STOP HAVING KIDS

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Dec 10 2006, 01:32 AM) [snapback]359969[/snapback]</div>

Oh, geez, not the "all of us could live..." thing again. Yeah, and you can fit a dozen people in a phone booth, but would you want to spend the rest of your life living like that?

You are correct in that currently we are producing enough food to feed everybody (for now). The problem is distribution. When you have a gang of thugs or a crazed dictator between the food and the people, you're going to have a famine. Remember Live Aid in the 1980s? That resulted in more grain rotting on ships than anything else.

It's simple math. Less people = more resources being used = more polution and less resources we have. The "developed" countries are fine right now with their birth rates. It's the third world countries that need to severely lower their birthrates. The developed countries just need to learn to use less resources per person. A lot less.

Also, if someone (read as: The U.N.) can do something about the above-mentioned thugs and dictators, that would be most helpful of all.

 

That is incorrect in the grand scheme of things. Even IF the midwest could produce enough food to feed the entire world (which I doubt but since I don't have the data on hand I won't agrue that) it is not sustainable because the landscape is constantly being erroded away and fertility and soil composition is degrading at an alarming rate when one considers how long it took to produce those soils and how long it is taking the degrade them. Should we talk about the Ogallala aquifer? All over the world farming pratices are ruining the landscape and productivity goes down. Yes, they numbers are there now but you can only live off natural principle for so long before you go bankrupt. Also you say there is no growth problem. I feel that is also incorrect. Growth rates in some areas are less but in others they are higher yet even if they stayed the same (in every country), the numbers would still be growing due to the incredible function of exponetial growth. So if annual growth rate were say 2% globally with 1 billion people what do you think the outcome would be with the same 2% but with 6.4 billion people? That's a lot more people per year. I hate to use Wikipedia as a source but it gives the overview even if the numbers are not 100% corrrect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_...altogether untrue. You might check it out. :)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Dec 8 2006, 12:23 PM) [snapback]359272[/snapback]</div>

Agreed.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mystery Squid @ Dec 8 2006, 01:10 PM) [snapback]359298[/snapback]</div>

Oh, well, since I hate doctors, and have a DNR order, and don't want to live one second longer then the expiration date that is stamped on me somewhere, I agree. Seeing a doctor to prolong your life is sort of wrong.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(livelychick @ Dec 8 2006, 01:14 PM) [snapback]359303[/snapback]</div>

And this is a problem, how?

Really, if we as a race are meant to live, we will. It's just like with the dinosaurs. If they were meant to live, they would have.


Who's to say that ultimately, the planet is meant for the cockroaches?


Having said that, I don't think we are going to expire anytime soon.

 

Let's clone some dinosaurs and reintroduce them into the wild... maybe then we'll see who was meant to live longer! HA HA!

Actually, I don't really believe that dinosaur cloning is a viable means of population control.

 

I chose not to have children for all of the same reasons Daniel listed.

If people want to have children. Fine. But the number of children should be determined by their economic means to support them. If they want to have five children, fine. But *I* shouldn't have to subsidize them. If they can't support their five financially, they shouldn't have them.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Dec 10 2006, 01:21 AM) [snapback]359981[/snapback]</div>

I am a human. You are a human. You can try, but in reality all of your "viewpoints" are anthropocentric. Perhaps if some other animal could speak, we could get a non-anthropocentric viewpoint, but until then, we are all humans here.

There is a common misconception that we are "saving the world" when we work to saving the current environmental conditions. But it is a misconception. The earth has been around for about 4.5 billion years, with much of that time inhospitable to humans and other types of life alive today. You can expand my statement to include all animals if you want to; I also love what we call "nature", but I realize that molten lava and methane atmospheres are "nature" too. There is no way humans are capable of "destroying" nature. It will survive, even if nothing living will, and in another 4.5 billion years life will again be present here. Or not. But nature will be here.

So the question is should we do something to shorten our tenure on the planet, or should we work to extend it?

