It really is very humorous how the growthist overpopulation deniers blather on about free will (Pericles, no one can take away your free will, only your ability to exercise it), fascism, and other entertaining topics. The fascistic basis of growthism is evident in each and every post these rubes make, in the vitriol, histrionics, deceptive statements, and deliberate misrepresentation of what many population control advocates are saying. But each and every post by this crowd is, de facto, an admission that their plan to destroy the planet is being threatened by the sane and civilized voices who are saying "Wait just a minute. What are we doing to ourselves and to this planet?"

Should these fascist, growthist overpopulation deniers be worried? You bet! Their ideology is finally under attack on a number of fronts, their greed and shortsightedness are being exposed, and their willingness to destroy this planet for the sake of "business as usual" is being challenged again and again. I can't think of a better way for these people to promote more opposition, and bring us closer to a sustainable way of life, than for them to continue to do what they're doing. Each post is an acknowledgment that those of us who truly care about the planet, and about future generations, are on the right track. So, keep it up, Pericles, mil-observer, and Cheryl (especially you, mil-observer, as your posts are priceless). And thanks!

Come on Pericles, this is getting a bot rhetorical even or you.

Future generations do not exist yet. It's stretching it a bit to argue about the living standard prefernces of people who don't exist (it doesn't stop the Christians though, they believe in predetermination).

Besides, I don't see anywhere where Ludwig et al. advocate not having future generations at all. That would indeed be silly. Nor do I see many of them advocating no migration either, no matter what their opponents say.

There doesn't seem like much hope in mainatining the world's population at 6 or 7 billion (more than has ever existed at one time), does it? Can't we at least allow people to control their own reproduction and make the individual choice of whether they want to raise the next generation? I'm for that at least, but when someone mentions it, the Catholics and fundies accuse them of wanting Gulags and death camps and nature worship and no more children. I'm not that keen on death camps. I even think mil-observer is very close to comparing the sustanable population advocates to pagan child sacrificers.
Not yet though, let see how long it takes.

Again, it's clear that Rick S (perhaps the Rick Slovitt of yesterday's banal puff piece in Melbourne's Sunday Age) and his comrades daren't refute the obvious similarities between historically recorded fascist sentiments and their latest parallels in revivalist Malthusian revivalism. Such ideological inheritances I spell out in detail, as they are well known even to dilletante students of modern history. But the neo-Malthusians are unable to challenge even one single point of my historico-ideological references to fascism!

C'mon Rick! How is anti-racism and anti-genocidalism "fascist"? It's wasteful retorting with a facile, puerile counter-accusation of "fascist" without explaining why. Tell us the ideological components that justify such a description. Surely you know enough history? Or do you rather need some references? You'll have serious trouble equating "fascism" with "life affirmation", and regenerative and reproductive principles of innovative civilization and adaptability, and broadly egalitarian human progress and civilization!

But no need for Rick to take that much personal umbrage. I don't refer so much to himself personally as some card-carrying member of The Grand Council of Fascists or the Sturmabteilung - whether or not he is indeed the strangely alienated American Slovitt, with apparently so little grasp of America's own pivotal historical role in civilizational progress.

No, I refer not to the neo-Malthusians themselves as truly leading or definitive "fascists", but rather just the sum of their ideas, fantasies and outright fabrications – an internal and mostly hidden fascism, however thriving it so obviously is in their dark, putrid souls.

For one, most neo-Malthusians lack the guts, honesty and decisiveness to follow through explicitly on the implications of their vague, symbolic anti-human sentiments and ideas.

For another, the neo-Malthusians here on OLO are small anchovies and peanuts in the broad political trend of neo-fascism today. In relation to policy and state identity, the misanthropic jokers here act more like fertilizer. When actual policy-makers effect neo-Malthusian and other genocidal projects, they do so coldly, after much consultation, assessment and manipulation of public perception, and with very little overt trace left of their truly fascist heritage and deliberations.

Anti-genocidism?

Now that’s a great example of gross distortion and hyperbolic misrepresentation of what others say, and certainly doesn’t promote credibility with any reasonable and sane human being. How are the humane policies of education, providing contraception, concern for the quality of life of future generations, and so on genocide? The hard realities of Peak Oil, peak soil, water shortages, collapse of ocean fish stocks, and loss of biodiversity are prompting thinking people everywhere to look to mitigate the looming disaster. On the other hand, the growthist, fascist, overpopulation deniers are doing their absolute best to make sure that a population crash happens as soon as possible, and that we leave behind a polluted, crowded, resource-depleted planet for the survivors. Their hatred for future generations is clear, and they are the true, anti-human killers here.

