians are afraid to discuss the most pressing environmental issue - over-population.

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Just one question,"How are you going to accommodate all the extra 25 odd million people. Our major cities are becoming dysfunctional now?"

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 8:23:46 AM
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Don't worry Everald,Maurice Strong and the New World Order are working on it.Strong is quoted as saying that he wants to reduce the world's pop to 2 billion.With the new environmental Nazis they can make it very expensive to produce food and tax carbon the source of life and energy.Will you put your hand up for the first to be culled?
Or will Bob Brown take your place?
Posted by Arjay, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 9:26:02 AM
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Well Everald, one way of fixing your problem is to eat everyone over 70. That would lower consumption while paradoxically releasing more money via forced bequests, back in to the economy.

Or, we could dismantle capitalism (the most favoured option of the anti-pops), erect trade barriers and force refugees, immigrants and international students to dismantle most of the nations infrastructure as it will rot through disuse.

Or, we elect Clover Moore and live in a world of fluffy toys, cuddly blankets and love.
Posted by Cheryl, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 9:33:05 AM
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Well done Arjay - first to introduce 'culled'. Did you actually read the article?

I do think its a bit rich, however, to preach stringent birth control world-wide and at the same time plan to continue Australia' population growth to 50 million by poaching the best and brightest from other countries. Surely the whole point of a one child policy is that populations will stabilise, then decline. Shouldn't we jump in the deep end and live with the consequences of that from the start? Anything else would be hypocritical. Anyway, there is no need in Australia to enact draconian population control measures. Without immigration we reproduce below replacement level, even with the baby bonus. What is desperately needed is a viable steady-state economic model so people won't feel threatened by a non-expanding population.
Posted by Candide, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 9:41:43 AM
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At a time when third world observation of first world lifestyle becomes more common place through enhanced broad scale communications, third world expectations are naturally increasing

At the same time where first world populations are stable/in decline third world numbers are exploding

If you want to fix the population issue you have several options

Introduce mandatory birth control – problem China and India have both done it one way or another and without success

Have a war or two – expensive form of birth control, often with unpredictable outcomes

Leave it to a plague – apparently this has had some success with AIDs in Africa

Stop the do-gooders and missionaries curing all the ills, which kept population numbers closer to “under control”, in the past

Do nothing and leave people to starve in the chaos

When I consider the arrogance and vested interests involved when the “powers of men” get involved in anything of significance – like all this supposed Climate Change rubbish and the ensuing disaster they would take us on

I think chaos, starvation and survival of the fittest is a reasonable option and it is remarkably cost effective (relative to the other options)…..

Cheryl “That would lower consumption while paradoxically releasing more money via forced bequests, back in to the economy.”

Being 60+ I would suggest - better we are better to eat the children

They have less knowledge to lose
They have no artistic appreciation to pass on
They are more “dependent” more than the elderly

And, of course, their soft young flesh is much tastier than knotted, precancerous and arthritic old limbs …
Posted by Col Rouge, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 9:59:55 AM
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Col Rouge,

A Modest Proposal, indeed - re: your parting comments.

"Leave it to a plague - apparently this has had some success with AIDS in Africa."

It seems there is a push in the opposite direction.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/14/3242885.htm

Perhaps it might help if the West stopped plundering the third world long enough for living standards to be raised.
http://globalenvision.org/library/23/1524
Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 10:34:18 AM
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Every country on earth legislating to drastically penalise couples having more than one child.

BBBBWWWHAHAHAHAH!

Everald, mate, its impossible. Waste of time and space to even suggest it. If you seriously believe there will be resources shortages then a much better plan would be to work hard on ways to stretch the resources to accommodate what will be an undoubted peak in population. Perhaps you could combine this with greater help in family planning in some countries.

This might actually do something about the problem, and be vastly easier to implement.
Posted by Curmudgeon, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 11:35:40 AM
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"Perhaps it might help if the West stopped plundering the third world long enough for living standards to be raised."

Poirot, how could you suggest such a thing? You are right though. Not only are we pinching their physical resources, but we are also encouraging their brightest and best to hope on the next boat and plane and come and join us. It might be good for us, but it is sending third world countries backwards at a great rate. Unfortunately, for them, there doesn't seem to a lot that they can do about it, because their ruling classes are in it up to their necks too, and they control all the arms and other resources used to quell rebellion.

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 11:44:45 AM
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I enjoy most of the anti-pops posts - they swarm like angry lemmings whenever people mention the word 'cull', sociobiology and eugenics, systems thinking and instrumentalism, not to mention my favourite: the Unsustainable Unpeople of UnAustralia lobby's Kanck's massive gaff when she said Oz's ideal pop should be 7M.

OLO is a broad church but one senses that the anti-pops need, for psychological reasons, to campaign against people. They use 'sustainability' as a battering ram, not to try convince readers of the correctness or validity of their position (which they have consistently failed to do) but rather as a crutch to support an essentially misanthropic world view.

Is the baby bonus raising sea levels?
Is our foreign aid budget simply keeping more 'darkies' alive who threaten to sail west south west and eat us out of house and home?
Should we dismantle capitalism because of population projections?
Should we erect trade barriers and keep 500 million sheep and cattle to ourselves?

I wonder too whether our schools are churning out graduates who confuse debate with a sense of entitlement to construct the most silly arguments and then howl when people don't listen.
Posted by Cheryl, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 12:00:51 PM
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The problem isn't only that there are too many people, but worse, the wrong ones.

In Australia, the wealthier you are, the better educated you are, the better postcode yo live in, the more your husband earns, the more you earn all point to one thing. You are likely to have fewer kids.

Put simply, the smarter you are, the fewer kids you have.

And there results of this are already visible... as the smart get rarer, the middle class shrinks... the few rich get richer and the poor get poorer and more numerous. Then more security cameras, police, private bouncers, harsher penalties and bigger jails.

Meanwhile, in africa and the muslim world (where 7 children per woman is the AVERAGE in many countries!) the chance of them ever escaping poverty is getting harder and harder, as these populations swamp the populations of the aid donor countries.

Decades ago, we could have donated enough to pull the poorest out of poverty, now there are so many more poor than wealthy, it is impossible.
Posted by partTimeParent, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 12:22:37 PM
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Good one, Cheryl.

A one-child policy ? Just watch how that turns out in China over the next ten and twenty years, which is about all they've got. After all, a one-child policy implies a two-parent: one child economic burden - even a four-grandparent: two-parent: one-child economic burden.

Reducing population without inducing catastrophes such as plagues or wars, or eating every second or third child (tasty as that sounds, and tempting as it was when mine were little and stroppy), must be a very difficult process to manage well: even a planned reduction in population of, let's say, one per cent per year, demands a population reduction from one (productive) generation to the next of 25-30 per cent.

After all, a deliberate continual population reduction policy - even of only 1 $ p.a. - would mean a drastic reduction in the number of births each year, since those already born will keep living, working for a time, retiring on the product of those next generations. So effectively, population reduction means enormous economic, tax and financial burdens on the younger generations, forever, and perhaps a cutting back on benefits for the older generations, forever.

Of course, contra Col, we could eliminate this problem by eating - not the young - but the elderly, putting up with the gristle and sinews. There are cold mornings when I drag myself out of bed and think that wouldn't be a bad idea. Perhaps compulsorily at seventy, that gives me another year or two. Think of the savings !

And do you reckon that many Gen Y haven't tossed this idea around ? Even the vegans: from their perspective, we could be ground down for blood and bone, for example, for their Iceberg lettuces and rocket and boutique tomatoes. Win-win !

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 12:26:10 PM
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VK3AUU “…pinching their physical resources, but we are also encouraging their brightest and best to hope on the next boat and plane and come and join us.”

That people want to become part of the affluent “West” and away from the underdeveloped and supposedly impoverished “Third World” is very understandable, indeed, in migrating half way around the world to arrive in Australia, from UK, I made exactly the same choice.

The last thing anyone can demand is we condemn people to exist in the circumstances of their birth.

The communists did that when they built the Berlin Wall… and turned the countries of Eastern Europe into vast prisons, from which many were prepared and did risk their lives to escape.

I too find the notion which Poirot suggested offensive since it is sanctimonious and has no bearing to the facts of history, commerce, economics or peoples freedom of choice.

It wallows in the theory that bad things have been done by colonists of the past, be they of European origin

- but so too Arabic, Ottoman or the Mongol hordes

However, many benefits have likewise ensued from colonisations, even if some would claim they are second-hand.

In my book, a benefit is a benefit.

Similarly, pretending certain cultures are “innocents” and others are “predatory” colonists and empire builders is garbage

Cheryl, I did enjoy your post. I think you are reading from a similar page to me.

Imho I believe those of the “anti-people” brigade should lead by example and terminate themselves and (to cleanse the gene pool), their children immediately.

No deciding who should not breed, it gets too close to playing God and we have too many doing that already.

Simply leave people to their own devises and survival of the fittest

That way the weak do not get to pollute the gene pool and the human race grows ever stronger and more able to deal with the issues which our great-grandchildren will face, instead of diverting precious resources to feed the incompetent non-achievers out of a sense of enforced “social justice and universal equality”
Posted by Col Rouge, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 12:38:27 PM
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Neat summary, Cheryl.

>>...one senses that the anti-pops need, for psychological reasons, to campaign against people.<<

I have often wondered why they are so vociferous. One somewhat uncharitable view, that I probably formed while feeling particularly hungover, was that they have so little purpose in their own lives, that they feel a constant urge to try to blight everyone else's.

And of course, it is always other people who have to take action, isn't it? I have yet to hear anyone volunteering to make even the tiniest gesture towards solving the problem themselves - like, reducing the world's population by one.

Just one. That's not too much to ask, is it?
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 12:38:57 PM
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Cheryl, aka Malcolm, seems obsessed with population. He says: "I wonder ... whether our schools are churning out graduates who confuse debate with a sense of entitlement to construct the most silly arguments and then howl when people don't listen." In other posts, his views seem reasonable, rational, even charitable. But when the issue of population is raised, he abandons rationality and proceeds to construct silly arguments, and howls when people don't listen. However even he must have noticed that this planet is not a magic pudding. Resources are finite, and demand is growing exponentially. Refusing to think about the issue, refusing even to acknowledge that there is an issue, is not a rational response. His cheap sneers don't contribute much.
Posted by nicco, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 12:43:24 PM
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*I have yet to hear anyone volunteering to make even the tiniest gesture towards solving the problem themselves - like, reducing the world's population by one.*

Now now Pericles, for an intelligent bloke like yourself, that
is a rather pissy and ridiculous argument and you know it.

If others are breeding like rabbits, so be it. It will be their
grandkids who can sort out the mess and die like flies if they must.

The planet will keep spinning, with or without humans on board.
Posted by Yabby, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 1:17:35 PM
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The last thing anyone can demand is we condemn people to exist in the circumstances of their birth.

Col rouge, if these people remained in their country and had the same aim as what our great founders of this country did, worked hard with what they had, then maybe their circumstances would not be as dire as it is.
They may not have the same as what we have but Im sure with a bit of effort they would have better that what they have now.
Most that come here are the sort that want it easy without effort, else why come?
Over poupulation in countries makes for repressive, degenerative and corrupt systems, look around now.
China and India some of the worst human rights
USA and Russia some of the most aggressive
All religious groups only have one agenda and thats world domination.
Why do we need do anything, it will be self repairing through starvation,disease,war all are nice ways to go.
Posted by MickC, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 1:23:23 PM
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I find myself agreeing with Yabby.

Must've entered an alternative universe.

Asking humans to stop breeding is like persuading cockatoos to quite demolishing my verandah. Just ain't natural behaviour.
Posted by Ammonite, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 1:23:52 PM
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Always interesting to watch the neo-Malthusian eugenicists swarm out of the woodwork.

Especially interesting to observe their overt endorsement of fascist policies.

Oh, but of course, they insist, no-one is talking about *culling* anyone. No-one ever does. The may not even *really* be thinking about it ... at first.

But, step by step, increment by increment, as their utopian dreams prove eternally elusive, the fascists wields their power ever more nakedly and brutally.

But always, always, for 'the greater good'.

'Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth' - C. S. Lewis.

One last word: if you truly believe what you say, Everald and your fellow travellers, well, you first. Put your money where your mouths are.
Posted by Clownfish, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 1:58:06 PM
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Nicco said...."Resources are finite, and demand is growing exponentially."

The issue nobody seems to equate to the problem of diminishing resources is that of exponential growth. When I was born in the mid 60's, the world population was 2.728 billion. There was plenty to go around for everybody, even though some, through military might or financial manipulation, sought to take more from some to keep for themselves.

In the 57 years since I was born, over 4 billion people have added to the burden of ever shrinking resources and no matter how much the "growth brigade" would like to see that process continuing, peak resources such as oil and phosphorous will very soon make that an impossible reality.

So as judge and awarder of prises for observation and knowledge, I give this post's prize for most astute to Nicco. Well done Nicco! 9 out of 10.

I never award top prize. I wouldn't want to be the cause of anyone getting a swollen head :-)
Posted by Aime, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 2:17:09 PM
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Aime

Nicco's posts are always of a high standard. Population is but one of a raft of issues humans face in the future. No amount of population control will create more non-renewable resources.

PS

You cannot have been born in the MID-60's and be born 57 years ago.
Posted by Ammonite, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 2:37:44 PM
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*When I was born in the mid 60's, the world population was 2.728 billion.In the 57 years since I was born*

Aime, charming person that you may be, your head for figures is
clearly not the best. If you were born in the mid 60s, you are
not 57.
Posted by Yabby, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 2:42:06 PM
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A bunch of people are in a lifeboat and one guy notices that the lifeboat is taking on water.

He says "We need to start bailing out this lifeboat."

Some of the other people on the boat say "No, you should kill yourself," "You are a fascist" and "Lets just let the boat sink and then fight it out when people start drowning."

We are living less sustainably each year. One of the things we can do in Australia is have net zero immigration. That is only one of the things. We also need to start recycling more, using more renewable energy and polluting less. That won't be easy. It will probably cost money in the short term. If we don't, life will be worse for our children and grandchildren.

I don't want life to be worse for our children and grandchildren.
Posted by ericc, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 3:16:30 PM
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Taking this topic of population reduction seriously, if hypothetically, a decline in the numbers of producers/workers of 10 % per generation would be bearable - any more and the tax burden would become too oppressive for the younger working generations.

If the current growth in the birthrate is around 20 % per generation, this reduction of 10 % per generation (or 0.4-0.5 % p.a.) would require a decline in the annual birthrate of at least 30 % - two children being born each year instead of three.

Even so, this rate of 10 % would still suggest a drop of 20-22 % in the working population over a person's working lifetime of, say, fifty years: 20 % fewer people to carry the welfare and fiscal burdens of a shrinking society.

With a decline of 10 % per generation, the population would halve in 200-250 years, and still cause quite a bit of social and economic upheaval across the younger population. I wonder if Gen Y has thought of that.

So all the Utopian fascists, to defer to Clownfish's apt description [and one may add - from both Left and Right], may have to gnash their teeth and curse their parents for a good few centuries yet.

Meanwhile the world will keep producing with ever greater efficiency and ingenuity, whether for a slowly growing, or a shrinking, population, while the neo-Malthusians endlessly foretell our common doom.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 3:22:44 PM
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I cannot understand all this talk about population control only being possible with a fascist coercion. Where is the evidence that this is necessary? I would cite United Nations sponsored research which suggests that all that is needed is to provide contraception to those women who want it:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ig9eC9rGJMCBlymLZsPQ5-RNY6_g

<around 200 million women still do not have access to contraception, leading to 76 million unwanted births a year.>

Were these women given access to contraception, the World's population would be stable: No coercion is needed. In light of this, statements like this are patently false:

<Asking humans to stop breeding is like persuading cockatoos to quite demolishing my verandah. Just ain't natural behaviour.>

The fact is that the World's population is growing because some leaders would rather have a supply of slaves and cannon fodder than see the lot of their citizens improve.

Advocating population growth does not necessarily infer high moral standards.
Posted by Fester, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 4:45:49 PM
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Loudmouth,

Very rapid population changes (in either direction) are obviously going to cause serious problems. A country would only adopt a one child policy if it were facing collapse, as we discussed earlier in relation to China. However, the top 10 countries on the World Economic Forum Competitiveness Index are Switzerland, Sweden, Singapore, the US, Germany, Japan, Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Canada. All these countries also rank high on the UN Human Development Index. The population growth rates are miniscule in most of those European countries and are well below ours in all ten. Germany and Japan actually have (slowly) declining populations. These countries already have stable age structures, with generations of approximately equal size, apart from extreme old age. Although some have raised their retirement ages, they are obviously coping reasonably well, without the inflated housing costs and infrastructure deficits that we are experiencing.

Just a few points. There is abundant evidence of past societal collapses in history and in the archaeological record, and population played a role in many of them, often by making safety margins dangerously thin. People are now a major geophysical force and putting serious pressure on planetary life support systems.

http://aap.newscentre.com.au/acci/110523/library/education_2/25737105.html

This is the view of mainstream scientists who publish in Nature

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7263/full/461472a.html

Open version

http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/

Your childlike faith in technology solving all problems clearly isn't shared by a lot of scientists.

Most of humanity is living in grinding poverty and consuming renewable resources faster than they can be replenished.This is mostly due to sheer numbers, not because the top billion, actually responsible for about 38% of consumption, are consuming everything.

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/ecological_footprint_atlas_2010

If you can call us fascists, perhaps we can call you ostriches.
Posted by Divergence, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 5:02:23 PM
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Thanks for your reasonable critique, Divergence.

My main point is that any population reduction (short of extermination) necessarily has very major effects on the birthrate and on the younger working generation: people who are already born are not going to 'reduce' their population by evaporating away, so it has to be a question of reducing the starting population over the decades and generations and centuries, i.e. the number of births.

Even so, it has to be a relatively slow process: as we will see in the case of China in a decade or two, reducing the birthrate massively impacts on the next generation, and two generations, later, i.e. on the younger population - if you reduce the birthrate, there is a relatively much higher population in the older generations to be cared for - isn't that so ?

After all, it's not as if the population can be reduced by somehow cutting down on the older generations, unless we take the Soylent Green option. Isn't that so ?

So the burden would always fall on the two working generations, those between the younger one still in nappies and in school, and the older one in nappies and retired. In their turn, that younger generation will grow out of its nappies and schooldays and take on an even greater burden than its parents and grandparents had. And in turn, their children will have to take on an even greater burden. Isn't that so ?

So it's a matter of how fast and how great we want to impose that burden on the younger generations. If I were in Gen Y, and if I were selfish (which I'm sure they are not), I would be campaigning for gradual population growth, not rapid population reduction.
Posted by Loudmouth, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 5:17:47 PM
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There is one sure method that history has shown to engender population control, indeed reduction. Unfortunately it is so counter to the social control fantasies of the greenshirted eugenicists that they simply refuse to even countenance it.

Make sure people are healthy, rich and educated. Especially women.

That's all it takes. Put these three worthy goals in place and, almost magically, people in even the most religious societies simply choose to have less children.

But, no, the screeching neo-Malthusian ninnies will hysterically insist, as they always wrongly do, that we are scant decades away from the imminent and unavoidable disaster of being overwhelmed with a tide of nasty, poor, brown people intent on murdering Mother Gaia.

No matter how many times they're proved wrong, the neo-Malthusians never change.
Posted by Clownfish, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 5:54:15 PM
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*Make sure people are healthy, rich and educated. Especially women.*

Funny that, Clownfish. Now if we take Thailand, where the Govt
provides a good family planning service, population growth is
down to around 0.5%. In the Philippines, where the Catholic Church
still interferes all the way, population growth is around 2%.

Clearly your theory is just a little bit flawed, as we can see
by the evidence.

People all over the world enjoy sex, that does not mean that they
want all those babies. Give them a choice, they will have less.

Fester, you are quite correct.
Posted by Yabby, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 6:20:48 PM
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Yabby, how about not cherry-picking?

The Philippines' fertility rate is a middle-ranking about 3.5. Another strongly Catholic country, Italy's, is about 1.2; Spain's is 1.29. Australia's is 1.79.

Thailand's is 1.83.

Clearly factors other than religion are at work.
Posted by Clownfish, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 7:25:43 PM
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http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2757948.html

Nicco, you asked a good question about why I'm so hard on the anti-pops.

I'm not hard on them, only in the way they view the world through 'population glasses'. They have boiled complexity of cause and event - of almost all of the world's problems - down to population.

