The third last sentence above, should have been, "Later he makes the point that anyone American receiving only $1 per day, even though by economists' definitions is no poorer than those Africans and Latin American villagers [would be soon dead]."

Also, my point 3 about Mexico City should have ended:

"Where do mil-ob and Cheryl imagine the water needed by residents of Mexico City after the population doubles again and the aquifers run dry [will come from]?

---

Like Fester, I was also most impressed by mil-ob's point:

"... it should be stressed here that humanity's evolutionary climb continues to confound the dull and hopeless, overtaking such people as if ridding humanity of the dead weight they represent, gradually improving the gene pool ..."

Interesting that many employers and landlords also welcome the "bonus of competition" for jobs and housing driven by overcrowding.

---

As for mil-ob's latest hysterical, self-righteous rant:

Note how it still fails to even acknowledge any of the 5 points listed in my previous post, nor does it respond to my question asking him to substantiate the quote he attributed to John Brumby, nor does it respond to my point about how Bob Hawke imposed "elite as opposed to popular views on immigration", nor to almost countless other arguments made by other contributors.

*many other posters here who are railing againts the anti-populationists are all for women's rights to reproductive choice in the Third World.*

Cheryl, that is a refreshning admission on your behalf and is what
people like myself and Fester are proposing. It is certainly not
the common view on this thread. UOG seems to think we want to knock
off those black fellas, MO wants to call it genocide. OLO is not
short of fruit loops :)

The good thing about liberal democracies is that we can tolerate
extremists like these posters and voters, but the large majority
of people usually show some common sense.

See the big picture here. Clearly if humanity does want to survive
long term, global human population has to be sustainable. Biology will
tell you that for that to happen, we'll need some biodiversity.

Right now humanity is not living sustainably, we are simply relying
on cheap oil to get by. So the question does need to be addressed,
how many humans can the planet handle and still be sustainable?
I think its at least now open for discussion, which has to be
a good thing. Australia's optimal population? Again its open
for discussion.

MO, your very own personal guru, LaRouche, is often called a fascist.

http://www.laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Cult.Ideologies

.

Daggett

GDP measures for distant periods of time are based on direct measures of output and therefore not subject to the undercount of the non-cash economy that might apply to GDP estimates for developing economies today.

Anyway, the quote I supplied from Maddison refers to life expectancy, not GDP. Life expectancy data for those periods are derived from archaeological evidence, mainly grave sites. These are sufficient to demonstrate that few people lived to what we’d consider old age (or even middle age), many died as children, and those that made it to adulthood suffered hunger and disease. Hence low life expectancy.

Maddison is an internationally respected source. You have supplied no sources whatsoever. I repeat, where is the evidence to support your claim that “Prior to [the Norman conquest], the quality of life in much of England, in terms of life expectancy came pretty close to what we have enjoyed in Western Countries in the 20th century.”

Yabby, Fester et al

I fully support moves to give people in developing countries the same fertility rights that I have. So I don’t support the anti-birth-control agendas of e.g. the Roman Catholic church, nor the coercive pro-birth-control agendas of the Chinese government and some others. Let people make their own choices about how many children they have. I believe we have no right to try to push them either way. Do you agree?

Rhian wrote, "You have supplied no sources whatsoever. I repeat, where is the evidence to support your claim that 'Prior to [the Norman conquest], the quality of life in much of England, in terms of life expectancy came pretty close to what we have enjoyed in Western Countries in the 20th century.'"

If the evidence in regard to life expectancy is not at hand, there is certainly evidence in regard to height:

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/medimen.htm

MEN FROM EARLY MIDDLE AGES WERE NEARLY AS TALL AS MODERN PEOPLE (1 Sep 2004 (or 9 Jan 2004(?))

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Northern European men living during the early Middle Ages were nearly as tall as their modern-day American descendants, a finding that defies conventional wisdom about progress in living standards during the last millennium.

Richard Steckel

"Men living during the early Middle Ages (the ninth to 11th centuries) were several centimeters taller than men who lived hundreds of years later, on the eve of the Industrial Revolution," said Richard Steckel, a professor of economics at Ohio State University and the author of a new study that looks at changes in average heights during the last millennium.

"Height is an indicator of overall health and economic well-being, and learning that people were so well-off 1,000 to 1,200 years ago was surprising," he said.

Steckel analyzed height data from thousands of skeletons excavated from burial sites in northern Europe and dating from the ninth to the 19th centuries. Average height declined slightly during the 12th through 16th centuries, and hit an all-time low during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Northern European men had lost an average 2.5 inches of height by the 1700s, a loss that was not fully recovered until the first half of the 20th century.

...

*Let people make their own choices about how many children they have. I believe we have no right to try to push them either way. Do you agree?*

Rhian, that is the gist of it.

I spent some time in Africa when I was younger, I guess that is why
I care about this issue, I saw the other side. Women dying from
knitting needle jobs etc.

There is this common perception that everyone in Africa wants to
have huge families, that is not the case. Much like us, they enjoy
sex and if one enjoys sex without proper family planning alternatives,
more and more babies are the result, wanted or not.

The cost and availability of family planning are a huge issue in
Africa, unlike us, who hardly give it a second thought.

The West really went through a revolution with the advent of the
pill in the 60s and 70s, smaller families were the result. Where it
was not freely available, ie Ireland, smuggling the pill into that
country became big business, as that is what consumers wanted, much
to the disgust of the Catholic Church.

There are many claims that one needs economic development for people
to have smaller families in the third world. Well yes, for with
economic development, people can actually afford contraception and
are educated enough to put their Govts in place, when they try to
deny them these basic rights.

But if we provide third world women the same options that we take
for granted, you would be amazed how they would respond, for even they
realise that feeding and educating 3 kids rather then 8, makes perfect
sense.

A real piece of work: “There are many claims that one needs economic development for people to have smaller families in the third world. Well yes...But if we provide third world women the same options that we take for granted, you would be amazed how they would respond, for even they realise that feeding and educating 3 kids rather then 8, makes perfect sense.”

Therefore, lip service to the notion of some socio-economic justice for the developing world, followed by what actual effort at “development” assistance? Contraception! “Here, we care about you so much we want you to have the CHOICE of depleting your human capital and its hope for freedom, development and civilization. Err, sorry, we'll have to suggest that drinking water project later, once you can save up from those pittance-sales of tea harvests. Anyway, it's clearly 'unsustainable'. And those Chinese-built dams in the Sudan! How 'unsustainable' too, and an obvious cause of 'human rights abuses'”, etc.

Offer much-discounted contraceptive pills to Africa, after scum like Al Gore successfully led the campaign AGAINST African rights to generic AIDS medicines.

“But the choice to not reproduce is far more important than any of that”, the fascists say. That way, onerous debt to the west, corrupt opportunist-puppets, cash crops, malnutrition, and cynically manipulated warfare can all do their job with no replenishment of population.

Once again, the prescription is genocide...

Even on its simplest level of logic, such sleazy argument is rather like Bill Gates' infamous donation of computers to central African communities that had no electricity infrastructure.

A fascist in liberalist costume is still a fascist, just a more slippery variety.

Smash 'em hard folks, just like it's the Nuremberg trials all over again.

[I used to go yabbying with friends when I was unemployed. Good cooking and eating, but always best to squeeze out the brown runny goo from their head area. Make doubly sure in this case – it's toxic]