[dohboi]

OK, vt, you can tell us all what grade level of vocabulary you would feel comfortable limiting our conversation to, and we'll all try to comply. Maybe present a searchable list so we could check it before writing any word that pops into our heads. It may slow things down a bit, but hey, if it makes you happy, that's what we're all here for, right??

[Cog]

Dohboi,

Do your deny the fact? Frankly it strikes me as true. Don't know for sure.

Cog made a simple statement, you attributed it with indifference. Why not ask instead of attacking.

Cog, are you indifferent to folks dieing in other parts of the world?

There are places on the planet where it is very difficult to sustain a large population of people because the growing environment or lack of other resources make it that way. Ethiopia is such a place and has been since I've been alive. I'm indifferent to their problems in the same way that everyone else is. I don't rush over there to save them even though I am aware of their plight. Nor do I believe we should make an effort to save them. If that is casual indifference then I'm guilty of it.

[Tanada]

Dohboi,

Do your deny the fact? Frankly it strikes me as true. Don't know for sure.

Cog made a simple statement, you attributed it with indifference. Why not ask instead of attacking.

Cog, are you indifferent to folks dieing in other parts of the world?

There are places on the planet where it is very difficult to sustain a large population of people because the growing environment or lack of other resources make it that way. Ethiopia is such a place and has been since I've been alive. I'm indifferent to their problems in the same way that everyone else is. I don't rush over there to save them even though I am aware of their plight. Nor do I believe we should make an effort to save them. If that is casual indifference then I'm guilty of it.

Back in my younger years I was a fan of the comedian Sam Kinison. One of his routines that I really enjoyed was the starving children from Ethiopia. The gist of it was the 'Feed The Children' organization were a bunch of hypocrites profiting off of their misery instead of working to get the starving people relocated to a place, any place really but the USA in particular, where food was abundant. He was a heck of a foul mouthed guy, so don't turn the volume all the way up when listening unless profanity appeals to you. https://youtu.be/bjO7QMP4h-Y

[Newfie]

Cog,

Thanks For the response.

Reading "Taste of War" the author notes Italy invaded Ethiopia largely because Italy had a food deficit and Ethiopia had a food surplus. Of course that's an old tale, Italy (Rome) invaded Egypt for their food surplus, back in the day.

i think you make a good point about differentiating indifference. It is nearly impossible to be indifferent to the immediate human tragedy when faced with a starving child. The knee jerk reaction is to want to help. Some get over this reaction and, as Tanda noted, find a way to profit. There a limits to this desire to help, as Europe is discovering.

We have run out of places to put the stressed homeless and starving. But we are indifferent to the root causes because they don't have a sad face and there are few ways to make a modest donation to make us feel "I have done my part."

The sad face touches us on an emotional level, the long term planning does not. In the larger scheme the failure to address the latter is the bigger "sin" if you believe in such things.

I think there is a third form of indifference, it is the knowing that beyond not being able to address the long term issues, this is a proble that is growing and will some day in our personal lives. The same way someone with cancer may appear to be indifferent to the affliction, when really they are simply too scared to deal with its reality.

To say the mass of humanity is NOT indifferent makes no sense. If we so we would work on the long term problems.

To say that the mass of humanity is indifferent makes no sense. If so we would all be a bunch of sociopaths with no sympathy or empathy.

That cunundrum is why I struggle with these ideas.

[dohboi]

Yes, this is turning into a more productive discussion.

As I understand it, the global philanthropic community are finally reassessing their stance wrt to long term aid. They still do see a humanitarian need to help in distress situations (as I think this is). But they now see long term aid as often causing dependencies and other problems that can lead to worse consequences down the road.

Of course, many of these areas have a history of colonialism, as Newf suggested, or more recent corporate exploitation, and of course now devastating effects of GW.

So not caring about what happens is a bit like to caring about the negative results of ones own actions (or the actions of others that you've benefited from). Such 'compassion fatigue' (assume one ever had any real compassion to start with) is indeed all to common, but nothing to brag about, imvho.

[vtsnowedin]

OK, vt, you can tell us all what grade level of vocabulary you would feel comfortable limiting our conversation to, and we'll all try to comply. Maybe present a searchable list so we could check it before writing any word that pops into our heads. It may slow things down a bit, but hey, if it makes you happy, that's what we're all here for, right??

Go ahead and write at any grade level your capable of, just don't expect us to be impressed by your voluminous vocabulary.

[Newfie]

The problem Doh is population collapse is inevitable, eventually. Can't stop it.

The only alternative, which I doubt is remotely viable, is "Chicken Coop Earth."

A very good friend, retired minister, did his Peace Corp work in India teaching how to raise chickens. He has gone back a few times. He will no more. He has been convienced, through his own observations, of the futility. He has been convienced of population collapse inevitability. You will find no more empathetic, sympathetic, or rational person on Earth.

Too many of these poor, poor folks are walking dead. It does no good for me to boo hoo about it. Trying to "save" them just assures more of them in the future. It's a mugs game.

It does not mean I'm not sympathetic or indifferent. Just rational. I know the pain, the sorrow, I just don't wear it on my sleeve like a badge.

Such is life.

[Lore]

India was just buying time with the green revolution. Now that they are pumping the last water out of the ground it will be back to the mass starvation of years gone by. Only now they are going to have to feed hordes of refugees coming along as well.

