Population Control the Only Answer?

[JR]

Even though I was raised in a christian household I pretty much agree with doing something about overpopulation. I think people should have to get licensed to have kids. Were definitely losing the war. Dumb people are breeding faster than we are. We need to figure out a way to "fix" people at birth or at puberty. Or ship all these worthless non working government assisted rejects to some deserted island. Kind of like Australia...

Ah, a Eugenicist. Tell me friend, how is life during 1880-1940s? Would you like to go measure some skulls and brain cases later?

Eugenics were practiced later than that. Mental patients and people with development problems were forcibly sterilized by state hospitals in the 1970s in Sweden. One child policy of China still leads to killing of newborn girls at the birth because boys stand a better chance of supporting their parents when they are elderly. There's hunger in China so it is logical and tragic for the individuals concerned. But an argument can be said that limiting population growth is good. I just would like to see a more intelligent and less damaging way of going about it. :-/

[Roy]

Fun read on earlier civilisations destroying themselves. The chapter on Easter Island is hilarious.

That book is stupid and the answers provided are all the authors conclusions. He offers up all these vague hypothesis and then at the end of chapter writes a paragraph about "his answer". Just my opinion, but the authors opinion sucks.

also, its good to see a JR post that takes up my whole screen. Its been a while since I've seen that

[sunspot]

A priest told me this: If you pick out the parts you like to from the bible and combine them to suit yourself you can say anything because there are so many words in there. So the bible picked and mixed could say Go and hang yourself but do it quick and be happy.

He's right. This is why context is so important. No one opens up a newspaper and randomly reads a sentence and claims that's what the entire article is about.

In Hermeneutics, a person is told to follow the 4 "W's" and the 1 "H": Who, What, When, Where and How.
Depending on the place in the Bible someone may be looking at, they may ask, "Who was this written to?" "What is the author writing about?" "When (time period, the occasion, etc) was this written?" "Where was this written from?" and "How was this written?"

I think a lot of people's objections and misinterpretations would be corrected if they followed that method.

[BrotherDave]

Even though I was raised in a christian household I pretty much agree with doing something about overpopulation. I think people should have to get licensed to have kids. Were definitely losing the war. Dumb people are breeding faster than we are. We need to figure out a way to "fix" people at birth or at puberty. Or ship all these worthless non working government assisted rejects to some deserted island. Kind of like Australia...

Ah, a Eugenicist. Tell me friend, how is life during 1880-1940s? Would you like to go measure some skulls and brain cases later?

Eugenics were practiced later than that. Mental patients and people with development problems were forcibly sterilized by state hospitals in the 1970s in Sweden. One child policy of China still leads to killing of newborn girls at the birth because boys stand a better chance of supporting their parents when they are elderly. There's hunger in China so it is logical and tragic for the individuals concerned. But an argument can be said that limiting population growth is good. I just would like to see a more intelligent and less damaging way of going about it. :-/

Oh I know, they actually repealed a Eugenics based law that sterilized mental patients in my state I think in 1976.

The problem with population control is that people are always wrong about the sustainability of the planet. Malthus was wrong, then it looked like we were going to hit max capacity but then the green revolution delayed it for a long time. We keep growing and growing but nobody really knows. The only real, tangible crisis that is looming is the potable water shortage. But in crunch time humans keep using pesky technology to bail us out so who knows?

[BrotherDave]

That book is stupid and the answers provided are all the authors conclusions. He offers up all these vague hypothesis and then at the end of chapter writes a paragraph about "his answer". Just my opinion, but the authors opinion sucks.

also, its good to see a JR post that takes up my whole screen. Its been a while since I've seen that

It's written for laymans for the most part but there are plenty of scholarly articles that support many of his stupid hypotheses.

[Roy]

That book is stupid and the answers provided are all the authors conclusions. He offers up all these vague hypothesis and then at the end of chapter writes a paragraph about "his answer". Just my opinion, but the authors opinion sucks.

also, its good to see a JR post that takes up my whole screen. Its been a while since I've seen that

It's written for laymans for the most part but there are plenty of scholarly articles that support many of his stupid hypotheses.

I'm not saying he's wrong. I just dont give a shit what he thinks. He spends 95% of the book offering interesting ideas and 5% telling the reader what he thinks. It just seemed like he tried to lead the reader to their own conclusions then jumps in with the "i think" stuff.

[Working Stiff]

To kind of cross threads with the religion thread...Here's a scary scenario: The huge Christian population in this country pretty much votes Republican. Global warming is happening...What if the Republicans claim that there is no global warming, but instead truly believe it is the apocalypse as described in Revelations, so feel no responsibility to try and fix it? The Republicans who aren't really Christians are rich businesspeople who don't want to regulate their industries anyway and care little about the environment/future generations, so they would love a convenient excuse not to care.

One of the women I work with told me one day that she didn't understand all the fuss about global warming becasue it was all God's plan and nothing humans do will effect God's plan. If the global temperature was rising, it was becasue God wants it to rise.

It seems to me that I run into more and more people with this type of thinking these days. The World is a pretty complicated place with complicated problems. A belief in God and the idea that "He" has us covered helps a lot of people sleep at night. Ronald Reagan showed the Republicans how this is done in a political way. Reagan came out and announced the Strategic Defense Initiative or "Star Wars" defense system when we were still in the Cold War. The idea was an over simplistic answer to a very complicated issue, but Reagan knew people would never understand the complex issues and latch on the the simple idea. Never mind that the science at the time could not support the idea so at best we were billions of dollars and decades away from anything like it working, Reagan came out and talked about it and millions of Americans started believing that it DID exist and we had it in place. It helped them sleep better at night, so they easily ignored reality. Despite being an unrealistic initiative that wasted a ton of money and never developed into much of anything, Star Wars went a long way toward keeping Reagan President in 1984. Reagan also showed the GOP how to play the "we are in a state of moral peril" card with the Moral Majority's money propping up his campaign. Religion became just another political card in the 80's, and the Republicans still have that card in their hand.