Check out Chris Berg's article above re the silly polly claim that the uprising in Yemen has to do with population. Ditto food shortages, global warming, earthquakes, drowning polar bears, rising oceans, droughts, heat waves, killer storms to name just a few.

But there is a harder edge to my criticisms because unfounded claims such as these always single out people and in this case, with population, it's women.

Whenever men start talking about cutting the population, what they really mean is cutting a woman's rights to do with her body as she pleases. This might be taken for granted by some but it is a relatively new and novel experience for modern women to control their own reproductive destiny.

When the anti-pops talk about population, they are really talking about is people - you and me, our neighbours, husbands and friends - all of those who make up the social fabric of Australia. So far their claims have been laughable (and enjoyable) but their thinking has a nasty regressive element which needs to be exposed.
Posted by Cheryl, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 7:34:34 PM
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It looks more like 1 billion people who think & 5 billion who don't.
Posted by individual, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 7:34:56 PM
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In answer to Pericles and hangers on.
None of us are in a position to act individually. To begin with 'twould be futile, but beyond that, we're social beings and despite the bravado we crave the camaraderie and approval of our peers. Acting individually and in opposition to our fellows is nothing more than eccentricity. I'm nowhere near as vociferous with my opinions outside OLO because I don't want to be a pariah. For me to act alone in the real world is to estrange myself and invite neuroses to take up residence, because I can't support my opinions without corroboration. I don't think many of us appreciate how deep that banal sounding phrase goes, we're "social animals".

Ammonite very reasonably says "Asking humans to stop breeding is like persuading cockatoos to quite demolishing my verandah. Just ain't natural behaviour". Yet the difference is "reason"; we have that gift, and the power to foresee--forewarned is forearmed...
Well, you would think so. Even Yabby lately tends to take the fatalistic tack: "The planet will keep spinning, with or without humans on board". The fact is that Yabby will still avoid obvious dangers and act reasonably, prudently despite his mock-cynicism, so far as he can. That's what humans do as individuals, families and even small communities. I think the trouble is it's all so big and impersonal, and in the overwhelming context of global markets and geo-political forces we're all rendered impotent.
It's not that we're no better than those incorrigible Cockatoos, we are, it's that faced with the scale of the problems we retreat to the safety of parochialism and individualism (that is we try to distinguish ourselves within the group). Even in our own country, it's impossible to be represented by the populist "trends" (political parties) that have evolved to patronise us, yet represent no one.
Let's face it, if we were members of a small community subsisting on little arable land and few resources, we'd be having town meetings on how best to husband it, and we'd be cautioning ourselves as families to live within our means etc.
Posted by Squeers, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 7:36:07 PM
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No cherry picking, Clownfish. I was comparing countries with
a similar standard of living, where the difference is religion
and peoples ability to afford family planning. It shows that
Govt programmes work, if religion does not interfere.

In places like Italy and Spain, people can afford to buy their
own and even Catholics mostly take no notice of the churches family
planning policies. Poor Phillipinos have no such choice.
Posted by Yabby, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 7:36:29 PM
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Well if your in business, a primary producer, In the religious fields of work, or anything that counts of people for profit....don't want population reduction. Lets face it! Their lives depends on it....right! I understand that, we all understand that:) so it wont happen ever.

Yes kid yourselves all you like with your good intentions, cause I know where there coming from:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMLoQ-cdGXA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn_yeVeEI70&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmmGZGYeGdw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz-Lf4YkzOk

Enjoy or not:)

LEA
Posted by Quantumleap, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 8:11:11 PM
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"Every nation on earth must legislate to create severe penalties for any couple who have more than one child"

If China could not pull that little stunt off what hope does anybody else have?

@nicco: Cheryl, aka Malcolm [King]

Of course! Now it is pointed out, that shared intransigence seems so obvious.

@Divergence: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/

Thanks for the link. I didn't realise our current species extinction rate was comparatively so high.

As for the rest of you pinning your hopes on declining population growth rates, they are speculative. A few experts were discussing it here: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/nationalinterest/stories/2011/3209647.htm#transcript

From that I learned that now the world's population has grown from 6 to 7 billion, the peak estimate has grown from 9 to 10 billion.

Sadly that wasn't the worst news. The expert in food production could not see how we will meet the world's food requirements in 20 years - long before the peak.
Posted by rstuart, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 8:36:15 PM
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Rstuart; They imply,If China could not pull it off with a one child policy,what chance has the rest of the world got with no policy? Not all Chinese fell in line with the one child edict.There were just too many unknown peasants.

Most of the poverty on the planet is created via our Western Central Banking system.They create money from nothing to equal the increases in our productivity and loan it back to us a debt? The poor countries have no chance under this debt based system.They cannot buy new technology or education without going into debt by a Western banking system.Their money and thus productivity is not recognised by this system.The harder they work ,the more debt they incur.In addition to this,we have Western Oligarchs encouraging corrupt regiemes to screw their own people.

The more stressed populations become due to war and poverty,the more children they have to compensate for losses.Thus the cycle of poverty continues due to Western greed and power lust.

Now the Bankster Oligarchs want rapid de-population via carbon taxes and the ETS.These very same scumbags are the source over population due their greed and now set themslves up as the paragons of our salvation.

The way forward to keep the planet in balance,is freedom/democracy and not their totalitariarn New World Order.
Posted by Arjay, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 10:08:52 PM
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"Whenever men start talking about cutting the population, what they really mean is cutting a woman's rights to do with her body as she pleases."

Very funny, Cheryl. The irony is that population growth is underpinned by men (mostly) denying women the right to voluntary birth control. By giving women voluntary access to contraception, the World's population would stabilise and decline without the need for any intervention at all. It is the ony measure I would advocate, nothing else. As much as some pop-growth advocates want to paint a picture of advocates for stabilising the World's population as a bunch of people hating neo-Malthusians usurping people's rights and herding them off to death camps, the picture belies the evidence.

Now what does Cheryl think of giving the World's population voluntary access to contraception I wonder? What of the ~200 million women who would use contraception were it made available to them?
Posted by Fester, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 10:22:01 PM
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"The way forward to keep the planet in balance,is freedom/democracy and not their totalitariarn New World Order."

Dear Arjay.

Thats a nice little sentence. Would you care to explain the " keep the planet in balance" and how you are going to accomplish this?

The New World Order.

All in good time:) hard New decisions have to be made, and so far the rest of the pollies hero's puppets have failed. New ideas like No baby bonus, a five year plan that if you can support the child until 21 with No government help, then that's fine.....for the rest, it will be simply illegal and abortion will be offered. If that option is not taken, then family members will have to support you. However, one year will be open for all to give birth with full government support.

Something like that will in time, have to be considered, and if not........well, I think you all know the answers to that one.

The clock is ticking.

Good luck

LEA
Posted by Quantumleap, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 10:35:36 PM
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The immediate problem is not so much the population numbers but the severe imbalance of who controls and uses most of the available resources.

A tiny percentage of the global population exploits the rest to feed its growing hunger for an ever-increasing standard of living.

We already have the technology and resources to adequately feed and clothe everybody on the planet but not the will.

I doubt that any lasting solution to resolve this will ever be attempted but just to rely on the standard methods - War, Pestilence and Famine.
Posted by wobbles, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 10:39:15 PM
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Is it possible to discuss the consequences of the plague of humans without religious and economic fundamentalists pouring out of the woodwork and drenching the unbrainwashed with spittle laden tirades?

I had a quick squiz at Everald's CV. He's a funny guy. That deadpan delivery had me going. Addressing the global over-population problem by more than doubling our population to 50 million? Hilarious! It's about time someone stepped into Campbell McComas' shoes.
Posted by Sardine, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 11:04:25 PM
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Loudmouth,

You seem to assume that technology will be able to solve all those very different and very serious environmental problems, but won't be able to increase labour productivity. In 1850 half the people in the US made their living from agriculture. Now it is less than 2%. The same thing has been happening more recently with manufacturing jobs, where technology is a far greater source of job losses than outsourcing.

http://www.automationworld.com/news-414

Look at how countries made do and redirected labour during World War II. This is a far less serious problem, and the Europeans are basically coping with it now. Trying to solve it with population growth just creates an even bigger problem down the track.
Posted by Divergence, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 11:05:59 PM
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http://www.youtube.com/user/wonderingmind42#p/c/6A1FD147A45EF50D/0/F-QA2rkpBSY

http://www.worldometers.info/
Posted by Sardine, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 11:21:38 PM
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For all those that think lowering the birthrate by reasonable means cannot be done, I suggest you have a look at Iran.

Apparently their birthrate went from 6.5 per woman down to less than 2 per woman.

For those that do not trust wikipedia, there are others you can google

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning_in_Iran
Posted by Banjo, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 11:44:30 PM
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Ammonite and Yabby. Not so much not having a head for figures (as I'll freely admit) but a simple tap on the '6' key instead of the 5, but give me a break. I'm getting old and my work weary fingers don't always go where I want them to.

I'll deduct two points off my post for the silly typo :-)
Aime.
Posted by Aime, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 12:22:33 AM
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I’m always left feeling short changed when reading leading statements on any topic. The title “There are too many people in the world” is one of these. It always seems to miss the next bit which is the qualifier.

Too many people because; not enough food, space, housing, money, transport, too many big companies, greedy banks, bad policy, need more immigrants, need less immigrants, environmental devastation, not enough plagues, too much carbon dioxide and not enough religion.

The lead topic then allows each of us to trot out our worst nightmares which we need resolved otherwise we will end up with the conclusion that there are indeed “too many people”.

Alarmisms are fascinating phenomena in modern societies. We are up to 74 since 1790, each getting bigger, scarier and more urgent.

Some of us on OLO have been wondering what the next “biggie” might be? It’s shaping up to be “overpopulation”.

Interesting that this also shares the same attributes as AGW, funny that?

A bit of pseudo science here, a few celebrity advocates there, throw in some “statistics” and get support from academia and NGO’s and bingo! Off we jollywell go again.

Entertaining but soooo SAD.
Posted by spindoc, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 9:09:03 AM
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Squeers

>> Let's face it, if we were members of a small community subsisting on little arable land and few resources, we'd be having town meetings on how best to husband it, and we'd be cautioning ourselves as families to live within our means etc. <<

Absolutely spot-on. I was feeling rather disillusioned in my next to last post. The best way to reduce population is to help the countries where women are still treated as chattel (or should that be cattle?). Education, contraception and the aid to set-up small business has been a proven success.

http://www.businessballs.com/thirdworldsmallbusinessstartups.htm

Trouble is humans have not evolved in keeping with the spread of our numbers or the development of our technology. We are still village creatures.

Aime

Apologies, if I had known that Yabby was going to jump on you for the typo..... I would've kept my mouth shut. We all make mistakes, even the crustacean
Posted by Ammonite, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 9:42:32 AM
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Thanks Divergence, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 11:05:59 PM

All I'm trying to get at is that there are no short-cuts to population reduction. Of course, freely available contraception and more importantly, education for women all around the world (thanks, Ammonite) would massively reduced the fertility rate - educated women tend to marry later, have fewer kids and pester them to get a good education themselves.

If they could be put into effect generally over the next fifty years ('how' is the question), those measures would bring the birthrate down to close to ZPG, but actual population reduction would be a far more messy business: since you can't exterminate the elderly, or expect them to sign off at some designated age (oh, I see now the purpose of the euthanasia debate ! Thank you), then you have to find ways to cut the birthrate.

But that you can't do that quickly - and in any case, it would inevitably shift the economic burden in future decades onto the young, the fewer and fewer young, and for perhaps hundreds of years, many generations.

Hence the fascist solution must spring so easily to mind: 'we must cut the population and quickly ! Drastic measures are desperately required to save the planet ! Exterminate ! Exterminate !'

So yes, Spindoc may have a point.

And as for technology etc. etc., those 2 % in US agriculture are producing how much more now than the 50 % were back in the nineteenth century ? And if you've ever worked at, say, fruit-picking, you'd know how much wastage there is to satisfy a finicky market. I wouldn't be surprised if half the food produced in the world is wasted. The sky isn't falling, Divergence. Have a good day :)

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 10:21:23 AM
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Like a fundamentalist Christian preacher snorting lines of coke off the chiselled six-pack of a rent boy in a hotel room, or a fundamentalist Muslim suicide bomber with a hard-drive full of Western porn, the neo-Malthusians seem to think that their high-minded principles should apply to everyone but themselves.
Posted by Clownfish, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 10:46:44 AM
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Education of women in third world countries has been touted as providing the choice to have less children, but will this actually work?

Islam is the second biggest religion after Christianity making up some 1.57 billion people in 2009. Both religions appear to be hell bent on out-breeding each other. Not all, but many Islamic males treat their women quite horribly. In those Islamic households, sex is demanded by men and the women chastised if any resultant pregnancy fails to deliver a son. Under such circumstances, female education is frowned upon by males, so how is education even going to be possible? You'd have to start with educating men to consider their women as equal. And I stress, not all Islamic men hold these views, but in the worst parts of the Islamic culture, atrocities against women are carried out on a daily basis.

Christianity, on the other hand, are also attempting to our-breed the others. Their holy book has been cleverly written by AD scholars to make followers believe that it's their divine right to breed with abandon which in turn will assure that the word of their particular brand of cult is spread far and wide.

So it's ok to say education is the key to controlling the birth rate, but first to have to convert religious minds and that's simply not possible.
Posted by Aime, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 11:37:28 AM
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Clownfish
We can always depend on you to lower the tone of the debate, can't we? Yet again you play the man and not the ball. Your reference to "the screeching neo-Malthusian ninnies' was offensive.
Cheryl
You're not much better. Your reference to anti-pops and "their thinking has a nasty regressive element" was just simply false. I deal with people who seek an ecologically sustainable population every day and they tend to be driven by deep humanitarianism. So why not address the issues raised by Divergence and nicco and stop insulting everyone.
Everald
I agree with you that the world is overpopulated, that is, there's an imbalance between the number of people and the resources required to meet their needs. Your argument, however, that we need to increase our population and get it up to that of the US is just ignorant. We are a desert continent with only 6 per cent of the land arable. The US has vast areas of much more fertile land - thanks largely to so much of it being covered by massive amounts of ice through the last ice age - and it can support many more people though it too is already overpopulated with 310 million.

Because the current global population of nearly seven billion is largely propped up by the ready availability of conventional oil, we will face severe problems as oil begins its inevitable decline before long. Many analysts say we can only accommodate 1-2 billion people in the world once the oil has run out, so we had better start thinking quickly how best to reduce our numbers in the most humane way possible.
Posted by popnperish, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 12:25:23 PM
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Clownfish,

Instead of assuming that we are hypocrites, why not ask people here how many children they have? It is only possible for Neo-Malthusians to be hypocrites if they themselves have had large families while simultaneously urging restraint on others. I stopped at two and suspect that others here have had one or none. On the other hand, high income growthists are hypocrites if they are unwilling to reduce their consumption to the living standards that they clearly deem acceptable for others. If it OK for other people to be forced into overpriced, crowded high density living, have their water severely rationed, and put up with overstretched and overloaded infrastructure and public services, then the growthists should not be able to buy their way out of these problems.

Loudmouth,

Read Banjo's post and link. Fertility rates can drop quickly, and yes, it will take a long time to get population down far enough in many poor countries to give people a really good quality of life, but at least there won't be a collapse and there will be hope of improvements, because of technological advances and because the infrastructure budget can be spent on the existing population, not on extending the same lousy standards to more and more people. With decent labour productivity, the younger generations will be able to cope, as they are now in Europe.

We do waste a lot of fruit, but it is unlikely that much is wasted in Bangladesh, and it probably won't be wasted for much longer here either, as prices continue to rise due to the rising costs and scarcity of agricultural inputs. You don't seem to realise that we have moved from a world where well-being was limited by the supply of labour to one where well-being is limited by competition for resources and damage to planetary life support systems. See my environmental footprint link above.
Posted by Divergence, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 12:58:57 PM
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Loudmouth

You raise the subject of the aging catastrophe, albeit in euphemistic tones. I cannot say that I am convinced. I certainly am not convinced by the scaremongering tone of the pop-growth extremists.

As gets regularly pointed out by many on this forum, there are serious flaws with the claim of an aging catastrophe, namely:

-Is it ageing that is the problem, or the increased incidence of chronic illness that goes with it?

-Is caring for the aged person a greater burden than raising and educating children? People tend to need care in the last two years of their life on average: How many two year olds live independently?

-The studies suggesting an ageing catastrophe all assume that medical costs will skyrocket, yet make no consideration to the fact that medical advances can greatly improve a patient's productivity. There are many instances where advances in medical treatment have had a very positive economic impact, yet the studies discount this possibility.

-All the studies pointing to the aging catastrophe rely on computer simulations of the world many decades into the future. Given the great skepticism of many pop-growth extremists to computer simulations of the manifestations of CO2 induced global warming, why then are many of the same people so blindly accepting of a type of forecast which the evidence would suggest is almost always wrong, even for projections of a fraction of that time?
Posted by Fester, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 1:06:49 PM
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Maybe those proposing a "big Australia" and pretending to believe that over population isn't a problem should read the ABC article in the link below and then read through the comments that follow. Those comments would seem to suggest that not too many people really think that adding more numbers to the world population is a good idea and they give excellent reasons why not!

Trust me. It's worth a look.
Aime.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2757948.html
Posted by Aime, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 1:22:06 PM
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Many people get it, sustainable living with just one child or happy to be childless. These fine citizens have the vision of a healthy biodiversity as their intergenerational legacy.

Does our society honour these values and the individuals that have chosen such lifestyles? Slurs on barren women, single parents and same sex marriage couples do'nt help. The biggest tax incentives and bonuses for big families doesn't quite do it either.

We know that water and food shortages cause decimation of other species and risks catastrophe for human populations. We also know that our greatest strength is to think and act strategically to eliminate or minimise high risks. We can do this by establishing the foundations of a viable steady-state sustainable living model that evaluates everything with a quadruple bottom line including our economic well being together with our wellness in environmental health, strong social justice and policies developed in a fully engaging way with citizens in a participatory democracy to govern our society.

We are standing on a precipice. On our present trajectory our downfall looks likely and will probably be attributed to the lack of gutsy leadership throughout our society in remaking our broken institutions and fixing flawed decision-making processes. Bumbling along throwing dollars to appease vested interests is no way to prepare for the financial and environmental tsunamis about to be unleashed from sudden movement in those two massive tectonic plates, greed and stupidity.
Posted by Quick response, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 1:54:58 PM
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When I was very young and naive, I used to assume that one difference between the Right and the Left was that the Left saw people as potential to be developed and fostered, while the Right saw them as problems to be controlled and feared. Lo and behold, the contemporary pseudo-Left, innocent to the notion of production and work, and raised for life on the public tit, see people as problems - yes/no ?

Five or seven or nine billion people possess enormous potential, but I'm easy with the notion of steadying the population - while there are parts of the world which are underpopulated - Africa, for example - I'm easy with ZPG elsewhere - Europe and the US, for example.

The question is: how to slow down the birthrate in those countries (yes, contraception, education of women, dislike of children - these would all work in that direction), and if possible start to reduce it without causing even greater hardship to our beloved Gen Ys by burdening them (at least until they reach reitrement age) with maintaining the affluence of older generations from the public purse. In turn, when they DO reach retirement age, they can live off the efforts and taxes of the next couple of generations below them, their ever-scarcer children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

My point - not very sophisticated mathematically, I'll admit - is that population reduction would have to be carried out very slowly, so much % per generation: the faster the reduction, the greater the burdens for the working generations. And we wouldn't want that for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, would we ?

So, Divergence, I think you may be dodging the issue: while you may be right about technological advances, you seem to be skirting around the issue of population reduction. All sorts of problems kick in when you go from ZPG to negative growth.

[TBC]
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 1:58:37 PM
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Cheryl “When the anti-pops talk about population, they are really talking about is people - you and me, our neighbours, husbands and friends - all of those who make up the social fabric of Australia. So far their claims have been laughable (and enjoyable) but their thinking has a nasty regressive element which needs to be exposed.”

Exactly, like most “big government” ideas, it remains a matter of them and us

- you are and I being part of the “them"

– which is reassuring if only for the fact I would hate to be considered as one of the collectivist “us”

Small government and individual choice is the right way for anyone seeking a life that is worth living,

- rather than suffering large collectivist government and an existence not worth mentioning

popnperish I see you have a grasp of “market forces”, remove the sorce of cheap oil and cheap food and population numbers collapse

sure there is an acute workforce problem, which should make finding a job for those who do survive easier but

I do believe an acute problem sure beats a chronic problem of simply more and more mouths to feed

And as for some notions like “leave a better world for our grandchildren – that sa pure motherhood notion and complete crap.

