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polite overcrowding

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polite overcrowding

Unread postby Falconoffury » Wed 08 Feb 2006, 12:53:22

The Japanese are generally a very polite people, but I am glad I don't live there.

http://www.riotvideo.com/Japanese_Subway.html

The video depicts 3 security guards shoving the last few passengers into an overcrowded subway.

We need peak oil before this overcrowding gets any worse.
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"Bush, Bush, listen well: Two shoes on your head," the protesters chant
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby SinisterBlueCat » Wed 08 Feb 2006, 13:06:28

oh god, how do that stand it?!
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby Antimatter » Thu 09 Feb 2006, 01:04:46

Japanese population has pretty much peaked anyway. No need for mass death fantasies.
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby BlisteredWhippet » Thu 09 Feb 2006, 05:19:14

I don't know one woman that doesn't feel the urge to create a carbon copy of herself, or preferably, multiple copies.

Seriously, evolution and reproduction will not be thwarted no matter how inhumane conditions on Earth get.

Even if we have to be packed onto buses like cattle.
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby Doly » Thu 09 Feb 2006, 08:39:05

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BlisteredWhippet', 'I') don't know one woman that doesn't feel the urge to create a carbon copy of herself, or preferably, multiple copies.


You don't know many women, do you?

Besides, if you think children are carbon copies of their parents, you obviously don't have children.
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby Falconoffury » Thu 09 Feb 2006, 09:55:59

Most women that I know love babies. I would say over 90% could go on about how they love babies or would love to have a child who likes like so and so in the family or have this personality or that. I think it generally applies to women under 40.

Thankfully, we don't have an unlimited power source that will allow us to get so overpopulated that everyone will be living shoulder to shoulder and the Earth would glow brightly like the sun. I don't remember where I heard that shoulder to shoulder thing, but apparantly that would happen if population growth continued its current curve.
"If humans don't control their numbers, nature will." -Pimentel
"There is not enough trash to go around for everyone," said Banrel, one of the participants in the cattle massacre.
"Bush, Bush, listen well: Two shoes on your head," the protesters chant
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby JeeBoomba » Sat 11 Feb 2006, 00:36:22

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BlisteredWhippet', 'I') don't know one woman that doesn't feel the urge to create a carbon copy of herself, or preferably, multiple copies.

Seriously, evolution and reproduction will not be thwarted no matter how inhumane conditions on Earth get.

But reproduction is already being thwarted as we speak. Birth rates all over the first world are dropping like crazy, and many, many nations are already showing negative population growth.
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby rogerhb » Sat 11 Feb 2006, 01:03:32

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JeeBoomba', '.').. many, many nations are already showing negative population growth.


I presume it was some economist moron who came up with the idea of negative growth, why can't we be honest and say that populations and economic activities can decrease rather than all the crap about negative growth.

If it's not getting bigger then it's not growing.
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby Falconoffury » Sat 11 Feb 2006, 02:43:38

What does many many countries mean? I can only think of a few in Europe. Even Japan is still growing very slowly (like 30,000 people per year). Some countries may have a flat or shrinking birth rate, but they are growing from immigrants from other countries that are currently growing.

I remember calculating in another thread a few months ago that if the birth rate of the world stayed the same, then 3 times the number of people that die per year would have to be added to the death rate in order to have a flat population. You could also say that the death rate would have to go up by 200%. Somewhere between 50 million and 60 million people die per year, but around 150 million people are born. I no longer have the source for that information, but I do remember posting it very clearly.
"If humans don't control their numbers, nature will." -Pimentel
"There is not enough trash to go around for everyone," said Banrel, one of the participants in the cattle massacre.
"Bush, Bush, listen well: Two shoes on your head," the protesters chant
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby BlisteredWhippet » Wed 08 Mar 2006, 03:36:35

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BlisteredWhippet', 'I') don't know one woman that doesn't feel the urge to create a carbon copy of herself, or preferably, multiple copies.


You don't know many women, do you?

Besides, if you think children are carbon copies of their parents, you obviously don't have children.


