# Boris Johnson's father says UK population should be 10-15 million



## elbows (Jun 6, 2012)

A theme that has sometimes come up on u75 during environmental, peak oil etc threads, is mentioned in a way that even goes beyond some of the more energetic debates here.



> Stanley Johnson, former Conservative MEP and the father of London mayor Boris Johnson, called on the government to introduce a population policy. "Britain's population should be 10-15 million people. That would do us splendidly. It's a nonsense that we are confronted with 70 million people. But we have been shunted aside by the rise of liberal correctness. You cannot talk about [population] now without being accused of being anti-feminist or a racist. The government has to start taking immigration seriously. If you look at the rise of Britain's population you see a really serious differential in the fertility of the immigrant as opposed to that of the [indigenous] population."


 
From a broader story here http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/06/climate-change-other-issues-goldsmith

I feel the need for considerably more than 15 million facepalms right now! Dangerous stuff that this man makes no attempt to mask, but rather complains about the need to mask such thoughts at all.

How strange it must be to be someone who can hold such views, with the comfort of assuming that they will be one of the ones who gets to stay & survive, reproduce how they see fit, etc.


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## laptop (Jun 6, 2012)

elbows said:


> How strange it must be to be someone who can hold such views, with the comfort of assuming that they will be one of the ones who gets to stay & survive, reproduce how they see fit, etc.


 
Bleeding population obsessives.

I have a string of responses on the lines of "if you think the population of these islands is too high, you can always take personal action to reduce it by one" - unsent because they were to employers' addresses


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## Ax^ (Jun 6, 2012)

Sterilise the proles

*says odd balls father*


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## butchersapron (Jun 6, 2012)

It's a social-class-psychology reaction to their growing awareness that the proles are evolutionary fitter than them. The figures back it up.


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## frogwoman (Jun 6, 2012)

elbows said:


> A theme that has sometimes come up on u75 during environmental, peak oil etc threads, is mentioned in a way that even goes beyond some of the more energetic debates here.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
why doesn't he reduce it himself then?


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## SaskiaJayne (Jun 6, 2012)

Boris is a nutter & his dad is even worse, I'm amazed Boris is actually mayor of London & he is being touted as a future prime minister, they both come across as nutters.


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## weltweit (Jun 6, 2012)

Well, 10-15m is lunacy land - but 65-70million is a lot, if you could, would you not set a limit? or do people just expect that resources will continue to supply the needs - whatever the population.


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## Fedayn (Jun 6, 2012)

elbows said:


> A theme that has sometimes come up on u75 during environmental, peak oil etc threads, is mentioned in a way that even goes beyond some of the more energetic debates here.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
Stanley Johnson himself had 4 children, Boris and 3 others. Boris has 4 children, Rachel has 3 children, Jo has 2 children, no details held for Leo.


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## 8ball (Jun 6, 2012)

Not a single person over 250 million. 
That would definitely be too many.


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## quimcunx (Jun 6, 2012)

Fedayn said:


> Stanley Johnson himself had 4 children, Boris and 3 others. Boris has 4 children, Rachel has 3 children, Jo has 2 children, no details held for Leo.


 
Well there's 15 towards the target already. 

We can make this happen, people!


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## butchersapron (Jun 6, 2012)

weltweit said:


> Well, 10-15m is lunacy land - but 65-70million is a lot, if you could, would you not set a limit? or do people just expect that resources will continue to supply the needs - whatever the population.


What on earth do you mean that it's a lot? Where do resources comes from?


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## el-ahrairah (Jun 6, 2012)

what a ridiculous man.  fucking malthusians.  and where you find a malthusian you soon find the eugenicist, the racist, and the mysogynist.


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## weltweit (Jun 6, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> What on earth do you mean that it's a lot? Where do resources comes from?


It does'nt matter where resources come from, the issue is if they are unlimited by volume or price.


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## 8ball (Jun 6, 2012)

el-ahrairah said:


> what a ridiculous man. fucking malthusians. and where you find a malthusian you soon find the eugenicist, the racist, and the mysogynist.


 
And the vegan cyclist.


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## butchersapron (Jun 6, 2012)

And BUPA


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## Fedayn (Jun 6, 2012)

el-ahrairah said:


> what a ridiculous man. fucking malthusians. and where you find a malthusian you soon find *the eugenicist, the racist, and the mysogynist*.


 
AKA Boris.


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## Gingerman (Jun 6, 2012)

Give him a one way ticket to Dignitas in Switzerland,reduce the population by one.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 6, 2012)

elbows said:


> A theme that has sometimes come up on u75 during environmental, peak oil etc threads, is mentioned in a way that even goes beyond some of the more energetic debates here.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
We could start the population reduction by liquidating Stanley, his offspring and his offsprings' offspring, I suppose. Including Boris's  by-blows that'll lessen the number of "surplus population" by about 20.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 6, 2012)

el-ahrairah said:


> what a ridiculous man. fucking malthusians. and where you find a malthusian you soon find the eugenicist, the racist, and the mysogynist.


 
Now now, young man, that's "liberal correctness" you're talking, and Stanley is having none of it!


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## butchersapron (Jun 6, 2012)

Nice to see the _Evolution must stop! It's gone too far_ types out and proud.


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## el-ahrairah (Jun 6, 2012)

hey kids, do you think you're one of the 15 million, or one of the 55 million?


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## Citizen66 (Jun 6, 2012)

Fedayn said:


> Stanley Johnson himself had 4 children <snip>





> He later married Jennifer Kidd and had two further children.



That makes six.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Johnson_(writer)


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## butchersapron (Jun 6, 2012)

The world weeps


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 6, 2012)

el-ahrairah said:


> hey kids, do you think you're one of the 15 million, or one of the 55 million?


My parents were immigrants. Looks like it's the Special Train for me 

Mind you, I'm white and not disabled or gay, which might move me down the list.


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## pogofish (Jun 6, 2012)

So maybe that's where Boris got his ideas from when he published stuff advocating the "Final Solution" for Scots a few years back.  

Linked it at the time, can't be bothered looking for it again.


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## Roadkill (Jun 6, 2012)

I wonder where on earth he's dredged this 10-15m figure up from. Out of his own head, I suspect.

FWIW 15m or thereabouts was the population of Britain - not including Ireland - in the 1820s/30s.


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## yardbird (Jun 6, 2012)

Diary of a Festering Scrounger :-

I think I may get culled.


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## Lo Siento. (Jun 6, 2012)

Hang on, if the gap is 50 million plus (65m-15m), even if every foreign-born UK resident left, according to this dickhead you would still have approximately 42.5 million too many people living here, so what the suffering fuck has it got to do with immigration?

Even if he's racist enough to want an all-white-British Vaterland, he'd still have to do away with 7 in 10 of them.


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## Roadkill (Jun 6, 2012)

Lo Siento. said:


> Hang on, if the gap is 50 million plus (65m-15m), even if every foreign-born UK resident left, according to this dickhead you would still have approximately 42.5 million too many people living here, so what the suffering fuck has it got to do with immigration?


 
You don't think he's actually _thought_ about this, do you?


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## Fedayn (Jun 6, 2012)

Citizen66 said:


> That makes six.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Johnson_(writer)


 
Even more hypocritical then. Though of course his kids are 'white'.....


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## Citizen66 (Jun 6, 2012)

Roadkill said:


> You don't think he's actually _thought_ about this, do you?



Again, according to wiki he's:



> a noted expert on environmental and population issues.



Which leads one to suspect that he penned the entry himself.


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## Lo Siento. (Jun 6, 2012)

Roadkill said:


> You don't think he's actually _thought_ about this, do you?


well, no, but rather revealing about his true motivations though, don't you think?


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## elbows (Jun 6, 2012)

Meanwhile Zac Goldsmith has sold the Ecologist for a quid and its been merged with Resurgence magazine, which I hadn't heard of before but is sure to go down real well (not) on u75 judging by the only sentence on its website that I've been bothered to read yet:



> In this issue we bring together authors and ideas that inspire change and look at the arts as a springboard for transformation in human consciousness.


 
( http://www.resurgence.org/ )

Story about the sale here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/06/zac-goldsmith-ecologist-sale


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 6, 2012)

Citizen66 said:


> Again, according to wiki he's:
> 
> 
> 
> Which leads one to suspect that he penned the entry himself.


Sounds like it needs some editing to remove POV and unsourced claims.


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## elbows (Jun 6, 2012)

Lo Siento. said:


> well, no, but rather revealing about his true motivations though, don't you think?


 
Later in the article we see motivation for this kind of shit, the well to do are not happy that the countryside may be further destroyed by building houses for the rascal multitude to live in.

And now Prince Philip in 1984 telling us that humanity is reaching plague proportions.


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## Roadkill (Jun 6, 2012)

Lo Siento. said:


> well, no, but rather revealing about his true motivations though, don't you think?


 
Probably, yes.  Well, either that or his barking lunacy!


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## elbows (Jun 6, 2012)

And in 2008:


> In an interview for a documentary with Sir Trevor McDonald, he says: "The food prices are going up – everyone thinks it's to do with not enough food, but it's really that demand is too great, too many people."
> The Duke adds: "It's a little embarrassing for everybody, no one quite knows how to handle it. Nobody wants their family life to be interfered with by the government."
> He says that overpopulation is to blame for many of the problems afflicting millions of people around the world.


Ah yes it was terribly embarrassing when we had to eliminate all those people, eh. Oh well, more cake dear?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...ince-Philip-Just-too-many-people-to-feed.html


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## elbows (Jun 6, 2012)

And in 2011, which I may have mentioned here at the time.



> "If we've got this extraordinary diversity on this globe it seems awfully silly for us to destroy it. All these other creatures have an equal right to exist here, we have no prior rights to the Earth than anybody else and if they're here let's give them a chance to survive."
> But he said he would not describe himself as green: "I think that there's a difference between being concerned for the conservation of nature and being a bunny hugger... people who simply love animals.
> "People can't get their heads round the idea of a species surviving, you know, they're more concerned about how you treat a donkey in Sicily or something."
> He said he believed the growing human population was the biggest challenge to conservation and "voluntary family limitation" was the only way to tackle it.


 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13682432


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## Citizen66 (Jun 6, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Sounds like it needs some editing to remove POV and unsourced claims.



And perhaps including some of his gaffes including Saying the Consevatives believe in "more talk and less action" and when Asked once what he'd do if elected replied, "not too much, I hope."  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2005/may/26/pressandpublishing.election2005


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## Lo Siento. (Jun 6, 2012)

wrong thread


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 6, 2012)

Lo Siento. said:


> Hang on, if the gap is 50 million plus (65m-15m), even if every foreign-born UK resident left, according to this dickhead you would still have approximately 42.5 million too many people living here, so what the suffering fuck has it got to do with immigration?
> 
> Even if he's racist enough to want an all-white-British Vaterland, he'd still have to do away with 7 in 10 of them.