[BrotherDave]

That book is stupid and the answers provided are all the authors conclusions. He offers up all these vague hypothesis and then at the end of chapter writes a paragraph about "his answer". Just my opinion, but the authors opinion sucks.

also, its good to see a JR post that takes up my whole screen. Its been a while since I've seen that

It's written for laymans for the most part but there are plenty of scholarly articles that support many of his stupid hypotheses.

I'm not saying he's wrong. I just dont give a shit what he thinks. He spends 95% of the book offering interesting ideas and 5% telling the reader what he thinks. It just seemed like he tried to lead the reader to their own conclusions then jumps in with the "i think" stuff.

Oh, I gotcha. I hate it when books try and let me draw my own conclusion too.

[Frank Delicious]

I like when books/people/movies tell me what to think.

[Roy]

That book is stupid and the answers provided are all the authors conclusions. He offers up all these vague hypothesis and then at the end of chapter writes a paragraph about "his answer". Just my opinion, but the authors opinion sucks.

also, its good to see a JR post that takes up my whole screen. Its been a while since I've seen that

It's written for laymans for the most part but there are plenty of scholarly articles that support many of his stupid hypotheses.

I'm not saying he's wrong. I just dont give a shit what he thinks. He spends 95% of the book offering interesting ideas and 5% telling the reader what he thinks. It just seemed like he tried to lead the reader to their own conclusions then jumps in with the "i think" stuff.

Oh, I gotcha. I hate it when books try and let me draw my own conclusion too.

Am I missing something?
Reread what I wrote maybe?

The reason I dont like the book is because the author interrupts the readers conclusions with his own conclusions.

[BrotherDave]

That book is stupid and the answers provided are all the authors conclusions. He offers up all these vague hypothesis and then at the end of chapter writes a paragraph about "his answer". Just my opinion, but the authors opinion sucks.

also, its good to see a JR post that takes up my whole screen. Its been a while since I've seen that

It's written for laymans for the most part but there are plenty of scholarly articles that support many of his stupid hypotheses.

I'm not saying he's wrong. I just dont give a shit what he thinks. He spends 95% of the book offering interesting ideas and 5% telling the reader what he thinks. It just seemed like he tried to lead the reader to their own conclusions then jumps in with the "i think" stuff.

Oh, I gotcha. I hate it when books try and let me draw my own conclusion too.

Am I missing something?
Reread what I wrote maybe?

The reason I dont like the book is because the author interrupts the readers conclusions with his own conclusions.

It's called a thesis, Roy.

[Roy]

Oh a thesis. That book I didn't like was awesome!

[JR]

One of the women I work with told me one day that she didn't understand all the fuss about global warming becasue it was all God's plan and nothing humans do will effect God's plan. If the global temperature was rising, it was becasue God wants it to rise.

It seems to me that I run into more and more people with this type of thinking these days. The World is a pretty complicated place with complicated problems. A belief in God and the idea that "He" has us covered helps a lot of people sleep at night. Ronald Reagan showed the Republicans how this is done in a political way. Reagan came out and announced the Strategic Defense Initiative or "Star Wars" defense system when we were still in the Cold War. The idea was an over simplistic answer to a very complicated issue, but Reagan knew people would never understand the complex issues and latch on the the simple idea. Never mind that the science at the time could not support the idea so at best we were billions of dollars and decades away from anything like it working, Reagan came out and talked about it and millions of Americans started believing that it DID exist and we had it in place. It helped them sleep better at night, so they easily ignored reality. Despite being an unrealistic initiative that wasted a ton of money and never developed into much of anything, Star Wars went a long way toward keeping Reagan President in 1984. Reagan also showed the GOP how to play the "we are in a state of moral peril" card with the Moral Majority's money propping up his campaign. Religion became just another political card in the 80's, and the Republicans still have that card in their hand.

According to some documentary i saw ages ago the SDI AKA Strategic Defense Initiative AKA Star Wars was conceived as plan to lure the Soviet Union to spend even more in their military. After analysts had found out that the US economy was stronger than the Soviet. And by escalating military spending the Soviet state would stop to function if they stepped up the military spending to keep up like they always had done before. It took half a decade to work. Result. It wasn't the only avenue of attack. Another program detailed the involvement of the pope John Paul 2nd with CIA support money in supporting the dock workers strikes in Poland which eventually lead to an organized resistance to the communist rulers. Which eventually toppled the first communist government in the eastern bloc with internal problems of the government helping. And once other peoples saw that the commies can be thrown out it really became a domino effect. So that theory worked but in the other direction. But the reason was not military conquest but the peoples being sick of their oppressors.

[Working Stiff]

I've also read things that claimed SDI was a smoke screen to lure the Soviet Union into spending itself to death. That's all fine and dandy, but it doesn't explain why the program was still up and running sucking up taxpayers money through the first Bush administration, long after the Soviet Union had collapsed. It also doesn't explain why there was such a P.R. bonanza surrounding it. Certainly had the information been floated through the intelligence agencies the Soviets would have known all about it and responded in the same way. Reagan always spent on defense like a drunk sailor, he really didn't need an excuse like SDI. All he had to do was say "Evil Empire, BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA" and boom, another billion dollars for defense. There is a lot in that claim that doesn't really add up for me. I tend to believe it is revisionist history; an attempt to spin a blatantly stupid idea to seem like a stroke of genius.