[kevincarter]

The inability to sustain such disobedience, probably explains why blacks didn't rise up against their white owners, Jews didn't rise up against their Nazi guards, Soviet gulag prisioners didn't rise up against their guards. Im sure there are other examples.

All those cases were minorities within a country, we are talking about WHOLE countries. And I don't think those goverments have such good comunications and well traind and armed armies.

Alleviating immediate hunger is the problem. I know it sounds evil, who would refuse to feed the hungry? I couldn’t do it. If a guy knocked on my door I sure would give him food, but is not one guy, its 6 billons of them, and that's where the problem is.

Money to help 3rd word countries its a joke, I repeat, the more money we give them the more poor people they have. Yes, some hardcore highly motivated guys may be doing some wonderful communities, but generally speaking we are contributing to the worst. And the scariest thing of all is that people is finding in "one child policy" or "government birth control” the miracle solution (the final solution I would say), yeah, like what the world needs is some bureaucrat telling you or someone in Africa how many kids you are allowed to have. Don’t you have respect for freedom?

[Concerned]

The inability to sustain such disobedience, probably explains why blacks didn't rise up against their white owners, Jews didn't rise up against their Nazi guards, Soviet gulag prisioners didn't rise up against their guards. Im sure there are other examples.

All those cases were minorities within a country, we are talking about WHOLE countries. And I don't think those goverments have such good comunications and well traind and armed armies.

20% Vs 80% is a minority. Now factor that it's 20% of the poorest with not even enough resources for food and you get an idea of their capability. Remember these people are not like us with SUV's and cell phones. They pretty much are stuck to walking cannon fodder for any type of motorized army let alone when aircraft and choppers get involved.

No those governments have lousy armed forces compared to ours but great in the event landless, starving and underarmed pesants decide to revolt.

Alleviating immediate hunger is the problem. I know it sounds evil, who would refuse to feed the hungry? I couldn’t do it. If a guy knocked on my door I sure would give him food, but is not one guy, its 6 billons of them, and that's where the problem is.

There are six billion of us. If the economic system was changed even slightly they could feed themselves. Believe it or not it is starting to happen slowly. Many countries are waking up to the fact that the promises of neo liberal economics is not delivering the goods to the masses.

Money to help 3rd word countries its a joke, I repeat, the more money we give them the more poor people they have.

This is part of the problem granted. Which is why the focus has to be sustainable agriculture, access to land and reward for their farming effort. If the path of globalisation is to be taken then these economies must be allowed to integrate more equitably with industrial nations so the wealth can be "shared" and not just building enclaves of poverty stricken shanty towns.

Yes, some hardcore highly motivated guys may be doing some wonderful communities, but generally speaking we are contributing to the worst. And the scariest thing of all is that people is finding in "one child policy" or "government birth control” the miracle solution (the final solution I would say), yeah, like what the world needs is some bureaucrat telling you or someone in Africa how many kids you are allowed to have. Don’t you have respect for freedom?

Sure I have respect for freedom, you can be free to dissent form your own political party choose your own religion, work the profession you enjoy most.

You are not free to steal, kill people or yell FIRE in a cinema. You are not free to increase the population of the nation where the nation, your productive capacity and global community cannot support new population.

Thats my take of course as always I could be way off base.

[kevincarter]

You are not free to increase the population of the nation where the nation, your productive capacity and global community cannot support new population.

Yes you are, you must be. If other than you, no matter how benevolent they are, have the power to decide how many kids you can have then it will be over for freedom. Do you honestly think they would stop using that power if they had it? Soon it would be that only certain people of a certain income would be allowed to have kids, then it would be only of certain color, then of certain religion and so on. Of course by that same logic people with defects will be erased from earth too. No, this point has to be perfectly clear, no one would ever have the right to tell you how many kids you can have, you have them, you decide. That's the most basic freedom you have. If you give that up you will be exchanging freedom for security and you'll loose both your freedom and your security.