Our grand children should thank us the for copulating and giving them life…

we might not leave this world a pristine example of life without humans but we did not inherit that from our ancestors anyway.

What we will leave them is a world with many more inventions and benefits than the one we were handed by our beloved parents and we ask no thanks for that either.
Posted by Col Rouge, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 2:43:35 PM
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'Or, we elect Clover Moore and live in a world of fluffy toys, cuddly blankets and love.'

Comment of the year.
Posted by Houellebecq, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 3:32:24 PM
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Spoke too soon...

'I wonder too whether our schools are churning out graduates who confuse debate with a sense of entitlement to construct the most silly arguments and then howl when people don't listen.'

'But, step by step, increment by increment, as their utopian dreams prove eternally elusive, the fascists wields their power ever more nakedly and brutally.'

Col,

'What we will leave them is a world with many more inventions and benefits than the one we were handed by our beloved parents and we ask no thanks for that either.'

Amen. I cant grasp this idea about inter-generational guilt. Adverts about 'spending the kids inheritance'? WTF, it's their money. Enjoy! Spend the lot!

I love that saying 'for your children's children'. Evidently, your actual children you really don't care about, it's just the grandchildren for which you'd like a nice world?

Loudmouth,

The difference between left and right is the left are idealists, the right are pragmatists. If you want to dream about warm and fuzzy things, stick to the left, if you want to get something done stick to the right.
Posted by Houellebecq, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 3:44:12 PM
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Yeah, I'm slowly beginning to see things your way, Houellebecq.

[continued]

Fester, I'm not suggesting any catastrophe: frankly, I don't think any sane society could countenance rapid poluation reduction, only something almost imperceptibly gradual, 0.1 % p.a. for example, which would halve a population in seven hundred years or so, and bring it down to levels satisfactory to the alarmists over a period of thousands of years.

Even so, that 0.1 % p.a. (or roughly 2.5 % over a generation, 5 % over two generations) would impose some extra burden on younger generations, especially as older people stayed old for longer, thanks to medical advances, since the working population would still decline by four or five per cent over someone's working lifetime. So fewer working people paying taxes for more older people.

Shoot the messenger, burn all of the maths books if you like, but that's about how it might work out :)

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 4:57:38 PM
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Everald, see what you’ve done?

You should be proud; look at all the nightmares that have been liberated. Just look at the responses, all these people with things that “keep them awake at night”, worrying about the sustainability of our planet.

Too many people. We may now go into solutions of our own, global reduction vigilantes, out there knocking off all those “surplus to requirements”. Start with the mentally infirm, then get stuck into racial impurities, then move on to the poor, the emotionally displaced, the politically unsustainable and those who drive Hyundai’s. I love it. When do we get to the gas chambers?

You are part of the “Seeds of destruction” brigade, you pose the answers but have no concept of the questions you breed. A pox on progressives
Posted by spindoc, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 5:02:10 PM
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[Deleted for abuse.]
Posted by Squeers, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 5:40:34 PM
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Mr Compton, I can not believe what you are saying.

In addressing over-population, and the need to reduce consumption, it beggars belief for you to end your piece with a conclusion that:

"Coal power stations will never be replaced. Many more will be needed. Coal provides 80 per cent of the world’s power now, and this will continue to grow unless the world gets very serious about a heavy investment in nuclear power." "One way or another, a considerable investment in clean coal will become an absolute necessity."

Pray tell where exactly is the reductionist component in this "final solution"? And, "Clean Coal"? Never heard of it! (Come up with a method to recycle CO2 efficiently and we'll be interested.)

Blaming religion for excessive procreation is a bit rich. Fie.

"We can head-off this crisis now by progressively increasing our migrant intake in sizeable numbers so we are seen to be taking action to populate the continent while reducing population pressures elsewhere."

Now, that is rich! Two-bob each way, and then some. What a joke. Selectively take 25 million immigrants, refugees included? Oh, no, sink the boats and send out the overseas recruiters? And, of course, Oz taking immigrants in droves is going to deter the boats, isn't it/Not!

No, my friend. The energy needs of all those deprived subsistence farmers in the Third world should initially be met with biomass electricity generation on a village level, and with Satellite Internet and high-tech low consumption TV's, fridges and air-con, they'll be doing reasonably well, and a lot better than at present. Education in the home through Internet and TV, trading, shopping, job search and working from home, all will enable a start of the new paradigm - connection, inclusiveness, awareness, opportunity, information. The sooner the better.

The West needs the Will to correct injustice and inequity, as much for its own interest as for that of the Third World recipients of essential basic assistance. Needs, and injustice, create conflict. Want to end conflict? Then, reduce inequity and injustice. What is Iraq and Afghanistan costing? And, Libya? And, what/where next?
Posted by Saltpetre, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 6:26:48 PM
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[Deleted for abuse.]
Posted by Col Rouge, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 6:35:46 PM
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[Deleted for abuse.]
Posted by Quantumleap, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 6:46:26 PM
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Whats wrong? All the monkeys are rattling their cages. Can dish it out, but cant take it:) must be cane toads! Go the blues!

Insults means you loose the debate:) Who would of thought a dumb person could beat the elite:) but the greens will look after you:) There, there....Its all better now:)

LEA
Posted by Quantumleap, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 6:55:46 PM
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Dear Col,

Well, all is not lost if you spend all your riches....your children and grandchildren will most likely inherit your smarm gene (should keep them warm when the world runs out of fossil fuels)

As I wade through your grandiloquent utterings, I keep expecting the words to slide off the screen in one long sanctimonious buttery ooze.

It's fascinating, however, that Houellie has such a crush on you - must be a right-wing thing : )
Posted by Poirot, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 6:56:20 PM
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*- while there are parts of the world which are underpopulated - Africa, for example *

So how many more species do you think they should wipe out in Africa,
to make way for more humans, Loudmouth ?

I love that thing called natural justice. The more effort that
you put in to passing on your dna, working your arse off to feed
and raise those kids, all for nought if you don't live sustainably.
For if its not sustainable, eventually your dna will croak it.

Richard Dawkins did not call it the Selfish Gene for nothing.

Fact is that humans are smart enough to invent nice new things,
but not smart enough to live sustainably. So be it. Let natural
justice prevail.
Posted by Yabby, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 6:56:30 PM
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"I will observe, however, "Big Government" of the leftie collectivist style, has only ever reduced what should be a "free life" to an "intolerable existence" - " Col Rouge

Let go of it Col. Without "Big Government" - read intense social regulation - those you climb over to ascend your ivory tower would treat you to an Indonesian style 'halal' despatch in flash.

You conservatives love the 'Law of the Jungle' as long as it's not a real jungle or level playing field and the particular rules of this 'neo-liberal economic jungle' advance your interests. So don't come on all sweet and strong about "Big Government'. Without it, your ilk would be mince meat and your ivory towers Roman Candles. You know it and I know it so let's dispense with the pious lecture. Or perhaps you're such a big man you don't need government and the protection it affords?

For what it's worth, here's my 2c worth of McPopulation policy:

-Domestically, dump all breeding incentives - baby bonus, family benefit A & B, paid parental leave, child care rebates, child care benefit, family assistance etc. (you should appreciate that it will have a Darwinian effect in encouraging those who can afford children and know how to make money will pass those genes on to their children). If you want to be reasonable about it, introduce the measures after an individual has had a child (two per couple). That would produce a significant but steady decline in population without being too dramatic and still leaving room for humanitarian immigration. If you want to get serious, you introduce penalties for those who want to produce more than 2 children per couple.

-Internationally, all foreign aid should be tied to reducing population growth in recipient countries. If you want our assistance, you abide by our conditions. The options here are myriad. (On the downside, humanitarian foreign aid has never been prominent on the radar of people like Col and is usually associated with graft and it may take some time to re-educate those involved in these types of foreign affairs /commercial relationships)
Posted by Sardine, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 8:18:20 PM
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Thanks, Joe. I take a democratic view of the question: Give people choices and let them make up their own minds. I dont like the idea of population being controlled by government policy, be it for more or fewer, unless it has the support of voters.

Again, I disagree with your view of the impact of medical treatment: You seem to see it as merely prolonging life and creating a greater burden on society. Would you acknowledge that the successful management of chronic ailments can increase productivity and so be of economic benefit?
Posted by Fester, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 9:25:23 PM
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Yabby, you're welcome to your view that we in the West may be entitled to the bounties of the earth but Africans are less valuable than animals. IMHO, every African is as valuable as you are.

Fester, no, I'm not suggesting that as people age longer in future years, they necessarily will cost more in health costs - my point was more simply that they will draw on their pensions for longer, and they have to be paid for - in the event of a slow population reduction - by fewer and fewer working people.

In other words, any humane policy of population reduction, no matter how slow or fast, will impact on the ever-shrinking population of workers. Wait and see how China pans out.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 9:55:28 PM
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I see Poirot and Sardine have something in common…..

They both post sneering responses to my suggestion that people be free of Big Government and able to make their own choices (some of us call it the difference between living and existing ) –

but to understand exactly what I mean, you also require some imagination

So what can I say…..

Poirot and Sardine are simply envious of those of us who have the courage to make choices for ourselves

or

That they lack the self confidence or maybe self esteem or whatever... they certainly lack something, leaving them unable to make their own life choices and need Big Government to make the big decisions on their behalf - “Nanny, I want my Nanny” style

Well, I feel sorry for any child inheriting those genes.

But don’t worry guys, it is written the meek will inherit the earth…..

all you have to do is wait around until all the real people, who stand up for themselves, decide they are tired of living.
Posted by Col Rouge, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 9:56:11 PM
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"and those who drive Hyundai’s. lol.....would you like my rego No as well:) Look! There is nothing wrong with bring the facts to where the world sits. Now we all know the facts, maybe the right changes will be made spiner, and the putting your heads in the sand wont save you:)

You sit in front of the same computer window as I do, and 7 billion people and its effects just wont go away. Martin Luther king was killed, JFK was killed also for what he believed in, and many more. See people who up-set the apple cart are not welcome with the truth, and do you know why?.......because there's NO money in it.

Go back to your corruption your all so fond of, and dont say you weren't warned.

LEA
Posted by Quantumleap, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 10:45:48 PM
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"(some of us call it the difference between living and existing ) – but to understand exactly what I mean, you also require some imagination"

Yeah right Col. Imagination. That would be what is, for you and your friends in your monochromatic desert, that non-existent grey area between Soylent Green and a Petri dish overflowing with dead bacteria. There's no nuance or degree with you lot. Why are your reactions exaggerated and extreme? Human population growth is a simple statistical dilemma and you just can't face it. It's always a do-or-die Jihad or Crusade with you and never "we've got a problem, we'll fix it".

You just need a little imagination Col, but then again, perhaps that oversimplifies the problem. I think the real nexus of the population issue is that religious, political or ideological fundamentalism creates intellectual conflict and dissonance that leaves them unable or unwilling to act decisively or even recognise and acknowledge the existence of a problem.

And as for your comments on the 'Nanny State', I can only assume you are agreeing that we need to get breeders off the State's teat?
Posted by Sardine, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 11:12:04 PM
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I disagree Col Rouge.

I think a more humane and fair solution is to create some sort of easily transmissible but self limiting biological vector that effects some level of temporary reduction in fertility.....if biologically possible.

Possibly modify some cold virus strains to secrete enough oestrogen into the blood stream of those infected to reduce the chances of embryo implantation in females and reduce the sperm count in males, for a short period of time (several months perhaps), but no other serious or distressing symptoms.

Cold viruses are clearly self limiting with pandemics reliably fizzling out as immunity to them builds throughout the population.

To maintain fertility reduction, new cold virus strains would have to be continually genetically modified.

Such a method would be akin to drawing straws and impossible for governments to control for the purposes of ethnic cleansing etc. In the end the entire human race would share in the burden of reducing their fertility more or less randomly.

Out of these options:

1) Genetically modified biological vector
2) Enforced 1 or 2 child policy
3) Do nothing and allow famine, war, genocide and disease take its toll.

option 1 seems to me to be the fairest amd most humane meanes of reducing human fertility across the board under the present circumstances.
Posted by Mr Windy, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 11:25:04 PM
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And a genetical modified biological vector, if it could be successfully created, would be by far the most cost effective and rapid means of bringing down global fertility and cause the least amount of additional stress to our already critically stressed global ecosystem.
Posted by Mr Windy, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 11:27:59 PM
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The Bilderberg Group have just met in Switerland.Here we have over 140 of the World's most powerful and influential people who meet to determine Central Banking Policy and where the next war will be fought.

This time there was a difference.China for the first time was invited.China has just told the West not to invade or attack Iran and more recently Pakistan.They have also warned the USA not to default on the debt it owes China.The USA has invaded Afghanistan with the intent of getting an oil pipeline from Turkmenistan,through Afghanistan/Pakistan to make it economic viable.The USA has tried to blame Pakistan for the Mumbai bombings and for aiding/abetting Bin Laden,all to no avail.The other intent of invading Afghanistan.The USA has been screwed by their own banking system,the Federal Reserve.

There is another reason why China is a target.They finance their growth via a Govt Banking system while the West languishes in private debt banking system.So China's invite to this Bilderberg meeting could be an admission of defeat by the Corporate Oligarchs.They could well be making deals with China to save their arses at our expense.
Posted by Arjay, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 11:32:48 PM
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Mr Windy, I can only disagree with your viral proposition in the most strenuous terms. On the one hand, meddling with genetic modification is an extremely risky business, and on another hand, the idea of random cross-world reduction by non-selective fertility control is overkill in the extreme, when there are quite effective means available to enable people to make a conscious and responsible choice to limit their family size - education, readily available contraception, genuine benefits and enhanced prospects for a smaller number of children, increased cost of providing an essential better level of education for offspring, enhanced employment opportunities and greater environmental awareness. The 1-2 child policy then becomes a logical and attractive option, without force - but the groundwork of better information, opportunity and living conditions must be established. Given that the West is responsible for demolishing fossil resources, and over-exploiting everything and everyone to facilitate extraordinary and unsustainable largesse, it is long overdue that the West paid the toll. If not, chances are someone, somewhere, sometime, is going to risk all to effect restitution and retribution.

Mandating population control by any heavy-handed means is just asking for trouble, and those able may be expected to undertake extreme measures to undermine any such attempt. Disagreement, discontent and conflict may be expected in response to any such attempt, when what we need to find is a way to reign in the West and to provide the means and stability for the Third World to develop much more efficient agriculture and industry, to keep the whole world going while population reduction takes its natural course - by choice.

Some worry too much about care for the aged in a diminishing youth base. Technology can be expected to enable greater productivity with fewer hands, but only if they are educated hands - and this is the key, and the solution. As for 700 years of gradual reduction - resources will run out long before such stability could be reached.
Posted by Saltpetre, Thursday, 16 June 2011 12:47:52 AM
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"Mr Windy, I can only disagree with your viral proposition in the most strenuous terms. On the one hand, meddling with genetic modification is an extremely risky business"

Then I assume your view is consistent in objecting to genetically modifying food crops so as to increase yields to feed more people.

", when there are quite effective means available to enable people to make a conscious and responsible choice to limit their family size"

I agree that this should be tried first before we resort to my proposal. But you must concede that your method is logistically challenging, to put it mildly, and may be to little to late at this point in history.

Again I point out to you that raising the living standards of the third world and educating girls so as to lower their fertility may not be possible with further deterioration of our ecosystems and wont be possible, on a significant scales, at all without cheap oil derived fuel.

"Mandating population control by any heavy-handed means is just asking for trouble, and those able may be expected to undertake extreme measures to undermine any such attempt.,"

I am not so sure about that! Given what is happening across the Arab world at present I suspect that many governments would privately welcome a means to peacefully curb political dissent and increase citizen contentment in the long term.

"when what we need to find is a way to reign in the West and to provide the means and stability for the Third World to develop much more efficient agriculture and industry, to keep the whole world going while population reduction takes its natural course - by choice"

Like I keep saying, this would be ideal but it just may no longer be possible to avoid a catastrophic collapse in the global population given that we have dithered and denied the proble for so long.

Perhaps if we had acted in the 50s when Norman Borlaug warned us that his green revolution had merely bought us a few decades to tame the population dragon.
Posted by Mr Windy, Thursday, 16 June 2011 1:24:53 AM
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"I am not so sure about that! Given what is happening across the Arab world at present I suspect that many governments would privately welcome a means to peacefully curb political dissent and increase citizen contentment in the long term."

As opposed to egaging the services of their armed forced in mowing down their protesting or rioting citizens with heavy machine guns that is.
Posted by Mr Windy, Thursday, 16 June 2011 1:32:20 AM
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*Yabby, you're welcome to your view that we in the West may be entitled to the bounties of the earth but Africans are less valuable than animals. IMHO, every African is as valuable as you are.*

Loudmouth, I made no such claim. My claim is that other species
have a right to part of this planet too, not just humans. You
cannot value biodiversity, because without biodiversity, you
won't have a humanity. Its basic biology.

You seem to be implying that it is fine to keep wiping out other
species, to make way for ever more humans, because places like
Africa are seemingly "underpopulated" That is highly debatable,
seeing that the last of the bonobos, chimps and gorillas are landing
up in the human cooking pot. If those species don't stand a chance,
there is not much hope for others.

So my point is, that if in your rush to grab everything for humans,
your own dna of the futute is wiped out in the process, natural
justice will eventually have its day. So be it and there is
no good reason why I should care about it
Posted by Yabby, Thursday, 16 June 2011 3:32:07 AM
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I agree in principle with Mr Windy's idea. My own modest proposal on another thread was that we develop a nano-virus that arbitrarily (that is regardless of class or wealth) and painlessly terminates six in seven or so humans, like a lottery. Seems eminently fair and pragmatic to me, getting rid of the bodies would be the only real problem. Be great for peak hour traffic!

But as I've often observed, all we have to do is change the economic system. I was driving through country south-east QLD yesterday, pondering the vast reaches of cultivation, pasture etc. If Queensland just looked after its own it would never want again and could retire most of the land back to the bush. It's trade and foreign markets, "world systems", that cause all our environmental problems--including over-population--and the insatiable distilation of profit that drives it.
If it were somehow possible to put an exclusion zone around all the world's populous regions, size dependent, say, on the viability of the land and waterways; restricted to that region and those resources, respective populations would soon stabalise. Col and co would never approve, of course, because I'm talking about level playing fields and they'd probably end up begging on the streets--unless they were prepared to work for a living rather that using their "imaginations".
The last thing I want btw is "collectivism", that's what we already have. I've often mentioned "Inclusive democracy", but did anyone listen to this Ockham's Razor on "deliberative democracy"? Here's the transcript: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2011/3233943.htm#transcript
Definitely a step in the right direction--but stop all exports and imports, including people via the airline industry, and it's problem solved.
Posted by Squeers, Thursday, 16 June 2011 7:27:43 AM
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But squeers why don't you just take the initiative, starting with a murder suicide of your own family.

Poirot,

Col is a man of style and substance. I really admire him for humouring us with his elegant prose and wonderful comic timing. You have to read the ...s, and Cols work flows with an electric verve, and his detractors are left with a big whooosh over their heads and wondering just what happened and bewildered how they have been so elegantly out manoeuvred.

He's a master man, I cant believe you cant appreciate his talents. He is the most entertaining poster on here. 'buttery ooze' though, now I know it may be just me, but I feel slightly aroused by that. Mmmm.

PS: Do you really think I'm a right winger? Haha. Like pelican keeps boring us with... left, right, pft. Although that's just because anything is right of pelican. I'm far more complex. Lefties always bite, so I give them more attention.

Yabby,

'Fact is that humans are smart enough to invent nice new things,
but not smart enough to live sustainably. So be it. Let natural
justice prevail.'

Man we agree on a lot. I was telling my mate the other day that all this AGW rubbish will work itself out, and that human is as human does and we have as much right to rape and pillage as a Lion has to hunt wilder-beast in the good times until he is very fat, and when the good times roll out, we can easily suffer like a scraggly puss at a watering hole too. Why all the agonising? It cant be becuase of the 'oh the humanity!' of squeers lot, when they HATE humans.