 
Including himself, as Stanley's gran was a Circassian.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 6, 2012)

Fedayn said:


> Even more hypocritical then. Though of course his kids are 'white'.....


 
Still mongrels, though, with Caucasian and French blood in their veins. No better or different to the rest of us, except that they're related to a cunt like Stanley.

And Boris,

and Jo.

And how can Stanley Johnson think that population control and eugenics won't touch him when his son has had sex with Pet fucking Wyatt, and therefore shown himself as lacking any taste in the people he associates with?


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## teqniq (Jun 6, 2012)




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## gentlegreen (Jun 6, 2012)

So what _*would*_ be a good number ?

Since we're going to hell in a handcart as it is ..

This ex-vegan cyclist hopes to be dust before the shit hits the fan.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Jun 7, 2012)

Is he planning to join Earth First?


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 7, 2012)

> With the magnitude of social capital already functioning, and the degree of its increase, with the extension of the scale of production, and the mass of the labourers set in motion, with the development of the productiveness of their labour, with the greater breadth and fulness of all sources of wealth, there is also an extension of the scale on which greater attraction of labourers by capital is accompanied by their greater repulsion; the rapidity of the change in the organic composition of capital, and in its technical form increases, and an increasing number of spheres of production becomes involved in this change, now simultaneously, now alternately.
> 
> The labouring population therefore produces, along with the accumulation of capital produced by it, the means by which it itself is made relatively superfluous, is turned into a relative surplus population; and it does this to an always increasing extent. [15]
> 
> This is a law of population peculiar to the capitalist mode of production; and in fact every special historic mode of production has its own special laws of population, historically valid within its limits and only in so far as man has not interfered with them. But if a surplus labouring population is a necessary product of accumulation or of the development of wealth on a capitalist basis, this surplus population becomes, conversely, the lever of capitalistic accumulation, nay, a condition of existence of the capitalist mode of production. It forms a disposable industrial reserve army, that belongs to capital quite as absolutely as if the latter had bred it at its own cost.


 
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm#S3


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## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

IF there are too many people then at some point they'll die in a famine or plague, or a war for resources followed by famine, plague etc. If that doesn't happen, then there aren't too many people. 

Johnson is just 'doing a Clarkson' by saying something moderately outrageous to get free publicity. Maybe he has a book coming out and the PR budget is looking a bit anaemic.


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## DotCommunist (Jun 7, 2012)

isn't 10-15 million about average tory vote share for a GE ?


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## gentlegreen (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> IF there are too many people then at some point they'll die in a famine or plague, or a war for resources followed by famine, plague etc. If that doesn't happen, then there aren't too many people.
> .


Maybe it's preferable as an evolved species to do something about it before that happens ?

We are already straining the planet's resources to breaking point.


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## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

gentlegreen said:


> Maybe it's preferable as an evolved species to do something about it before that happens ?


 
Yes. But we won't.


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## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

Not because we can't but because its not happening.


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## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Not because we can't but because its not happening.


 
Only one way to find out... wait and see.


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## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

I just did for a few centuries. The problem with the approach you suggest is that it turns nature into some sort of objective process that famine plague and war are necessary outcomes of -  like they are _natures only hygiene_ - rather than being the end result of social and political choices made by elites. Because, that's exactly what they are in modern conditions. The Bengal famine wasn't nature's revenge, it was Churchill's.


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## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> I just did for a few centuries. The problem with the approach you suggest is that it turns nature into some sort of objective process that famine plague and war are necessary outcomes of


 
Not 'necessary' - just 'more likely' or 'less likely'. And I'm more thinking of people than of nature; one whiff of an empty grain-hopper or dry river and we'll be at each other hammer and tongs.


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## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

OK, it turns social processes that are the the result of elite choices into objective processes that have to happen. Because they just do. Bit like you just did there in fact.


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## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> OK, it turns social processes that are the the result of elite choices into objective processes that have to happen. Because they just do. Bit like you just did there in fact.


 
I dare say it's all a conspiracy of some sort.


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## Louis MacNeice (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Yes. But we won't.


 
Such certainty is reassuring, rather like religious faith. Unfortunately if you intended it to be part of a line of reasoned and substantiated argument, that is not the only quality they share.

Louis MacNeice


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## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> I dare say it's all a conspiracy of some sort.


Not really, no.


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## Louis MacNeice (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Only one way to find out... wait and see.


 
We have no agency; we are absolved.

Louis MacNeice


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## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

Louis MacNeice said:


> Such certainty is reassuring, rather like religious faith. Unfortunately if you intended it to be part of a line of reasoned and substantiated argument, that is not the only quality they share.


 
Merely a conjecture based on empirical observation. Obviously, if you have a theory that says different, then of course all past experience must be rejected in its favour.


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## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

Look out, behind you -  a lion!


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## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Look out, behind you - a lion!


 
Surprised you can see it considering how far your head is up your own arse.


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## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

Mr mustard in the conservatory with very little left indeed.


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## DotCommunist (Jun 7, 2012)

colonel


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## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

Oh yeah, back to arrse corporal if that's the best you can manage.


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## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

DotCommunist said:


> colonel


 
Shell.


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## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Oh yeah, back to arrse corporal if that's the best you can manage.


 
Arse corporal? I think the Sanitary Corps is a thing of the past.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 7, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> The Bengal famine wasn't nature's revenge, it was Churchill's.


Indeed. Which is why malthusians are always, in the end, on the side of the rich and powerful, whether they know it or not.


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## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Indeed. Which is why malthusians are always, in the end, on the side of the rich and powerful, whether they know it or not.


 
Sensible place to be... they always win.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Sensible place to be... they always win.


Perhaps I should clarify. Malthusians are wrong. They state a problem and its solution, but neither the problem nor the proposed solution is a correct analysis of the real situation. In providing this false set of problems and solutions, they provide effective propaganda to distract from the real problem and its solutions.

So, either they are Machiavellians, cynically manipulating the stupid masses in service of their masters, or they are just morons. Either way, the idea that such a position is 'sensible' is rather questionable.


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## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Perhaps I should clarify. Malthusians are wrong. They state a problem and its solution, but neither the problem nor the proposed solution is a correct analysis of the real situation. In providing this false set of problems and solutions, they provide effective propaganda to distract from the real problem and its solutions.
> 
> So, either they are Machiavellians, cynically manipulating the stupid masses in service of their masters, or they are just morons. Either way, the idea that such a position is 'sensible' is rather questionable.


 
I can agree with you in many historical cases, but are you really arguing that resources are infinite in all circumstances unless the 'masters' decide otherwise?


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## Citizen66 (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> I can agree with you in many historical cases, but are you really arguing that resources are infinite in all circumstances unless the 'masters' decide otherwise?


 
No. What relationship do these resources have with Capital btw? It isn't just population + resources = the answer. The equation is more complex.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> I can agree with you in many historical cases, but are you really arguing that resources are infinite in all circumstances unless the 'masters' decide otherwise?


Of course not. But 'natural resources are strained, therefore there are too many people' is not correct. A minority of people are doing the wrong kinds of things - people mostly like Johnson, Prince Philip, etc, of course, though the irony would probably be lost on them. Plus, as butchers pointed out earlier, a large population is both a strain on resources and a valuable resource in itself. This is not a linear system, in other words.


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## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Of course not. But 'natural resources are strained, therefore there are too many people' is not correct.


 
Well you could rephrase it 'natural resources are strained, therefore there is not enough food/water to go round' but the net result would be the same. 

What about plagues? Large populations in heavy concentration, fast global travel... can things just not happen due to change, rather than be the result of the actions or omissions of some 'baddie' who you can identify and excoriate on the internet?


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## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

Flustered mr mustard?


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Well you could rephrase it 'natural resources are strained, therefore there is not enough food/water to go round'


Again, you miscast the problem. 'there is not enough food/water to go round' - at the moment, that is not the problem. Try again.


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## quimcunx (Jun 7, 2012)

On a kind of related issue I half watched  this the other night and thought it quite interesting. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01jrlsf/Surviving_Progress/


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## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Again, you miscast the problem. 'there is not enough food/water to go round' - at the moment, that is not the problem. Try again.


 
Well, as there isn't a UK famine or plague on at the moment, of course it's not the problem. There isn't ANY problem that's causing the UK famine. Because there isn't one.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Well, as there isn't a UK famine or plague on at the moment, of course it's not the problem. There isn't ANY problem that's causing the UK famine. Because there isn't one.


Well, the example of the Bengal famine of 1943 has been brought up. I'd suggest you read about this famine as it is very instructive - and typical. The Bengal famine was not caused by catastrophic crop failure. It was caused by catastrophic failure of the system for distributing resources, with the value of money collapsing to the point where many people could not afford to buy food, and starved.

tbh I am struggling to see what point you think you're making here. When I said 'at the moment', I was not just talking about the UK. I was talking about the whole world.


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## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Well, the example of the Bengal famine of 1943 has been brought up. I'd suggest you read about this famine as it is very instructive - and typical. The Bengal famine was not caused by catastrophic crop failure. It was caused by catastrophic failure of the system for distributing resources, with the value of money collapsing to the point where many people could not afford to buy food, and starved.
> 
> tbh I am struggling to see what point you think you're making here.


 
Yes, I know all about that. I can give you the Irish potato famine and the various famines caused by Stalin variously through incompetence and malice, and by Mao through deranged political schemes. 

I didn't think I was making any sort of point btw, I thought we were discussing whether the UK was, as Johnson claims, dangerously overpopulated.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> I didn't think I was making any sort of point btw, I thought we were discussing whether the UK was, as Johnson claims, dangerously overpopulated.


 
And the UK is an isolated unit?

If you 'know all about that', why are you talking as you are?


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## SpineyNorman (Jun 7, 2012)

Something something Hobbes.


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## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> If you 'know all about that', why are you talking as you are?


 
Because I don't think you can claim that it invariably applies in every case. Sometimes there are natural disasters which vastly reduce resources, and in those circs the food supply will not meet the needs of as many people as before. I can't see why such a statement of the obvious would be so contentious.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Because I don't think you can claim that it invariably applies in every case. Sometimes there are natural disasters which vastly reduce resources, and in those circs the food supply will not meet the needs of as many people as before. I can't see why such a statement of the obvious would be so contentious.


Right, and reducing the population helps in such a circumstance how? Fewer people are producing less food, then disaster hits and there is not enough to go around. It's the same dynamic whatever your starting point, except that very small populations are more vulnerable to complete wipe-out in such circumstances.


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## SpineyNorman (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Because I don't think you can claim that it invariably applies in every case. Sometimes there are natural disasters which vastly reduce resources, and in those circs the food supply will not meet the needs of as many people as before. I can't see why such a statement of the obvious would be so contentious.