As you noted, the dire predictions of the late 1960s did not come true. These predictions are really "sociology" in the guise of science, and they are almost always wrong. While Ehrlich was a scientist (a biologist), and people used the mantle of science to try and force public policy changes, Ehrlich was simply wrong. He even had a neat little formula ... I've forgotten what it was now ... that absolutely proved that humanity was destined for huge famines by the mid-1970s. But the one factor he forgot in his formula was to put parens around it and multiply it all by HF ... the "human factor". And we can never solve for that, because there are way too many variables.

I am astounded to hear people use sociology once again as a pretense for what I consider simply evil, the modern day equivalent of "let them eat cake". I thought we had learned from Ehrlich, the forced sterilization efforts, "good breeding" and all the rest of our horrendous mistakes.

It is here that the ethicists are right: it is always good to feed children. It is never good to starve them.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Dec 10 2006, 11:03 AM) [snapback]360076[/snapback]</div>

I agree wholeheartedly! Nice to see you moving right!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Dec 10 2006, 11:40 AM) [snapback]360083[/snapback]</div>

Again I disagee. A lot of the restoration work I do has the non-ecosystems at the foremost in my mind THEN I work on trying to work human into the equation. There is a big difference between your view and that of a deep ecologist.

It is very well a known fact that the biological community effects the atmosphere which in turns shapes the rest of the planet. By mucking around with resources and degredation of those biologics that have a great effect on the planet, we will change thing enough to possibly cause the next great extinction, scratch that, we have caused a great extinction. It seems that your view is based on humans are the most important things and should be taken care of no matter the cost. I'm sorry I don't share that view.

My answer would be to extend our tenure but in a sustainable way and re-learn to live in a cyclic "balance" like everything else. If that means a few billion people have to die to make that possible then so be it.

It has been true for quite some time. Are you not aware of the vast numbers of people who die each year due to under or malnurishment? Are you aware of the evironmental destruction and degredation that will further reduce our food creating capabilities like I mentioned above? Agrue me these points before devling into another 1970s prophecy that "didn't" come true. I'll give you ahint, start in Haiti, the Philipines, Burkina Faso (or anywhere in the Sahel). Should we also take into consideration the social effects of cramming a bunch of people together into a location. The crime, lack of accountability, depression, lack of community and the hundred other problems that have arisen with large populations?

I believe your ideals could lead to a dangerous situation (as do a very large percentage of scientists). The ones that were the basis for this thread do not, they simply bruise some peoples viewpoints.

For my part, this is what I study in school and see in the natural environment (I am also not a child at 31 yet I will concede that you may have seen more things than I and I will never disregard anything you say as worthless). A part of ecology is looking at the big picture in a holistic or systems thinking manner as opposed to the mechanistic/Cartisian viewpoint made so popular by Decartes. Many ecologists are trying to get away from that line of thinking because it blinds us. Whether you are driven to help humans or other nature you have to realize there is a carrying capacity for this earth and to live in it comfortably you must be at or preferably below that capacity.

 

*rant on*

Of all the arrogant, self-righteous...........EVERY ONE of you had no say in their birth.....you were conceived through NO CHOICE of your own and now here you are, posting on PC saying SOMEONE ELSE does not have the RIGHT to live.

THIS is what occurs when man thinks HE is the center of the universe........

*rant off*

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Dec 10 2006, 06:15 PM) [snapback]360198[/snapback]</div>

That was a post of absolutely no value whatsoever. The talk is concentrating on preventing life, not taking life away that has already started. There is a problem in the world and people are starting to take notice. Its a shame that our technology has led us to a point where we could live off the principle of the earth instead of the interest like everything else that resides here. Its simple awareness IMO, not arrogance. Get off your high horse and post something worth debating.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Dec 10 2006, 06:15 PM) [snapback]360198[/snapback]</div>

A small segment of society has decided that "life" begins at the moment of conception, and has built an entire moral ethic around that view. But why the moment of conception? The usual answer is that the fertilized egg has the potential to become a human being. But since every sperm cell has the potential to unite with an egg and become a human being, then you are "destroying" "potential" life every time you prevent a sperm cell from having that opportunity by failing to have sex with a woman.