BTW: LEAP< I try, well, sometimes I do, but that translator never arrived and well, I'm thinking of turning to the dark side like yourself and expressing myself exclusively in song words rather than youtube clips.
Posted by Houellebecq, Thursday, 16 June 2011 8:40:53 AM
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*--but stop all exports and imports, including people via the airline industry, and it's problem solved.*

Ah, I can just see it, Squeers. Your wife and kids have a disease,
only a drug from America will cure them. You will let them all
croak it, for there will be no imports of course.
Posted by Yabby, Thursday, 16 June 2011 9:05:32 AM
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Ah, you're always good value, Houellebecq--even more entertaining than Col, in my book. Yabby is too, though a bit dry.

My modest proposal would be a far more humane than the ugly decimation that's likely to occur when collapse sets in. I'd much prefer a quick and painless death to the violence and starvation that besets any population once it's exhausted its food supply--history has witnessed many such events. And since we westerners are wholly dependent on supermarkets and infrastructure for our food, water, energy, sanitation etc. etc., we're no more that a few days from that kind of desperation in the event of such a collapse. Unlike places like Africa, we're not exactly hardened for such eventualities.
The attitude, "Let natural justice prevail" is thus far more heartless than my proposal.
It's easy to be so blasse when it's unlikely to be your generation that receives natural justice.
Posted by Squeers, Thursday, 16 June 2011 9:33:44 AM
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Houellie,

While I often appreciate your own valiant attempts at perverse humour, I'm perplexed that you find Col's standard quite so endearing. Col chooses elegant prose to puff himself up, but I'm still searching for any substance. Reading his stuff gives one the impression of Oscar Wilde without the wit.
Col's attempts to give the impression of patrician elegance come across more as plebian boastfulness....which can be entertaining, but I'm laughing at him not his "clever" prose.

Anyway, what is a "master man"? His banter is more likely to make you throw up than to have you bowing and scraping at his feet.

Col's sort of self-aggrandisment is a piffling version of middle-class decadence, but one that throws a light on the attitudes that drive Western hegemony
Posted by Poirot, Thursday, 16 June 2011 9:33:53 AM
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Squeers, the whole point of my suggestion for a fertility control virus is to reduce human suffering as humanely as possible when compared to the human suffering that will inevitably increase through disease, famine, war and genocide etc if we do nothing.

A virus (is effectively a nanite) that kills 1 person in 10 or what ever does nothing to reduce human suffering. And how would you limit it. Cold viruses, on the other hand, are clearly self limiting due to a long coevolution with humans.
Posted by Boylesy, Thursday, 16 June 2011 9:34:45 AM
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Boylesy

Please come clean and call a spade a spade, in your case:

Eugenics is still eugenics no matter how you like to dress it up.
Posted by Ammonite, Thursday, 16 June 2011 9:41:34 AM
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If your prefered strategy to deal with over population is a culling program then we need take no action on over population at all.

Mother nature cull us through famine and disease and we will cull ourselves through war and genocide over scarce food, water and resources.
Posted by Boylesy, Thursday, 16 June 2011 9:42:18 AM
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I am not a eugenicist and I do not believe that any particular race is superior to any other.

But I do believe that ecology and ecological limits apply to humans and our civilisation equally as they do to other animals.

Humans are currently in massive ecological overshoot and we have a choice.

Allow mother nature to cull us through famine, disease, war and genocide to bring the human population back into balance with the ecosystem or try to short circuit this ugly process by controlling our fertility as humanely as possible.

I prefer the latter choice for the sake of my two children.
Posted by Boylesy, Thursday, 16 June 2011 9:47:21 AM
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There are far better ways to achieve population balance than by the method you favour.

Previous posters have suggested such.

Eugenics would be inevitably be involved if your methods are used - someone has to decide which populations need culling.
Posted by Ammonite, Thursday, 16 June 2011 9:53:51 AM
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Boylesy,
my modest proposal, like Swift's, is tongue in cheek. Though if it came to that, I like my idea better because it would be arbitrary, apart perhaps from gender and age groups--a percentage of each of these then. I'm presuming a nano virus programmed to carry it out absolutely fairly. I would of course much rather that we find voluntary ways to reduce population. Populations "would" do this voluntarily if their governments persuaded them of the desperation of the situation, just as populations got behind the war effort. The problem is that our growth economies feed on population growth. If population growth stopped, so would economic growth, at least once the current populations reached satiety (they never would of course because the planet could not sustain Western lifestyles on any like that scale). Population growth in impoverished countries is perfectly understandable, and I doubt they could be reasoned with unless they were raised up to subsistence and dignity. This could only be done by reducing Western standards until their standards and ours met. Western standards, their spread and how they're derived, are the problem, and not the teaming masses elsewhere.
The problem is economic and not the human propensity to breed.
Posted by Squeers, Thursday, 16 June 2011 9:58:05 AM
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'It's easy to be so blasse when it's unlikely to be your generation that receives natural justice.'

Ah but squeers, you seem to have a bit in common with David Koresh.

Poirot,

'but I'm still searching for any substance'
Look closer. He's not in the greatest of form at the moment, but there are little gems of self-effacing mockery and

'Anyway, what is a "master man"? '
Master, man. My great grandmother twice removed was Jamaican. My Dad also, but I'm not so sure about my mother's fidelity.

'His banter is more likely to make you throw up than to have you bowing and scraping at his feet.'
Which is why it amuses me so to partake in the latter, and enjoy watching the crowd engage in the former.

'middle-class decadence, but one that throws a light on the attitudes that drive Western hegemony'

Is middle class decadence worse than upper class and working class decadence? Western hegemony isn't all bad, more akin to a referee that is only noticed when he makes a mistake against your team.

PS: Maybe the lefties aren't the idealists, you're all so defeatist!

Big The Cure fans, or is it The Smiths?

The history of humanity can be summed up by cramming for the test at the last minute and scraping through ok, and I'm sure when self interest and self preservation becomes prudent for the movers and shakers the ship will be righted pronto. The poor downtrodden masses will fare about as well as they do now and always have.

As I said, those concerned about population, you know what to do...

Would you like to know more?
Posted by Houellebecq, Thursday, 16 June 2011 10:03:07 AM
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"There are far better ways to achieve population balance than by the method you favour."

I agree with you all that a serious global effort to control fertility should be made via free contraception and family planning services in the third world first.

But you must all concede that this effort may fail to bring about enough of a reduction in global fertility to avoid widespread disease, famine, war and genoicde given that we have collectively failed to heed Norman Borlaug's warning 50 years or so ago.

If free contraception and family planning fails to sufficiently reduce global fertility to avoid the above, then what do you all propose we should do? We need a backup plan.

And I disagree that anyone needs to decide which races need to be targeted. The only criteria that needs to be considered are population centres where fertility cannot be sufficiently reduced via contraception etc. That may well include white skinned races along side dark skinned races.

And there is no way in hell that something like a cold virus could be entirely contained within the targetted population centres. They would spread through out the human population to some extent and we would all have some share in the burden.
Posted by Boylesy, Thursday, 16 June 2011 10:13:59 AM
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Everald...I presume you have never heard of Peak Oil or Carrying Capacity or Arid Desert...please Google these today
Posted by BrianS, Thursday, 16 June 2011 10:21:59 AM
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"The problem is economic and not the human propensity to breed."

I assume you mean that third world fertility will fall if we raise their living and education standards to our level.

Squeers the global ecosystem is already close to collapse with the current number of humans living a western lifestyle.

How can your seriously believe that all 8 billion humans can be raised to a western living standard so that we can then reduce our global population.

Charles Birch said in his book Confronting the Future "The earth cannot sustain a world of rich countries" and he is dead right.

Perhaps if we had have acted in the 50s when Norman Borlaug warned us that he had bought us s few decades to tame the 'population dragon'. But we failed and now we have to pay the price in making some more difficult choices.

Now fertility control and population reduction will have to come before third world development.
Posted by GregaryB, Thursday, 16 June 2011 10:25:34 AM
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Alternatively, GregaryB, all of us in western countries (which are using by far the lion's share of the world's resources) could cut back drastically on our living standards, as we help to raise those in Third world countries, so that it's all equalised out ? A massive increase in the education aid budget for women in those countries might be useful - western countries could cut back on their own welfare budgets, wages, pension payments and social services, to pay for it, for the next few generations.

Every person in the Third World is as entitled to a good life as you and me, and everything it includes. So clearly, any eugenic solution must impact far more on people in western countries who already have, on average, more than their 'share' of the world's resources.

So Boylesey, spread your virus first in your own country. Those talking about culling: go first, and take your family and friends with you.

Let's even up the world and let the perpetually-disadvantaged have a fair go
Posted by Loudmouth, Thursday, 16 June 2011 10:45:26 AM
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Over population breeds discontent breeds terrorism.

I am actually surprised that the yank military has not considered a fertility control virus of some sort to defeat international terrorism.

Would seem to me to be far more cost effective than military occupation of terrorist prone regions.

And the yanks don't seem too bothered about world opinion on their unilateralism and collateral military damage perpetrated during their occupations.

So why would they be bothered about world opinion on the use of a biological means of winning the war on terror. It would be some improvement on indiscriminately killing and maiming innocent civillians.
Posted by GregaryB, Thursday, 16 June 2011 10:47:25 AM
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"Alternatively, GregaryB, all of us in western countries (which are using by far the lion's share of the world's resources) could cut back drastically on our living standards as we help to raise those in Third world countries, so that it's all equalised out ? "

Well loudmouth, I absolutely agree with you there. And in fact I have made some sacrifices in my own life to that end.

But hey good luck convincing the majority of westerners, and all the third worlders who would be as greedy and deny their own kind the same
benefits.

If only we lived in a social utopia......but we don't loudmouth so I guess you will just have to deal with what we have.
Posted by GregaryB, Thursday, 16 June 2011 10:54:10 AM
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GregaryB,

A virus is almost impossible to contain, especially in this day and age with the continual movement of people throughout the world. The deliberate release of such a contagion would almost certainly impact the country who released it.

Anyway, terrorism is something factored into the system...it's a matter for those who exercise hegemony in the West to control the minds of the population through the media so that the odd invasion here and there satisfies the agenda.

Of course, this is not an open-ended equation. As the U.S. folds in upon itself, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain its military ascendancy.
Posted by Poirot, Thursday, 16 June 2011 11:02:55 AM
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*Let's even up the world and let the perpetually-disadvantaged have a fair go*

I think you will find that nature will sort it all out in the end,
Loudmouth. Ignore nature's laws at your peril.

Take a look down a microscope and you'll soon discover that its a
world of bacteria and viruses out there, mammals are relatively
recent.

If you want to catch a fatal bacterial infection, just go into
one of the major hospitals. They are mutating faster then we
can create new drugs.

The species barrier is a reasonable way to minimise mutating
bacteria and viruses. Your world of cheek to cheek humans means
that with one suitable mutation, all your efforts will have been
for nought, nature will have solved it.The tighter you pack em
in, the faster they will die. You'll only have yourself to blame.
Posted by Yabby, Thursday, 16 June 2011 11:18:25 AM
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"A virus is almost impossible to contain, especially in this day and age with the continual movement of people throughout the world. The deliberate release of such a contagion would almost certainly impact the country who released it."

Poirot that is precisely the point of using a biological vector of some sort, i.e. it would require little logistical effort to spread fertility control rapidly across the globe. And it could not be controlled by governments or terrorist groups.

But as I pointed out, the biological vector chosen would need to be self limiting in some way, as are cold viruses.

You wouldn't want its effects to last for decades or centuries.
Posted by GregaryB, Thursday, 16 June 2011 11:18:30 AM
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GregaryB,

"How can you seriously believe that all 8 billion humans can be raised to western living standard so that we can then reduce our global population."

I think you should reread Squeers's posts, as that is not his line of thinking at all. You'll find, I believe, that he thinks the West should cut its standards of affluence and excess, at least, as a first step to managing the world's finite resources.

I agree with his view - and the fact that it's probably unlikely to happen. Also with Yabby, that the planet usually has ways of taking care of itself.

We're too smart for our own good, but not smart enough to avert catastrophe for our species.
Posted by Poirot, Thursday, 16 June 2011 11:47:12 AM
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Sorry I'm late;

In short, a rubbish article trying to convey that the "world" is overpopulated (it's not, really)- and we need to do our part for these poor souls (and for the domestic real-estate industry) and take em in.

One question- where in Australia are they to go?
Posted by King Hazza, Thursday, 16 June 2011 12:32:15 PM
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Mr Windy, "Biomass" electricity generation - the logical start-point for required Third World (particularly African) development. From this starting point, all things are possible; without it (or equivalent alternative), the downward spiral accelerates.

The world is not yet at breaking point, or even at point of no return - things would be far worse if it were. No, there is time, but the West's recalcitrance, and refusal or denial of the scope of the immediate and impending challenge, is nothing short of mass delusion - if it doesn't bite them, it's steady as she goes. I wonder how many ancient civilisations went down the tubes in the same state of mind. Abandon ship? To Where?

Of course, with all the focus on the U.S. v China competition (quietly of course) to be "biggest boy on the block", and others shuffling to keep "alliances" in order, none of those in a position to address this pop problem are even giving it a second thought - just as long as "they're alright Jack" when the last of the chips falls.

So, Squeers and Windy, your solution is arbitrary euthanasia, which could just eliminate the next Einstein or Newton, who just might be the one person with the answer to the sustainability question, or for Stephen Hawkins' diaspora to colonise the galaxies.

Squeers, there is an easily accessible medium for "Deliberative Democracy" - it's called the Internet and ONLINE-Forum. Do our governments consult or utilise this medium? I wonder - who may be listening? (Wishful thinking?)

Focus - that's what's needed - and the prime question is how to generate that focus.

The human mind - such a strange mechanism. The same people who cry "compassion" at the plight of refugees, and cry "foul" at the concept of eugenics, can glibly propose "random infertility". No contradiction there, is there? The same people who "liberate" their countries from colonial rule or such, go on to become dictators and oppressors of those same citizens - Mao? Gadhaffi? Mugabe?

Extraordinary and inexplicable "insanity" of differentiation? Solve the mind, solve the problem. Too simple?
Posted by Saltpetre, Thursday, 16 June 2011 1:31:27 PM
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Loudmouth et al "Alternatively, GregaryB, all of us in western countries (which are using by far the lion's share of the world's resources) could cut back drastically on our living standards, as we help to raise those in Third world countries, so that it's all equalised out ? "

If you raise the standard of living of the worlds poor to even a half the standard of the west, you would have to get rid of more than the people living in the richer western countries to compensate.

As far as fertility control is concerned, it seems to me that the present generation of youth are doing their best to spread those sexually transmitted diseases which do just that. The pity is that the medical profession are also finding ways to cure them as well as making it possible for babies to be born who would normally be naturally aborted.
Posted by VK3AUU, Thursday, 16 June 2011 2:21:32 PM
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Why don't we listen too all these expert people about banning everything, stopping everything, don't do this, don't do that, blah blah blah, then the world will reduce its population by half.
What percentage of our total edible trade goes to 3rd world countries or dry arid countries or small under developed countries or over populated countries.
If it wasn't for our greed we could see a positive reduction of population in these countries, depopulating through natural attrition.
We support overpopulation by sending our goods to them.
I have read a couple of times now that we have not hit the high mark for over population.
Workout how much room for growing grain we would need to support a population of vegans. Is there enough room?
How long before population pressure in, say China, before their need to expand, just for agricultural land, into where, Russia.What would happen then?
The world's sea water level does rise and fall (even without help from us humans) so countries like Sri Lanka, the Maldives and most of the polynesian Islands will be under water and lots of low lying land in plenty of other countries will be lost. more pressure on the few countries that would be able to support an ever increasing population.
I recon we have the ability to grow our population still, but it will have dire consequences.
It appears that we are willing to forgo our childrens,childrens rights so that again we can please our insatiable appetite for our right to do as we please.
Posted by MickC, Thursday, 16 June 2011 5:24:38 PM
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@VK3AUU: as well as making it possible for babies to be born who would normally be naturally aborted.

I had that driven home to me a week or two ago. A friend who is a high school science teacher came in and had a whinge about how hard it was to teach his grade 9's about electricity. I jokingly suggested he get them to make a Leyden jar and then hook the class up to it.

He said in all seriousness "oh no, I can't do that". I asked why not. He replied he might kill some of them, as a few students in his school had defibrillator implants. On seeing the stunned look on my face he said "oh yes, many of the kids I teach would not of made it to their 1st birthday in our day".
Posted by rstuart, Thursday, 16 June 2011 5:59:47 PM
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How does a country's population decrease, apart from immigration and emigration ? Through fewer babies being born than older people dying, below the point where births outnumber deaths.

Since we surely must rule out the fascist/eugenicist non-solutions for across-the-board population reduction of 'others', such as spreading viruses or launching wars, how can we stabilise and slowly reduce world-wide population ? Educate women in developing countries, and provide free contraception services, certainly. How to do that wholesale would require changes in many other ways, not least the ability of their governments to fund those initiatives.

But even assuming that the funds were available long-term to provide for generations of women's education, we have to face the fact - which contributors here seem to be ignoring - that to reduce the population in any country, one has to CAREFULLY encourage a lower fertility level, SLIGHTLY fewer babies being born in each generation than deaths and loss by emigration: population reduction does not occur at the top end, but at the bottom, with the births, the beginning of the life-process.

No matter how you bend it, that means that in the next generation, there would be fewer workers than in this one, and fewer again in two generations' time. Fewer babies means fewer workers to carry the tax burden generated - quite properly - by the comparatively more numerous older generations.

And as more people stay healthier for longer, and live longer, then the pension payments to which they are fully entitled will act as a larger drag on the tax contributions of fewer workers with the passing of each generation.

But the faster the reduction in population, the more drastic will be the effects of this shrinkage of the work-force in each successive generation. Let's be clear: to reduce population means increasing the burden of younger generations - in 2011, that means Gen Y and whoever is to follow them.

We work for roughly two generations. A gradual, not drastic, reduction in population over centuries would make it easier for Gen Y, and for our children's children. And theirs too.
Posted by Loudmouth, Thursday, 16 June 2011 6:12:32 PM
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Loudmouth

How does a country's population decrease, apart from immigration and emigration

Do you think population decreases because you simply leave a country!

I find that to be a ludicrous statement.

If a couple, married or not, has more than 2 children then population will increase, only if your willing to stay single and that usually means your self indulgent or unfortunatley not a perfect specimen then you can be deducted as 1.

If all of Africa moved to Australia we have done NOTHING to reduce the population
This a issue that goes beyond nationalistic borders.
China has 1.1 billion and I bet you $20 they all dont live in china
India has 1 billion do they all live in India

Come on, no matter where you live you still gotta eat, still gotta use power, still gotta drink water.
How many times has water in london be recycled. 8,10 or more times

The more people anywhere in the world is a disaster in the making.
Quicker the decision to reduce the better the less people that will be involved, the big dissapointment is that we just wont make as much money (Im a greedy bastard), but we will have a more sustainable world.
Posted by MickC, Thursday, 16 June 2011 6:56:23 PM
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Non sequitur, Mick.
Posted by Loudmouth, Thursday, 16 June 2011 7:10:39 PM
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Sorry I must have missed something. The world has too many people, therefore Australia "can head-off this crisis by increasing our migrant intake"?. Duh? If there is still a tiny little bit of the world that is not yet hopelessly overcrowded, we should make it overcrowded as soon as possible so it won't stand out? Just don't get it.

Surely it would be better to STOP bringing people in to our small continent (yes, small - most of our country is desert and might as well not be there for all the good it is) and be a world leader by changing from the old 20th century model of growth at any cost to a new way of 21st century thinking which is stable population before overpopulation crushes our environment just as surely as the Middle East has been wrecked by overpopulation.
Posted by Thermoman, Thursday, 16 June 2011 8:42:59 PM
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Mr Windy, "Biomass" electricity generation - the logical start-point for required Third World (particularly African) development. From this starting point, all things are possible; without it (or equivalent alternative), the downward spiral accelerates.

We cannot sustain current levels of food production and the current population on "Biomass" electricity generation or any other renewable energy source. The EROEI of all renweable energy sources, including the energy required to produce the infrastructure to harvest renewable energy, is subtantially larger than that required to produce an equivalent amount of energy as oil.

For example, to replace the worlds current annual energy consumption in oil with solar voltaics would require an area the size of Malaysia packed solid with solar arrays. Put all the worlds oil refineries and oil rigs in one place and they would come no where remotely near to this sort of area.
Posted by Mr Windy, Thursday, 16 June 2011 11:48:19 PM
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The world is not yet at breaking point, or even at point of no return - things would be far worse if it were.