 
Is that what's happening now though? These natural disasters tend to be geographically isolated, so they don't affect the whole world. There are concerns at the moment about resource depletion. People starve in "developing" countries. Is this down to overpopulation or inequalities and uneven distribution?


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## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Right, and reducing the population helps in such a circumstance how?.


 
It doesn't 'help', it 'happens'. Because they starve to death. Because there isn't enough food.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> It doesn't 'help', it 'happens'. Because they starve to death. Because there isn't enough food.


I meant before the disaster. You appear to be implying that smaller population equals less vulnerable to famine. This simply is not true.


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## SpineyNorman (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> It doesn't 'help', it 'happens'. Because they starve to death. Because there isn't enough food.


 
Yes. When people don't have food they starve and die. Glad you came along to point that out. But _why_ is there not enough food? And for whom?


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## rekil (Jun 7, 2012)

DotCommunist said:


> colonel


Based on this performance, he's not exactly officer material.


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## SpineyNorman (Jun 7, 2012)

Cannon fodder.


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## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

SpineyNorman said:


> But _why_ is there not enough food?


 
Because there are too many people.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Because there are too many people.


Wrong. Try again.

You are thinking in linear terms. This is not a linear system we are talking about. It's the same mistake people make when they think ending immigration will solve unemployment.


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## SpineyNorman (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Because there are too many people.


 
Wrong. Try again.


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## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Because there are too many people.


Why is there enough food?


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## laptop (Jun 7, 2012)

And the _Guardian_ diary takes notice:​​

> • Meanwhile, with Boris Johnson a constant in the soap opera of the nation, it is good to hear once in a while from his genial father, Stanley. He is, some say, a rare example of a father who has become a clone of his son. We can rely on Boris to put his foot in it from time to time – Stanley also. We must limit the population, he says in the Guardian's series of jubilee environment interviews. The immigrants are too busy getting jiggy. "If you look at the rise of Britain's population, you see a really serious differential in the fertility of the immigrant as opposed to that of the [indigenous] population," says Stanley. This from a father of six.


​Hello, Hugh ​​


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 7, 2012)

Great minds LBJ, great minds.


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Wrong. Try again.


 
It's because of a conspiracy by capitalist baddies, right? What do I win?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> I dare say it's all a conspiracy of some sort.


 
Only if you're an idiot.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> It's because of a conspiracy by capitalist baddies, right? What do I win?


Is that the best you can do?


----------



## el-ahrairah (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> It's because of a conspiracy by capitalist baddies, right? What do I win?


 
Wrong again.  Although you may win a trip to Siberia to enjoy the luxury of one of the People's Re-education Camps.  All expenses paid.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> It's because of a conspiracy by capitalist baddies, right? What do I win?


 
If it was a conspiracy it would be easy to deal with. The strength lies in the fact that it's _not _a conspiracy.


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Is that the best you can do?


 
It's all the effort this 'I'm right about everything and don't have to discuss anything, I'll just announce the Truth and if you disagree you're wrong' atmosphere merits.


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

No stamina. That's why we're going to lose the next war.


----------



## Blagsta (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> It's all the effort this 'I'm right about everything and don't have to discuss anything, I'll just announce the Truth and if you disagree you're wrong' atmosphere merits.


Ironic.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> It's all the effort this 'I'm right about everything and don't have to discuss anything, I'll just announce the Truth and if you disagree you're wrong' atmosphere merits.


 
And who here has done that (apart from you - "because there are too many people")? If you dispute something say what it is. None of this vague shite.

You can have your own opinions but if they're not informed opinions (which they quite clearly aren't, it's obvious you've never really thought about any of this or attempted to look below the surface) don't expect anyone to respect them.


----------



## Nylock (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> It's all the effort this 'I'm right about everything and don't have to discuss anything, I'll just announce the Truth and if you disagree you're wrong' atmosphere merits.


It's more like an "I've heard it all before around here so you'd better come up with something more inventive than the usual tropes" atmosphere in this place.... Just an observation like, i could be wrong ofc...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> It's all the effort this 'I'm right about everything and don't have to discuss anything, I'll just announce the Truth and if you disagree you're wrong' atmosphere merits.


Nah. You're just clueless - two replies, both wrong. As SN says, if only it were as easy as a conspiracy. But acknowledging that it is not requires thought.


----------



## WouldBe (Jun 7, 2012)

laptop said:


> Bleeding population obsessives.
> 
> I have a string of responses on the lines of "if you think the population of these islands is too high, you can always take personal action to reduce it by one" - unsent because they were to employers' addresses


Yes Boris senior. Lead by example.


----------



## Citizen66 (Jun 7, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Why is there enough food?



Because theres too many animals.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Right, and reducing the population helps in such a circumstance how? Fewer people are producing less food, then disaster hits and there is not enough to go around. It's the same dynamic whatever your starting point, except that very small populations are more vulnerable to complete wipe-out in such circumstances.


 
Absolutely, and you end up with the same socio-political dynamic as in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, including the minimalisation of freedoms enjoyed by the working classes.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

SpineyNorman said:


> Something something Hobbes.


 
Calvin and...?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

copliker said:


> Based on this performance, he's not exactly officer material.


 
Oh, I don't know. I remember a few lts of that calibre, and if Iain Duncan Smith can make captain...


----------



## DotCommunist (Jun 7, 2012)

luther


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

el-ahrairah said:


> Wrong again. Although you may win a trip to Siberia to enjoy the luxury of one of the People's Re-education Camps. All expenses paid.


 
They are "re-education holiday villages" nowadays, comrade.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> It's all the effort this 'I'm right about everything and don't have to discuss anything, I'll just announce the Truth and if you disagree you're wrong' atmosphere merits.


 
You're a gutless windbag.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

Vandross.


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

_Camps of Comradeship_ surely?


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> You're a gutless windbag.


 
Yawn. Coming from an individual who probably has a learned-by-heart Marxist/class-based explanation for the smell of his own shit, scorn is to be more highly prized than approbation.


----------



## girasol (Jun 7, 2012)

Watched this last night (Surviving Progress), it also argues there are too many of us and resources are finite, highly recommended... Also compares us to previous civilisations.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1462014/

Was on iplayer (BBC4) so can be watched at anytime.



> Humanity's ascent is often measured by the speed of progress. But what if progress is actually spiraling us downwards, towards collapse? Ronald Wright, whose best-seller, A Short History Of Progress inspired SURVIVING PROGRESS, shows how past civilizations were destroyed by "progress traps" - alluring technologies and belief systems that serve immediate needs, but ransom the future. As pressure on the world's resources accelerates and financial elites bankrupt nations, can our globally-entwined civilization escape a final, catastrophic progress trap? With potent images and illuminating insights from thinkers who have probed our genes, our brains, and our social behaviour, this requiem to progress-as-usual also poses a challenge: to prove that making apes smarter isn't an evolutionary dead-end


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## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

One day, that's all it took to break him :|


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> One day, that's all it took to *bore* him :|


 
Put that right for you.


----------



## Streathamite (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> It's all the effort this 'I'm right about everything and don't have to discuss anything, I'll just announce the Truth and if you disagree you're wrong' atmosphere merits.


well, that's one way of bottling out on debate!


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

Streathamite said:


> well, that's one way of bottling out on debate!


 
I haven't noticed any debate, just herd-repetition of pre-learned responses.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Yawn. Coming from an individual who probably has a learned-by-heart Marxist/class-based explanation for the smell of his own shit, scorn is to be more highly prized than approbation.


 
Yet strangely you seem unwilling to actually engage with or attempt to refute these class based arguments, preferring instead to simply imply that we're conspiracy theorists or something (hilarious when you consider that there's probably not a forum on the whole web that's more hostile to conspiraloons than urban).

I think we have an article on workers shit on the proletarian democracy blog (these boards were set up as a discussion forum for PD and we're all members). Here you go: http://proletariandemocracy.wordpress.com/


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> I haven't noticed any debate, just herd-repetition of pre-learned responses.


 
Can you point that out please? Only I've seen a series of questions put to you that you've chickened out of. Just like on the other thread. If you can back up your assertions do so, if you can't don't expect anything other than contempt.


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> I haven't noticed any debate, just herd-repetition of pre-learned responses.


Ooh so close. Almost as if there's one thought guiding many posters you think?


----------



## Streathamite (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Because there isn't enough food.


100% wrong. There IS enough food to go round for current population levels, both in the UK and globally. The villain of the piece is capitalism, and the vast inequities it creates in production and distribution


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 7, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> One day, that's all it took to break him :|


 
Innit. At least Gmart had a bit of stamina and put some effort in to it.


----------



## girasol (Jun 7, 2012)

And how long will we be able to produce all this food before the soil becomes depleted? Watch 'Surving Progress' 

Resources ARE finite.


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

Streathamite said:


> 100% wrong. There IS enough food to go round for current population levels, both in the UK and globally. The villain of the piece is capiotalism, and the vast inequities it creates in production and distribution


 
Really? It's all the fault of capitalism?

Cheers for putting me right on that one. I'd never have guessed. All we have to do is destroy capitalism and nobody will ever starve again. By the way, were the famines in the Soviet Union and China caused by capitalism too?


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Really? It's all the fault of capitalism?
> 
> Cheers for putting me right on that one. I'd never have guessed. All we have to do is destroy capitalism and nobody will ever starve again. By the way, were the famines in the Soviet Union and China caused by capitalism too?


Yes.


----------



## DotCommunist (Jun 7, 2012)

I don't think serially returning to a thread and in an act of stunning revisionism declaring yourself to have won the debate counts as effort. Stammina, yes, effort....not so much.


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

DotCommunist said:


> in an act of stunning revisionism


 
I haven't heard 'revisionism' used as a slight for thirty years or more. Makes me feel all nostalgic, it does.


----------



## smokedout (Jun 7, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Indeed. Which is why malthusians are always, in the end, on the side of the rich and powerful, whether they know it or not.


 
which is strange because there's a cast iron argument for killing the rich first, far more bang for your buck


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Really? It's all the fault of capitalism?
> 
> Cheers for putting me right on that one. I'd never have guessed. All we have to do is destroy capitalism and nobody will ever starve again. By the way, were the famines in the Soviet Union and China caused by capitalism too?


 
Yes. That's the choice isn't it? Capitalism vs Stalinism/Maoism. Brilliant!

So we can add lack of imagination to your list of flaws.

All you've really done is damage your own argument here. In the case of the famines in the capitalist world (Irish, Bengali, etc) and in the USSR and China, the famines were a result of political choices. Or are you claiming that the Soviet and Chinese famines were the result of a force of nature rather than incompetent and uncaring leaders?


