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Newf, have you heard of the Gramsci quote: "Pessimism of the mind, optimism of the spirit" or something like that?

No, but I feel it.

The problem with the the "optomisim of the spirit" bit is that it too frequently blocks the mind bit and leads to denial. "That nice young Mr. Hitler would never do such a thing." You ever hear that?

dohboi wrote:Newf, have you heard of the Gramsci quote: "Pessimism of the mind, optimism of the spirit" or something like that?

This duality is always present in anticipation of an event that has not yet occurred. This duality actually dissolves when it moves from the conceptual to the actual.

Humans are at their best and most noble and most proactive and optimistic in the middle of calamity but they are miserable and they mind fuck themselves into a corner when they are contemplating calamity.

Newfie wrote:No, but I feel it.

The problem with the the "optomisim of the spirit" bit is that it too frequently blocks the mind bit and leads to denial. "That nice young Mr. Hitler would never do such a thing." You ever hear that?

I believe you have that reversed. A number of people got that creepy crawly feeling from viewing or hearing Hitler's speeches, but their brains over rode the spiritual warning system by telling them

"That nice young Mr. Hitler would never do such a thing."

even though he was explicitly saying he most certainly would do those awful things.

Part of the reason I get so annoyed when the lefties claim every Republican President is a Hitler want-to-be is exactly that. Hitler was never subtle and was a loud proud racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semite. He never ever tried to conceal those traits and he counted on winning because some people openly agreed with him and clearly enough a whole lot of others secretly agreed even if they wouldn't say so in the open. Heck he wrote two books laying out exactly what he thought of Women, Jews, Slavs, Homosexuals and anyone who did not acknowledge the supposed superiority of his Nordic Aryan ideal Ubermensch.

Tanada wrote:Part of the reason I get so annoyed when the lefties claim every Republican President is a Hitler want-to-be is exactly that.

First off, Godwin's Law.

Second, it's unfair to say that only lefties brand republicans as fascists. During Obama's two terms he was given every dystopian label imaginable, plus birtherism, etc...

There is no civil political discourse to be had in this country, period. I'm not saying just the GOP are at fault, but the bar was lowered to new depths under Trump starting with the primaries. The small hands, menstruation jokes, etc...

The difference now vs. the 1930s is that extremists use dog-whistles. They are not going to issue Mein Kampf like tomes calling for genocide. They are going to hide behind plausible deniability. That's something Trump is very good at. So Trump's modus operandi is to blow a dog-whistle that makes the alt-right crowd happy and then publicly disavow and deny it. That duplicity has become standard issue in an ambient culture that has a PC lynch-mob mentality.

Both the left and right have created their own strains of dysfunction in society, hollowing out the middle.

Elon Musk says "World Population is heading towards collapse and no one cares"

elon-musk-world-population-heading-toward-collapse-2017

That sums the problem up in a nutshell. Everyone knows that global population growth is taking us towards collapse, but no one cares. I'm not aware of a single nationally supported program to reduce population growth after the efforts in China and India were ended.

Even here in the USA, there is no significant opposition to continued population growth. There used to be a very active group called "Zero Population Growth" in the USA, but they were drummed out of polite society after they were called racists for being against immigration to the USA.

Musk is right----everyone see the overpopulation catastrophe coming but no one cares.


Zero Population Growth isn't politically correct because they opposed population growth in the USA through immigration

cheers!

Plantagenet wrote:Elon Musk says "World Population is heading towards collapse and no one cares"

elon-musk-world-population-heading-toward-collapse-2017

That sums the problem up in a nutshell.

No it doesn't. You didn't interpret his tweet correctly. He means accelerating towards demographic-shift-induced depopulation, not overshoot and die-off. It only becomes clear in the context of the link.

"Could the population bomb be about to go off in the most unexpected way? Rather than a Malthusian meltdown, could we instead be on the verge of a demographic implosion?"

Unless he was trying to bash rather than endorse the link, he's talking about demographic implosion.

pstarr wrote:If everyone lived like me (I sleep in straw. And I eat straw)

Hey Planty, THIS is your virtue-signalling above.