For another tack: the folks mentioned above insist (and this is simply a matter of religious dogma) that god places a soul in the fertilized egg at the moment of conception. But since most fertilized eggs never result in live births (some fail to implant, others spontaneously miscarry) then if the assumption were true, god would be responsible for depositing a soul in an egg that had no chance of life. Or to turn it around, is god unable to recycle souls that have had no chance at life? Why couldn't god take the soul from an aborted zygote, or one blocked from implanting by RU486, and put that soul in a diferent egg, for another try? I'm sure some Bible-believing Christians would say he does just that, since the Bible is silent on the matter, as its authors didn't even know that eggs and sperm existed. They thought the "seed" came entirely from the man and the woman was simply a fallow field in which the seed grew.

The Buddhists believe a soul is reborn many times, so if you misfire in one incarnation, you'll have another shot later. And I once knew a self-styled Buddhist who believed that the soul chooses which parents it will be born to. If a foetus is aborted, the soul simply waits for the next, or chooses a different set of parents.

One theology is as good as another, and if the government makes laws based entirely on one particular interpretation of one particular religion then it is essentially establishing a religion, which is forbidden by the Constitution.

How would I feel if my mother had aborted me? I wouldn't feel anything because I'd never have existed. Or maybe, if the Buddhists are right, I'd have chosen G.H.W. Bush and Barbara as my parents and I'd be president today instead of the moron we have now. (Something that would make some Prius Chatters shudder, and others very happy.)

 

And how would I feel if my mother's first two children hadn't died? I would feel nothing. I wouldn't even exist. My parents planned a two child house. I'm a replacement. I owe my existence to two dead brothers. And I am sure there are numerous others in this world who are the later children of women who had abortions. If those women had had the first child, the later one might not exist, might have been conceived at a later time, a different egg, maybe a different sperm. Which child's life is more valid?

The issue is complicated and should be left to the mothers to decide.

 

There's a solution to overpopulation. It's called nukes.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Dec 11 2006, 02:32 PM) [snapback]360609[/snapback]</div>

Which leaves us with The End of Ze World... -NWS- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJtOdh7dEbM

I know its old but its funny darn it!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Dec 11 2006, 05:32 PM) [snapback]360609[/snapback]</div>

Nah, because then you'd be taking a lot of innocent animals, too.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Dec 11 2006, 06:41 PM) [snapback]360615[/snapback]</div>

Not to mention what you'd do to real estate values. Whereas weaponized smallpox or bird flu might be tidier. Or, if you want to go nuclear, the new polonium latte the Russians have evidently been working on.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Dec 11 2006, 02:41 PM) [snapback]360615[/snapback]</div>

Not in the U.S., here they are guilty until proven innocent but since they are labeled terrorists they have no rights to a lawyer.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Dragonfly @ Dec 10 2006, 07:20 PM) [snapback]360226[/snapback]</div>

I'd like to add another thing to Dragonfly's response: I think the point Schmika was generally making is that those of us who already exist have some nerve to be making life or death decisions for people who either 1) don't exist yet, or 2) exist in other parts of the world and are starving to death (and are, perhaps, receiving food and medical care from various orginazations).

As far as 1 goes, that argument makes little sense. Just because there is a potential that a person can be created doesn't mean that the person exists now. The act of NOT getting pregnant has no bearing on whether someone is denying that person the right to live. A woman decides to not get pregnant, therefore she just "killed" the child she would have had? eh. Maybe I misunderstood what you were responding to, Schmika. Of course, if this is somehow just getting back to the abortion argument, then we've already discussed it in the "Praying to end Abortion Stickers" thread.

As far as 2 goes: We are, without a doubt, making decisions affecting other people's lives that may result in them dying, and I'm perfectly okay with that (as I've disclosed in other posts). We're affecting their lives by choosing to do nothing for them. You're welcome to accuse us of playing God, or whatever makes you comfortable, but it can easily be argued that anyone who provides these starving people with food or medical care to keep them alive, when they would otherwise starve to death or die of disease, is playing God. They are choosing to prolong someone's life who would have otherwise died naturally (naturally, as in starved to death or died of disease).

None of this gets into the whole issue of whether those starving people are in their predicament because of a corrupt local government or some other such human created factors, however. That would be another discussion.

Vince