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

smokedout said:


> which is strange because there's a cast iron argument for killing the rich first, far more bang for your buck


 
Killing the rich FIRST? Then presumably working your way through the skilled working class, 'class traitors', saboteurs, people with spectacles, right and left-deviationists.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Merely a conjecture based on empirical observation. Obviously, if you have a theory that says different, then of course all past experience must be rejected in its favour.


 
All past experience excludes examples of co-operation, solidarity and mutual support; more faith based certainty reverend Mustardlid.

Louis MacNeice


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

Norman has pinpointed exactly which piece of your logic undermines your own argument this time Pat. If the famines you mention were the result of political choices, then so were the famines outside of the old Communist states right?

(I've never seen a poster so relentless in insistence on giving away own goals like this - it's mad).


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

Louis MacNeice said:


> All past experience excludes examples of co-operation, solidarity and mutual support; *more faith based certainty reverend Mustardlid*.


 
So am I religious as well now? News to me.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Not 'necessary' - just 'more likely' or 'less likely'. And I'm more thinking of people than of nature; one whiff of an empty grain-hopper or dry river and we'll be at each other hammer and tongs.


 
There is no alternative, never has been, never will be; amen Rev M.

Louis MacNeice


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Norman has pinpointed exactly which piece of your logic undermines your own argument this time Pat. If the famines you mention were the result of political choices, then so were the famines outside of the old Communist states right?


 
I was questioning whether even the famines in non-capitalist states were the result of capitalism. I was half-expecting the chap to come back and say 'yes'. It turns out that they were the result of politics, not just capitalism. Which was sort of my point.


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> I was questioning whether even the famines in non-capitalist states were the result of capitalism. I was half-expecting the chap to come back and say 'yes'. It turns out that they were the result of politics, not just capitalism. Which was sort of my point.


So you agree that famines outside of the ones you mention are the result of political choices by elites? So what's all this conspiracy rubbish you've been posting?


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> So you agree that famines outside of the ones you mention are the result of political choices by elites? So what's all this conspiracy rubbish you've been posting?


 
Not my rubbish. It seemed to be what various people were claiming and I was asking them to confirm it.


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> What about plagues? Large populations in heavy concentration, fast global travel... can things just not happen due to change, rather than be the result of the actions or omissions of some 'baddie' who you can identify and excoriate on the internet?


 
Feeble attempts to dismiss analysis of economic systems,institutions and ideologies as some sort of hunt for a comic book 'baddie' won't get you far.

There are issues of scale which will present a challenge this century. But there are many ways to deal with this, and attempts to salvage dysfunctional economic systems by grotesquely reducing the population to fit the system, rather than changing the system to serve the population realities, are going to be met with the contempt they deserve.


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Not my rubbish. It seemed to be what various people were claiming and I was asking them to confirm it.


Well it is rubbish and it _is_ your rubbish.


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

elbows said:


> Fattempts to salvage dysfunctional economic systems by grotesquely reducing the population to fit the system, rather than changing the system to serve the population realities, are going to be met with the contempt they deserve.


 
I quite agree. All I did was point out that there are or could conceivably be occasions in which the food supply genuinely fails.


----------



## Streathamite (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Really? It's all the fault of capitalism?
> 
> Cheers for putting me right on that one. I'd never have guessed.


You're being pulled ujp because you are factually wrong in what you are saying. how about engaging with the argument rather than bottling it like that?



> All we have to do is destroy capitalism and nobody will ever starve again.


It sure as hell makes it much less likely


> By the way, were the famines in the Soviet Union and China caused by capitalism too?


given that stalinism and maoism were foirms of State capitalism - Yes they were!


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

Bernie posted something that marx said about the functional role a rising population plays - as producer/consumer/drag on wages/reproducing labour-power without costs to capital etc. Seems like some of the the ruling class don't get it yet. That's what the state is there for - to cover the gaps these clowns don't even know is there.


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

Streathamite said:


> given that stalinism and maoism were foirms of State capitalism - Yes they were!


 
I was actually half-expecting that. Are you sure you're not Craig Brown?


----------



## DotCommunist (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Killing the rich FIRST? Then presumably working your way through the skilled working class, 'class traitors', saboteurs, people with spectacles, right and left-deviationists.


 
and chechens


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> So am I religious as well now? News to me.


 
You share a similar approach to evidence and display a penchant for repeating articles of of faith; if the dog collar fits then wear it with pride Rev.

Louis MacNeice


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

DotCommunist said:


> and chechens


 
Obviously.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Yawn. Coming from an individual who probably has a learned-by-heart Marxist/class-based explanation for the smell of his own shit, scorn is to be more highly prized than approbation.


 
Oh dear, your reflex response gives you away.
The world is *slightly* more complex that a Marxian explanation can encompass. That doesn't mean that Marx's writings aren't a sound base from which to analyse socio-economic phenomena (they are, and anyone who denies that is either socio-economically-ignorant, or dogmatically-ideological both of which amount to fail-marks), merely that they're limited by the context in which they were created.
Of course, you'll deny being either socio-economically-ignorant or dogmatically-ideological, but if you're not, why the constant non-explication of your own posts and what informs them besides hot air?

As for approbation, this isn't a popularity contest. What you prize is irrelevant.


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

Thing is, on both threads there has been one single mention of marx. As far as i know there's not been a marxist replying to Pat beyond norman and he's not relied on marx to back up his posts.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> I haven't noticed any debate, just herd-repetition of pre-learned responses.


 
With you, of course, positioning yourself as the free mind who can see all of this. 

Get over yourself, there's a good boy.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Thing is, on both threads there has been one single mention of marx. As far a i know there's not been a marxist replying to Pat beyond norman and he's not relied on marx to back up his posts.


 
Yup, and although class has been mentioned, it hasn't been mentioned as an "explanation" to anything, but rather as a *factor*.

I'm now awaiting a "don't you know I've got a degree in........." with interest.


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> Oh dear, your reflex response gives you away.


 
Gives me away as what?


----------



## rekil (Jun 7, 2012)

SpineyNorman said:


> I think we have an article on workers shit on the proletarian democracy blog (these boards were set up as a discussion forum for PD and we're all members). Here you go: http://proletariandemocracy.wordpress.com/


There was but it's been disappeared. There's a really ugly PD blog editorship 'power struggle' going on atm.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

SpineyNorman said:


> Innit. At least Gmart had a bit of stamina and put some effort in to it.


 
Even if he was fruitloopily-fixated.


----------



## Streathamite (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> I was actually half-expecting that. Are you sure you're not Craig Brown?


oh what a surporise, you're toally devoid of a counter argument so you bottled out with a dumb, snide remark. Are you sure you're not   LLLETSA's mentally defective kid brother?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Not my rubbish. It seemed to be what various people were claiming and I was asking them to confirm it.


 
No it didn't. You chose to portray what they were saying as possibly conspiracy-based in order to present yourself as "better" than them, by comparison.

Interesting.


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

Streathamite said:


> oh what a surporise, you're toally devoid of a counter argument so you bottled out with a dumb, snide remark.


 
There is no counter argument possible to claims that Stalin and Mao were capitalists and that this caused them to set famines in motion. Such claims are not the product of a rational mind.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Gives me away as what?


 
As an ill informed narcissist, looking for an argument they think they can easily win, but failing rapidly, repeatedly and miserably?

Louis MacNeice


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Gives me away as what?


 
As a person who has a stock of reflex responses that they fall back on, rather than answering *to the point*.


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 7, 2012)

Louis MacNeice said:


> As an ill informed narcissist, looking for an argument they think they can easily win, but failing rapidly, repeatedly and miserably?
> 
> Louis MacNeice


 
Oh, right.

Talking of narcissists, why do you put your name under everything you write as well as it being your username?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> There is no counter argument possible to claims that Stalin and Mao were capitalists and that this caused them to set famines in motion. Such claims are not the product of a rational mind.


 
He didn't claim that Mao and Stalin were capitalists, he claims that the political systems they ruled over engaged in *state capitalism*. Big difference, and one you'd have known about if you had any idea what you were talking about.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> There is no counter argument possible to claims that Stalin and Mao were capitalists and that this caused them to set famines in motion. Such claims are not the product of a rational mind.


 
Talk me through your understanding of state capitalism, because along with much else you've posted on this thread, I suspect you don't really get it (either through ignorance or deliberate choice).

Louis MacNeice


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Oh, right.
> 
> Talking of narcissists, why do you put your name under everything you write as well as it being your username?


You're playing in the conference now Pat, pull your socks up.


----------



## Streathamite (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> There is no counter argument possible to claims that Stalin and Mao were capitalists and that this caused them to set famines in motion. Such claims are not the product of a rational mind.


except I didn't claim that, did I? I described them as 'state capitalist', which is something quite different, as even history freshmen know. You're not just gutless - you're witless with it.
btw, to counter your inane (unproven) assertion that famines have come from natural causes, here's what those well known Marxist guerrillas Oxfam haver to say on the subject:
http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2009-10-16/world-food-day

btw; you do know there were worse famines in the Nationalist era in China?


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Oh, right.
> 
> Talking of narcissists, why do you put your name under everything you write as well as it being your username?


 
Because I'm old and set in my ways; these posts are like little letters which I sign. I know it annoys some people but it's a fairly harmless habit I've got into over the years.

Louis MacNeice


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Bernie posted something that marx said about the functional role a rising population plays - as producer/consumer/drag on wages/reproducing labour-power without costs to capital etc. Seems like some of the the ruling class don't get it yet. That's what the state is there for - to cover the gaps these clowns don't even know is there.


 
Yes. Although given that the UN has been fairly heavily involved with population-issues for many decades now, we should probably suspect that there is more to it than that.

So far as capitalism goes in this regard, I will speculate that the agenda is not to reduce the population, but to attempt to keep its rate of growth within certain bounds, and to influence the way that some specific regions are developing.

On a related note I am intrigued as to what capitalism may consider the optimum life expectancy for its purposes.


----------



## el-ahrairah (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> if you like it so much why don't you go and live there etc.


 
etc


----------



## Blagsta (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> There is no counter argument possible to claims that Stalin and Mao were capitalists and that this caused them to set famines in motion. Such claims are not the product of a rational mind.



The state capitalist argument is a fairly well known argument. If you want to counter it, go ahead.


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

Here's a few first steps to help you Pat: capitalism must have markets through which it can buy wage-labour and sell commodities. These didn't exist in the USSR so it wasn't capitalist.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

I think he may be pulling the old "I'll fuck off for a little while, and hopefully they'll be on a different page from the one I showed myself up on, when I come back" trick.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

Blagsta said:


> The state capitalist argument is a fairly well known argument. If you want to counter it, go ahead.


 
First he'll have to research the difference between capitalism and state capitalism. He's probably wikipedia-bound!


----------



## Streathamite (Jun 7, 2012)

Blagsta said:


> The state capitalist argument is a fairly well known argument. If you want to counter it, go ahead.


we'll be waiting a long time...