Well, DUH. :lol: Doly! You sound as if you don't like it when I figuratively describe having a baby like pressing the green diamond on a Canon Copier....? Perhaps I should have said,

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BlisteredWhippet', 'I') don't know one woman that doesn't feel the urge to experience a blessed event, touched by God and his angels, the miracle of life and love... a baby!



Nurrr...

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Between 2002 and 2003, birth rates for women ages 30-34 increased by 4 percent and for women 35-39 increased by 6 percent. For women 40-44, the rate rose 5 percent. In the 22 years from 1981 to 2003, that demographic group's birth rate doubled, the CDC reported.


:roll:

Maybe women don't have more babies sooner, maybe they have less than 1.9 babies per couple in the USA... Whatever. Somehow the world's population reached 6.5 billion last week and I think women had something to do with it.

And I'm not the father of any one of those, thank you very much!
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby Raxozanne » Wed 08 Mar 2006, 03:43:08

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BlisteredWhippet', '
')Maybe women don't have more babies sooner, maybe they have less than 1.9 babies per couple in the USA... Whatever. Somehow the world's population reached 6.5 billion last week and I think women had something to do with it.


It takes two to tango.
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby Falconoffury » Wed 08 Mar 2006, 10:38:36

Unfortunately, some of it is the fault of men because more men rape women than vice versa.
"If humans don't control their numbers, nature will." -Pimentel
"There is not enough trash to go around for everyone," said Banrel, one of the participants in the cattle massacre.
"Bush, Bush, listen well: Two shoes on your head," the protesters chant
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby BlisteredWhippet » Wed 08 Mar 2006, 15:36:50

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Raxozanne', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BlisteredWhippet', '
')Maybe women don't have more babies sooner, maybe they have less than 1.9 babies per couple in the USA... Whatever. Somehow the world's population reached 6.5 billion last week and I think women had something to do with it.


It takes two to tango.


Wheres the feminist movement for reproductive rights in the first world? Where is the extension of support for population controls to the third world? Why is it that many countries' populations are unsustainable?

The responsibility for the act of having children is squarely on the shoulders of the woman if the choice exists to have the child or not. You can say retrospectively that it was a good or bad, uninformed or rational choice but in the end the male gender is not equipped to bear children and has no say in it. Even the best condom manufacturer admits a 1% failure rate. Not even vasectomy in some cases is %100.

To pretend that childbirth is not fully the woman's responsibility is to invite speculation. What is it if not human nature or economics to wish to reap the benefits of having total control of choice while choosing to externalize some of the burden and cost to someone else?

To me, its as if the victory of the women's rights movements wants to reap all the benefits of power while abdictating certain parts- namely, reproductive responsibility. It seems whenever this debate crops up, females tend to want to frame males as being responsible for childbirth, ipso facto.

I think its just because when the shit hits the fan, women want to call 1-800-Blame-A-Penis.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Illegitimacy among American whites has continued to grow, reaching 23 percent of all babies born to non-Hispanic white women in 2002 (compared to 68 percent among African-Americans and 43 percent among Hispanics). That's worse than the 22 percent figure for blacks that so alarmed Johnson Administration adviser Daniel Patrick Moynihan that he wrote a famously controversial 1965 report called "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action."


I think something went terribly wrong on the feminist road to the 21st century... I see it everyday. Heres the arc: woman grows from immature child to immature adult; sees having a baby as an inalienable part of a 'quality life'; finds first sperm-producing immature male in desperate search; has child, couple seperates, child victimized, wash, rinse, repeat.

Somewhere along the line the idea of women being wholly responsible for making the best choices possible for their own reproductive health went by the wayside. Now we have a generation of women who feel that their own self-fulfillment is the highest virtue they can hope for, that a father is optional, and that social programs and role models validate- if not outright promote as a lifestyle choice to be persued- their decision to be "strong, independent women" and work all day while the kid grows up latch-key without a male role model or caretaker.

This is the 1st world story; the 3rd world story is just dumping the kid off in the ditch where they live in abandoned buildings and sniff glue all day.