And history shows us that the growthist fascists pop up repeatedly, typically just before a population crash, or the death of a civilization. It’s too bad that the growthist, fascist, overpopulation deniers on this forum are such predictable small fish, and have nothing new to say, as I’ve had much more interesting and original discussions with some of the larger ones.

Oh, and mil-observer, there is more than one Rick S in the world. Your comment again underscores your fear of the facts about overpopulation, as you clearly haven’t even bothered to follow links posted in this forum. Those who have know how inane your supposition was. Keep it up. You are a shining example to close-minded, fascistic, overpopulation deniers everywhere, and each post you make only reinforces that point. Thanks for making my task easier, just as the mil-observer clones in other discussion forums have done as well.

Yes, my own (and allied) positions are firmly and uncompromisingly "anti-genocidalist"; no distortion or misrepresentation there. And not surprising that neo-Malthusians again try morphing the debate (again at the eleventh hour) into one supposedly about “contraception” and “education”! Who'd have thought that such mundane, status-quo business would generate such passion among them?!

And yes, still the neo-Malthusians shirk the history student's most basic task here i.e., to engage with those important challenges: how to identify clear distinctions between neo-Malthusian attitudes now and those fascist precedents of nature-worship, Malthusian thought patterns on population and resources, and other associated primordialism and irrationalism? Then the question becomes: “how to justify a mentality and worldview that has come before (fascism) and been so thoroughly discredited?” Well, they cannot.

"Peak oil", "peak soil", "peak toil" - all articles of a fanatic's bleak and desperate faith. Some quotes to come from Ehrlich perhaps, or will we just keep dropping his "esteemed" name? Now there's a reference! A writer whose predictions were emphatically disproved by facts within a decade! Maybe he should have tried the horses or greyhounds instead?

All that should normally be harmless enough, but contrivances about "finite resources" are meant also to deny resources to those up-and-coming, dynamic populations not afflicted by such smugness, pampered lifestyle, laziness, inefficiency, over-abundance and imperialistic greed as so long and obviously characterizing the (overwhelmingly western) neo-Malthusians themselves. As runner stated earlier: "Seems like the author feels it would be wrong for many more to enjoy the same standard of living that he has." If we had a simple problem of supply shortage, then that's no problem for adaptability. But when the rich *insist* and *choose* to assert or even predict supply problems in order to blame the source of demand on younger, poor populations - then we know just what we're dealing with i.e., the same exclusive, narcissistic and imperialistic filth that has oppressed, stolen and murdered for centuries. But as my specific historico-ideological descriptions convey earlier, that same narcissism and imperialism expresses its even more barbaric and truly fascist potential when under pressure, as now,

[cont.]

with the west's demographic decrepitude, monetarist market implosions, and the developing world's increasing realization of potential.

Two currents of particularly irrational and toxic "argument" pollute and retard this thread:

1) Neo-Malthusians make anti-historical claims or, at least, refuse to even consider prominent historical precedents where Malthusian dogma visited complementary notions of: Lebensraum; "resettlement in the east"; euthanasia of those deemed not worth living, and; various other associated Eugenicist determinations about humanity's statistical situation in Europe. But theirs is a “meta-history” where the students are told to leave evidential facts at the door.

2) In supporting their above-identified denial of history itself, neo-Malthusians ignore or deny the crucial factor of "human agency". That's no surprise really given the barely suppressed self-loathing and guilt apparent as neo-Malthusians' deep personal baggage, and their yet greater hatred for the majority of humanity – a hatred given more zeal and urgency out of the fear that numbers will inevitably reveal the mediocrity and unjustified privileges of their pampered few.

But in other senses there, neo-Malthusians try to depoliticize all issues of economics, agriculture, infrastructure, and social and political organization; for them the Malthusian template of "finite resources" is the source of all ultimate meaning, and it is absolute. The neo-Malthusians' case is a circular one with bets each way. On the one hand, they claim human population is some irrational monster that will inevitably outrun resources, thereby causing ruin. On the other hand, wherever famine, market crash, epi-/pandemic or even war depletes a population, they put on their black-tinted glasses and say: “I told you so – too many people!” If readers are unsure on this, check my demolition of snake-oil “historian” Jared Diamond's neo-Malthusian slime on the case of Rwanda's 1994 genocide (see cross thread, starting: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8838#140663 ).

Bereft of both historical perspective and imagination, the only “finite resource” here is that within neo-Malthusians' own heads.

Have they “peak neurons”? Too polite to say that they peaked too early; their argument has never scaled any heights, instead wallowing on a flat, bleak, featureless desert, and one below sea level at that.