[JPL]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ALBY', 'T')o be fair, JPL, they are Steyn's idea's, not mine and although he obviously influences my thinking, i don't quite buy into these ideas completely. part of me thinks petrocollapse will kill more of the throngs in the marginal areas of the world first. they live on the battlefied after all. So we have NO IDEA how demography and petrocollapse will interact.

Your points about Europe and it's propensity for right wing nationalism and being crowded are duly noted. I'm glad you are here to inform the debate.

[Baldwin]

JPL: Good. Britain and the rest of Europe does not deserve to be second rate countries in the pantheon in the world. I want the Europe of 1910 that was strong and could project force across the world.

A strong Europe under rational leaders was never a threat to America. In fact, Europe and America together make a strong power bloc, as their interests are often the same.

[ALBY]

yeah, but i think it's the kids dressed up like templars that bother jpl.

[MonteQuest]

Let's try to get back on topic.

[gg3]

MD: thanks (blush!) but it's only still February...:-)

---

TonyPrep & Monte: You're both in error as follows:

First, Darwinian time, i.e. the time scale of biological adaptation & evolution of the physical organism, leaves human history in the dust. Increasing the rate of turnover of genes by lopping off heads rather than snipping gonads, provides no appreciable benefit during the time scale of human history.

Second, in the historic evolution of human societies, which is the relevant variable in the present case, memes leave genes in the dust. The evolution of ideas has taken off on a track independent of the physical evolution of the human organism. Aside from the issue of preventing dysgenic drift, the obsession with genes is obsolete: for better or for worse, ideas are what matter.

Third, the velocity of change in society is already too high, and this is what is presently rushing us toward the cliff. Youth-oriented culture produces an increase in the rate of change. A society that has been shifted toward youth by choosing for high birth rate and high death rate, and correspondingly shorter average lifespan, will necessarily increase its velocity of change, when in fact a reduction in velocity of change is needed to achieve sustainability.

Fourth, choosing a low birth rate, high death rate, and longer average lifespans, will slow the velocity of societal change. Achieving powerdown and shifting to a slower rate of change is exactly what is needed for sustainability.

QED, case closed. No need for guillotines.

---

That being said, lifespan reduction can be achieved by voluntary means, without recourse to the gas ovens. Lowering the smoking age to 16, the drinking age to 18, and legalizing opiates, would do wonders. Rolling back most of the prohibitions on smoking, and on transfats and suchlike tasty traps in food, would help appreciably. Legal opiates plus legal recreational marijuana would also do great things for reducing consumption levels: why go to the shopping mall when you can blissfully contemplate your proverbial navel?

Simple efficiency dictates that one should never attempt to do by coersion that which can be done by motivating free will instead.

[TonyPrep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'F')irst, Darwinian time, i.e. the time scale of biological adaptation & evolution of the physical organism, leaves human history in the dust. Increasing the rate of turnover of genes by lopping off heads rather than snipping gonads, provides no appreciable benefit during the time scale of human history.

[JPL]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'L')et's try to get back on topic.

[JPL]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Baldwin', 'J')PL: Good. Britain and the rest of Europe does not deserve to be second rate countries in the pantheon in the world. I want the Europe of 1910 that was strong and could project force across the world.

[gg3]

TonyPrep, your case is the equivalent of arguing that people need their painkillers while a heroin addiction epidemic is raging. Why?

No one was suggesting to turn off human reproduction entirely. Iin case it wasn't clear, what I am suggesting is to limit to at most one child per couple for a couple of generations until we are down to about 2 billion humans, and then let people have two kids per couple.

As for lifespan, some of our most important scientific and technological discoveries have come from people above the age of 50. I know of a pharmacologist who has developed a compound that points the way to a cure for sociopathy. In fact I have spoken with him personally on a number of occasions. The guy is about 90 years old and still as sharp as anyone at age 60, which is still pretty damn good, and he developed the compound in question about 10 - 12 years ago. Buckminster Fuller was inventing and creating up to his last days on earth, in his 80s.

Cutting off lifespan is throwing away embodied knowledge and wisdom that actually exist. Spaying and neutering only throws away the potential for a larger number of tosses of the dice: people who don't actually exist, and are thousands of times as likely to turn out as street thugs than as the next Einstien or Hawking.