Yeah, it takes two to tango. But is it a reasonable expectation to expect every time a man has sex, hes going to become a father? Reproductive choice places the responsibility squarely on the woman's shoulder, unless shes got a tattoo on her forehead which reads: "if I should get pregnant by accident, I will have a kid".

The fact is, having a kid outside of a competent, stable pair-bond is the height of irresponsibility and unethical in the highest sense of the word. Apologists can bark that illegitimacy is the the fault of the penis, but they are just barking up the wrong "tree".

I have lived with and among college-age women throughout my 20s, and let me tell you something- they believe, by some combination of misinformation and intellectual dishonesty- that abortion is horrible, bad, regrettable, unfortunate, possibly life-threatening, and frankly, a subject that only someone with a uterus should have a valid opinion on. Likewise, they see a man as ancillary to child-rearing, that men are in general defective and untrustworthy, and that their own self-fulfillment in child-bearing is more important than the quality of the child's life.

I don't know why the feminist movement backfired so hard- I don't know why there aren't high-level discussions of the crisis in family, in population growth, in illegitamacy. Hell, I don't know why some women want to correspond with prisoners serving life terms and have their babies.

But what I do know, have seen, and know from talking to many, many women across the age spectrum, that having a baby is the singular life experience they all yearn for at some point in their lives, and if it means seizing the opportunity outside marraige, from a one-night stand, or with some guy they've fooled themselves into viewing through rose-colored glasses- they'll do it.

As a man, all I can do is watch this peculiar brain-damage masquerading as human drama play out and throughout the lives of women around me. My penis and others' penises have nothing to do with it. The fact is that women decide when to have babies, with whom, and rarely does the counsel of men matter in the slightest.

Hearing first-hand accounts of the inner emotional and intellectual lives of women, I can't help but think that this is how nature has engineered our species. That women, by virtue of their biology, for the most part, will be compelled into reproduction. Like an addict reaching for a bottle of vodka, any reason becomes sufficient, as the female brain's operating biology takes control over their higher thought processes in a systematic colonization by primitive instincts and drives.

The chemical warfare commences at puberty and does not let up until menopause. The female brain is bombarded by hormonal neurochemicals which at any rate drive her to attract mates. The foreground reality is nothing any of us would consider abnormal- but in the background, the brain chemistry drives thought and behavior, compelling women to act in ways that attract men, advertise their sexuality, and mate. These brain chemicals override rationality and reason in a wave of emotional response that short-circuits every other consideration.

Hence, women make choices about reproduction even when: the mate is in prison serving a life sentence; is an idiot or "no-goodnik"; in an environment where the child will probably starve to death; she cannot afford to give it a quality standard of living or decent upbringing.

So yeah, it takes two to tango. Whats the man's role? I'll tell you first-hand what being a man is like. Its like after puberty, your brain changes to orient yourself toward lustful thoughts on the female form. Your penis acts like it has a mind of its own; it punishes you when you don't discharge sperm and it drives you to compete for female attention. You crave femaleness, its closeness and touch above all else. But you do not have any control over reproduction.

You are taught by society to achieve- if only to secure a mate. Like a robin building a nest, your job is to trick a female into thinking that you're more worthy than the next guy by surrounding yourself with the trappings of success.

And yet, what does a baby need in a father who is never there, working like a slave to provide a house and nest whose primary reason was originally for the woman? Once the child is born, the mother becomes protective and covetous of the child the way the male was protective and covetous of the female in the stage of mate attraction. The male feels for the female what the female feels for the child- I think what many might call 'unconditional love'. The baby needs both parents, though. Men stay with women for love, women stay with men for utility.

The baby is supposed to grow into an adult, a genetic set expressed in a collection of traits and behavior of a higher quality than the personalities that lent themselves to its genetic heritage. Either that, or the concept of 'moving forward' as a species is a joke.

This is where we're at. We have cars, suburbs, computers, and airplanes, but men and women are still propelled by caveman drives. This is expressed in thinly disguised tribalism- as politics and 'culture'. Anthropology has always pointed out the difference between societies, foreign and domestic, ancient and modern- is just a difference of scenery and costume.

