Tubley,

If you advocate others living as you do, no matter how well meaning, that is BIG BROTHER.

That concept is OVER. The Australian populace will rip you to shreds if you say "live as I do" when you really mean, "live as I say".

Article:
...Half of voters believe Australia is a meaner place under John Howard, but most approve of his economic management.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/meaner-under-howard/2006/02/19/1140283949213.html

Comment:

This is a quandary that must be better managed by a 5 year moratorium on immigration and a removal of the meanness of HECS fees.
We don't want meanness but we want aggressive free market economics. We can't have both. To solve this quandary we must stop immigration and have a 1 child per family policy. There is no point in poorer people raisinig 6 or 7 kids from poverty to juvenile detentions or rich people getting child care assistances for future Australians who will waste resources, including water, because they have no connection to stable, unimmigrated communities and thus no true purpose other than a Dyleski-meanness in order to survive.

One child per family is not big brother. China has excelled with it. It will give Australians and our environment, the opportunity to live the fullest life in a SUSTAINABLE manner and with economic vibrancy. If 23 million people are too many or too few after a moratorium on immigration, then immigration can balance the numbers.
The immediate upshot of this will be a stabilisation of communities in Sydney and Brisbane with more money going to luxury suburban housing and better lifestyles with more choices for as many people in the community as possible. And It will cause green projects like engineered wetlands to become a boost to economic activity.

But first, the government has to show us that it
is not just interested in hearing our backs break out of economic RESTRAINT, forcing us to have more kids as a breakwater. They need to show that we all can and must have luxuries within stable communities where there is an expectation that the economy is working for US.

Tubley,

My sympathies. It is difficult for most people to understand what you're saying. They can only see the world, and your arguments, through the filter of their culture and personal experience.

You said . . . "So when we talk about population I think it’s more of an additudinal problem than simply a numbers one" . . . and I agree.

Our culture operates with an attitude that says "we must have more people, to make a larger economy so that we can all be richer". The fundamental, but unspoken, assumption is that humanity can continue to grow in number: unabated, ad-infinitum. The reason why we believe this is because we haven't yet experienced the consequnces of it (Diamonds warning). We think that we don't need to live within the world, but to control it, because 'technology' will overcome every ailment we create. Its like saying "oh well, if we stuff up this planet, we'll just use our technology to find another one and then to get us there and start all over again". Of course, we would have the same problems with food, water and oxygen there as we're creating now. But no-one seems to point that out when the media talks about travelling to other worlds.

The point is we're supposed to be living on this world. And that's why the original article was correct, as are the supporting arguments that followed. The solution is not in technology, but in changing how we understand humanity's place as just another species, and its need to control its population - as it had done for millenia, until 'civilisation' arose - and to share the world with all the other species.

At least we (supposedly) have the intelligence to realise it and do it. If only we could overcome our egos.

"As for the far North, the tropical climate is not suitable for predominantly temperate zone dwellers like ourselves. The extreme climate, diseases and the thermodynamic constraint of having a high quality heat source but a poor heat sink, mean that first rate economic activity is not possible in these places."

This is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Why does this population debate always bring out the idiots?

Did you ever hear of a place called Singapore? Economic activity there is a lot more "first-rate" than anything in Australia. No? How about Hong Kong, you must have heard of that place? Kuala Lumpar?

How about this new fangled invention called "air conditioning". Have you heard of that?

"One child per family is not big brother."

Ok, so the first guy wasn't the dumbest.

And if you decide to defy the policy and have more than 1 child, what will "kindly-government-agency-who-in-no-way-resembles-big-brother" do about it? Put you in prison? Kill the child?

"China has excelled with it."

If you could explain how the one child policy has helped a single person in China, feel free to have a crack. And do you realise that due to this policy China now has a gender imbalance approaching somewhere like 20%?

Don't worry about the water supply.
Just call it a threat to national security and John Howard will fix it up in no time.

Thanks for your useless contribution.

I’m with you Davo

.
Yobbo, harking back three posts of yours (if you can consider the last one a post!)….

“This is indeed the biggest problem with increased immigration”.

The main problem is not that most migrants go to Sydney, Brisbane or Melbourne. The scale of immigration is the main problem. Transmigration is also a huge problem, especially in Brisbane, coastal Qld and coastal SW WA.

“But the solution is not to restrict further immigration”

It is an essential part of the solution.

“The rest of Australia has plenty of room and water for people, especially the far north and the far south.”

No they don’t. Cairns and Townsville for example feel the pinch like many other places.

Anyway, why would you want to encourage people to go to the far north (or south)…. and further pressure small or medium-sized communities or open up whole new areas to human expansion and environmental destruction?

What would you achieve if high immigration is maintained, thus not leading to significant alleviation of stress on our water supplies or other resources in our major cities?