I'll toss the ball back in your court: How exactly do you propose to achieve reductions in average lifespan? I offered a few suggestions for volunutary means, from subsidized cigarettes to recreational opiates, and (for the health nuts) extreme sports such as mountain climbing. Are you saying that voluntary means aren't enough? OK, we have wars. 600,000 or so Iraqis just had their lifespans shortened over the past six years. Still not enough for you..? OK, what then?

---

JPL: Good find there, about the BNP and PO. Now what's needed is for a more moderate party to recognize PO and also to shut the doors to Middle Eastern immigration. The latter would take a good bit of the wind out of the BNP's sails and is a wholly rational idea for limiting population growth on what is after all an island nation.

Also, good WW1 photo choice there: makes the point effectively without need of graphic gore. Making a point without exploiting primal emotions is a sign of an arguement that is substantial rather than merely playing to reflexes.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'N')o one was suggesting to turn off human reproduction entirely. Iin case it wasn't clear, what I am suggesting is to limit to at most one child per couple for a couple of generations until we are down to about 2 billion humans, and then let people have two kids per couple.

[JPL]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', ' ') Now what's needed is for a more moderate party to recognize PO and also to shut the doors to Middle Eastern immigration.

[TonyPrep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'T')onyPrep, your case is the equivalent of arguing that people need their painkillers while a heroin addiction epidemic is raging.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'O')h my, we're all so cheerful tonight that we could practically get up and dance!

There is no avoiding the fact that it will take only a slight breeze to blow down this house of cards, and when it comes down it's going to be a mess. See also http://www.antropik.com, all things overly-complex must eventually come to an end.


And there's no avoiding the fact that the planet is overpopulated by a factor of two and it's got to get back in balance one way or the other. The only good thing about the apparently inevitable 3.5 gigadeaths is that one can hope the generation that has to bury all of those (or thermally depolymerize them for fuel) will end up with a greater reverence for life than the present generations.

[eastbay]

A one child policy would be a good place to start, but it takes a few decades to show results and we may not have a few decades. gg3 is right. Something must be done pretty darn quickly to effect a 3 or 4 billion reduction in human population or nature will do it for us. Either way it will not be very a pleasant experience.

Interestingly, as an aside, several human populations have held somewhat steady over the past half century. Caucasians, Jews, Indigeonous Americans, and Japanese populations, for example, have shown little increase for the last half century or so.

Others have exploded in number such as the Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, sub-Saharan African, and Latin American populations, among others.

I suspect the populations that have seen the largest increases over the past 50 years or so will also experience the harshest declines.

[Baldwin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JPL', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Baldwin', 'J')PL: Good. Britain and the rest of Europe does not deserve to be second rate countries in the pantheon in the world. I want the Europe of 1910 that was strong and could project force across the world.

[MonteQuest]

Let's try to get back on topic. Read the initial post.

[Waterthrush]

Political discourse since the end of WW2 in the US has also fostered in US citizens a sense of enormous entitlement. The Reagan years were particularly rife with insinuation that, because one was born an American, one had numerous virtues, which made one deserving of more wealth and power than other people.

So politicians are right to fear that any talk of powering down, of conserving resources, of lowering living standards, will result in a prompt exit from office at the next election. This makes me sad, because I would like to put some effort and hope into the political process in order to deal with the onrushing crisis.

Like many others here, I can no longer see any possibility of avoiding an abrupt, crashing, correction. The question I'm asking myself is how to make that work (if it can work) to make moving on from the wreckage possible.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Waterthrush', ' ')Like many others here, I can no longer see any possibility of avoiding an abrupt, crashing, correction. The question I'm asking myself is how to make that work (if it can work) to make moving on from the wreckage possible.

[JPL]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')The biggest problem I see is that we will try, at first, to just start over doing it the same way. That won't work. We will have to have a paradigm shift in our thinking about economics, population growth, debt money, and capitalism.
We will have to pay as we go.

[DesertBear2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Waterthrush', ' ')The Reagan years were particularly rife with insinuation that, because one was born an American, one had numerous virtues, which made one deserving of more wealth and power than other people.

So politicians are right to fear that any talk of powering down, of conserving resources, of lowering living standards, will result in a prompt exit from office at the next election.