The question is: if overpopulation destabilizes and destroys everything we have ever worked for- if we recognize this as rational people, will we make any attempt to halt this effect? Is it even possible to act against biological imperatives?

The answer, to my mind, is that the latter half of the 20th century, with its wide-ranging powers propelled by wealth based on cheap energy, made the first attempt toward facing the dragon of biological imperative. It politicized for the first time, reproduction. The idea of repoductive rights and self-determination is radical. But something went horribly wrong. ERA is now ini danger of being rendered irrelevant. Roe vs. Wade is on the chopping block. Young women are not burning their bras anymore, but getting tit implants. And older women are getting collagen injections. More than half of all pair-bonds destroyed. Children and adults bearing the burden of broken homes. The consumer economy turbocharged by women who now comprise more than half of all executive positions in business, make over 80% of all household purchases. If you were to put a face on American consumerism, it would be female. The glass ceiling is no longer accurate. The engine of extractive capitalism is a jauggernaut and the foot on the gas pedal is a Prada pump.

The net effect seems to have been to empower women- not necessarily the offspring. Nature, as usual, is still enjoying better success than ever- the population inexorably continues to grow. Patriarchy has been 'de-balled'. Whereas the era of the strong man supported by lesser men is over, it has been replaced by the era of weak men supported by strong women.

Now, this is all first world. In the third world, life is much as it was. Take Mexico (not exactly 3rd but still) with every female popping out 3 babies. Mexico, a country where the maini religion is an ancient neo-pagan system of idolatry which includes as the carndinal figure a "virgin" who manages to get pregnant without being penetrated by a penis- surely the first anti-male feminist goddess ever (who perpetrated the perfect cuckoldry over her clueless husband)- abortion is also illegal. Take any example of the 3rd world an multiply those numbers by an average of 2. Its fair to say that overpopulation is a huge problem.

What has the 1st world done in terms of leadership on this issue? Do American women, forget the feminists, care about lifting women up out of the third world conditions that they struggle with. If 1st world women are mainly concerned with their own self-fulfillment, and can't even recognize the growing dangers that the anti-abortion movement poses toward their rights, what chance does the rest of the world have, let alone the effects of economic destabilization due to Peak Oil or global warming?

Since going back to college I am shocked to find a generation of women who are so cravenly anti-intellectual it makes me think I'm witnessing NOW backsliding within a generation. Two women I talked to recently don't plan on doing 'anything' with their college degrees; ostensibly because they plan on meeting (trapping) a man, having a baby, and spending the rest of their days leisurely doing needlepoint and nurturing the baby they've always lusted after. This is the future 'leadership' of the feminist movement.

The NYTimes recently ran an article that highlighted a survey where more than half of all female college graduates don't see themselves working in their field in 10 years time- thats right- their plan is to bring up baby. The article pokes around the question of whether it is valuable to society to bankroll an education that is merely going to be used to vault single women into an arena where the most eligible bachelors concentrate (ie. those which will be admitted to high-paying career jobs.)

Okay, I've gone off in several different directions, so I'll wrap up. Basically, somewhere along the line idealism collided with human nature and what we're seeing is the consequences of that. Human nature wins again.

Remember, mother nature doesn't care about the well-being of the mother, father, or the child, just that the appropriate players are pulled together with sufficient force.

I think somehow in all this is the fundamental failure of modern society, of higher ideals, to manifest a continiually improving better world. Its the same brutal, nasty world, only with more people and less resources.

