Things Heard: e52v2
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at
9:01 am
- Choosing one’s passing, heh.
- Of Daphny van den Brand.
- Now that’s what I call short term thinking … increase debt to decrease the population and thereby decreasing the numbers of those who will be paying down that debt in the future. And it’s not just Ms Pelosi pushing that tale.
- Speaking of demographics … why is Europe committing demographic suicide?
- Popular Culture meets philosophy.
- Barack on spending.
- I’ve always ended that prayer “a sinner” not “a servant.” I wonder if that’s how some teach it to kids.
- Heh. (literally)
- I’m with him 100% on that first one. And I like a lot of other Kubrick films.
- Benedict, the church and the SSPX bishops … it’s not “about anti-Semitism” but is also badly handled “PR.”
- Will the economic stress fracture the Euro?
- Stopping sans brakes.
- Stimulus bill = “the worse bill in galactic history?”
- For the girls (a book).
- A good question, “what kind of person takes Che for a hero?” … or Mao? Or Lenin?
- Hmm, media bias perhaps?
- Patriotism, two posts (here and here), I was going to write a whole essay last night on these two. I think Mr Brayton and Mr Beinhart don’t get it at all and prefer instead to demonize or trivialize views of the “other” … which is by and large far easier.
- So, CO2 caused the tsunami?
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The author calls it “demographic suicide,” I call it “living responsibly and sustainably.”
Growth for growth’s sake is the ideology of the cancer cell, or so says Edward Abbey, and I agree. Yes, it might be disastrous if your population is 1 million one year and 100,000 the next year.
Of course, it would be even more disastrous if it went the other way – 1 million one year and 100 million the next. We can’t grow infinitely. Levelling off and even decreasing a bit is a more sustainable solution, seems to many of us God-fearers (and not) on the so-called Left.
Dan,
One child per couple, a “replacement” rate of 1.0 to 1.2 in Europe. You know, 4 grandparents having between them one grandchild, who of course has no cousins at all. A society that in a generation or two will have its elderly outnumbering its workers and childrens by orders of magnitued.
To call that “living responsibly and sustainably” is insane. How is it “sustainable” to eradicate your own population?
We’re in no danger of disappearing. There are nearly 7 billion of us and still going up. Whatever the number is, there is certainly a number at which we can no longer support ourselves. Ten billion? 20 billion? We can’t grow and consume forever. To do so would be foolish.
I’d suggest the number is actually probably less than 7 billion. We are able to feed 7 billion only because our agriculture is subsidized by petroleum products, without which, we’d be hard pressed to come up with that much food, or so I’ve read. And, since fossil fuels are finite and going away eventually, we’d do well to begin to slow our growth to a more sustainable level.
Dan,
Humans disappearing or the European ethnic population? I was speaking of the latter.
There is a difference between a demographic replacement rate and a catastrophic demographic collapse. Rates like 1.0 and 1.1 are suicidal. I’m unclear rhetorically why you fail to distinguish between a gentle decrease or replacement rate and exponentially destroying your population. A replacement rate less than, I think, 1.4 is argued by some demographers as “unrecoverable” … but for many countries, alas, we shall see if that’s correct.
Do you have family? Brothers or sisters? How about cousins? Do you have family gatherings? Are they a good thing? Imagine now that you have none of them, just you, your wife, your one only child and your parents. Nobody else, because with a demographic of 1.0 cousins don’t exist (on average of course). Quite the support network and so forth. You, your wife and child must work to support your 4 grandparents and 8 great grandparents when they retire. A lot on the plate for the 3 of you, no? I contend if you seriously advocate that as a good thing, you are either, as I suggested, insane or just discussing this in good faith.
Furthermore the Pelosi suggestion strikes me as disguised eugenics as well, spreading “contraception to the poor.” That is (of course) so we have less of those undesirables in our midst.
Dan,
That should be “1.4 or less” in the above.
If our global population is 7 billion and growing and it is the case that we need to slow and eventually stop that increase (and that IS the case), who can better afford to decrease their rate – Wealthy nations or poor?
I repeat: Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
At my family and church gatherings, we oftentimes have our initial family and/or church. We also have at times our homeless friends who have no place to go. We also have at times our migrant friends whose family are far-removed and their on their own here.
We aren’t hurting for a lack of community.
Also add in the children who’ve been adopted at those gatherings.
But clarify something for me: You DO agree that we as a globe CAN’T possibly keep our population growing indefinitely? That at some point (100 billion???) there will be more people than we can afford without disaster, right?
Do you further agree that we can’t even afford to let it get much larger than it is already?
Dan,
But that’s not a point at which I’m actually disagreeing of even talking about. I’m talking about demographic suicide, i.e., 1.0 to 1.2 children per couple. That’s collapse. Are you advocating or even trying to defend that?
In the prior comment (#7) you have no cousins or siblings?
Dan,
Oh, and in a society with 1 child per couple (no siblings no cousins as noted above) … who the heck do you think is going to be adopting? Where are you thinking those kids are going to come from?
I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I mean, in a society that lived in a bubble – ie, no one coming in or out – and they were actually losing population, you might have a case. But that’s not the case in this world. We can adopt children from over-populated countries. We can allow immigration from these nations. We’re not hurting for people on this planet at this point. We’re people-rich.
To answer my own question, here is one source:
Some people are starting to ask just how many people the Earth can support if we want to cease degrading the environment and move to a sustainable solar energy system? There is no solid answer yet, but the best estimate is that Earth can support about 1 to 2 billion people with an American Standard of living, good health, nutrition, prosperity, personal dignity and freedom.
We need to slow our growth as a planet and it is not reasonable or just to expect that to happen in the third world. I don’t disagree with you that it behooves us to decrease our rate responsibly, but decrease our global population we WILL, one way or the other, eventually. And I’d hope that the wealthier nations would lead the way.
Dan,
Do you think demographic suicide (as noted in the article) is a good thing or not? You would encourage the Western “first world” nations to have birth rates of 1.0 to 1.2?
“In this world” so you think that if Spain and Italy, to take two examples, if their culture evaporated and their people disappeared because of demographic crises, to be replaced by immigrants from Asia and or Islamic Northern Africa this would be completely unproblematic to you?