20% Vs 80% is a minority. Now factor that it's 20% of the poorest with not even enough resources for food and you get an idea of their capability. Remember these people are not like us with SUV's and cell phones. They pretty much are stuck to walking cannon fodder for any type of motorized army let alone when aircraft and choppers get involved.

No those governments have lousy armed forces compared to ours but great in the event landless, starving and underarmed pesants decide to revolt.

There is no point for defeatism. The French did it during the French revolution, so did the Americans against the brits, and the Indians too. Changes are possible. I'm sure that if someone was there during the French revolution setting up camps were to massively feed poor French’s no revolution would have ever taken place, there is nothing like hunger. Let them starve and they will solve their own problems, I guarantee you.

[Concerned]

You are not free to increase the population of the nation where the nation, your productive capacity and global community cannot support new population.

Yes you are, you must be. If other than you, no matter how benevolent they are, have the power to decide how many kids you can have then it will be over for freedom. Do you honestly think they would stop using that power if they had it? Soon it would be that only certain people of a certain income would be allowed to have kids, then it would be only of certain color, then of certain religion and so on. Of course by that same logic people with defects will be erased from earth too. No, this point has to be perfectly clear, no one would ever have the right to tell you how many kids you can have, you have them, you decide. That's the most basic freedom you have. If you give that up you will be exchanging freedom for security and you'll loose both your freedom and your security.

I disagree that having children in the context of insufficient resources to raise healthy adults and sustainable adults is themost basic freedom.

20% Vs 80% is a minority. Now factor that it's 20% of the poorest with not even enough resources for food and you get an idea of their capability. Remember these people are not like us with SUV's and cell phones. They pretty much are stuck to walking cannon fodder for any type of motorized army let alone when aircraft and choppers get involved.

No those governments have lousy armed forces compared to ours but great in the event landless, starving and underarmed pesants decide to revolt.

There is no point for defeatism. The French did it during the French revolution, so did the Americans against the brits, and the Indians too. Changes are possible. I'm sure that if someone was there during the French revolution setting up camps were to massively feed poor French’s no revolution would have ever taken place, there is nothing like hunger. Let them starve and they will solve their own problems, I guarantee you.

It's not defeatism, besides you're confusing apples with oranges.

If you let them starve then they would be dead.

[kevincarter]

I disagree that having children in the context of insufficient resources to raise healthy adults and sustainable adults is themost basic freedom.

It is still your choice to have them or not. Are you serious about delegating this choice in any kind of organization?

If you let them starve then they would be dead

If you let them starve they will be angry and willing to change their reality. If you feed them as if they were animals you will be insulting them and killing their will to change.

Why not let them fix their own problems? They can't? So we know what's better for them right...

[Jack]

Unless one has learned the hard way. You, too, will learn the hard way if you keep refusing to try to make your own life easier for the times ahead.

Oh, I'm doing lots of things to accomplish that worthwhile end.

That doesn't mean there's any reason to conserve right now, today.

Jack wrote:

As discussed above, no one willingly practices sustainable levels of population and economic activity. Certain rare individuals who do so are duly noted.


Whole cultures have. In fact, most people during most of history have.

As soon as they got space to expand into, and resources to consume, they did so. Only their lack of technology slowed the exploitation of the environment.

This was true in Rome. It was true in Ur, some 6,000 years ago.

Jack wrote:

Every population loves growth. Whether that growth is more children, more corn, more fish, or more airports, growth is an internal drive that humans have. There is as much chance of getting humans to restrict their tendency to growth as there is of persuading bacteria not to multiply.


Stability is a much more common situation than growth. And, if you ask me about internal drives, the internal drive for stability seems to be pretty strong. Why are contraceptives so widespread, if it isn't because people value stability over growth?

Contraceptives are widespread because people want to boink like rabbits with none of the expensive consequences. That isn't a desire for stability; rather, it is an economic choice between affluence and children.