I simply disagree with you Saltpeter. Peak oil, peak fish, global warming, peak water, recurring global food shortages,...........

I think we are very close to being at breaking point.

The time for half measures and avoiding difficult chopices on population reduction is almost over if not over already.

So, Squeers and Windy, your solution is arbitrary euthanasia,

Prevention of pregnancy is NOT euthanasia. Otherwise the pill would be a tool of euthanasia. So your above statement is idiotic Satlpeter.
Posted by Mr Windy, Thursday, 16 June 2011 11:49:35 PM
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which could just eliminate the next Einstein or Newton, who just might be the one person with the answer to the sustainability question, or for Stephen Hawkins' diaspora to colonise the galaxies.

As was pointed out by some one else, you have to wade your way through a great many more Hitlers, Polpots and Amins in order to find those extra Einsteins and Hawkings.

Look this argument is also idiotic.

It is the same mentality that a problem gambler has of just putting a bit more money in the machine in order to increase the chances of a big win that will solve all their financial problems.

The more logical solution is to reduce the population and along with it the problems that need to be solved. Therefore we will not need to produce more Einsteins to solve them.
Posted by Mr Windy, Friday, 17 June 2011 8:15:10 AM
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To be even more blunt.....

Such circular arguments put forward by Saltpetre, i.e. have a bigger population in order to get more Einsteins and Newtons in order to solve the problems caused by a bigger population, are not befitting of a mature intelligent adult.
Posted by Mr Windy, Friday, 17 June 2011 9:24:34 AM
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Sardine “population issue is that religious, political or ideological fundamentalism creates intellectual conflict and dissonance “
Somehow I suspect you lack the imagination to sense any intellectual conflict,
Leave worrying to those who can imagine what is clearly beyond your scope

Poirot “s sort of self-aggrandisment is a piffling version of middle-class decadence, but one that throws a light on the attitudes that drive Western hegemony”

Sounds like a lot of envy hidden behind negative

Mr Windy “I think a more humane and fair solution”

But the world is not a humane and fair place and any assertion to it being so is mere wishful thinking

Your
Option 1 will present problems coming in the form of the law of unintended consequences
Option 2 – regardless of your desires is unenforceable
Option 3 is not an option at all but the consequence of nature
And nature does know best

Houelle thanks for the support and observations

Poirot the way you go on…. I am blushing,,, you must be in love – sorry I am already taken

Gotta go… her loveliness wants to go to the casino
Posted by Col Rouge, Friday, 17 June 2011 5:40:00 PM
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Col,

You are (surprisingly) perceptive.
I'll try and contain my ardour : )
Posted by Poirot, Friday, 17 June 2011 6:22:20 PM
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Is that it Col? A little puff of anti-social methane and you're gone?

Typical of a political conservative, all tip and no iceberg.
Posted by Sardine, Friday, 17 June 2011 6:27:14 PM
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Mr Windy, I don't mind if your stuck on your "infertility Pill", I just wish you wouldn't misread and then misrepresent what I've posted. You know full well my meaning in using the term "euthanasia" - it was in direct response to your magic "virus", and the key adjective was "indiscriminate".

You probably wouldn't support selective "eugenics" any more than I would, but the fact is the world would be better off if people of intelligence and means had a few children (maybe even a few more), and the least gifted had a few less. Your indiscriminate proposal is simply random, and that is my first objection. My main objection is, however, that there are better, and more acceptable ways to achieve population reduction - and by free choice.

My several posts on this thread have all been promoting population "reduction", including an attempt to highlight the enormity of the current very real "overpopulation" problem. Your last post accusing me of promoting pop growth in hopes of producing a pop "messiah" is therefore a total misrepresentation.

Biomass is already being used to produce electricity on a village basis, it is sustainable, and once established the running costs are minimal. You focus on the fossil resources required to establish infrastructure, but you ignore the use of sustainable energy to produce and maintain that infrastructure. You keep raising the inability of solar to replace fossil fuel (particularly oil) to meet current energy usage, but this whole issue is to reduce demand, and replace methods of provision - and coal can provide the bridge. There have to be alternatives, so just saying no is not an answer.

I have also made the point of approaching "peaks", so your protests in this regard are also groundless.

Loudmouth, I can only reiterate - in the new compact world order productivity will be greatly enhanced, less food will be required, and most things will be cheaper. Anyway, as others have posted, wages, wealth and largesse are very much at the root of current world problems, and a more equitable means of resource provision should be found.
Posted by Saltpetre, Friday, 17 June 2011 10:59:50 PM
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"well my meaning in using the term "euthanasia" - it was in direct response to your magic "virus", and the key adjective was "indiscriminate".

Saltpetre I object to this misrepresentation of the purpose of my genetically engineered fertility control virus idea.

Its purpose is precisely not to kill or euthanize people.

Nor is its purpose to permanently sterilize people....another irrational misrepresentation of the whole idea.

The idea is to reduce the total time within an individuals life time that they are capable of successfully procreating. It wouldn't necessarily even have to be as effective as the 'pill'. As long as it causes a substantial reduction in fertility when averaged across 8 billion humans.

You probably wouldn't support selective "eugenics" any more than I would, but the fact is the world would be better off if people of intelligence and means had a few children (maybe even a few more), and the least gifted had a few less. Your indiscriminate proposal is simply random, and that is my first objection. My main objection is, however, that there are better, and more acceptable ways to achieve population reduction - and by free choice.

What you are proposing here Saltpetre is eugenic in character. You are saying that some humans are worthy of procreating more and some are not. Presumably you consider yourself to be in the fomer class.

The random nature of my virus idea is precisely to avoid eugenic strategies.

And again I point out to you that voluntary means of fertility control would be terrific but it is possible that we missed that boat in the 50s when we were warned by Norman Borlaug that he had merely bought us a few decades, with his green revolution, to tame the population dragon.

"and a more equitable means of resource provision should be found"

All sounds wonderful Saltpetre but it is utopian and unrealistic.
Posted by Boylesy, Friday, 17 June 2011 11:20:20 PM
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And again I point out to you that voluntary means of fertility control would be terrific but it is possible that we missed that boat in the 50s when we were warned by Norman Borlaug that he had merely bought us a few decades, with his green revolution, to tame the population dragon.

4-5 decades have passed, the world has done nothing about the population dragon and the global population has tripled since the start of the green revolution.

It may no longer be possible to develop the third world and educate woman in order to reduce global fertility - not enough resources and to much demographic momentum for the slow pace of development and education.

It is a universal truth of life that the longer that you dither and deny on a problem the bigger the problem gets and the more difficult the choice you have to make.

It was true about Hitler and WW2 and it is true of over population.

Imagine the death and destruction that could have been avoided if Britain had simply assented Hitler during his ascendancy or bombed German military targets in the early 30s.
Posted by Boylesy, Friday, 17 June 2011 11:33:14 PM
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Ok, Boylesy, you have a point, and at least you put it more politely than Mr Windy, and maybe I am being utopian and unrealistic, so let's get very realistic.

8 Billion; and China with a more or less one child policy - anyone else? How about the U.S.? And, what about Oz with say 23 Million - would we be exempt? No, of course not, we're being fair and across the board. Ok, so, India, Japan, Indonesia, South America, Mid-east, Israel, Europe and Russia, etc. Where and how to start? Surreptitious aerial release into the atmosphere, or into water supplies, food chain or by UN Resolution and Mandate? (Maybe someone's doing it already?) And, anyone likely to object, or are all going to be fully amenable because all recognise the extent of the overpop problem. (Didn't some U.S. mob try sterilising a whole heap of Africans once - so well received, once revealed). And, would the U.S. go along? Guess we all know the answer to that.

Of course the stuff has to be cooked up and tested - say 5 years, 10, 20? Meantime, the West keeps gobbling resources like it's going out of style, on Gucci loafers and Prada fashions, Ferrari's and gold-plated toothpicks, while kids in Mumbai and Delhi live on rubbish tips eating garbage, South Africans keep murdering each other, and places like Columbia and the Congo go on business as usual, Iraq is again a dictatorship, and Afghanistan the happy poppy kingdom, while Pakistan becomes the new terrorism capital.

And, everyone's so concerned - why, there's you and me and some others on OLO, and there's Dick Smith, and some others of note I'm sure - though I haven't seen too many headlines. Funny that.

My propositions are idealistic, but just may be do-able, and could start immediately - if the powers showed the necessary interest and commitment. Where are they? Why do they not speak?

My proposition is to tackle inequity, give the repressed masses a better life choice, and so reduce conflict and extend opportunity. Is this so unfair and unrealistic?
Posted by Saltpetre, Saturday, 18 June 2011 12:29:08 AM
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Ok, Boylesy, you have a point, and at least you put it more politely than Mr Windy, and maybe I am being utopian and unrealistic, so let's get very realistic.

Mr Windy and Boylesy are one and the same. Were you being sarcastic or you haven't figured that out yet?

Clearly, if we were to go down the root of a biological vector, you would release it those regions with the highest fertility, possibly clandestinely as far as the general populous is concerned but perhaps in consultation with the governments of those regions.

Like I have said, many governments of countries with high fertility and significant political instability may well welcome population reduction and improved political stability.

"And, everyone's so concerned -"

There are not enough of us yet who comprehend the gravity of the problems or who are prepared to publicly acknowledge it. And that concern does not extend significantly into political realms that are still dominated by economic fundamentalism.

" Is this so unfair and unrealistic?"

Your proposals are entirely reasonable and fair, but never the less unrealistic. The tide of history is against them being acheived any time soon.
Posted by Boylesy, Saturday, 18 June 2011 1:29:24 AM
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No, Boylesy/Windy, I had no idea. How very clever of you. (I did wonder though, why it was Boylesy who responded to my reply to the windy one, but recalled that I thought it was the former who introduced the idea of fertility repression in the first instance.) How very ordinary of me to think that we were all individuals, or do you have two parallel personalities? Now you make me wonder if Squeers and Poirot are one and the same; or even Poirot and Pericles - all founts of knowledge of depth and conviction. Poor me, I am just a singularity in my confusion, with no-one else to blame for my occasional transgressions.

Oh, and by the way, I am not keen on sarcasm, in any camouflage, and earnestly try to avoid it wherever possible.

"..many governments of countries with high fertility and significant political instability may well welcome population reduction and improved political stability."

So, Boylesy/Windy (B/W), no selective eugenics in that little slight of hand is there? And, of course, SOME governments might actually agree? No Big Brother in that either, I suppose? (Of course, Gadhaafi and Assad would rather just kill those who oppose them - a sure-fire way to ensure they're not going to have any more kids - and then use their soldiers to make up the pregnancy deficiency, but with good little loyalists. So, which dictator was it who elected his military right-hand to succeed him, and was promptly assassinated by the one and the same as soon as the handover was completed? So much for loyalty born in the blood. Maybe there's a chance for a different virus - the loyalty to poverty and enslavement virus?)
TBC>
Posted by Saltpetre, Saturday, 18 June 2011 10:30:54 AM
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B/W (Continued:)
One is of course taking the eye off the Big Picture - pop/climate/food/atmosphere/pollution/environment/conflict - all surrounding resource ravaging. So, is your main concern perhaps the too rapid depletion of fossil reserves, and thus, with no viable alternative in view, we just have to wipe out a few billion unwanted pregnancies to ease the pressure, and save our Western decadence for yet another day, when the West may be more amenable to doing its bit in the interest of global stabilisation? Good luck with that.

The repressed masses are numerous, but have a small carbon footprint. They have the means to operate sustainably - Brazil and ethanol powered vehicles, Indian rural sector with biomass (poo-powered) electricity generation, for example - all, low cost of living, low expectations, sustainably living manual labour. What amazing possibilities - with just a little help. Of course, you are also worried that with help to enable the masses to produce food for the world sustainably and with minimal climate or bottom-line impact, they will just breed up like rabbits. The trend in those Third World agricultural communities receiving a little help, with clean water, sanitation and modest education, demonstrates an enormous interest in improvement, in embracing the world, and in getting away from the burden of large families, and into the light from under the yoke of a daily fight for survival.

There is a better way, with conviction and vision. The question is, when and how may the West be willing to embrace it? Can mankind rise beyond decadence and dog-eat-dog, and share a brighter horizon?

Is Hope now a dirty word?
Posted by Saltpetre, Saturday, 18 June 2011 10:31:04 AM
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" or do you have two parallel personalities?"

No, merely a means of getting around the limit of 5 posts in 12 hours or what ever it is.

" we just have to wipe out a few billion unwanted pregnancies to ease the pressure, and save our Western decadence for yet another day, when the West may be more amenable to doing its bit in the interest of global stabilization? Good luck with that."

I do not condone current western excess or population control in order to facilitate its continuation. As I have said on countless occasions before, the west's obligation to cut its consumption is equal to the developing world's obligation to cut its fertility.

But I do defend western civilization more broadly. It is clearly superior to the Taliban and Syria etc.

"The repressed masses are numerous, but have a small carbon footprint. "

First of all 2,000,0000,000 third worlders each with a environmental impact still have potentially have a greater environmental impact than several hundred million westerners living a decedent life style.
You are wasting your time pretending that number is less important than individual consumption.

Secondly those 2 billion or so with a small carbon foot print all aspire to the same decadent western life style.

"Is Hope now a dirty word?"

A wise leader is one who hopes for the best but plans for the worst.
Posted by Boylesy, Saturday, 18 June 2011 10:46:22 AM
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Mr WindyBoyle,

Sock-puppets are generally frowned upon on OLO.

Saltpetre,

You are one of the more genuine characters on this forum - a breath of fresh air, in fact.
I'm not Squeers, nor am I Pericles, although I tend to favour their views.
Most contributors don't go in for multiple identities, so you are in the majority there.

Cheers
Posted by Poirot, Saturday, 18 June 2011 10:48:20 AM
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Saltpetre you exhibit hypocicy in the extreme in accusing me of a secret eugenic agenda when it was you who expressed concern about a fertility control virus being indiscriminate and preventing those who deserve to have more children (presumably westerners) from doing so.

The indiscriminate nature of a virus is precisely what would make that form of involuntary fertility control as fair as possible and immune from any people who have ethnic cleansing or eugenic desires.

"Of course, Gadhaafi and Assad would rather just kill those who oppose them - a sure-fire way to ensure they're not going to have any more kids - and then use their soldiers to make up the pregnancy deficiency, but with good little loyalists."

We will get more and more of this sort of behaviour if we fail to slash human fertility quickly enough by what ever means. And I have little doubt that this behaviour will spread to parts of the west and be perpetrated by our governments.

"Maybe there's a chance for a different virus - the loyalty to poverty and enslavement virus?)"

Now your just being idiotic again!
Posted by GregaryB, Saturday, 18 June 2011 10:56:46 AM
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And I really don't give a rats if Syria et el used my virus idea to quell political dissent rather than the services of their armed forces. Like I said, a fertility control virus would be some improvement on heavy machine guns and tanks.

I only care about the global ecosystem and the survival of western civilisation. I am not remotely concerned with the politics of individual non-democratic countries.
Posted by GregaryB, Saturday, 18 June 2011 11:05:06 AM
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If my alternate longins were meant to be sock puppets then I would not make it obvious that I am the same person.
Posted by GregaryB, Saturday, 18 June 2011 11:07:39 AM
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And Saltpetre, before you start denying that you have expressed any views with a eugenic character......

Did you or did you not post this:

"but the fact is the world would be better off if people of intelligence and means had a few children (maybe even a few more), and the least gifted had a few less"

You have have said that you object to my virus idea because it is to random and will target the wrong sorts of people!

That is precisely what the third Reich thought about Aryans in comparison to Jews, Gypsies and negros etc
Posted by GregaryB, Saturday, 18 June 2011 11:26:29 AM
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Perhaps you are right Saltpetre.

If even your good self, as a self appointed guardian of non-discrimination and human rights etc in this forum, cannot be trusted not to slip into a eugenic / white supremacist mentality then perhaps we indeed can't afford to try a biological means of fertility control.

Lest it be co opted as a means of ethnic or eugenic cleansing by unscrupulous folks such as yourself as it turns out.
Posted by Mr Windy, Saturday, 18 June 2011 4:52:10 PM
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Mr Windy,
the situation is indeed serious enough such that we should be considering fertility control, though only in tandem with sterilising consumerism, which is itself as irresponsibly fecund as any African, Indian or Catholic. I take exception to your, "But I do defend western civilization more broadly. It is clearly superior to the Taliban and Syria etc". To begin with, this is at cross purposes with the issue, and political correctness doesn't discount the vile currents that run beneath our hallowed democracies. The only thing the West is superior in is sophistication--in the full sense of the word.
I agree with Squeers, and I'm not his sock puppet but his wife; overpopulation is not the problem, but a by-product of capitalism and its endless growth dynamic. Neuter the markets and populations will have to follow suit, and we in the west will have to come down to Earth. The system has long been credited with lifting millions out of poverty, but for the vast majority that means been just enough to exploit them and foster unrealistic expectations. The root of the problem, the root of all evil in the modern world, is not money, but capitalism. If you care to trace any of our problems, that's where you'll be led.
That's the inconvenient and unpopular truth. It's capitalism that has to be de-sexed. But it seems that's not going to happen voluntarily; rather, economic collapse will be part of a overall collapse that it has precipitated.
Posted by Mitchell, Saturday, 18 June 2011 7:52:50 PM
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I agree with you entirely Mitchell that there is much wrong with western civilisation that requires a great deal of overhauling, primarily our economic systems.

But you cannot deny that, as imperfect as it is, western civilisation is superior to the current alternatives available on the planet.

We are the current custodians of human history, science and technology, human rights and justice,.........

And what a tragedy it would be for that to be lost for ever through over population generated political instability, partly generated by developing nations, because we were to afraid to speak up lest we offend them in favour of indulging in self hatred.

But I disagree with you that over population is not a primary problem. It has been building throughout human history long before modern capitalism came into existence.

If you want to blame anything for over population then you should look to agriculture which arose several thousand years ago.

If the west halved its consumption and stopped taking resources from the developing world then I have little doubt that third world population growth would continue largely unabated.

The only difference would probably be that the developing world would have a growing upper and middle class still exploiting a much larger underclass in their own societies.
Posted by Mr Windy, Saturday, 18 June 2011 8:25:26 PM
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Let us dispense with my 3 alternate user names.

May name is Greg.
Posted by Mr Windy, Saturday, 18 June 2011 8:28:56 PM
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Greg,

"We are currently the custodians of....human rights and justice."

"We", in many cases, are the impediment to human rights and justice in the third world through our greed, manipulation and exploitation.

The current uprisings in the Arab world are in part a revolt against structural adjustments implemented at the behest of the Western institutions of the IMF and World Bank, which funnelled profits away from ordinary people into the pockets of the ruling elite and the corporate elite beyond borders.

It is a capitalist construct that seeks to relieve the third world of its autonomy.
Posted by Poirot, Saturday, 18 June 2011 8:54:54 PM
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OK then answer this Poirot.

If the west is doing so comprehensively bad for human rights and justice, then would you be comfortable for the west to bow out of the UN and put it in the hands of the Arab world, Asia, Africa and South America?

The fact is that there is a faction in the west that is doing all the bad things. It is the economic and business lobby. But it is at loggerheads with a rival lobby - the scientific and justice etc lobby.

But to condemn the west entirely based on the activities of one lobby within it is not to do it justice.
Posted by Mr Windy, Saturday, 18 June 2011 9:08:13 PM
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Greg:
<We are the current custodians of human history, science and technology, human rights and justice>
History is just another genre of fiction. Science and technology, market-driven as they are, are part of the problem. Our vaunted human rights are empty rhetoric, as is our "justice". Where's the justice or observation of human rights in our simultaneously condoning starvation and obscene wealth? Our human rights are like our history, just another form of nationalism--the nice things we say about our selves and observe in the breech.
Beneath all the rhetoric, even at its best Westernism does not offer quality of life, just a tacky empty dream that we wake up from too late in life and find ultimately soul-destroying--unless we've gathered sufficient hubris to go on self-deluded right up to the end.
<If you want to blame anything for over population then you should look to agriculture which arose several thousand years ago>

It's only since the agricultural and industrial revolutions, fuelled by capitalism, that we see a j-curve in population growth, and the much steeper increase in developing countries' populations is a direct effect of capitalist exploitation.
But I have nothing else to say on the subject, only that if you want to tackle population you have to address the system that generates it:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Wallerstein#The_World-syste
Posted by Mitchell, Saturday, 18 June 2011 9:36:53 PM
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Mr Windy "If you want to blame anything for over population then you should look to agriculture which arose several thousand years ago."

imho one significant contributor to over population is modern medicines and medical / health practices.

