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The Forum > Article Comments > Adding more Salt to the wounds of Gen Y > Comments

Adding more Salt to the wounds of Gen Y : Comments

By Fiona Heinrichs, published 3/8/2011

Debating the past and the future with Bernard Salt.

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You're not really likely to get an answer, because Salt and Co just love being on the winning team, aren't so interested in the facts, and prefer to talk to the government and the vested interests that already agree with them. Gillard had promised us a different approach to population compared with Kevin Rudd, but it's now clear from Burke's population 'strategy' paper that she was not telling the truth. Not that many have noticed, in all the hot air over climate change.
Posted by Steve S, Wednesday, 3 August 2011 1:27:01 PM
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Well, the grumpy old misogynists are out in force today!
Posted by michael_in_adelaide, Wednesday, 3 August 2011 1:45:39 PM
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Steve S,

Same thing happened in Qld. in 2009 when Premier Bligh acted to divert intense public pressure over population growth into the sewer of a 'growth management summit'.

The Courier Mail loudly banged the drum of public concern to loudly resonate scorn upon the ALP Govt, but then deftly switched aim to amplify the growth saving agenda whilst completely suffocating the population critics.
Posted by wallumi, Wednesday, 3 August 2011 2:52:44 PM
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I think Fiona's article is cute,if she were my daughter it'd be stuck straight up on the fridge with one of those little magnets the local plumber hands out and she'd get an extra helping of ice cream for dinner.
Then we'd sit with a nice cup of Milo and talk of many things, I'd tell her about a silly man named Malthus who lived long, long ago in a land far away.
We'd discuss the term Ceteris Paribus and make a game where we tried to think of ways that statement might apply to little blonde haired girls and boys.

Satirical responses aside, since when did Anti Racism suddenly become unfashionable in the young?
Africans are now supposedly suffering because they're demographically adjusting to modernism?
I'm opposed to anti Racism on principle but, gee whiz, don't it look an awful lot like the current problems in Africa ARE being caused by a lot of greedy old White men and their Jewish financiers?
My point is that the Third World isn't on the same trajectory as pre industrial Europe because they're not Europeans.
Third worlders are "going somewhere" alright, straight back to being colonial subjects.
Still, labouring in South Sudan for some American or Israeli agribusiness company or for Chinese miners for three dollars a day is better than starving...besides, they can have more kids if they're working!
So calm yourself Fiona all hope is not lost, because, thankfully for those starving Africans, all things are not equal.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Wednesday, 3 August 2011 3:22:50 PM
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Jay you highlight how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Have you actually read Malthus? The logic of argument is very simple - exponential growth in a finite world is simply not possible. The claims that he has been proved wrong simply highlight how poorly we understand the mathematics behind exponential growth.
Secondly you equate racism with an opposition to population growth. No doubt for some racists population growth becomes a flag of convenience but an argument opposing population growth does not depend on racism - in fact quite the reverse. If we are serious about addressing world poverty, if we are serious about making education accessible to all then the population question will neatly solve itself. The attraction of large families in many underdeveloped countries is simply that labour is the only marketable asset they have - remove that economic imperative and you will quickly see a reduction in population (just use the last 100 years of European history as an example) As far as education is concerned when women have the knowledge to control their own fertility and of course the income to act on that knowledge you again will see the same things as what has happened in the west.
But at least you are happy for after all ignorance is bliss.
Posted by BAYGON, Wednesday, 3 August 2011 3:40:36 PM
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Jay, everyone is currently in the process of going back to being colonial subjects. It is just that the Africans never really got past that point prior to the global contraction that resource depletion is gradually but ubiquitously delivering, and which the primary resource owners will milk to the maximum for as long as they can. A significant difference this time around is that the new colonialism with be defined by corporations rather than nations.

So keep paddling along the economic millstream mate, and try to keep your head above the rising tide of land and resource prices that are necessarily accruing to their corporate owners due to ongoing population growth. With some luck and diligence maybe you'll be one of the last to go under. And with some added humour you'll perhaps understand why others might mock the essential futility of your acclaimed ambitions.
Posted by wallumi, Wednesday, 3 August 2011 3:48:17 PM
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