----------



## stuff_it (Jun 7, 2012)

Did I miss something? Where's it gone?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

stuff_it said:


> Did I miss something? Where's it gone?


 
Off to find out the difference between capitalism and "state capitalism", and when it has, it'll come back and pretend it knew the difference all along.


----------



## Citizen66 (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> I was actually half-expecting that.



Of course you were.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

copliker said:


> There was but it's been disappeared. There's a really ugly PD blog editorship 'power struggle' going on atm.


 
I told you that comrade frogwoman had more than a touch of the Emma Goldmans about her, comrade copliker!


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2012)

Makes you wonder if he _really_ likes cops.


----------



## teqniq (Jun 7, 2012)

cannon fodder lol.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> I was questioning whether even the famines in non-capitalist states were the result of capitalism. I was half-expecting the chap to come back and say 'yes'. It turns out that they were the result of politics, not just capitalism. Which was sort of my point.


 
Capitalism _is _political. This shouldn't be news to you really.

And that wasn't your point at all. You were agreeing with Johnson senior that it was overpopulation - you said this quite explicitly.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jun 7, 2012)

girasol said:


> <snip>
> 
> Resources ARE finite.


 
Well yes, there is a point at which we do run out of oil, or phosphorus, or even sunlight if one waits around a few billion years.

I don't think many people in this thread are arguing that resources are infinite though, what's being argued is more mostly that other factors are worth considering when you talk about this stuff, like class, the nature of capitalist social relations and the workings of the economy relative to scarcity.

In general, people don't starve because of some absoute objective scarcity of resources, although that is obviously a limit case.

They mostly starve because they can't afford to buy food in a capitalist economy, or to take the more general case covering Mao and Stalin's famines, because they're at the mercy of some messed-up resource distribution system capitalist or otherwise, that for whatever reason, hasn't provided them with a sufficient share of the available food.

This being the case, and in the knowledge that as we are currently seeing, capitalism is subject to all kinds of unpleasant crisis behavior when growth drops below about 3%, trying to say anything about population and resource scarcity without ever considering the social systems governing resource allocation, but rather treating them as though they were simply objective laws of nature, does seem a bit silly really.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jun 7, 2012)

elbows said:


> Feeble attempts to dismiss analysis of economic systems,institutions and ideologies as some sort of hunt for a comic book 'baddie' won't get you far.
> 
> There are issues of scale which will present a challenge this century. But there are many ways to deal with this, and attempts to salvage dysfunctional economic systems by grotesquely reducing the population to fit the system, rather than changing the system to serve the population realities, are going to be met with the contempt they deserve.


 
One might add that when you have a system that more or less requires (say) 3% growth year on year to avoid massive capital destruction and other economic horrors (which might well involve people in developed countries starving in moderately large numbers) then killing off all the brown people or whatever it is these guys want to do to get to their desired numbers isn't going to help, because the problem will inevitably reproduce itself again due to the normal workings of capitalism (and to be fair, quite possibly a few of the alternatives that have been tried, but not necessarily in all possible alternatives)


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> One might add that when you have a system that more or less requires (say) 3% growth year on year to avoid massive capital destruction and other economic horrors (which might well involve people in developed countries starving in moderately large numbers) then killing off all the brown people or whatever it is these guys want to do to get to their desired numbers isn't going to help, because the problem will inevitably reproduce itself again due to the normal workings of capitalism (and to be fair, quite possibly a few of the alternatives that have been tried, but not necessarily in all possible alternatives)


 
Yes. Mind you even if some of them are thinking in those terms when drooling over the subject, they might not care if the problem eventually reproduces itself again, more a question of how long it buys them before it reproduces itself.

I assume these tendencies are further restrained by the fact that to carry out policies which reduced the population by a dramatic amount in a short space of time would be incompatible with the motors of capitalism, so its only something they would take seriously at points where capitalism was was in a state of some collapse due to crisis.

At that point I tend to start thinking about war, and how this option has become something of a shadow of its former self due to nuclear weapons and global supply chains etc.


----------



## _angel_ (Jun 7, 2012)

What a stupid man. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't like the look of a Britain with 1/7 of it's population to sustain  things let alone pay for everything.
For a start workers would be able to demand huge salaries to get anything done.


----------



## DotCommunist (Jun 7, 2012)

realising that they are supported by the vast underclasses they despise is anethema to this sort of persons thiking. Wouldn't even begin to register.


----------



## krtek a houby (Jun 7, 2012)

Imagine a country full of Johnsons


----------



## DotCommunist (Jun 7, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> I haven't heard 'revisionism' used as a slight for thirty years or more. Makes me feel all nostalgic, it does.


 

then you are bare older than me. Anyway, I was reffering to the MO of a different poster.


----------



## chazegee (Jun 7, 2012)

_angel_ said:


> For a start workers would be able to demand huge salaries to get anything done.


 Be like the plague all over. Not a bad call really. ;-)


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

_angel_ said:


> What a stupid man. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't like the look of a Britain with 1/7 of it's population to sustain things let alone pay for everything.
> For a start workers would be able to demand huge salaries to get anything done.


 
Well, they can demand, but that's why I mentioned the late 17th and early 18th century (and could've mentioned the preceeding couple of centuries too). Basically, although labour had the upper hand, it went by the by because the ruling classes just legislated so that we couldn't "demand huge salaries". Cunts were cunts even when it was spelled "cuntes".


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

DotCommunist said:


> realising that they are supported by the vast underclasses they despise is anethema to this sort of persons thiking. Wouldn't even begin to register.


 
Good Freudian slip, given that Johnson's thought processes do seem to consist of "thiking".


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 7, 2012)

krtek a houby said:


> Imagine a country full of Johnsons


 
It's called "The United States of America".

It's not coincidence that a US nickname for a penis is a "Johnson", I reckon.


----------



## girasol (Jun 7, 2012)

_angel_ said:


> What a stupid man. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't like the look of a Britain with 1/7 of it's population to sustain  things let alone pay for everything.
> For a start workers would be able to demand huge salaries to get anything done.



Better than being on benefits, because there are no jobs and having to work for free to get an NVQ?


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 7, 2012)

girasol said:


> Watched this last night (Surviving Progress), it also argues there are too many of us and resources are finite, highly recommended... Also compares us to previous civilisations.
> 
> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1462014/
> 
> Was on iplayer (BBC4) so can be watched at anytime.


 
I don't remember it coming to that conclusion.  But, as I said, I wasn't giving it all of my attention.  Was an interesting programme. Would recommend.


----------



## girasol (Jun 8, 2012)

quimcunx said:


> I don't remember it coming to that conclusion. But, as I said, I wasn't giving it all of my attention. Was an interesting programme. Would recommend.


 
It was a theme rather than a conclusion, many of the people on it were saying that there is a limit. There were analogies about up to recently us using the surplus of what the Earth produces and now we are just eating into the 'capital'. Worth watching while giving it undivided attention. It's a tad long, and it starts slow but it gets better as it goes. I think they should have made it 1 hour long though, rather than 90 mins.


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 8, 2012)

girasol said:


> It was a theme rather than a conclusion, many of the people on it were saying that there is a limit. There were analogies about up to recently us using the surplus of what the Earth produces and now we are just eating into the 'capital'. Worth watching while giving it undivided attention. It's a tad long, and it starts slow but it gets better as it goes. I think they should have made it 1 hour long though, rather than 90 mins.


 
Hm. Yes, a theme, agreed. but I still didn't take 'the world is overpopulated as my conclusion from that.  But I think you mentioned soil depletion for instance. That's not about using up a finite resource that's mismanagement of one. some things are finite but recyclable, some things are indeed finite but may be replaceable with further tech progress.


----------



## krtek a houby (Jun 8, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's called "The United States of America".
> 
> It's not coincidence that a US nickname for a penis is a "Johnson", I reckon.


 
I'm missing something here, I'm afraid. How is the US full of Stanley Johnson types?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 8, 2012)

Not watched this, but there is a big problem with any kind of approach that starts with 'there are too many of us'.

There are as many of us as there are, and those numbers are increasing. Depending on various factors, we may peak off at around 10 billion in around 2050. The population is also rapidly urbanising, which eventually leads to a rapid decrease in the birthrate. Other things that reduce the birthrate generally include most factors that improves quality of life, which of course means there is a happy coincidence of interests there. But the fact remains that we're on course for around 10 billion.

The problem with the 'there are too many of us' argument is that it isn't actually empirically provable. You can't look back at a time when there were fewer of us and welfare was generally better. Despite the appalling privations there are for billions around the world, overall welfare is not worse overall, and there are parts of the world - East Asia, in particular - where conditions for the poorest are improving rapidly. There are other places - subsaharan Africa - where conditions for the poorest are getting worse.

But this isn't due to some inevitable factor to do with the planet's holding capacity. The reasons for the worsening of poverty where it is getting worse can all be found in human factors such as war, corruption, outside exploitation, etc. And vicious circles that need to be broken. For instance, around 2 billion people around the world are anaemic due to malnutrition. The consequences of anaemia include reduced physical and mental capacities - in other words, a decreased ability to remedy the problems that caused the anaemia in the first place. But with_ political will_, these vicious circles can be broken.

Ten billion people can't live on this world in the way US citizens live. They can't even live here in the way Europeans live. So some things need to change. Exploring these possibilities, including improved energy efficiency and changing our food production processes, is often denied even a starting point by those who would throw up their hands and wail that there are too many of us.


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## nino_savatte (Jun 8, 2012)

krtek a houby said:


> I'm missing something here, I'm afraid. How is the US full of Stanley Johnson types?


Johnson is American slang for "cock/prick/dick/penis/todger"


----------



## scifisam (Jun 8, 2012)

So he doesn't like proper having multiplier kids and he doesn't like immigrants; he's basically saying boris and his family should leave the country.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 8, 2012)

krtek a houby said:


> I'm missing something here, I'm afraid. How is the US full of Stanley Johnson types?


 
It's a country rife with the sort of Malthusian "solutions" that Johnson proposes, with the added lunacy of having an economy even more dependent on vast pools of reserve labour than Europe. It's full of Johnsons.


----------



## _angel_ (Jun 8, 2012)

scifisam said:


> So he doesn't like proper having multiplier kids and he doesn't like immigrants; he's basically saying boris and his family should leave the country.


A Malthusian with what six kids?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 8, 2012)

scifisam said:


> So he doesn't like proper having multiplier kids and he doesn't like immigrants; he's basically saying boris and his family should leave the country.


 
Yep, he's basically saying his entire family going back 4 or 5 generations should fuck off back to France or the Caucasus. At least we know who Boris inherited his gaffe genes from.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 8, 2012)

_angel_ said:


> A Malthusian with what six kids?