With the introduction of modern medicine and pharmecueticals plus piped sewers, we (the western developed world) has worked hard at eliminating those things which as on population numbers as "balance factors", This success being reflected in reduced infant mortality rates and extended life expectancy.

These products and medical skills (albeit sewers were popular in a few places in the ancient world) have been exported around the world to places where womens awareness and position in societies is subordinate to a paternalistic / religious authority which see its continuation as being protected by large numbers of offspring.

Agriculture and cheap food is a contributory influence but I doubt it has been as significant as the medicines and hygiene practices
Posted by Col Rouge, Saturday, 18 June 2011 10:12:28 PM
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*and the much steeper increase in developing countries' populations is a direct effect of capitalist exploitation.*

Not so Squeers, they simply used to starve, which kept the population
in check. Then we started sending them boatloads of food, plane
loads of vaccines and of course they did what people do. We just
forgot the family planning, the dear old Catholic Church made
sure of that. What we did do wrong was to try and shove our
religion down their throats, one way or another.
Posted by Yabby, Saturday, 18 June 2011 10:17:34 PM
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Col

I completely disagree that modern medicine is responsible. Let's not forget that the benefits of modern medicine are mostly for the developed world. And considering that contraception is one of the plethora of treatments available, not only do people enjoy a far better quality of life, but the Malthusian curse has been lifted.
Posted by Fester, Saturday, 18 June 2011 10:35:16 PM
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Fester "but the Malthusian curse has been lifted."

What makes you so sure of that?

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Saturday, 18 June 2011 11:21:24 PM
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"Malthusian curse"

The Malthusian curse was merely delayed and is now imminent!

"imho one significant contributor to over population is modern medicines and medical / health practices"

Very clearly the major western contribution to over population in developing countries. Indeed underpinned by western christian ideology.
Posted by Boylesy, Saturday, 18 June 2011 11:23:36 PM
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Fester “I completely disagree that modern medicine is responsible.”

http://www.healthmetricsandevaluation.org/tools/data-visualization/neonatal-postneonatal-childhood-and-under-5-mortality-rates-country-globa-0

1970 to 2010 child mortality rates have dropped significantly.

(although the above would be contradicted for Kenya by the following
http://users.ictp.it/~eee/files/mutunga1.pdf
but for whatever reason, I doubt the latter in favour of the former because the former is worldwide, not parochial.

I believe there could be 3 causes

I suggested two causes:

Improved medications (including for children)
Improved hygiene

Improved food supplies – which is something I think Mr Windy brought up but which I do not think is that significant but I would, on reflection, not discount it completely.. maybe not so much food supply but food diet/quality, again developed from improved knowledge

(which is strangely ignored in some developed counties - where high fat diets are reducing average life expectancy)

What else would you suggest?

The rate of decline is only over 40 years… compare that line to a 200 year analysis is what we really need… as supplied in http://charleskenny.blogs.com/weblog/files/histinf.pdf

150 years of comparison and a rate of 200 per thousand in 1850 down to 50 in 2000 world wide.

Longevity
USA 1900 average age at death was 50
USA 1900 average age at death was around 73
But what produces increases in longevity is the elimination of diseases and maladies which cause death, including cures for cancers and surgery for heart problems etc. things which did not exist 50 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
is more general and goes back longer but the trend is upward

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/human_pop/human_pop.html
this is interesting

note I originally did suggest "hygiene"

this article highlights improvements due to

1800 – use of soap (hygiene)

1870 – improved sanitation (sewers) = (hygiene)

1980 ish – modern medicines and antibiotics….

Fester, I think my research support my original post
Posted by Col Rouge, Sunday, 19 June 2011 1:11:57 AM
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We may be looking at this problem from the wrong perspective.

From global population stats, China, India and Indonesia (#4) make up 40.24% of world population - three major non-Christian nations, including the most populous Islamic nation.

The U.S. is #3 with 4.5%.

26 nations make up 75.11% (of which France, U.K. and Italy are #s 21-23), and thus, excluding the above three second world nations and their 40.24%, the remaining top 23 nations/26 are 34.87%. These 23 include the major European nations.

Oz is #50, with 0.33% (22.6M). (Indonesia is 10.5x Oz pop.)

So, who has what to fear from whom? Is western decadence perhaps almost a thing of the past?

China holds a large chunk of U.S. debt, has aid and infrastructure projects happening all around the world (the developing world), is industrialising at a rate of knots, is conserving its own natural resources, has long term contracts in place for supply of scarce natural resources from Oz, among others, has just built an enormous aircraft carrier and is planning to build several more, and has 19.34% of world population.

It is indeed fortunate that our world's largest nations appear not to be overly aggressive, but who can foretell attitudes when natural resources become scarce and more expensive. Whose foot may then be wearing the boot?

Given the splendid job the current First World (now on a slender thread) has done with the world's natural capital and the world's financial system (and at whose principal interest), someone else may think it's coming time for others to have a go - a joint venture perhaps?

If the west does not try sharing, and embracing our numerous others, it may later have little choice, and, concomitantly, a somewhat reduced status in world affairs. Of course, the U.S. and Russia wouldn't take kindly to being ushered to the backbenches, so diplomacy will have to reach some substantial new highs.

Who is going to feed who?
Posted by Saltpetre, Sunday, 19 June 2011 2:44:59 AM
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Saltpetre,

Your point regarding the probable reduced status of the West in world affairs - the backbench status - brought to mind Mr Windy's comment that
"We are the current custodians of human history, science and technology, human rights and justice...."

The key word here is "current" because there is nothing surer than the probability that Western domination will come to an end. A swift glance at history will reveal that after the decline of the Roman Empire, Europe regressed and stalled. It was left to the Islamic world to gather and store ancient knowledge. Much of antiquity's treasures are only now in our possession because of libraries established in places like Islamic Cordoba in Spain and Baghdad, amongst others.

They were then the "current" custodians of human history pertaining to their part of the world.
Posted by Poirot, Sunday, 19 June 2011 7:56:36 AM
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Col

Leaving aside the question of whether alleviating a huge amount of human suffering is a good thing or not, your stance is not supported by the evidence. If you were correct, you would expect to see higher fertility rates correlating with better access to modern medicine. But a comparison of per capita gdp and fertility would suggest that the opposite is the case.

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/correlation.aspx?v1=67&v2=31&y=2004

The only exceptions for countries with gdp greater than $15000 are The Bahamas, Israel, Kuwait, Qatar and The United Arab Emirates. Islamic teaching, like Catholocism, discourages medical contraception, so in the case of Islamic countries at least, it is the case that the population is growing because the use of modern medicine is discouraged. The exception to this is Iran, which has family planning as a national policy. Amongst countries with per capita gdp below $5000 there are high fertility rates, the only exceptions being countries with birth control programs (i.e. modern medicine in action), and those countries suffering Malthusian corrections.

By your reasoning Col, I should be observing the opposite.
Posted by Fester, Sunday, 19 June 2011 9:22:24 AM
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The problem Poirot is that this time, the human race is so far into ecological over shoot and our civilistion is so global and interconnected, that political instability and regression of human civilisation will be global.

This time there is no other independnant and insulated civilisation that can take on the mantle of custodian when the west declines.

In fact all other parallel civilisations, such as China, are at even greater risk than the west to collapse and regression.
Posted by Boylesy, Sunday, 19 June 2011 10:23:33 AM
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Was listening to an interesting interview on the 7:30 Report of an American climate change scientist or activist and and Australian climate scientist.....can't remember their names.

One of them commented that the global response to climate change will be like the response to Hitler.

We will collectively dither and deny the problem to the very last possible momentum when we will simply be forced to act in a draconian way.

The American commented that the main participants in dithering and denying on climate change in the US have taken to denying the very validity of science beyond all reason.

This is how it will be with end up being with over population most likely. Instead of family planning and contraception, or even a biological vector of some sort, we will end up with decline of democratic freedom and enforced 1 or 2 child policies across the globe.
Posted by Boylesy, Sunday, 19 June 2011 10:36:44 AM
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*It was left to the Islamic world to gather and store ancient knowledge.*

Hang on Poirot. Last time I checked both Islam and Christianity
have done their share of book burning. The conflicts between secular
and more fanatical religious types have gone on in both religions.

I really don't think that the West needs to go on any guilt trips.
It just seems to be part of human nature that people exploit others
when they can. Just look how the Bantu treat the pygmies in Africa
for instance.

In fact Poirot, if we were in Africa, I might have bought you
for about 10 cows of lobolla paid to your family. I'd be sitting
outside my round hut in the sunshine, smoking my pipe with my
friends whilst you were out tending the fields and doing the work,
life would be a breeze :)
Posted by Yabby, Sunday, 19 June 2011 1:41:10 PM
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I often wonder if the medical fraternity, particularly that part of it that works in the developing countries, considers its wider responsibilities when it comes to the long term effects it has on over population and long term suffering.

Perhaps they, like the economic lobby, have medical tunnel vision.
Posted by Boylesy, Sunday, 19 June 2011 2:12:51 PM
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Yabby,

Sorry, you fail today's history test.

http://www.suite101.com/content/book-review-pathfinders-the-golden-age-of-arabic-science-a341758

I'm not suggesting that the West indulge in a guilt trip over the fact that the Islamic world preserved much ancient knowledge - that's just the way it was.

Btw, while you and the other tribal bozos were sitting smoking in the hut, us women would be gossiping and laughing about your manhood and the fact that your buns weren't what they used to be....sad, but true.
Posted by Poirot, Sunday, 19 June 2011 2:50:22 PM
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Poirot, if you do a bit more homework, you will find that a number
if Islamic libraries too, were burned down by their fundamentalists.

Whilst you would be concerned about buns, let me point out that
without a modern bra, those breasts might be rather droopy too :)
Posted by Yabby, Sunday, 19 June 2011 2:58:12 PM
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Yabby,

It's not a blame game...just because humans have a penchant for burning libraries/written knowledge. It doesn't alter the fact that the Islamic world at that particular juncture in history was a repository and custodian of much ancient knowledge....nothing to argue about.

RE: drooping breasts - you're looking at things through a trussed-up Western eye. I'm sure the fellas over there prefer things to be "natural".
Posted by Poirot, Sunday, 19 June 2011 3:10:47 PM
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Poirot, on both sides, ie Christianity and Islam, progress was made
by thinking people in understanding the world. On both sides, it
was usually the religious who tried to destroy that information,
if it contradicted their particular interpretation of the holy
book of the day. Yes, smart people lived in the Islamic world
and smart people lived in the Christian world, how information was
stored and for how long, really came down to how fanatical the
religious amongst them were.

As for droopy breasts, I'll stick to the evolutionary interpretation.
Perky breasts represent youth and fertility, I've yet to see men
anywhere knock em back. I bet even your partner checks out the younger
models around, when he thinks that you arn't looking. Its just good
old instinct at work.
Posted by Yabby, Sunday, 19 June 2011 3:37:33 PM
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I hope you guys don't mind but I read an interesting article on this
topic in The New York Times some time back anyway you'll get the gist of it:

"Since when do we respond by burning things that upset us? For millenia actually. Christians were burned for years and they didn't enjoy it. There was Joan of Arc. There were even people who thought the Harry Potter books were the "devils text."

"Books are supposed to be the repository of history and cultural memory and the ink on their pages will last for generations. But light a match - there goes the library of Alexandria. I've always hoped that book burning would be one of these things we'd leave behind once we became more enlightened. Like once they installed indoor plumbing in your home. I think that book burning is always a sign that something has gone awry in our civilization."

The author goes on to make the point that its impossible to boil any religion down to a single sentence. He was referring to Pastor Jones and others who wanted to burn the Koran in the US. To say, "Christianity is purely a religion of peace," is as great a fallacy as to say "Islam is founded on hatred."

The point was a terrific one.

As for saggy breasts? There's the joke about a female journalist seeking the cause of mad cow disease, interviewing a farmer in the UK. The farmer asked the reporter, "Do you know that a bull mounts a cow once a year?" The reporter obviously embarrassed answered,
"Well, what's that got to do with mad cow disease?" The farmer patiently replied, "And madam, do you know that we milk a cow twice a day?" The reporter getting angry says, "What's your point?"

The farmer sighed and said, "I'm getting to the point. Just imagine if I was playing with your tits twice a day...and only screwing you once a year, wouldn't you get mad?" The story wasn't published.
Posted by Lexi, Sunday, 19 June 2011 7:03:26 PM
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Everyone ages. The disparaging comments about women appear rather hypocritical when one considers men lose their appeal when older also.
Posted by Ammonite, Monday, 20 June 2011 8:11:55 AM
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Ammonite,

Don't mind Yabby, he's just having a go....besides, my appeal(s) are doing just fine :)
Posted by Poirot, Monday, 20 June 2011 8:19:14 AM
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Lexi, great post and I loved the story! It just shows that farmers
are very practical people :)

Ammonite needs to go back to bed and try getting out the other
side, for clearly this morning it was once again the wrong side.
Posted by Yabby, Monday, 20 June 2011 9:02:53 AM
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Poirot

You are, of course correct, the crustacean does like to muddy the water.

:P

Yabby - there is no wrong side to my bed...
Posted by Ammonite, Monday, 20 June 2011 9:10:40 AM
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So who agrees that the global over population and political instability problem may get serious enough to warrant action beyond voluntary use of contrception and family planning services?
Posted by Boylesy, Monday, 20 June 2011 10:17:50 AM
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Poirot, You are the very soul of wit. Thunderheads roll back, floods recede, and the very tide itself stands in awe.

Ammonite, With no wrong side to your bed you are indeed fortunate. Any chance you would share your secret?

Boylesy, Those with perky breasts and handsome buns can stay - by popular consensus.

Meanwhile, I am thinking of migrating to an African village, to sit around that fire, smoking and contemplating my navel, while buxom beauties tend the cooking pots. Blissfully, missionary stew infusing my very being, a contentment of ages is freed to roam on rainbows o'er every horizon beyond.

Future shock - jolted back to reality, to foist the troubles of the world back onto gnarled and weather-worn shoulders. Visions of Easter Island, and of a vast treeless, desolate, dusty and eroded expanse from sea to grey-brown sea.

Alternate vision: Wall to wall McDonalds, rich, fast fatty foods, obesity rife - decline of reproduction and life expectancy; GBH, cocaine, heroin, ice, meth - decline of reproduction and life expectancy; antibiotic overuse, super-virus, multiresistant staph and coccidioses - decline of reproduction and life expectancy; pioneering deep-ocean drilling, tanker rupture, sea-floor rupture, chemical plant explosion, nuclear plant meltdown, atmospheric and marine ecosystem collapse - decline of reproduction and life expectancy; global civil unrest, food riots, water riots -decline of reproduction and life expectancy; NASA launch of "Diaspora I", and then "II" and "III". A million years, possibly two, a green tinge upon the landscape, sky from vermilion burgeoning azure, emergence from mountain bunkers to behold a strange new vision of possibility. Naive, hopeful, children of a mutant infinity.

A far off siren, a strange unrecognised voice, "Asteroid Warning!".
Posted by Saltpetre, Monday, 20 June 2011 12:52:45 PM
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There sure have been a lot of suggestions on how to reduce the population and we could get a few more from the bible such as the plagues of Egypt and deaths of all the first born, the great flood etc.
We came up with a conscription system for the Vietnam war which resulted in the deaths of quite a lot of people. What about getting rid of all those with the most demerit points on their driving licences (this would only work in the countries where people have cars), all those born on a certain date, all those with the most money (they have more to leave to the rest of us and it would help solve the housing shortage), all the fat ones (they take up more space).
Maybe the UN could conduct a competition and award prizes for all the best suggestions on who to bump off and how to bump them off.
I think the idea of eating the dead is bad, we must get away from all this meat eating as producing meat is not an efficient use of resources.
Posted by Peace, Monday, 20 June 2011 7:59:41 PM
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<So who agrees that the global over population and political instability problem may get serious enough to warrant action beyond voluntary use of contrception and family planning services?>

Boylesy

You have to take the approach that Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan took with Mikhail Gorbachev. Sell the benefits of change as those benefits are readily apparent wherever they have been adopted. All the bull about the ageing catastrophe resultant from becoming a stable population is insignificant in comparison with the infrastructure shortfalls, environmental degradation and human misery and deprivation resultant from high population growth. What of the 400 million Indonesians projected for mid century? Will they threaten Australia? More likely the country will be a dysfunctional mess, but I suspect that the Indonesian Government will have a family planning program long before then.
Posted by Fester, Monday, 20 June 2011 10:16:55 PM
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Peace, Peace, Peace........dear or dear.

The irrational hand waving of hysterical anthropocentrists like your self is SOOOOOO tiresome.

No one has suggested actively bumping folks off as a way to deal rapidly with over population.

But you can be sure that, if we allow population growth to continue on its current trajectory, that bumping people off will be precisely what we will end up doing through war and genocide, more so in the developing world than in the west perhaps.

Ohhh it will be labeled as ethnic cleansing, human rights abuses, despotic regimes blah, blah, blah. But at its heart it will be caused by to many people in mortal combat over to few resources as occurs among countless other animal populations.

You can be mature and intelligent enough to face this harsh reality or you can go on sticking your head in the sand and pretend that it isn't happening or wont happen. As I am sure the previous generations did when Hitler began his ascendancy.
Posted by Boylesy, Monday, 20 June 2011 10:21:10 PM
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"but I suspect that the Indonesian Government will have a family planning program long before then."

More likely Indonesia will become a near failed state with a ruling class and an under class much like Libya.

Periodically they will send in their armed forces to do a bit of culling when the under class grows too big and politically restless.
Posted by Boylesy, Monday, 20 June 2011 10:24:40 PM
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Watch out Yabby, if you try to defend yourself with common sense and reason, by challenging the bullying innuendos and attacks of harpies, you will only be accused of displaying some personality disorder.

Saltpetre offers a couple of visions of the future….

Your projections are about 6-7 billion options short on alternatives, Saltpetre

Life is chaos… don’t pretend it will ever be different

However, the hubris of so called “scientists” groveling for climate change grants and pretending they can accurately predict some abyss into which mankind is about to fall is as unreal as the notion that population numbers will cause the ultimate decline and extinction of humanity.

Fact, this world has a self correcting process. Scarcity of land or grazing causes fertility to decline in animal species – we think we have fixed that by intervention in the natural order of human existence. I do believe, however, that anyone who thinks the numbers if humans will not decline if food sources of and shelter are reduced is a fool. Ultimately people will not be able to “breed” when they lack the basic resources to support their offspring, alternatively in the dilemma and need for food, they will kill their offspring, at birth to survive.

None of this is a pretty picture for the individuals involved but we are not talking about individuals … The numbers of humans in the world is a species issue, addressing species you cannot be specific to individuals but I will speculate

Given equal access to limited resources – it will be the fittest who survive and the unfittest who will perish.
This is the way of the world… for myself, if I try to see the issue in individual terms I end up with the conclusion:
What is important is to try ones best to be among the fittest and those who choose otherwise (the unfit) can suffer the consequences of their indolence and it will come to a point when people say “Welfare” with threatening population numbers can we afford it

And we are back to “survival of the fittest”
Posted by Col Rouge, Monday, 20 June 2011 11:35:26 PM
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And in that context the 'fittest' are always the most violent, and aggressive, the least compassionate and empathic and the least respecting of human rights!

Hence my reason for suggesting that we should consider a biological means of global fertility control even if it infringes a little on one particular human right of freedom to procreate.

Is it actually a human right or a responsibility?
Posted by Boylesy, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 1:26:00 AM
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Boysley “the 'fittest' are always the most violent, and aggressive, the least compassionate and empathic and the least respecting of human rights!”

Ah “and the meek will inherit the earth”

Ain’t gonna happen….. we both know that

When it comes down to “rights and responsibilities”

“Rights” always start at home and “responsibilities” always start with someone else…. That’s human nature

That said, plenty of the “unfit” (the welfare cases, social parasites, teen mothers, long term unemployed, organized crime gangs, the BLF and dockers and painters union members, labor party voters etc) can be more violent and aggressive and least compassionate or empathic and least respecting of human rights) as those who are “fittest”

It is why we have laws and prisons

Stupidity only reduces aggression when cognitive ability is seriously impaired

and for the intuitive, “survival as one of the fittest” can be secured by presenting something of value to others, which comes down to an exercise in marketing and persuasion more than any physical ability.

