While I’m sure plenty rich-from-natural-resources elites would be pleased to implement this proposed genocide-by-famine (they could turn the fallow fields into vacation homes without those pesky farmers stinking the place up), the real question is how you’d expect a low-capacity, poorly armed, poorly trained government to force remote farmers to commit slow suicide. Even China doesn’t restrict births for farmers- even if that wouldn’t destroy the critical agricultural sector, it’s just be impossible to do even under strong totalitarianism. In China the threat is that you won’t be able to get access to government services or a job. What, exactly, do you think the barely functioning Congolese government (that couldn’t even keep itself from being invaded by Rwanda) is going to be able to threaten a hand to mouth sustenance farmer in a village thats a six hour walk down a mountain from a dirt road a three day drive from the capital with?
If the Congolese government can’t enforce effective family planning, then they shouldn’t be getting a penny in foreign “humanitarian” aid. I think that’s what AG was getting at (my apologies if I’m mistaken). It’s certainly something I would agree with.
Providing food and medical aid for populations that can’t support themselves, yet that still maintain high rates of natural increase, is only a recipe for future suffering and dependence on an even greater scale.
I also think that wealthy nations aren’t doing poor nations any favors in allowing the impoverished populations to immigrate to their shores, at least in the long-term. Brain drain robs the poor nations of their best and brightest, while at the same time, the exodus of their low-skilled masses dilutes the political impetus to undertake necessary and inevitable social and demographic reforms at home.
I have two honestly held views that really, really upset people (in real life, I try not to bring them up):
That the US has diverged into two distinct and inherently irreconcilable cultures; and that
Being a member of the modern Republican Party is incompatible with being a patriot.
Um, you are aware, I hope that the problem isn’t the family of 10 in the Congo. The problem is the family of 2 in California.
In the Congo, they are not building more and more nuclear power plants to support their fridges, freezers, airconditions and big screen tvs, by the millions. They are not producing tons of garbage, per person, per year, like the west.
The problem isn’t the world lacking resources, the problem is one quarter of the worlds population consuming 3/4 of the world’s resources. It’s not about the number of people in Africa as much as it’s about how the people in the West consume resources.
I tend to agree with you on this. People will make mistakes, its in our nature. But if we fess up to them, own them, and try to learn from them, there is an opportunity for growth.
I also feel that honest dialog is becoming a lost art, and that this is a shame.
In America, we aren’t either. The world would be better off if we did.
I think that the current level of technology is not sustainable and that it is part of the cyclical fall of any living species. Like deer in the wood, we’ve over populated unsustainably and we’ve eliminated all safeties (redundancies) in the hope of more profits.
There will be in our lifetime famine and war and a loss of knowledge, technology, history, medicine, art, and literature that would make a rational person weep. The death toll globally will, percentage wise, be akin to the Black Plague of the 14th century.
There will be horse-drawn carts made from car frames as well as bicycles (until those parts rust away) and the regional growth industries will be agricultural and textile (clothes). Blacksmiths will craft parts in town foundries from scrap metal.
And in future centuries that bank on the corner will be just something under a mound of dirt covered with grass that children will play on between chores.
Not to the people living in the Congo, it isn’t.
More explicitly stated, the problem is that the hypothetical family of 10 in the Congo that cannot support sustain itself in 2012 without foreign handouts, will in 20 years time, with the provision of said assistance, become a family of 12 that still cannot sustain itself. California has fuck all to do with that.
No, but they are producing Congolese in ever-increasing numbers, which was the point I was making.
I wasn’t talking about global ecology - merely demographics and the pressures they create within and between societies. But since you bring it up - how does increasing the numbers of your purported “3/4” (which, of course over time, becomes 10/16, then 4/5, etc.) reduce pressure on finite global resources?
Interesting, as I’m with Lumpy on this, and your response to him/her has demonstrated why generally there can’t be a rational discussion on child sexuality and the implications of it in society.
I have soooooooooooooooo many things to say, need to follow up with another post when I have time. I absolutely LOVE this thread, best thing I’ve read in ages 
As Blackberry said I meant when there is no emergency. The only time I’ve seen cops around here going even remotely close to the speed limit is when they are trolling for tickets. I’m tired of being passed like I’m standing still. I’m tired of hearing about cops going by traffic cameras and giving the finger.
I fully understand the need at times to speed, but they need to run lights.
It’s not that I don’t see where you’re coming from but there’s a significant difference between the kind of disturbing behavior that you hear about serial killers engaging in and hunting.
It seems to me that you’re equating strangling cats and torturing small animals with hunting; I find that opinion ignorant and frustrating.