Stability only exists until the opportunity comes to change to something the populace perceives as better. That generally means more consumption.

Just because the last two centuries have been mostly about growth, it doesn't mean anything about human nature. Look at the two millennia before that.

Well, let's see....Rome comes to mind. And Alexander. The Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans. The Chinese had an expansionist phase, as did the folks in India. Then there were the Mongols...and let's not forget the Persians under Xerxes, nor the Spartans. And then there was Athens and their series of expansionist wars.

That surely looks like a whole bunch of wars for territory, resources, and slaves.

Jack wrote:

The key was and is to let famine do its good work. Fewer competitors for resources is helpful to you and I.


Unless you are one of the people who starve, I assume. No thanks, I'm not interested in your "solution".

You've just embraced it. Welcome to the dark side.

For you see, Doly - once you start choosing who is to live, and who is to die, then all else follows. We are merely quibbling about who gets starved, and who doesn't.

[Battle_Scarred_Galactico]

Jack is correct, the growth mindset was just as strong in Alexanders' and ancient Romes' time as it is now.

However, luckily for them they didn't have the technology or resources to grow as large and as complex as us. Which leads to two well known sayings that will apply now more than ever...

What goes up must come down.. the bigger they are the harder they fall.

[Heineken]

To me the whole problem elaborated in this forum boils down to individual suffering, whether from starvation, disease, or torture at the hands of the Gitmo inquisitors. That's where suffering happens---internally, person by person, in a climate of near-total loneliness.

As someone who has suffered greatly from illness lately (but is now thankfully recovering), my understanding of the true nature of suffering has been powerfully recharged. The experience has changed me forever.

People like Jack, who would deny a starving person food, either do not understand suffering b/c they have no yet sufficiently experienced it themselves, or do understand suffering but lack the empathy to respond as emotionally healthy human beings.

All the talk about environment and population is just theoretical mumbo-jumbo, a stupid red herring.

There is no real conflict between rational environmental policies and the relief of suffering---quite the contrary, in fact. We're not going to solve anything by denying starving children their milk, if there is milk to give. Instead, we'll end up with violence spiraling out of control.

[Battle_Scarred_Galactico]

Hein, are you saying that we're locked into a future course that nothing will change due to the way we are wired, as thats' my opinion.

[Heineken]

Yes, Battle_Scarred, I think our future course is now set because we've undermined our own life-support foundation. Ultimately the fantastic, complex, overbuilt structure towering overhead must collapse.

But who is "we," really? Just a theoretical abstraction. Life, pain, and death are experienced at the individual level, not in some mass sense.

When the focus is on the individual and not the mass, which is where I think it correctly belongs, no self-respecting human being could deny a starving infant milk, as long as there is milk to give. At the same time, we should instruct the mother in birth control.

[sch_peakoiler]

After you educate the mother on birth control she will nod happily and give birth to three more children. Thanks a lot man! Educate is the wrong word. ENFORCE is the right one. Of course if you wanna get somewhere and not just babble around. Sorry if this sounds aggressive - the aggression is not against you or anybody - it is just because people have been education things like in the third world for a long time now - and where is the result?

I think they just dont get it, when they hear birth control they think they have to have more children.

[Jack]

After you educate the mother on birth control she will nod happily and give birth to three more children. Thanks a lot man! Educate is the wrong word. ENFORCE is the right one. Of course if you wanna get somewhere and not just babble around. Sorry if this sounds aggressive - the aggression is not against you or anybody - it is just because people have been education things like in the third world for a long time now - and where is the result?

I think they just dont get it, when they hear birth control they think they have to have more children.

You're absolutely correct!

In the case of our hypothetical scrawny refugee with a starving baby, anyone who provides milk for the baby can expect that they will have a brand new refugee camp on their front door step.

What going to happen after the first feeding? The same dynamics will apply tomorrow as existed today. Scrawnette will show up again, starving baby in arms, and want more milk. So, she got it the first time - is the benefactor going to refuse the second?