 
Like his sons, he sees himself as an "ideas man", not a "details man".

Here's an idea for you, Stanley: Go die.


----------



## scifisam (Jun 8, 2012)

Sorry for the nonsensical words, btw (more than usual) - typing from my phone.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 8, 2012)

scifisam said:


> Sorry for the nonsensical words, btw (more than usual) - typing from my phone.


 
Predictive text? Fucking hate it.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 8, 2012)

Multiplier kids is actually quite  as a concept in this context.


----------



## laptop (Jun 8, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Multiplier kids is actually quite  as a concept in this context.


 
I, too, thought you were making some kind of statistics joke


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## weltweit (Jun 8, 2012)

10-15million is not much, I mean we are not counting servants are we?


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## elbows (Jun 8, 2012)

Looking at the demographic data, to get down to approximately 10 million you could eliminate everyone in england, or everyone over the age of 14, or everyone that mentioned a religion on the 2001 census, or everyone that got counted as being in the 'White British' ethnic group on the 2001 census.


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Publicly acknowledging the problem of human overpopulation is pretty much taboo at the moment.


----------



## Nylock (Jun 9, 2012)

...and that's it?


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Yup. What more d'you want?


----------



## Nylock (Jun 9, 2012)

...Maybe your opinion on why this is the case as opposed to a flat statement? Do you think we're overpopulated? I dunno, use your imagination


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Do you mean my opinion on the cause of the taboo or my opinion on whether or not there are too many people?


----------



## ddraig (Jun 9, 2012)

both


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Publicly acknowledging the problem of human overpopulation is pretty much taboo at the moment.


What is the problem? I want specifics, not hand-wavy stuff, please.


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Dealing with with overpopulation raises issues liberal democracy can't address. And I think there are too many people.


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## yield (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Dealing with with overpopulation raises issues liberal democracy can't address. And I think there are too many people.


How many people do you think there should be?


----------



## Citizen66 (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Dealing with with overpopulation raises issues liberal democracy can't address. And I think there are too many people.


 
Despite endless wars and aids doing their best to correct it.


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

It's not a matter of how many there should be, it's a matter of being able to debate the issue in the mainstream media.


----------



## Citizen66 (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> It's not a matter of how many there should be, it's a matter of being able to debate the issue in the mainstream media.


 
You said you thought there were too many people. So what is the right level?


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Are you training to be Jeremy Paxman or something? It's not for me to say. I'd like to hear it debated publicly, I'd like to hear expert views and I'd like to hear what ordinary people think after they've heard the debate.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Are you training to be Jeremy Paxman or something? It's not for me to say. I'd like to hear it debated publicly, I'd like to hear expert views and I'd like to hear what ordinary people think after they've heard the debate.


One question.
Do you rhyme your name with phone or John?


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 9, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> One question.
> Do you rhyme your name with phone or John?


 
or loon.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 9, 2012)

quimcunx said:


> or loon.


No one rhymes it with loon unless they're talking about the stone


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 9, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> No one rhymes it with loon unless they're talking about the stone


 
Not even then. It's the stone of destiny not the stone of scone. They rhyme it with loon when talking about the palace. 

He might have named himself after the palace.  You don't know he didn't.


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## Orang Utan (Jun 9, 2012)

<dreams of a palace made of scones>


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

John Scone.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 9, 2012)

Well, you're alright then. You can stay


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 9, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> Well, you're alright then. You can stay


 
Wut?   We not taking votes on this shit any more?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 9, 2012)

quimcunx said:


> Wut?   We not taking votes on this shit any more?


How dya mean?


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 9, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> How dya mean?


 
It's just up to you say someone can stay?  What sort of democracy is that?


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Well can I or can't I?


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 9, 2012)

You can comment on the debate freely and publicly available to read on this thread then post about what you think as an ordinary person. 

then, then you might be allowed on the rest of the board. 

....once a vote has been taken at a quorate meeting.


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## Orang Utan (Jun 9, 2012)

I wasn't claiming to represent the boards. My judgment was on a personal level. Still, it might be a good way of deciding who to cull to get us down to fifteen million


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

I think your judgment is inherently sound.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Publicly acknowledging the problem of human overpopulation is pretty much taboo at the moment.


 
No, it really isn't, as long as the argument being made can actually be made to stand.
UInfortunately, our modern-day Malthusians always fall silent when requested to give proposals for the actual *delivery* of their Utopia.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> It's not a matter of how many there should be, it's a matter of being able to debate the issue in the mainstream media.


If you think there are too many people, it clearly is a matter of how many there should be. If you didn't have some idea about how many there should be, you would have no way of telling that there were too many.

So, can you point us to a moment in the past when there were fewer people and those people were better off overall than people are now?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Are you training to be Jeremy Paxman or something? It's not for me to say. I'd like to hear it debated publicly, I'd like to hear expert views and I'd like to hear what ordinary people think after they've heard the debate.


 
I'd prefer to see the reverse - get the POV of "the people", *then* have the debate by the "experts" - and then play "spot the disconnect".


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> John Scone.


 
You need to be burned at the stake, you filth!


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 9, 2012)

He's in the wrong forum if he doesn't want to hear experts.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

S☼I said:


> He's in the wrong forum if he doesn't want to hear experts.


I can't work out whether you're being sarcastic or not. 

But there is a very real problem for the 'there are too many people' crowd, and that is the evidence. The evidence shows that, whether or not we have reached or passed some supposed carrying capacity, the widespread misery that this must necessarily cause has not been caused yet. As with Malthus, the argument appears to be that we are standing at the edge of a cliff, or rather that we are wile coyote, hanging in mid-air just past it. Us, according to malthusians:


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 9, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I can't work out whether you're being sarcastic or not.


 
Exactly as I like it. 

But yeah, I agree that sweeping statements about too many people _sans_ evidence are a bit daft. And the argument isn't taboo, it's just not bothered with unless it's rubbish dribbling from slightly confused/perturbed bampots like Daddy Johnson. 

I mean I just went to the supermarket and it was quite busy, but I've just been round the block with the dog and didn't see anyone. It's concentration of people & lack of affordable/easily attainable resources that's the problem, I think. Speaking as an ordinary person, not an expert, like.


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> No, it really isn't, as long as the argument being made can actually be made to stand.
> UInfortunately, our modern-day Malthusians always fall silent when requested to give proposals for the actual *delivery* of their Utopia.


That's the point, isn't it. It's not enough to acknowledge overpopulation, you have to propose policies to deal with it. And when enough people start demonising those who want to discuss it as 'modern-day Malthusians' then it quickly becomes taboo.


----------



## Citizen66 (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Are you training to be Jeremy Paxman or something?



Yeah. I keep all my mod cons in a room above my garage.


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> That's the point, isn't it. It's not enough to acknowledge overpopulation, you have to propose policies to deal with it. And when enough people start demonising those who want to discuss it as 'modern-day Malthusians' then it quickly becomes taboo.


To _acknowledge _it - and to get others to agree that your acknowledgement is based on substantial evidence and argument and so a real live issue - you have to, you know...sort of offer that evidence and argument.


----------



## Blagsta (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Are you training to be Jeremy Paxman or something? It's not for me to say. I'd like to hear it debated publicly, I'd like to hear expert views and I'd like to hear what ordinary people think after they've heard the debate.


 
Go on then, debate it.  What level should the population be at?  What do you propose to get it to that level?


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Blagsta said:


> Go on then, debate it. What level should the population be at? What do you propose to get it to that level?


Assuming you had been convinced it was too high, what would you propose?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> That's the point, isn't it. It's not enough to acknowledge overpopulation, you have to propose policies to deal with it. And when enough people start demonising those who want to discuss it as 'modern-day Malthusians' then it quickly becomes taboo.


 
It's hardly "demonisation" to point out that the arguments for remedying over-population are "Malthusian". It's merely a label attributed to an approach. Any negative connotations tend to be connected to the lack of coherence of many of Malthus's "fellow-travellers", and the fact that Cobbett filleted and barbecued him on the griddle of public opinion.
But please, if you can suggest a less "demonising" label that conveys the essentials of those arguments better than "Malthusian" does, then by all means suggest it.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

S☼I said:


> He's in the wrong forum if he doesn't want to hear experts.


 
Ooh, someone took a sarcasm pill with their breakfast.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> To _acknowledge _it - and to get others to agree that your acknowledgement is based on substantial evidence and argument and so a real live issue - you have to, you know...sort of offer that evidence and argument.


 
Damn you, with your logic and your "correct elements of debate", you bastard!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Assuming you had been convinced it was too high, what would you propose?


You've yet to demonstrate that it is too high. First step first, please.

The world population is currently around 7 billion. What were the levels of hunger and malnutrition when the population was 6 billion? Or five? Or three? Or one? Can you demonstrate a deteriorating situation? If not, what is your reasoning?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Assuming you had been convinced it was too high, what would you propose?


 
Thing is, you're proferring your vague notions about "over-population", therefore it's incumbent on *you* to bolster your position through reasoned and informed argument, or to commit ritual suicide on a live video-feed for the delectation of Urban's more virulently-sadistic perverts.


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Well how an appeal to authority? Sir David Attenborough thinks it's too high and I'm inclined to take his opinion seriously. Do you suspect Sir David of harbouring a hidden extremist agenda? Or misunderstanding the facts?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7996230.stm


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

Extremely disappointing to see Attenborough saying that. He's wrong. Appeal to authority is about the weakest argument there is.

Misunderstanding the facts? Yes. Politically naive, as a lot of scientists are.

And pretty moronic to campaign in Britain for reducing family size - we're already well below the 2.1 replacement rate.


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

You're very sure of yourself.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> You're very sure of yourself.


Unlike you, I've been presenting evidence on this thread. Why don't you present some evidence yourself to back up your claim?

For instance, explain to me why the group you linked to is campaigning for family planning in a country with a reproduction rate of under 2.


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

You've also been editing your posts. What group am I linked to btw?


----------



## Blagsta (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Assuming you had been convinced it was too high, what would you propose?


You have to convince me first.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> You've also been editing your posts. What group am I linked to btw?


The group you linked to - that you provided a link to. Do you not read your own links?

They are calling for a 'no more than two' pledge here in the UK, a country where the fertility rate is under 2, and has been for decades.

Here's some context:



> Official figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the fertility rate – the average number of children per woman in England and Wales – rose steadily over the past decade following a slump in the 1960s and 1970s and a plateau throughout the 1980s and 1990s.


 
The rate rose steadily to 1.97, and has since fallen back slightly. It had been under 2 throughout the 80s and 90s. link.


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

I linked to the BBC.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> I linked to the BBC.


Who were reporting a group called the Optimum Population Trust. What is your opinion of this group? Why are they campaigning for family planning in a country with below-replacement level fertility rates?

You were citing Attenborough's support for this group as evidence to back up your claim.