Ooooh, I have another one.
The lives of pets are not more important than humans. We shouldn’t even have charities like the SPCA while soup kitchens are still needing donations. Feeding, clothing and sheltering humans trumps charity for animals. Hell, if we can ensure the food safety aspect, animals that were going to be euthanized anyway should be done so in a manner that the meat can go to those in need. That’s right, Sarah McLachlan, get singin’ for humans instead of dogs.
Don’t stop there. Only worthy humans should be fed.
Children are perfectly capable of developing sexually without predatory adult interference. The phrase “rational discussion” is generally used to mitigate an abhorant behavior destructive to those least capable of defending themselves physically and psychologically. There is a marked empathy for the perpatrator over the victim from such people and limits my willingness to listen.
I suppose if pedos could be absolutly isolated from children in a place where they could support themselves then ending their lives would be superflous however.
I’m not equating them, actually. Killing an animal as humanely as reasonably possible (and hunting could certainly be considered more humane than factory farming) and using the meat for food is something that I personally can’t begin to imagine anyone wanting to do (but I’m a squeamish vegetarian cityperson), BUT I don’t think it has to mean there’s something wrong with a person.
You’re the one who phrased it all serial killer-y (“I like to kill things”), not me. I’m almost sure that you and most other hunters are not like serial killers, and I would guess and hope that most are careful not to let the animals suffer too much. But I still don’t see how you could do it and not feel bad, and even find it enjoyable and fun.
I wonder about people who really like violent sports like boxing, too.
(my bolding)
Well, if you believe in God. I think there are many compelling reasons to not want to be murdered, and for killing other people to be generally taboo without having to resort to the argument that individual lives are particularly important in and of themselves.
(in response to my belief of basic parental freedom).
I think it retards the likelihood of specific people to progress, but it doesn’t hinder society. I think most parents will gladly adhere to societal norms for parenting. If my view were implemented, children of parents with extreme parenting beliefs/actions will be affected, but most families would keep on truckin’ as they always have. There are enough potential workers and innovators out there that if some small percentage aren’t given the opportunities to learn that others are, I don’t think we will suffer that much.
(in response to my statement about Globalization being teh bad).
Explain to me why Western culture ‘triumphing’ over other cultures is desirable. Basically, I lament homogeneity; I think it stifles creativity, puts limits on individuality. The closer humanity moves to having one basic, similar human experience, the more our spirits will languish in bland and quiet acceptance of The One Way. IMHO, of course.
Heh. And I suspect you’re a teenager who thinks he can, with his limited life experience and narrow perspective, still manage to pigeon-hole the people he interacts with into convenient stereotypes based on a loose and inaccurate reading of what they say to him.
Most of what I believe, as expressed in this thread, anyway, is founded in a desire for individual freedoms, and sustaining the Self as different from Society. I would think that these views would appeal to some fundamental Republican/Conservative beliefs, except, of course, that my take on them is Godless.
I’m in my 30s, and have had many chances to experience and be exposed to different opinions and lifestyles. My own have changed in the past and I’m sure will many times more in the future. This is not germane to this discussion other than to point out that your attempt to come across as either a) a jerk or b) wiser and more worldly than I am is falling on deaf ears. Why you felt the need to take that jab at me is beyond me.
(in response to my beliefs about curtailing medical research funding)
I didn’t say we can’t make any breakthroughs. As I said, there are some specific areas where it is vital that it should continue. AIDS-related research is likely an area where I would agree that we should continue our efforts. However, maybe (and this is hypothetical; I don’t have actual specific suggestions about what should be stopped. I think it’s a question that professionals should look at, though) there are some cancers that, when caught early enough have very high rates of remission/recovery, and very low chance of death. Maybe in that case it’s smart to say, “we’re really close to this cancer being a non-life-threatening issue for almost all of the 20-75 year olds who have it. Medical costs are so expensive that it doesn’t make sense to continue to spend resources on this specific illness anymore.”
There’s that and then there’s also the fact that most types of hunted meat aren’t found in most grocery stores…and think of it this way: if you bag your own red meat and say, pheasants and that’s the only meat you eat at all, you are in fact supporting yourself without supporting factory farming, which is far worse than hunting, IMO.
I don’t really have a problem with hunting, but this cracked my shit up.
Except a chastity belt is much more restrictive and unhealthy than contraceptives. They are not remotely equivalent.
The whole “chastity belt” thing is just pure hyperbole; I don’t think anyone is seriously suggesting it. But, as to that issue, I do think semi-permanent contraception would be much easier to implement in women than in men. And it’s the women who grow the baby inside their body, not the men.