In this debate, “Chaos” and the laws of unintended consequences will always prevail over emotion, fairness and reason
Posted by Col Rouge, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 1:53:52 AM
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Yabby,

I'd give you a little more kudos for engaging others in a "balanced" manner.

The law of unintended consequences also takes care of the "fittest". History is littered with "colossal wrecks".

http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_percy/672/
Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 9:09:35 AM
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That said, plenty of the “unfit” (the welfare cases, social parasites, teen mothers, long term unemployed, organized crime gangs, the BLF and dockers and painters union members, labor party voters etc) can be more violent and aggressive and least compassionate or empathic and least respecting of human rights) as those who are “fittest”

The only reason that there is not a Libyan levels of violence in our society is that:

1) Our law enforcement systems are good enough that people know they will end up in gaol if they step out of line.

2) Most can get what they want without resorting to violence.

However this always breaks down when the number of people exceeds the supply of resources and wealth. And particularly when peak oil starts biting hard.
Posted by GregaryB, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 9:19:07 AM
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Poirot

That poem deserves the 'light' of the OLO blog:

"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Darwin's "Survival of the Fittest" continues to be misunderstood. For the terminally corporate-minded, the following article may be of some assistance.

By "survival of the fittest" Darwin did not mean that the toughest will survive, the swiftest will win, the smartest will succeed, or the biggest will dominate. What Darwin meant was something far different. Darwin said that the organism that best "fits" its environment had the best chance of survival; hence, the term "survival of the fittest." The plant or animal best "fitted" to its natural environment, according to Darwin, would be the most likely to survive and thrive. The tough West Texas shrubs and bushes thrived because they were best "fitted" (i.e., best adapted) to the harsh, dry climate of West Texas. These same plants transplanted to East Texas (a forested, high-rainfall area) would quickly succumb to competition from the rapidly growing pines and oaks of East Texas. The slow-growing, dwarf desert species of West Texas would not have a chance."

http://www.decisionanalyst.com/publ_art/survival.dai
Posted by Ammonite, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 10:29:10 AM
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Ammonite, the survival of predators is Dependant on their ability to kill their prey without mercy or empathy. And for herbivores the biggest and most aggressive males nearly always mate with the females.

Therefore in the vast majority of cases in the animal world, the 'fittest' are the biggest, strongest and most aggressive.

That is even true in our modern western survival in that the most aggressive and unscrupulous inevitably rise to the top as CEOs etc. It is just that the aggressiveness and violence is modified in accordance with the rules and laws of our society. A complex society cannot function if aggression is not modified and channeled into less destructive forms.

But as soon as western society starts breaking down, and particularly when we no longer have sufficient resources to adequately police an enlarged population, this will break down. More and more individuals will revert to conventional forms of aggression.
Posted by GregaryB, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 10:47:10 AM
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If a lion, for example, has an attack of conscience and suddenly decides that wilderbeast should be put down humanely or not at all by his kind then he and his pride will end up starving to death!
Posted by GregaryB, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 11:08:01 AM
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Ammonite “By "survival of the fittest" Darwin did not mean that the toughest will survive,”

Indeed he did not

Darwin viewed the “fittest” as also being the most adaptable to their environment and adaptable in a changing environments

Nothing is forever, yet we have a lot of people obsessed with the idea that “climate change” has to be prevented at all costs… some fools are even trying to impose taxes to fund such folly

One clue to adaptability can be gleaned from comments by Margaret Thatcher who observed the superiority of “adaptable libertarian capitalism” (to the rigidity of a :”collectivist” political philosophy)

"Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' is not above sudden, disturbing, movements. Since its inception, capitalism has known slumps and recessions, bubble and froth; no one has yet dis-invented the business cycle, and probably no one will; and what Schumpeter famously called the 'gales of creative destruction' still roar mightily from time to time. To lament these things is ultimately to lament the bracing blast of freedom itself."

I think Darwin, would have appreciated Schumpter’s observation.

It is a claimed we are going through a period of “climate change”.

I am less convinced that is a ‘fact’, more likely an "excuse"

However, pretending a carbon tax or other government imposed austerity measures will effect anything is plain hubris on the part of government

the world is in constant flux… the “fittest” are those most able to see/anticipate future changes and to position themselves, possibly adapting, to survive whatever may happen

someone previously wrote on this thread “History is littered with "colossal wrecks".”

Indeed it is

History is an all comprehensive record. It naturally includes the “wrecks of the inadaptable” partly as warnings to the surviving “adapters”

And you are right about east versus west texas… different species survive and a natural bio-diversity exists.

One thing human-kind has to work to ensure is the maintenance of that diversity. One of the “Colossal Wrecks” is the Irish potato famine, the product of a lack of diversity in the types of potato being planted.
Posted by Col Rouge, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 11:19:33 AM
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>> It is a claimed we are going through a period of “climate change”.

I am less convinced that is a ‘fact’, more likely an "excuse"

However, pretending a carbon tax or other government imposed austerity measures will effect anything is plain hubris on the part of government. <<

Ammonite, I doubt very much Margaret Thatcher was using climate change as an excuse or that her government was engaging in hubris.

Part of Margaret Thatcher’s address at the 2nd World Climate Conference, 1990:

“The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations.

Our ability to come together to stop or limit damage to the world's environment will be perhaps the greatest test of how far we can act as a world community. No-one should under-estimate the imagination that will be required, nor the scientific effort, nor the unprecedented co-operation we shall have to show. We shall need statesmanship of a rare order.

For two centuries, since the Age of the Enlightenment, we assumed that whatever the advance of science, whatever the economic development, whatever the increase in human numbers, the world would go on much the same. That was progress. And that was what we wanted.

Now we know that this is no longer true.

The IPCC report is a remarkable achievement. It is almost as difficult to get a large number of distinguished scientists to agree, as it is to get agreement from a group of politicians. As a scientist who became a politician, I am perhaps particularly qualified to make that observation! I know both worlds.

Of course, much more research is needed. We don't yet know all the answers. Some major uncertainties and doubts remain. No-one can yet say with (absolute) certainty that it is human activities which have caused the apparent increase in global average temperatures. The IPCC report is very careful on this point.”

cont'd
Posted by bonmot, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 1:05:04 PM
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(Margaret Thatcher cont’d)

“But the need for more research should not be an excuse for delaying much needed action now. There is already a clear case for precautionary action at an international level. The IPCC tells us that we can't repair the effects of past behaviour on our atmosphere as quickly and as easily as we might cleanse a stream or river. It will take, for example, until the second half of the next century, until the old age of my grandson, to repair the damage to the ozone layer above the Antarctic. And some of the gases we are adding to the global heat trap will endure in the Earth's atmosphere for just as long.

The IPCC tells us that, on present trends, the earth will warm up faster than at any time since the last ice age. Weather patterns could change so that what is now wet would become dry, and what is now dry would become wet. Rising seas could threaten the livelihood of that substantial part of the world's population which lives on or near coasts. The character and behaviour of plants would change, some for the better, some for worse. Some species of animals and plants would migrate to different zones or disappear for ever. Forests would die or move. And deserts would advance as green fields retreated.

And our uncertainties about climate change are not all in one direction. The IPCC report is very honest about the margins of error. Climate change may be less than predicted. But equally it may occur more quickly than the present computer models suggest. Should this happen it would be doubly disastrous were we to shirk the challenge now. I see the adoption of these policies as a sort of premium on insurance against fire, flood or other disaster. It may be cheaper or more cost-effective to take action now than to wait and find we have to pay much more later.”

To accomplish these tasks, we must not waste time and energy disputing the IPCC's report or debating the right machinery for making progress."
Posted by bonmot, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 1:09:28 PM
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Bonmot

You are preaching to the converted. I think you may be referring to some other poster or I have written a post without realising what I said and under another's name.

GregaryB

You have completely misunderstood the theory behind Darwin's survival of the fittest.

Please try harder:

" 8. Are evolution and "survival of the fittest" the same thing?

Evolution and "survival of the fittest" are not the same thing. Evolution refers to the cumulative changes in a population or species through time. "Survival of the fittest" is a popular term that refers to the process of natural selection, a mechanism that drives evolutionary change. Natural selection works by giving individuals who are better adapted to a given set of environmental conditions an advantage over those that are not as well adapted. Survival of the fittest usually makes one think of the biggest, strongest, or smartest individuals being the winners, but in a biological sense, evolutionary fitness refers to the ability to survive and reproduce in a particular environment. Popular interpretations of "survival of the fittest" typically ignore the importance of both reproduction and cooperation. To survive but not pass on one's genes to the next generation is to be biologically unfit. And many organisms are the "fittest" because they cooperate with other organisms, rather than competing with them."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/faq/cat01.html

Therefore, a lion will not "suddenly develop" empathy for its prey. Anymore than homo sapiens' ancestors held any idea of compassion towards the animals they fed upon. With greater intellect comes greater awareness of the world around us, not all people are equal in this awareness, hence we have overpopulated, used up most of our resources and, unlike many 'lesser' species are fouling our own nests.

I often think that what we have in IQ we lose in an underdeveloped EQ.
Posted by Ammonite, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 1:41:28 PM
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Appologies for the confusion Ammonite.

Col Rouge was making the point to you about, well ... just read his reply.

All I'm saying is that perhaps Col wears rose coloured glasses.
A point not lost in your enlightening thread, thanks.
Posted by bonmot, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 1:59:27 PM
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Bonmot

:D

I did go back and reread Col's response, I got distracted when I reached the words "Margaret Thatcher", tried again.... thanks for your posts.

Colder than a Yeti's testicles in the Ranges today. Time to curl up by the heater with a book.
Posted by Ammonite, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 2:22:33 PM
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Ammonite I don't think I misunderstand natural selection and 'fitness' at all!

So are you seriously going to look me in the face and argue that a lion that feels empathy for its prey and is therefore reluctant to kill it is equally fit as a lion that feels no empathy and kills without mercy or hestiation?

Some how I don't think such a notion would withstand scientific scrutiny.

Put humans in a situation where there are to many mouths and not enough food and the exact same principle will hold.

In some circumstances cooperation and sharing will simply result in everyone taking longer to starve to death.
Posted by GregaryB, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 3:01:57 PM
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Let's look at lions from a perspective other than predator/prey relationships.

What about within a pride and between prides?

Within a pride there may be much cooperation in order to ensure mutual survival.

But relationships between prides is rarely much different to the predator/prey relationship.

If 2-3 seperate prides of lions decide to show each other compassion and share a kill between all of them, then none of them will ever get sufficient to eat and none will survive long term.
Posted by Mr Windy, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 3:19:08 PM
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Mr Windy

I agree completely. Part of a pride or pack, animals cooperate, this can be extended to animals with whom we share our lives, having been protected by my German Shepherd from a couple of yobbos a number of years ago.

Greg

I disagree with you completely and fundamentally. Self interest only works in the short term. To our possible demise.
Posted by Ammonite, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 3:39:11 PM
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@GregaryB: I don't think I misunderstand natural selection and 'fitness' at all!

There was an book written about your particular miss understanding, written because it was very common at one time. Its called The Selfish Gene, by none other than Richard Dawkins. Yabby mentioned it above. I was going to suggest you try and find a copy, but it turns out I can make it easier than that:

http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/selfishgene-dowkins.pdf

@GregaryB: So are you seriously going to look me in the face and argue that a lion that feels empathy for its prey and is therefore reluctant to kill it is equally fit as a lion that feels no empathy and kills without mercy or hestiation?

It is possible. The world is never as simple as you might think.

Imagine a Lioness with a super strong maternal instinct. That would serve her well normally, but lets say her pride collapses, leaving her with no opportunity to breed. Out of desperation to fulfil an urge that has no outlet she might adopt the young of one of her normal prey as a surrogate cub. The thing is, there are documented instances of lionesses doing just this.

I don't really know the real reason she did it of course, but this sort of thing is not uncommon. Instincts and behaviours that enhance fitness in one environment can often be maladaptive in another. It is no different to a a moth being drawn to a flame. Notice how the size of the brain makes no difference to the outcome. Instincts always win, even when they aren't appropriate.

Humans that breeding themselves into an inescapable corner is an example of the same thing, and isn't uncommon. Our recent history is replete with examples resource exhaustion, ecosystem collapse, starvation, and going back to our very close cousins - extinction. Why anybody imagines we will behave any different from our forefathers of 50 or 100 generations ago is a mystery to me.
Posted by rstuart, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 4:17:43 PM
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Dear rstuart,

Population growth represents one of the most critical social problems in the modern world with potential consequences in terms of sheer human misery that are almost unimaginable. How many million die every year from the effects of starvation, and at least many more are undernourished and malnourished and much of the human population lives in conditions of poverty or hardship - and yet billions more births will occur before the end of the century and these will take place in the world's poorest countries. Even for the richer nations, population growth presents problems. No natural environment can withstand an infinite increase in the animal or plant population that it supports. It is questionable whether the planet can continue to provide the food and other raw materials that huge increases in the human population will require, or whether it can tolerate the pollution caused by ever expanding industrial production.

As Tor Hundloe tell us in his book, "From Buddha to Bono: Seeking Sustainability,":

"Humans have the intelligence, the tools, and the natural resources to provide for a good, sustainable life as long as there are not so many humans that we exceed the globe's carrying capacity. All the evidence suggests that we must turn around population growth and aim for a much smaller population than we have today (9 billion and growing)."
Posted by Lexi, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 4:39:53 PM
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Mr Windy / Gregaryb / boylesy are one and the same person......so I am not clear how you can agree with Mr Windy but disagree with Greg.

We are talking about the behavior of Lebs, skips and Somalians here in the context of a break down of law and order and food shortages.

It would be equivalent to the merciless behavioral relationship between different prides of lions.

Only works in the short term.......well individual lions only ever motivated by short term gains as are a great many humans. Evolution and natural selection is only ever achieves the short term survival of any adequately fit individual long enough to inseminate a female. Beyond that the individual is irrelevant.
Posted by Mr Windy, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 5:31:59 PM
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"Imagine a Lioness with a super strong maternal instinct. That would serve her well normally, but lets say her pride collapses, leaving her with no opportunity to breed. Out of desperation to fulfil an urge that has no outlet she might adopt the young of one of her normal prey as a surrogate cub. The thing is, there are documented instances of lionesses doing just this."

Might be an interesting side effect of instincts and behavioural physiology but it does nothing to further the survival of her genes.

As is the case with homosexuality in humans.
Posted by Mr Windy, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 5:35:34 PM
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A more fit lioness is such a situation would be better served to try and gain acceptance into another pride of lions.
Posted by Mr Windy, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 5:37:04 PM
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And indeed a lioness that had the necessary social skills to enable her to gain acceptance by another pride of lions, should her own pride be wiped out, would add a clear survival advantage to her species.

Compared to a lioness that remains alone and adopts the yound of another species as a surrogate to her materhnal instincts.
Posted by Boylesy, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 5:41:00 PM
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Well the smart pride of lions would lay about in the sun enjoying
themselves. They'd keep an eye on the herd and make sure they were
doing well. They would thin down the excess population to suit
the amount of grass available. They'd have lots of sex to enjoy
life, but make sure that there were no more lions then the herd
could feed. Life would be a breeze for both lions and the herd.

Sadly humans have not yet evolved to that kind of intelligence.
Posted by Yabby, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 8:40:59 PM
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Boylesy
Many life forms have become extinct over the life of our little planet and the planet survived. Humans are just another life form,but different in that we have the power to understand how we are destroying the natural resources which make it possible for us to exist. I am confident that the planet will look after itself even if if has to get rid of us.
Posted by Peace, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 10:01:01 PM
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Dear Peace,

The technology of large-scale industrialisation poses two major problems. First, it generates pollution of the natural environment,
threatening or destroying life in a chain reaction that can run from the tiniest microorganism to human beings. Second it depletes natural resources such as wood, oil, and minerals, many of which are in short
supply and cannot be replaced. The question that arises is whether a world population that will keep on growing and this produce many more people to consume and pollute - perhaps more profligately than they do at present - can be supported by the environment?

As our "needs" increase, our capacity for exploitation expands. We are so used to exploiting natural resources and dumping our waste products into the environment that we frequently forget that resources
are limited and exhaustible and that pollution can disrupt the ecological balance on which our survival depends.
Posted by Lexi, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 10:33:45 PM
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"Many life forms have become extinct over the life of our little planet and the planet survived. Humans are just another life form,but different in that we have the power to understand how we are destroying the natural resources which make it possible for us to exist. I am confident that the planet will look after itself even if if has to get rid of us."

I agree entirely with you.

But it would be a damn shame for all the good things that human beings have achieved, such as our insights into the hidden working of the cosmos and life, to be lost forever through the greed and short sightedness of probably a minority of us.

Judging by the overwhelming positive response to Dick Smith and the over population issue.
Posted by Boylesy, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 11:07:13 PM
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@GregaryB: Therefore in the vast majority of cases in the animal world, the 'fittest' are the biggest, strongest and most aggressive.

I just came across another counter example. It is possible to set up an environment where the weakest, least aggressive individuals of a species are favoured:

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/06/evolving-bacteria-through-a-game-of-rock-paper-scissors.ars
Posted by rstuart, Wednesday, 22 June 2011 1:59:32 PM
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"I just came across another counter example. It is possible to set up an environment where the weakest, least aggressive individuals of a species are favoured:"

If there are indeed genuine examples of this then it is the rare exception rather than the rule.
Posted by Boylesy, Wednesday, 22 June 2011 3:59:05 PM
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At the moment I suppose the bankers and weapons manufacturers are the people who have the most power in the human race and they do not seem to be using the power wisely. They will retain this power until other humans with a different set of values removes it from them.
Unless we become smart enough to live in harmony with our planet we may not be around for long enough to learn from our mistakes, one of the mistakes is too many humans.
Posted by Peace, Wednesday, 22 June 2011 6:20:59 PM
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As the survival of mankind - in a world reasonably intact and worthy of habitation - would appear to rely on co-operation and compromise, it would seem that "Natural Selection" in our case would be best to operate in favour of clear thinking rather than the application of brute force. History will of course reveal the outcome of the inevitable contest between these two competing fundamental valencies of Man's underlying "nature".

The solution to world overpopulation may be as simple as "connecting" with the breadth of mankind, and "communicating". As profound as man's capacity is for selfishness, there is good reason to believe that mankind shares an even greater capacity for compassion and understanding, when sharing a common challenge. Our current challenge may be the greatest opportunity for the employment of "group think" in the inglorious history of mankind, and perhaps an ultimate opportunity for redemption.
Posted by Saltpetre, Wednesday, 22 June 2011 6:29:36 PM
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Civilisation is not an ultimate goal of evolution and, from a biological perspective, it is irrlevant to the process of evolution whether humans survive as a part a complex enlightened civilisation or as bands of savages constantly waring with each.

Civilisations have developed as a response to growing numbers of people in a given region and the need to regulate access to limited resources.

Every civilisation to date has collapsed when the number of humans has grown to the point of destabilising it. Humans have then returned to bands of savages for an extended period of time until the ecological damage has been repaired and the region can once again sustain larger numbers. Or the remaining humans have simply moved on to other areas.

What is at issue here is not the survival of the human race, but the survival of western civilisation that we all value reagrdless of its many faults.
Posted by Boylesy, Thursday, 23 June 2011 2:11:18 AM
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Boylesy "Civilisation is not an ultimate goal of evolution"

No point in beating around the bush... that is the BIG question....

"The ultimate goal of evolution"?

I think in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (or whatever) the answer was 4
Posted by Col Rouge, Thursday, 23 June 2011 10:02:59 AM
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@Boylesy: If there are indeed genuine examples of this then it is the rare exception rather than the rule.

No it's not even rare. Although it is common mammals for males to be big and aggressive, males in other phyla adopt different strategies. Spiders are a well known for the males being much smaller than the females. If you count meekly offering themselves up as lunch to their lady friends as being aggressive, then I guess they are aggressive. Sharks are another example, as are crocodiles.

Survival of the fittest really is defined in terms of the environment. Take the example trying to define the "best" car. Your insistence that it survival of the fittest means the survival of the most biggest or most aggressive is like saying the best car is always the biggest and fastest. That is a naive, almost school-boyish view. The environment the car must fit into defines what is best, and in rare cases that does mean the biggest and fastest, but far more often it means the safest, or the most economical, or the most convenient in tight city spaces, or the one with the most cargo capacity ...
Posted by rstuart, Thursday, 23 June 2011 11:08:36 AM
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rstuart you have this whole evolution thing arse about with the examples you have cited.