Strangely enough I'm beginning to think that Eugenics was a really good idea with bad PR.
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby Kickinthegob » Wed 08 Mar 2006, 16:26:36

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BlisteredWhippet', 'T')he responsibility for the act of having children is squarely on the shoulders of the woman if the choice exists to have the child or not

I got a feeling you opened a can of worms :twisted:
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby PenultimateManStanding » Wed 08 Mar 2006, 16:38:03

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kickinthegob', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BlisteredWhippet', 'T')he responsibility for the act of having children is squarely on the shoulders of the woman if the choice exists to have the child or not

I got a feeling you opened a can of worms :twisted:
blistered whippet has inspired me to offer my theory why women are shopohaulics: penis envy. They feel like they got short-changed by nature and they fill the void by buying stuff.
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby Raxozanne » Wed 08 Mar 2006, 17:07:06

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kickinthegob', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BlisteredWhippet', 'T')he responsibility for the act of having children is squarely on the shoulders of the woman if the choice exists to have the child or not

I got a feeling you opened a can of worms :twisted:


Actually I found reading some of BlisteredWhippets rant quite disturbing. What he seems to be trying to say is that men have absolutely no control or choice concerning reproduction whatsoever. I find this hard to understand when men do have a choice to use condoms when having sex with a women (or even say no as unbelievable as that may sound) and avoid getting the woman pregnant but most of all it falls down for areas that are currently undergoing massive population growth (SUBSAHARA AFRICA). In these areas women are commodities that obey men. They have little access to contraception and if men don't want them to use contraception (condoms etc. because they don't like the feel, goes against official religion etc.) then the women are pretty powerless. If they refuse sex to their husbands they are likely to be beaten and even young child brides are forced to have sex at puberty with their elderly husbands and actually die in childbirth because their bodies aren't ready to have
children.
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby Falconoffury » Wed 08 Mar 2006, 22:17:48

I exercise the right to not have children of my own. One man can impregnate many women, so even if a small percentage of men choose to never have sex, more than enough men will be around to impregnate all the women. If a small percentage of women choose to never have sex, that's a real reduction in birth rates. In that way, women have power over reproduction, but only if they have the power to enforce that choice. In many cultures, men dominate women so completely that women cannot exert their own choices.
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"Bush, Bush, listen well: Two shoes on your head," the protesters chant
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby BlisteredWhippet » Wed 08 Mar 2006, 22:27:38

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Raxozanne', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kickinthegob', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BlisteredWhippet', 'T')he responsibility for the act of having children is squarely on the shoulders of the woman if the choice exists to have the child or not

I got a feeling you opened a can of worms :twisted:


Actually I found reading some of BlisteredWhippets rant quite disturbing. What he seems to be trying to say is that men have absolutely no control or choice concerning reproduction whatsoever. I find this hard to understand when men do have a choice to use condoms when having sex with a women (or even say no as unbelievable as that may sound) and avoid getting the woman pregnant but most of all it falls down for areas that are currently undergoing massive population growth (SUBSAHARA AFRICA). In these areas women are commodities that obey men. They have little access to contraception and if men don't want them to use contraception (condoms etc. because they don't like the feel, goes against official religion etc.) then the women are pretty powerless. If they refuse sex to their husbands they are likely to be beaten and even young child brides are forced to have sex at puberty with their elderly husbands and actually die in childbirth because their bodies aren't ready to have
children.


Well, yes, you are right to some degree. I specifically tried to make a distinction between the 1st and 3rd worlds. Africa is another ball game entirely.

I guess what it boils down to is that women must fight for their reproductive rights... further, they must fight for others' reproductive rights. The main thing that I tried to get across is that in the 1st world at least, women are being brought up on one hand, empowered, and on the other, taught not "to fight". Against something as powerful a driving force as reproductive biology the fight never lets up. And I think the absence of consistency in that fight is the reason that the 1st world feels Africa is a lost cause and abortion rights are threatened domestically.
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby Wednesday » Wed 08 Mar 2006, 23:31:23

I disagree with almost every opinionated generalization you made except one.

Young women in our current culture are alarmingly anti-intellectual. I find myself despairing about the lack of interest in the bloody history of the Womens Suffrage movement and in their own future.

What happened to the Women's movement you ask? We failed to teach our daughters any history.

I find some of your opinions fairly ridiculous, but you are certainly right about the apathy of some young women. I dislike generalizations, as a rule, but I have also noticed this trend.
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Re: polite overcrowding

Unread postby jaws » Thu 09 Mar 2006, 01:01:19

One wonders why they don't add more trains.
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