This will go on until the benefactor is feeding both scrawnette and child every day. And what happens next? You can bet the word will spread. So there will be two scrawnettes, mewling infants in arms.

Finally, the benefactor will face a choice - be innundated and drowned in a sea of beggars, try to clean up the gigantic mess, or abandon his home and become another refugee.

Why this concept is so difficult for some, I do not understand. The best approach is a hearty "Be off with ye!" to scrawnette and her kid.

Just call me Mr. Charitable.

[Heineken]

After you educate the mother on birth control she will nod happily and give birth to three more children. Thanks a lot man! Educate is the wrong word. ENFORCE is the right one. Of course if you wanna get somewhere and not just babble around. Sorry if this sounds aggressive - the aggression is not against you or anybody - it is just because people have been education things like in the third world for a long time now - and where is the result?

I think they just dont get it, when they hear birth control they think they have to have more children.

Incorrect. Well-run birth-control education programs have a good record of success when they've been given half a chance. The problem is that most of these programs have been KO'd by the Bush regime and the Catholic Church. They're the enemy, not the starving ignorant pregnant woman.

Basic human behavior is very difficult to legislate or "enforce."

Here's an example of a successful program in Thailand.

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0 ... udies.html

[Heineken]

After you educate the mother on birth control she will nod happily and give birth to three more children. Thanks a lot man! Educate is the wrong word. ENFORCE is the right one. Of course if you wanna get somewhere and not just babble around. Sorry if this sounds aggressive - the aggression is not against you or anybody - it is just because people have been education things like in the third world for a long time now - and where is the result?

I think they just dont get it, when they hear birth control they think they have to have more children.

You're absolutely correct!

In the case of our hypothetical scrawny refugee with a starving baby, anyone who provides milk for the baby can expect that they will have a brand new refugee camp on their front door step.

Why this concept is so difficult for some, I do not understand. The best approach is a hearty "Be off with ye!" to scrawnette and her kid.

Just call me Mr. Charitable.

Sorry, Jack. You can't forever insulate yourself from scrawnette and her starving infant. Sooner or later she is going to be back on your doorstep, the next time with her brothers and their baseball bats. In the end, the stoney-hearted Jacks of this world are going down with the rest of it.

[Jack]

Sooner or later she is going to be back on your doorstep, the next time with her brothers and their baseball bats.

That sounds remarkably like mafia-style extortion. Either pay protection or get hurt.

Her brothers and their baseball bats may have a little surprise in store for them.

In the end, the stoney-hearted Jacks of this world are going down with the rest of it.

Sure. But we'll take a few with us. If I can die with a gun in my hand and a curse on my lips, then I can truly say that I lived well and died better.

[rwwff]

Sorry, Jack. You can't forever insulate yourself from scrawnette and her starving infant. Sooner or later she is going to be back on your doorstep, the next time with her brothers and their baseball bats. In the end, the stoney-hearted Jacks of this world are going down with the rest of it.

Last refuge of a bad argument here is resorting to threats or implications of violence. And, at least in my part of the country, someone shows up like that on your property, they've already signed their death warrants. Doesn't matter how big they are, or bad they look, a 50gr bullet at 3000fps is more than adequate.

As for me, I'd probably yell out a warning to "leave or die where you stand" though its certainly not requied. I'm not sure Jack would offer the same courtesy.

[sch_peakoiler]

Jack, I think that the emotional side makes it difficult to understand the whole process. It is the same when we see a wolf hunting and killing a rabbit. Our sympathy is with the rabbit, he is good. And the wolf is bad, bad bad wolf!! Kill him! Protect the rabbit!!! That is what those people would do! Get the semi and shoot the wolf.

What we fail to understand( and what you can anticipate), however, is the simple fact that this is NATURAL. And if we keep protecting rabbits from wolves we defer nature's course of action. This will result in the system breaking on the other end. Overpopulation of rabbits! But to see through the complexity of the system is of course difficult.