[onlooker]

In the end Newfie is right this amount of population just cannot be sustained much longer no matter what we do. I would say if it were possible I would be in favor of forced sterilization of a large percentage of women in almost every country. Problem is of course all these women would not easily accede to this. So then what? Fool them tell them they have to drink a special drink during their pregnancy to insure their babies are born healthy, so that this drink would actually sterilize and prevent them from having the current baby in the womb and any future babies. Just pondering this questions that is all.

[Subjectivist]

In the end Newfie is right this amount of population just cannot be sustained much longer no matter what we do. I would say if it were possible I would be in favor of forced sterilization of a large percentage of women in almost every country. Problem is of course all these women would not easily accede to this. So then what? Fool them tell them they have to drink a special drink during their pregnancy to insure their babies are born healthy, so that this drink would actually sterilize and prevent them from having the current baby in the womb and any future babies. Just pondering this questions that is all.

Caution, women are just as able to form lynch mobs as anyone else, and they would neither forgive nor forget such a scheme.

[ennui2]

I would say if it were possible I would be in favor of forced sterilization of a large percentage of women in almost every country. Problem is of course all these women would not easily accede to this. So then what? Fool them tell them they have to drink a special drink during their pregnancy to insure their babies are born healthy, so that this drink would actually sterilize and prevent them from having the current baby in the womb and any future babies.

You spend an awful amount of your time here presenting conspiracy theories as fact. I find it ironic that you would start personally suggesting a conspiracy worthy of an Alex Jones expose'.

[ennui2]

Caution, women are just as able to form lynch mobs as anyone else, and they would neither forgive nor forget such a scheme.

Gaia makes a better executioner. You can't lynch-mob her.

[Subjectivist]

Caution, women are just as able to form lynch mobs as anyone else, and they would neither forgive nor forget such a scheme.

Gaia makes a better executioner. You can't lynch-mob her.

Far better the impartial hand of Gods natural law than the egotistical whims of those who hold political power.

[dohboi]

I have a sneaking suspicion that Newf may have taken a different view of these things if, heaven forbid, some major utterly destructive calamity had hit Philly sometime in his tenure there, and he and his beloved became one of hundreds of thousands completely destitute.

I doubt, in that case, if he would have nodded with sage approval when other parts of the state, other states, the federal government, and all other countries said they would refuse to ever send any kind of aid at all, because:

"population collapse is inevitable, eventually. Can't stop it...

Too many of these poor, poor folks are walking dead.

It does no good for me to boo hoo about it.

Trying to "save" them just assures more of them in the future. It's a mugs game.

It does not mean [we're] not sympathetic or indifferent.

Just rational."

But who knows? Maybe he would?

[dohboi]

onlooker, how about just giving women very basic right to have control over their own bodies and reproductive life, and while you're at it, provide basic health coverage (of course, including contraception and safe abortion services), and throw in education, and assurance that the one child they do have will also have access to enough basic medical and other services that he or she will have a chance to grow old enough to care for the mother as she ages.

These few basic elements (and a few other similar ones) have helped slash birth rates in Bangladesh down to about a third of what they used to be, iirc.

But yes, the time is getting late.

If we are going to implement forced sterilization, we should of course start with the global top 10% of consumers, for safe measure clipping both women and men. (By the way, it is almost certain that all posting here or even lurking are in the global top 10 %).

[onlooker]

I would say if it were possible I would be in favor of forced sterilization of a large percentage of women in almost every country. Problem is of course all these women would not easily accede to this. So then what? Fool them tell them they have to drink a special drink during their pregnancy to insure their babies are born healthy, so that this drink would actually sterilize and prevent them from having the current baby in the womb and any future babies.

You spend an awful amount of your time here presenting conspiracy theories as fact. I find it ironic that you would start personally suggesting a conspiracy worthy of an Alex Jones expose'.

Where did I suggest above that it is actually happening? Also I said if it were possible.

[dohboi]

vt, I generally just type out the first words that come into my addled brain (though I am trying to censor out most profanity so as not to singe the eyeballs of our beloved T ).

I'm sure there's no chance of ever impressing you lot, and I certainly wouldn't dare try!

Thanks for the lexical permission note, though.

[onlooker]

Yes Dohboi that would be the more sober and moderate way that you suggested but as you conceded time is running short. And your suggestions presuppose alot going right. Women by instinct do seem to want to have children. I think we have passed the time of modest reasonable steps we need to entertain the hard choices that are fast becoming the only ones. Of course we can do nothing and let Nature ravage our species, I suppose that would be divine justice for us ravaging HER.

[dohboi]

"Women by instinct do seem to want to have children."

1) Not all women.

2) Very few want to have 7 kids.

3) Most want one or two.

4) Most are pressured by society and by men to have more than they want.

Yes, again, it's quite late. But that's even more reason to go with methods that have proven effective (incentives like those I laid out), and avoid as much as possible those that haven't (attempts at forced sterilization have been tried in many contexts, generally with pretty negative results of many sorts).

Mostly, though, no one's going to anything very effective of any sort on any front anywhere near the magnitude and scale and speed that the enormity of the problem demands.

[Newfie]

Mostly, though, no one's going to anything very effective of any sort on any front anywhere near the magnitude and scale and speed that the enormity of the problem demands.

Yes that is the reality. Not the reality that anyone here wants. At least here many do understand that reality.

Other than mourning I see little point in endlessly going over coda, should, woulda. Since the only thing we can effect is the future, and that seems pretty clear, then that is where the focus should be.

I'm focusing on saving my own sorry ass since it seems even that taxes my ability. Once I figure out how to save me (and mine) I'll extend a helping hand.