You need to view the size of males spiders in relation to females spiders in terms of the likely success of copulation. A male spider being as large as a females spider would almost certainly result in less success in copulation due to the female spider being more likely to view the male as an aggressor. And it is not universally the case that females spiders are larger than males anyway, e.g. with wolf spiders both sexes are roughly the same size.

What about males spiders relative to other males spiders. Most animal species fight for the right to copulate and hence the bigger more aggressive spider will always win.

Male crocodiles also fight between each other for territory and the right to copulate with females within their territory. The bigger more aggressive males get the prime territories and copulate with the most females.

Don't know about sharks though.
Posted by Boylesy, Thursday, 23 June 2011 11:21:54 AM
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@Boylesy: rstuart you have this whole evolution thing arse about with the examples you have cited.

I am just responding to your earlier claim that Survival of the Fittest means quote: "the 'fittest' are always the most violent, and aggressive". No, that is wrong. Numerous examples prove that is wrong. All I have done it list some. If you think my examples are arse about, then what is actually arse about is your notion of what Survival of the Fittest means.

By the by, one of the reasons it is so hard to grasp is it is actually almost meaningless. It is like trying to understand "the sound of one hand clapping". It is a tautology. We say a species survives because it is the fittest. But how do we know it is the fittest? Because it survives!

Survival of the Fittest is at best a shorthand for a describing how evolution works, but the mechanism behind evolution is far more complex than what "survival of the fittest" seems to say at first, or even 10th glance. It primary usefulness seems to be it is a good way to bring the incessant questioning of a 2 year old to a halt.
Posted by rstuart, Thursday, 23 June 2011 12:00:20 PM
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Rstuart I did not say that the biggest and meanest are universally the fittest.

I merely said it was the general rule rather than the exception.

For any species where males fight for the right to copulate with the females then the biggest and meanest are nearly always the evolutionary winners. Among mammals this is certainly VERY common. Perhaps less so with birds where the showiest feathers often win them the right to copulate. But we are mammals not birds aren't we rstuart.

" It is a tautology. We say a species survives because it is the fittest. But how do we know it is the fittest? Because it survives!"

Not at all rstuart - it is a matter of observation. If the biggest and meanest caribou consistently do the majority of copulating and that young male caribou consistently grow to be as large and aggressive as those males that sired them, then it is perfectly reasonable to assume that the biggest and most aggressive male caribou are the fittest.

If the smallest least aggressive caribou were equally fit then it would be reasonable to conclude that there should be as many small less aggressive ones as there are large and aggressive ones. But this is simply not what is observed.

"Survival of the Fittest is at best a shorthand for a describing how evolution works, but the mechanism behind evolution is far more complex than what "survival of the fittest" seems to say at first, or even 10th glance. It primary usefulness seems to be it is a good way to bring the incessant questioning of a 2 year old to a halt."

Disagree.....at least with direct reproductive success in relation to size and temperament. You may be right when it comes to more difficult to discern things like disease resistance and genetically linked physical features etc.
Posted by Boylesy, Thursday, 23 June 2011 5:31:26 PM
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@Boylesy: For any species where males fight for the right to copulate with the females then the biggest and meanest are nearly always the evolutionary winners.

Sigh. No, not always. Not even nearly always. There is one species where should be very clear to you males to compete strongly for females, they the biggest and strongest do not always, or even mostly win. That would be humans. Peacocks would be another example, as would bower birds.

Perhaps you meant physically fight. Well, you would still be wrong. A very common strategy is to sneak in while the bigger, stronger male isn't looking. This is common in squid, seals and some fish - off the top of my head. It is so common it have a scientific name, which believe it or not, is "sneaky fu+ckers", without the spelling mistake. Google it. The first few hits are biologists discussing it.

The occasional species takes this to an extreme. The males of a particular species of fish have three genetically determined mating strategies. The big meanie guarding his harem. The sneaky fu+cker that darts in when the big meanie is off fighting other meanies. And the female mimic who lives in the harem with the females, unnoticed. The ratio's are set by breeding success. If there are two meanies and they spend all their time fighting what they others get the girls. Too many sneaky fu+ckers and the meanies can ignore each other and spend their days guarding. Too many mimics and there are no harems to invade. The system naturally heads to an equilibrium where all produce the same number of offspring, on average.

What you are really saying is you can imagine environment where only the biggest and most aggressive win. I don't doubt you can. But it doesn't exist outside of your mind. If the biggest always won, the males size would grow indefinitely, and unlimited aggression means unlimited injuries. The world is never is simple as you seem to imagine it is.
Posted by rstuart, Thursday, 23 June 2011 6:41:41 PM
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"Sigh. No, not always. Not even nearly always. There is one species where should be very clear to you males to compete strongly for females, they the biggest and strongest do not always, or even mostly win. That would be humans. Peacocks would be another example, as would bower birds."

Bull$hit rstuart!

And I already acknowledged that a proportion of birds are an exception to the rule and pointed out that humans are mammals not birds!

If you are going to sit behind you key board and attempt to convince me that the general rule for mammals is that the biggest and strongest do not prevail in the procreation stakes, then you needn't bother!

Why don't you compile a list of mammal species where the above is not the case and compare to my list where the above is the case. I have little doubt who the winner will be.
Posted by Boylesy, Thursday, 23 June 2011 8:01:08 PM
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You fellows are wasting your time. There is no easy explanation of the operation of Natural Selection, as I am sure you are only too well aware. If it were simple, then cockroaches would rule the world, the oceans, and everything in between. (After the nuclear holocaust, that will be all that will be left.)

If power were an available solution to overpopulation, a few well placed nukes would solve the problem. Fortunately, it is important not to create a bigger problem in the process.

I still contend that cooperation, and not force, is the key to solving all of the world's problems, not just overpopulation. However, there is a shrinking window of opportunity. Shall the West be guilty of counting its gold, or arguing politics, while the viability of the planet goes down the drain?
Posted by Saltpetre, Thursday, 23 June 2011 8:31:21 PM
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@Boylesy: Why don't you compile a list of mammal species where the above is not the case and compare to my list where the above is the case.

Now that you have firmly changed to the goal posts to mammal's Boylesy, I am going to have to concede. But did you know it is not true for the mammalian order of Lagomorpha - hares and rabbits?
Posted by rstuart, Thursday, 23 June 2011 9:38:05 PM
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"Having said that, it can be difficult to bond two rabbits. Often they fight when they are first introduced until one rabbit is deemed to be the dominant rabbit of the pair. "

I aint no expert on rabbit biology but your claim doesn't sound entirely accurate to me rstuart.
Posted by GregaryB, Thursday, 23 June 2011 11:27:21 PM
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To get back to the topic:

On a global scale, there are two ways that population increases, both relating to the net balance of fertility and mortality:

* more babies are born than the number of people dying;

* people living longer - even if there was world-wide zero net fertility, if everybody lived ten years longer, then in ten years' time, there would be maybe another billion people on the planet.

So, there seem to be two distinct approaches: either -

* to increase the killing of people already born, such as the lunatic 'solutions' proposed above, about viruses and the goodness of wars and destrucution generally, and in this way reduce people's life expectancy, OR

* to reduce fertility levels by more sensible proposals - for example, to ensure that women get much better education and reduce the number of children they have in that way, and that schooling is compulsory for all children from five or six up to fifteen (thereby becoming a financial burden rather than a help around the house or farm or factory: cf. the magnificent John Caldwell).

The first step - before any daydreams about actual population reduction - would be to stabilise the world population at some level, taking into account that longer-life factor. So the questions become:

: how do we improve world-wide health and education opportunities, particularly for women ?

: how can poorer countries be assisted to put educational infrastructure in place so that all children can get at least ten years of schooling, plus vocational and university opportunities ?

: how can we strengthen women's rights around the world, so that they can have choices over their own bodies and careers ?

As I suspect we will soon learn from the Chinese disaster, limiting family size may well be a catastrophic way to combat these problems. So there are clearly no easy ways, even just to reduce population growth, let alone stabilise it at a particular number, like nine or ten billion. Daydreams of actual population reduction should, of course, be considered, but,let's,not,be,too,free,with,Grand,Plans,About Other People's Lives.

Joe Lane
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 24 June 2011 11:57:13 AM
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Boyelsy:
"What is at issue here is not the survival of the human race, but the survival of western civilisation that we all value reagrdless of its many faults"

I don't value western civilisation, regardless of any questionable merit it might claim.

Loudmouth,

... so you've said precisely nothing? apart from that tired moral imperative about "Other People's Lives", ignored in practice.

It's fascinating the way people fall back on that old saw as a defence for doing nothing; affected passivity, a mode of conservatism.

As it happens, overpopulation is not the problem, over-consumption is, and the main culprit is the West, which, "apparently", has comparatively stable populations.
As I've tried to indicate above, we should be considering the matter in world-system terms. Population growth in "developing countries" (the term says a lot, suggesting they too will eventually join the ranks of the mega-rich--as if!) is the by-product of Western affluence. All the world's populations are connected and overpopulation in poor countries is the vicarious effect of Western lifestyles, more properly of the capitalist dynamic--the profit motive.
The Western glut--a crisis of obesity, ennui, population-stagnation, decadence generally--is a "middle-class" disease (the term these days of course includes the so-called "working classes") and nearly as pitiful as its obverse manifestation in the developing world, whose complementary source is poverty, driving hope, appetite, ambition.
Poverty and wealth symbiotically feed off each other, and that's what keeps the whole thing going. It can't be adjusted and it can't attain overall prosperity within a closed system whose limits are already starkly apparent.
Until the problem is seen in the holistic terms that prevail, all talk on the matter will be inevitably parochial, as this thread bares-out.
The problem has nothing to do with Christian ideology (scientistic ideology is the culprit); it's a purely materialistic dynamic.
Posted by Squeers, Friday, 24 June 2011 1:31:20 PM
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Loudmouth,

I think you were very much on the right track, and then, in your conclusion, you post:

"As I suspect we will soon learn from the Chinese disaster, limiting family size may well be a catastrophic way to combat these problems."

This has thrown me into a complete loop. Could you explain please why the Chinese one-child policy has been a disaster?

I thought the whole thrust of your earlier proposition was to educate and improve opportunity, and thereby reduce the motivation to have large families. Of course, I understand that your proposition is not to enforce a one or two child policy, but to induce it by providing motivation and incentive for self-limitation - with which I absolutely agree.

I'm afraid you have left me confused, for I thought the whole idea was to provide a way for all people to have better and more sustainable lives going forward.
Posted by Saltpetre, Friday, 24 June 2011 1:47:38 PM
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Squeers,

As much as many of us would like western decadence and affluent excess to be reigned-in, it would appear that only better technology, utilising natural resources much more efficiently and frugally, can provide an acceptable solution. I can see no other possibility.

For myself, I try my best to live frugally, and to produce more that I consume. I would like to be able to move on to solar-electric and solar hot water, but will have to wait for these to become more easily affordable. Still, I have to run machinery, and very much look forward to a bio-fuel alternative to diesel. In the end result I am reliant on new technology to reduce my footprint. Of course, I am in a fortunate position, and my forest more than compensates for my CO2 output, but I'm certain that my resources will have to be utilised far more effectively in the future than I alone am able to achieve. What to do? I see my environment contributing positively, but also see that it would be capable of producing much more.

Should I be willing to give this up and go live in suburbia? Or should I perhaps be assisted to produce more with less - in the common interest?
Posted by Saltpetre, Friday, 24 June 2011 2:20:05 PM
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@Saltpetre: explain please why the Chinese one-child policy has been a disaster?

I'll put my 2c worth in here. It did work in the sense that it has reduced the birth rate below replacement. The issue is it didn't solve the problem it was meant to solve.

It was started when China arguably had the number of people it could support while cheap energy is available (about 0.9 billion, according to its own scientists), and that has now grown to a clearly unsustainable 1.3 billion. Here unsustainable means currently they don't have enough water to feed them all, so they are importing food and chewing through their water reserves. And it is going to get worse. The population is continuing to grow as it ages, and of course the era of cheap energy is ending.

The one child policy would have worked if it had been started much earlier, well before the population was at it's limit. Given it was started when the limit was reached China was always going to go into overshoot. China's only hope now is some magic technological fix that will arrive within a decade or two. The odds don't look good.

So the one child policy hasn't saved China from disaster, and in that sense it is a disaster.

Sadly, China looks like it will be a microcosm for the world. If the world is like us, it is now waking up to the reality of having too many humans. But it's too late. The world is already in overshoot, no one child policy or anything else can alter it.

Australia's only hope is the world is a curate's egg. If still has good parts we are in one of them. Lets hope we can look after it, keep it isolated from the bad parts. As Yabby says, that probably involves closing your eyes and pretend what others have wrought upon themselves is the own stupid fault. The article we are responding to was proposal on how to do that. I don't agree with most of it, but the discussion is nice to see.
Posted by rstuart, Friday, 24 June 2011 2:46:59 PM
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So Squeers ...... our role is to describe the world, not to change it ?

My boringly repeated point is that population reduction is going to be either incredibly brutal (which should satisfy the Schadenfreude of the conservative Left and Right) OR incredibly gradual. As people's health improves, they will live longer so, just on that factor, the population will keep growing, even if we had universal ZPG.

As for China, unless 'unknown unknowns' kick in between now and 2020-2030, each younger generation will be fewer than those above it. Each younger generation will be supporting many more older people, not necessarily in terms of health costs but in terms of pensions and subsidies.

High levels of education for women around the world will most likely have the effect of dramatically reducing the birth rate, perhaps to ZPG. The question is: how to bring this about ? Targeted aid programs might help. But building a more highly-skilled employment structure, by transforming the economies of 'developing' countries would be essential as well, since educational infrastructures need a huge input of funds and for generations to come - AND need to develop a multituce of employment opportunities. So maybe the first generations of educated women will tend to be teachers and educators, by the millions.

That should take us up to about 2060-2080.

And of course, as people become better educated, and take on higher-level and professional employment, their health and longevity would be likely to improve. Ergo, more people at the 'top end', even if there are fewer babies being born at the 'bottom end'.

No easy answers. So yes, Squeers, it is much easier to curse the darkness of capitalism and human greed and evil than to try to light a few candles :)

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 24 June 2011 4:02:56 PM
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"Daydreams of actual population reduction should, of course, be considered, but,let's,not,be,too,free,with,Grand,Plans,About Other People's Lives"

We are almost at the point of having to choose between interfering with peoples'lives or standing back and allowing them to die from starvation, war, disease or genocide.

This sort of difficult choice is the price we pay for inaction for so long.

It is true of life in general. The more you procrastinate the more difficult your situation becomes and harder the choices you are forced to make.

Human reproduction simply cannot remain untouchable regardless of our moral values!

" to increase the killing of people already born, such as the lunatic 'solutions' proposed above, about viruses and the goodness of wars and destrucution generally, and in this way reduce people's life expectancy"

And once again my virus proposal is not for the purpose of culling people and I take great offense at it being misrepresented as such!Its purpose is to reduce fertility without causing death or any other distressing symptoms.

So I will ask you to retract the above statement Loudmouth!
Posted by GregaryB, Friday, 24 June 2011 5:05:13 PM
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Oy. And do you think that the well-heeled would not be prepared to pay for an antidote to your virus, Gregary ? So once again, a brilliant idea which would target the poorest. Is that what you meant ?

Otherwise your post is a pretty good example of hysteria: the sky is falling ! It's all someone else's fault ! Quick, zap the poor !

Please feel free to take offense :)

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 24 June 2011 5:35:48 PM
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Yes, GregaryB - how do you propose that your wonder virus would be disseminated? By that I mean who decides which particular dollop of humanity gets it added to their cordial?
Perhaps we could have a reverse lottery or draw straws.....

Btw, regarding China's one child policy - around 117 males are born for every 100 females, which is a significant discrepancy.
Posted by Poirot, Friday, 24 June 2011 6:02:25 PM
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Thanks Poirot, I'd completely overlooked that gender discrepancy. It makes my point about a coming disaster a bit more likely and a lot more complicated. So there would be even fewer people in the next (much-reduced) generation to raise taxes from, in order to finance the legitimate benefits accruing to a rapidly growing older population. And fewer still marriages producing one-child-per-family in the next generation - after all, what's the likelihood that only children (marrying only children) want to have more than one child themselves - that's if they want children at all ?

As fewer young Chinese would be requiring basic services, more sophisticated services could be funded, such as university education for many more. As labour becomes more scarce, wages would rise (as they are now). Of course, what might happen is that low-wage enterprises in China (Chinese and overseas') AND young high-skilled and professional Chinese would migrate overseas, the enterprises to lower-wage countries, such as in S-E Asia and eventually in Africa, the skilled population to Western countries. So there would be a smaller population still, to support those stay-at-home older generations.

We'll see :)

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 24 June 2011 6:16:18 PM
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Joe/Loundmouth you are an imbecile!

There is no antidote to or vaccine for a cold virus! So the west/Anglo-Saxons will not be exempt!

Natural immunity would eliminate it from your body within a week or so with no side effects, except for residual and temporary fertility suppression.

Clearly it would be disseminated first in those parts of the world where population growth is most rapid - the third world.

But also clearly a cold virus will not remain contained in these regions for long. But never the less the greatest impact on fertility will be felt in those regions that require fertility reduction the most.

I am not interested in the fairness of who gets infected first or human reproductive rights with this. In the larger picture of the common long term good of our species and civilization, this is irrelevant!

I am only interested in arresting and reversing population growth as quickly and efficiently as possible so as to avoid far worse injustices and human rights abuses that pretty much all of you acknowledge will come if we do nothing or fail to sufficiently reduce fertility via education and family planning.

It is like the current ETS debate - no one wants to make the first sacrifice. But perhaps it is necessary to enforce the first sacrifice on some one and then people soon realize that is is not that bad after all and get used to it.
Posted by GregaryB, Friday, 24 June 2011 6:32:13 PM
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Loudmouth/Joe I will happily concede that my virus idea is an infringement of individual reproductive rights, but for the greater good of civilisation and human kind.

But I will not accept your misrepresentation of my idea as 'culling', murder, eugenics or what ever invalid term you care to apply to it.

All you are doing is attempting the equivalent of the racist slurr in order to veto any further discussion of the matter.
Posted by GregaryB, Friday, 24 June 2011 6:36:03 PM
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"Btw, regarding China's one child policy - around 117 males are born for every 100 females, which is a significant discrepancy.Posted by Poirot"

GOOD!

Hopefully the lasting effects of this will at least halve China's population in 50 years or so.

The world will be better for it!
Posted by Boylesy, Friday, 24 June 2011 6:39:18 PM
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You must all know by now that I am not intimidated by racist, eugenic, nazi or genocidal slurs.

So you may as well give up on that strategy for intimidating me into not voicing my view that involuntary fertility control, primarily targetted at the third world but not limited to it, may be necessary.
Posted by Boylesy, Friday, 24 June 2011 6:45:42 PM
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Female infanticide in China and India etc, no doubt plays a role in encouraging a high proportion of males and reduced average fertility as a result.

Until more humane measures for fertility reduction can be put in place, I hope this practice continues or even expands. No doubt it will - entrenched culture is rarely changed easily.
Posted by Boylesy, Friday, 24 June 2011 6:49:31 PM
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*in order to finance the legitimate benefits accruing to a rapidly growing older population.*

Not really, Loudmouth. For of course people could work a few more
years, given that they are living for a few more years.
Then we also have the fact that the next generation are about to
inherit more wealth then any generation before them. No need to
leave the million dollar house to the kid, it could be sold for
their benefit.
Posted by Yabby, Friday, 24 June 2011 6:55:31 PM
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Gregary/Boylsey/Uncle Tom Cobbley,

I don't think I've ever earned your disfavour as you suppose in your comment that "I will not accept your misrepresentation of my idea as 'culling', murder, eugenics or what ever invalid term you care to apply to it.

"All you are doing is attempting the equivalent of the racist slurr in order to veto any further discussion of the matter."

But now that you bring it up ..........

Yabby,

Of course, as people live longer, most governments are going to edge up the retirement age. It's already seventy in China, I believe.

But even so, if there is any form of population reduction, i.e. of the birth-rate, there will be many more older people relative to population of the younger generations who will eventually have to financially support them, and quite legitimately.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Sunday, 26 June 2011 10:48:23 PM
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