How does anyone figure a Demographic shift in the Overpopulated poor and resource scarce countries of the world. In those places conditions are ripe for Overshoot induced dieoff

asg70 wrote:

Plantagenet wrote:Elon Musk says "World Population is heading towards collapse and no one cares"

You didn't interpret his tweet correctly. He means accelerating towards demographic-shift-induced depopulation, not overshoot and die-off. It only becomes clear in the context of the link..... he's talking about demographic implosion.

Gosh, you're right asie. Sorry about that.

I've never previously seen anyone with a brain concerned about imminent global "depopulation", and I'm very disappointed in Elon Musk that he would endorse this bizarre concept.

Meanwhile, demographers who actually study the subject predict world population rising and then rising again to ever higher numbers. For instance, the most recent UN report says:

The current world population of 7.6 billion is expected to reach 8.6 billion in 2030, 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100, according to a new United Nations report being launched today.Jun 21, 2017

In the future, I'll watch out for "fake news" coming from Elon Musk.

Cheers!

PS: You are also right that Pstarr's reusable bag is classic "virtue signaling." As I've been saying, once you start looking for virtue signaling its everywhere from the NFL to your local organic grocer.

Plantagenet wrote:Zero Population Growth isn't politically correct because they opposed population growth in the USA through immigration

cheers!

There are lots of logical reasons why we should reduce the level of immigration so it isn't contributing to further population growth. Unfortunately, any organized attempt to promote that idea will invariably attract people who are racist or xenophobic. Reducing the level of immigration is also a difficult position for a politician to take -- it means throwing away most of the immigrant vote and those who have been brain washed into believing that we can't survive without large scale immigration.

I do believe though that many people living in large metropolitan areas would agree that we don't need more population growth if you point out the problems of the rising cost of housing, increased commute time and infrastructure that is inadequate to support the existing and growing population.

It could be argued though that no Western country is truly pro-immigrant because while the number of people we admit seems large to us it is actually quite small relative to the number of people who would like to move to a Western country. There was a time when just about anyone could be admitted legally to Canada or the US but nowadays the number applying is far greater than the number admitted. And while many Western countries appear to be welcoming to migrants who just show up at the border, the reality is that they are doing everything they can to make it difficult for people to get there. In the case of Europe they made an agreement with Turkey to help stop the flow of migrants to Greece and an agreement with one of the governments in Libya to have their navy stop migrants from sailing to Europe.

I am what some would term a liberal New Yorker. But I do not see racism and xenophobia in wanting to stem the tide of Immigrations. I see it simply as a sane and prudent approach to try and maintain social cohesion in countries that still have it. The people are leaving from the countries who do NOT have it.

Yes P, I also wrestle with the issue as, my propensity would be to help others but I do not see how that can happen in the future that is slowly evolving.

Have to agree with p for once on this one.

ol, you can still think of it as helping people, it's just that people need help with these days is learning how (and why) to limit themselves, in a number of way.

dohboi wrote:Have to agree with p for once on this one.

ol, you can still think of it as helping people, it's just that people need help with these days is learning how (and why) to limit themselves, in a number of way.

Dohboi, this is where I think you and I can find common ground with Rockman. He rightly points out that the end users mostly us the rich world consumers could and should have tried to limit our conspicuous consumption as we are the top consumers of energy derived from fossil fuels. But it seemed to be in almost everyone interests to keep partying. The desperate people are in no position now to control anything they are just trying to survive. Nevertheless, they have simply overpopulated their resource base way too much. If the rich countries let them in they too will be doing the same thing via Immigration. I am simply thankful as a layperson to becoming much more aware and knowledgable about the Biological and Ecological limitations via this site and the Internet. So, I sort of know what letting in so many people will do. It is like allowing to many people upon some floating makeshift boat, it would ultimately doom everyone.

Welllll, the ones most in need of ''limits" are the thuggish, drug-king-pin-like mega corporations who have been peddling their fossil-death-fuels on the world even as they knew full well the disastrous global consequences of their use.

But yeah, everyone has some responsibility, and those in the global top 20% who use the lion's share obviously bear more responsibility than the global 80% who only use a fraction of said death fuels.