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

I don't know enough about them to endorse them. I think if SDA Jonathon Porrit and Jane Goodall are members they're probably not a neo-Nazi front organisation.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> I don't know enough about them to endorse them. I


 
I'm confused now. What was the point of your link, then?

Personally, I have no time at all for Porritt. He's a wanker. I have a lot of time for Goodall and her work with chimps. But her expertise in the field of primatology isn't necessarily a qualification for discussing other issues.


----------



## Blagsta (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> I don't know enough about them to endorse them. I think if SDA Jonathon Porrit and Jane Goodall are members they're probably not a neo-Nazi front organisation.


 
I take it you're unaware of the history of Nazism.  I'm not suggesting that Porrrit and Goodall are Nazis, but there is a strong link between the beginnings of "green" thinking and Nazism.


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> I don't know enough about them to endorse them. I think if SDA Jonathon Porrit and Jane Goodall are members they're probably not a neo-Nazi front organisation.


End of thread then.


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Ok. I've quoted 3 respected scientific authorities all of whom are concerned about population. Now you point to some evidence or some authorities saying that the current population level and growth rate is all fine and dandy.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Ok. I've quoted 3 respected scientific authorities all of whom are concerned about population. Now you point to some evidence or some authorities saying that the current population level and growth rate is all fine and dandy.


And presumably, since you quoted them, you understand their concerns. If so, please explain why they are campaigning for family planning in a country with below-replacement-level fertility.


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 9, 2012)

Here's a few.

Interesting article there:

Attenborough asks corporations to protect wilderness from poor people

Is this really how the threads going to go now?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Now you point to some evidence or some authorities saying that the current population level and growth rate is all fine and dandy.


This bit is the wrong question. Why is poverty getting worse in sub-Saharan Africa, but better in East Asia? Why are there malnourished people living next door to plantations growing crops for export? Who controls resources, and what are they doing with that control? Who is overconsuming wildly, and who is not? Who controls the economies of countries with malnourished populations? Which resources are being exploited and why? Where are the profits from this exploitation going?

All questions that require political analysis.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

Blaming the poor for environmental degradation is a little like blaming benefit claimants for the banking crisis.


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Can't you find any evidence that says population levels and growth rates are ok?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Can't you find any evidence that says population levels and growth rates are ok?


Have a look through butchersapron's links. First, what is needed is to clearly identify the problem. For instance, this:



> They estimate that wealthiest 10% of the people use approximately 60% of the world’s resources and that they are, therefore, responsible for about 60% of the world’s pollution, contributing to global warming, water pollution, etc.
> The report also estimates that the poorest 40% of the population use less than 5% of the world’s resources.


 
Now those wealthiest 10% generally live in places like the UK, where the fertility rate is already below 2. Their (our) ways of living need to change, and they need to change drastically, so that they do not destroy the planet. Stopping poor people from reproducing so much doesn't even touch the problem.


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

I'll rephrase my question. Can't you find any evidence from a respected scientific or politically moderate source that suggests current population level and growth rate is ok?


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

The source for those figures is that well-known communist group the World Bank.

The source for the info I gave earlier about malnutrition and the parts of the world where malnutrition is reducing and increasing is the World Health Organisation.

But you still don't seem to be getting the point. Population isn't the problem per se. Unsustainable consumption is the problem. And who is it that is consuming unsustainably?


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

The point is  population and the figures you quoted don't refer to population. If you can point to some credible scientific evidence that says that population levels and growth rates are ok, then I'm happy to accept the point's not proven. Otherwise you should accept my point. Trying to evade the issue is juvenile.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

Accept your point? You don't have a point.

The figures quoted do refer to population.

Richest 10% = 0.7 billion people.

Poorest 40% = 2.8 billion people.

These are population figures.

What you are doing is treating the population as if it were some monolith that cannot be analysed, with a headline 7 billion figure and nothing else. But to see what is really going on requires analysis. You've provided zero analysis.


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## butchersapron (Jun 9, 2012)

Here's why Attenborough doesn't need to be a neo-nazi to be a dangerous mug:

Population control’s dark past




> November 16, 2009 -- A select group of billionaires met in semi-secrecy in May 2009 to find answers to a “nightmarish” concern. Their worst nightmare wasn’t the imminent danger of runaway climate change, the burgeoning levels of hunger worldwide or the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
> 
> The nightmare was other people – lots of other people.
> 
> ...


 


> Influence of eugenics
> 
> 
> A key actor in this history is the US feminist and birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger. In a 2008 interview with Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio National’s Phillip Adams, Connelly described Sanger as a tragic figure.
> ...


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## Mustardlid (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> You've also been editing your posts. What group am I linked to btw?


 



littlebabyjesus said:


> The group you linked to - that you provided a link to. Do you not read your own links?


 



J Scone said:


> I linked to the BBC.


 


littlebabyjesus said:


> Who were reporting a group called the Optimum Population Trust.


 
I see your error, it takes a bit of time to learn the convention here. That is, if you refer to anyone else, or suggest that in one thing that said, they might have been making a valid point, you become immediately associated with everything they have said or done. Therefore, if you suggest that Hobbes may have had a point about the need for authority to enforce a social contract, you are a 'Hobbesian' and he is your 'hero'. If you suggest that the population may one day outgrow available resources, you are a 'Malthusian' and in agreement with every other 'Malthusian' who ever drew breath. And if you give a web link to a report that mentions someone else, you are 'linked to' them. 

The correct procedure is to find an approved-of authority, read everything by that person and learn, quote and adhere to those words without deviation. Hope this helps.


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Thank you


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## butchersapron (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> The point is population and the figures you quoted don't refer to population. If you can point to some credible scientific evidence that says that population levels and growth rates are ok, then I'm happy to accept the point's not proven. Otherwise you should accept my point. Trying to evade the issue is juvenile.


How on earth can you have looked at this question with even the most cursory of investigations and not realise that there are shed-loads of people who do not take your position?


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> I see your error, it takes a bit of time to learn the convention here. That is, if you refer to anyone else, or suggest that in one thing that said, they might have been making a valid point, you become immediately associated with everything they have said or done.


wtf are you on about. The only thing I mentioned about that group was the thing talked about on the link, the thing Attenborough signed up to, an act which J Scone was citing as support for her/his case.

I still don't have an answer, J Scone. Why is that group campaigning for birth control in the UK, a country with a fertility rate of under 2?


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

If there are shed loads, statistics would suggest that there was at least one shed of scientists. Quote one please.


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## butchersapron (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> If there are shed loads, statistics would suggest that there was at least one shed of scientists. Quote one please.


Let me get this right first, after rigorous research you have concluded that there are not scientists (though why you seek to reduce valid voices on this subject to scientists - and only ones that you have decided are politically acceptable - i do not know) who dispute that there is a population problem in the terms that you've offered? Is that your position?


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> If there are shed loads, statistics would suggest that there was at least one shed of scientists. Quote one please.


Read butchersapron's links. Go on. This is a big subject, but here's one aspect of it:



> Capitalism’s greenhouse- gas emitting and resource-depleting industries, the agro-industrial complex, capitalism’s “free” environmental services, all need to end. Angus and Butler’s next work could expand on their discussion of militarism and eco-fascism. It is the eco-fascist, racist side that is most dangerous, particularly as projections of human insecurity based on “too many people,” on starving hordes invading our borders or *taking our resources (often on their own land)* become the rationale for expanding the military and closing borders.


Why don't you have a think about these things, particularly the bit in bold.


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

You have google. It shouldn't take more than 5 - 10 minutes. Come on..


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

lol

Let me get this right. Your argument is as follows:

That nice Mr Attenborough says so, therefore it must be true.

And.

Um.

That's it.


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## ddraig (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> You have google. It shouldn't take more than 5 - 10 minutes. Come on..


and what evidence have you provided for your 'argument'?? at all? 
bit much to be demanding others disprove your spurious claims no?


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

The scientific consensus is that the current population expansion and accompanying increase in usage of resources is linked to threats to the global ecosystem. The InterAcademy Panel Statement on Population Growth, which was ratified by 58 member national academies in 1994, called the growth in human numbers "unprecedented", and stated that many environmental problems, such as rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, global warming, and pollution, were aggravated by the population expansion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Overpopulation

But I expect you'll find some bag of bollocks to refute this with..


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## ddraig (Jun 9, 2012)

wiki doesn't cut it sorry


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Ok, sorry.


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## ddraig (Jun 9, 2012)

and if you are going to quote wholesale from it then please put your quote in " " otherwise people will presume it is your writing and thoughts


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

You're a very angry person, aren't you?


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

ddraig said:


> wiki doesn't cut it sorry


Doesn't matter. Butchers' links, which js hasn't looked at, already amply cover this. The pattern is in fact that where population growth has slowed, carbon emissions have tended to go up. Look at the US and China as examples. Which brings us back to the core point - it is unsustainable consumption that is the problem here. There is no taboo - in fact, it is vital to discuss how to relieve poverty, and a consequence of relieving poverty is to reduce population growth. However, another consequence can be to change consumption habits in such a way that this now-no-longer-growing population is in fact a greater environmental strain.

That is the real challenge - to change to a world in which poverty is alleviated and consumption is sustainable. There is a big discussion to be had about how to do this. But you can't even begin that discussion until the problem has been correctly identified. And where the richest 10 per cent are consuming 60 per cent of the world's resources, it seems pretty damn clear where the biggest changes need to come.


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## ddraig (Jun 9, 2012)

e2a to J Scone 
 not at all! lovely sunny day here
got some lovely music courtesy of stagger cast and can smell lush food being made
off to a huge beer and cider festival in a bit
not angry at all thanks


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## _angel_ (Jun 9, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Blaming the poor for environmental degradation is a little like blaming benefit claimants for the banking crisis.


Yes but people actually do!


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

So to summarise: all the mainstream evidence, bbc, attenborough, wikipedia etc suggests that population levels are a matter for serious concern.

And there's a nutter website that conflates the issue with the wealth gap.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

oh, are we doing this thread again, but with added noobs?


J Scone said:


> The scientific consensus is that the current population expansion and accompanying increase in usage of resources is linked to threats to the global ecosystem. The InterAcademy Panel Statement on Population Growth, which was ratified by 58 member national academies in 1994, called the growth in human numbers "unprecedented", and stated that many environmental problems, such as rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, global warming, and pollution, were aggravated by the population expansion.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Overpopulation
> 
> But I expect you'll find some bag of bollocks to refute this with..


I'm intrigued. What do you actually think the IAP statement on this says?


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## grit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So to summarise: all the mainstream evidence, bbc, attenborough, wikipedia etc suggests that population levels are a matter for serious concern.
> 
> And there's a nutter website that conflates the issue with the wealth gap.


 
Welcome to Urban, you learn quick!