[Heineken]

Sooner or later she is going to be back on your doorstep, the next time with her brothers and their baseball bats.

That sounds remarkably like mafia-style extortion. Either pay protection or get hurt.

Her brothers and their baseball bats may have a little surprise in store for them.

In the end, the stoney-hearted Jacks of this world are going down with the rest of it.

Sure. But we'll take a few with us. If I can die with a gun in my hand and a curse on my lips, then I can truly say that I lived well and died better.

As usual you miss the whole point. This isn't about who kills whom first, it's about living life honorably---and dying honorably---instead of as a worm. There is no honor in withholding milk from starving infants.

Trying to reason with you is like trying to reason with a serial killer. It's hopeless. You don't begin to understand concepts like "love," "compassion," and "mercy," probably having experienced little love yourself. Thus, your Weltanschauung is mired in a sort of game-world of violence and selfishness. Blast away, Jack!

It must be dreadfully lonely in there.

[rwwff]

As usual you miss the whole point. This isn't about who kills whom first, it's about living life honorably---and dying honorably---instead of as a worm. There is no honor in withholding milk from starving infants.

Some would say that a man who would take what rightfully belongs to his own child and give it to a stranger has acted dishonorably. I think most people are able to find a middle ground where they do not encourage leechiness, but are not cold hearted towards people in desperate situations.

In any event, I think it isn't supportable to suggest that openly declaring one's loyalty to close kin and a natural community, to the exclusion of all others is somehow dishonorable.

[Jack]

As usual you miss the whole point. This isn't about who kills whom first, it's about living life honorably---and dying honorably---instead of as a worm. There is no honor in withholding milk from starving infants.

Ahh, yes – honor. Honor is personal, like religion. The same act, viewed from one perspective, can be supremely honorable – or, from a different viewpoint, can be seen as utterly wrong. We see examples of this in the Middle East.

You will find, I think, that honor is merely a societal control mechanism. Notice that it lets a group of others frame an issue and grade performance, thus motivating an individual to act counter to his best interests. It has no constant definition. It changes worse than Dante’s ever-moving standard in the entryway of Hell.

So honor, as defined by others or by society, is irrelevant. Honor, from the standpoint of a personal code of behavior, is significant only from the view of providing a framework – or, if you prefer, a weltanschauung – for the individual. Each person’s code decides for them whether life was honorably led.

You say there is no honor in withholding milk from starving infants. Perhaps. But there is no gain in providing it; and, too, from my perspective, there is no honor in helping them. In fact, I would regard myself as dishonored if I allowed them to weaken my resolve.

Trying to reason with you is like trying to reason with a serial killer. It's hopeless. You don't begin to understand concepts like "love," "compassion," and "mercy," probably having experienced little love yourself. Thus, your Weltanschauung is mired in a sort of game-world of violence and selfishness. Blast away, Jack!

I can understand why you say that. The problem is that we place different weights on the various items mentioned. I place no value on mercy or compassion. I suppose you place more weight on them. If someone is merciful or compassionate, I note it, but do not care. Love and loyalty are nearly equivalent; I can see it for an individual or a small group. I doubt it exists in any greater sense.

Reality defines my world. I consider what people have done in the past and what they do today. I consider what’s been written of, and what I’ve seen. If you think me cold, then I do believe you’ve lead a protected life; for there are people out there that make me look like Mother Theresa by comparison.

It must be dreadfully lonely in there.

Again, you advance from a false assumption. I lead a rich, full, abundant life – and, I’m not troubled by the cries of the unfortunate. I sense that you are. So perhaps it is you, not I, that is lonely out in the cold. Come, warm yourself by the fire; drink deeply, and eat well. Put the matters that distress you aside, and live life as it was meant to be lived. From your earlier posting, I am inclined to say that you, of all people, should treasure the remaining years. A bounteous existence awaits you, if you will only grasp it.