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Ta


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> And there's a nutter website that conflates the issue with the wealth gap.


When discussing consumption, it is necessary to look at who is consuming what, do you not think?


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Well how an appeal to authority? Sir David Attenborough thinks it's too high and I'm inclined to take his opinion seriously.


 
On the basis of his authority? Not sensible.



> Do you suspect Sir David of harbouring a hidden extremist agenda? Or misunderstanding the facts?
> 
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7996230.stm


 
I suspect *everyone*, including myself, of having an agenda, because we all *do*. It's merely that some of us make our agendas clear in what we write, others (yourself, for example), don't.

My fundamental _animus_ against "surplus population" arguments is that they are *always* predicated on lowest-common-denominator "facts" that are actually not facts, but rather extrapolations of trends based on simplistic (is there any other sort?) models. An example of this kind of argument can be seen in the Galton-era mathematical predictions of population growth in the empire's eastern colonies. Models which were made a mockery of half a century later, in the wake of the "Green Revolution". This isn't to say that there will always be a handy solution for finite resources on tap, but it does indicate that there is more to the various arguments than a simple "balancing the scales" argument.


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## Mustardlid (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So to summarise: all the mainstream evidence, bbc, attenborough, wikipedia etc suggests that population levels are a matter for serious concern.
> 
> And there's a nutter website that conflates the issue with the wealth gap.


 
Yep. In a highly tongue-in-cheek moment, I suggested that they probably had a Marxist theory to explain the smell of their own droppings. It emerged that there had indeed been a discussion of workers' faeces, but that it had been deleted as collateral damage in some sort of power-struggle to win control of the blogs section.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Extremely disappointing to see Attenborough saying that. He's wrong. Appeal to authority is about the weakest argument there is.


 
Authorities always have feet of clay.



> Misunderstanding the facts? Yes. Politically naive, as a lot of scientists are.


 
Attenborough? I disagree. He knows exactly what he's saying, and he isn't displaying naivety, he's representing his opinion.



> And pretty moronic to campaign in Britain for reducing family size - we're already well below the 2.1 replacement rate.


 
Well-cloaked anti-immigration argument?


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## grit (Jun 9, 2012)

nevermind


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## butchersapron (Jun 9, 2012)

It's a rare thing to see _three together_ in the wild, but i think we've got a good chance here.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Ok. I've quoted 3 respected scientific authorities all of whom are concerned about population. Now you point to some evidence or some authorities saying that the current population level and growth rate is all fine and dandy.


 
You haven't "quoted" them, you've posted a link. Not the same.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> Attenborough? I disagree. He knows exactly what he's saying, and he isn't displaying naivety, he's representing his opinion.


I dunno. I do think a lot of scientists are politically naive. Jane Goodall, for instance, who I have loads of time for _in her field_, has also signed up to that ridiculous pledge thing. But she is also concerned with a pretty narrow agenda - protecting what is left of the habitats of the animals she studies. Quite a lot of naturalists have a somewhat ambivalent attitude when it comes to humans, I think.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> I see your error, it takes a bit of time to learn the convention here. That is, if you refer to anyone else, or suggest that in one thing that said, they might have been making a valid point, you become immediately associated with everything they have said or done. Therefore, if you suggest that Hobbes may have had a point about the need for authority to enforce a social contract, you are a 'Hobbesian' and he is your 'hero'. If you suggest that the population may one day outgrow available resources, you are a 'Malthusian' and in agreement with every other 'Malthusian' who ever drew breath. And if you give a web link to a report that mentions someone else, you are 'linked to' them.
> 
> The correct procedure is to find an approved-of authority, read everything by that person and learn, quote and adhere to those words without deviation. Hope this helps.


 
So you missed the fact that Scone took lbj's "you linked *to*..." as "you *are* linked to...", then?

BTW, fascinating peroration, ruined only by the fact that the above isn't the case, and that your little strop is because people won't blithely accept your "authoritative" declarations as having any innate value.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I dunno. I do think a lot of scientists are politically naive. Jane Goodall, for instance, who I have loads of time for _in her field_, has also signed up to that ridiculous pledge thing. But she is also concerned with a pretty narrow agenda - protecting what is left of the habitats of the animals she studies. Quite a lot of naturalists have a somewhat ambivalent attitude when it comes to humans, I think.


 
Well bear in mind that a lot of his early work wasn't naturalism _per se_, so much as quasi-anthropological studies of the *peoples* of our colonies and former colonies, although that doesn't necessarily make him any more or less naive, just (hopefully) better-informed about human motivation.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> Well bear in mind that a lot of his early work wasn't naturalism _per se_, so much as quasi-anthropological studies of the *peoples* of our colonies and former colonies, although that doesn't necessarily make him any more or less naive, just (hopefully) better-informed about human motivation.


Yes, true. He made a rather good programme about making first contact with people in New Guinea back in the 70s, in which he got spot on the problems such contacts entail. It's a shame to see him succumb to this kind of thing now.


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> So you missed the fact that Scone took lbj's "you linked *to*..." as "you *are* linked to...", then?
> 
> BTW, fascinating peroration, ruined only by the fact that the above isn't the case, and that your little strop is because people won't blithely accept your "authoritative" declarations as having any innate value.


No, I missed that originally.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So to summarise: all the mainstream evidence, bbc, attenborough, wikipedia etc suggests that population levels are a matter for serious concern.


 
Nope. Population growth *at current levels *is.
Haven't you even bothered to study your own sources beyond the "headline" bits?* *


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

grit said:


> Welcome to Urban, you learn quick!


 
Ah, the garb of victim suits you so well!


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

So I obviously wasted my time doing that Maths degree. Explain the difference between a variable and its first derivative for me.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> When discussing consumption, it is necessary to look at who is consuming what, do you not think?


 
Always. Regulated/equalised (or even quasi-equalised) consumption of resources across the population is sustainable in the middle-term if accompanied by a *decellerating* population growth.

Of course, as has already been mentioned on this thread (and on previous threads), the people calling for upper limits (and the concomitant culling, although they always avoid mentioning that) are often the ones who consume resources far more greedily.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So I obviously wasted my time doing that Maths degree. Explain the difference between a variable and its first derivative for me.


 
Oh look, another "appeal to authority", only this time it's wrapped up in a question!

And yeah, maths degrees are generally a waste of time. Not your fault, you couldn't have known.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Assuming you had been convinced it was too high, what would you propose?


 
Heh, I'll bite.

As you'll see if you check out say the first 100 pages or so of the Peak Oil thread elsewhere on this forum, I do take a position that one might grossly oversimplify as 'population is too high'

In terms of policy for addressing it, again in very simple terms, I would recommend ending capitalism.

Any proposal that keeps capitalism (and very likely at least a couple of the attempted alternatives, such as Stalinism), keeps reproducing the problems that lead to the rather larger set of closely-linked resource issues that you describe as "overpopulation."


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So I obviously wasted my time doing that Maths degree. Explain the difference between a variable and its first derivative for me.


erm, if you did a maths degree then you should be able to explain it yourself.

me on the other hand I did an environmental management degree, was taught about and studied all the issues involved in this population debate by actual real world experts in the field, rather than TV presenters of wild life programmes, and can say with confidence that your appeal to authority on this issue via the medium of attenborough, the optimum population trust and wikipedia is laughable.

Yes population is one factor involved in the areas of resource depletion, environmental degradation, and high numbers of people living in abject poverty, but it's a relatively minor factor compared to the main problems of inequality, over consumption, waste, the use of environmentally destructive farming, logging and industrial practices etc.

Or to put it another way, even if we reduced global populations to the levels suggested by the likes of the OPT, there would still remain high levels of global resource and environmental depletion, huge inequality and poverty if nothing else changed.


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## grit (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> I would recommend ending capitalism.


 
What then? According to urban thats the solution to all the problems in the world. The description just seems to usually trail off after that point.,.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

grit said:


> What then?


 
Then we kill all the lawyers. That'll free up the resources of about 600 million people, with hardly any social harm done.


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## grit (Jun 9, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> Then we kill all the lawyers. That'll free up the resources of about 600 million people, with hardly any social harm done.


 
As usual, a nice cliché'd line with no substance.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Any proposal that keeps capitalism (and at least a couple of the alternatives, such as Stalinism), keeps reproducing the problem.


 
Yep agreed, and as I think I said on the Peak Oil thread, what is urgently needed is a redefinition of 'growth'. The kind of growth that capitalists need to give them their profits cannot be sustained. But a remeasuring of growth so that it represents only sustainable production  - and unsustainable production is measured in such a way that its environmental impact is properly considered, leading to it being categorised as _contraction_ if necessary - can provide a proper measure indicating which activities we need to engage in.

I've changed my mind about this - I used to think that we all really needed to be doing less, but I think quite the reverse now, that the various challenges we face will require the full engagement of as many people as possible, only doing the right things.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> erm, if you did a maths degree then you should be able to explain it yourself.


 
Ah, but if he explained it himself, he wouldn't be able to use his expert position as leverage for condescending to me. 



> me on the other hand I did an environmental management degree, was taught about and studied all the issues involved in this population debate by actual real world experts in the field, rather than TV presenters of wild life programmes, and can say with confidence that your appeal to authority on this issue via the medium of attenborough, the optimum population trust and wikipedia is laughable.
> 
> Yes population is one factor involved in the areas of resource depletion, environmental degradation, and high numbers of people living in abject poverty, but it's a relatively minor factor compared to the main problems of inequality, over consumption, waste, the use of environmentally destructive farming, logging and industrial practices etc.
> 
> Or to put it another way, even if we reduced global populations to the levels suggested by the likes of the OPT, there would still remain high levels of global resource and environmental depletion, huge inequality and poverty if nothing else changed.


 
Apparently though, we're "nutters" if we give this viewpoint credence.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

grit said:


> What then? According to urban thats the solution to all the problems in the world. The description just seems to usually trail off after that point.,.


Not sure what you're reading. 'end capitalism' is the start, not the end. I've given one example above - a redefining of growth that properly accounts for what economists call 'externalities': the real costs of production that include questions of sustainability, pollution, etc.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

And to continue the point...

The only actual proven method of reducing population growth rates and eventually stabilising them is through sustainable economic and social development to reduce poverty, reduce inequality, provide universal access to education, health care, family planning advice and methods, provision of a social security net, spread of sustainable higher yielding and more resiliant agriculture practices etc.

So even accepting that population is a part of the problem, only a complete idiot would then attempt to solve the problem by focusing on the population element.

Address all the other factors and population growth reduction will take care of itself.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

grit said:


> As usual, a nice cliché'd line with no substance.


 
It's humour, as denoted by the smiley at the end, you muppet.
Oh, and by the way, does paraphrasing Shakespeare count as cliché? It doesn't usually, but maybe you Celts have different rules.

E2A
I'd ask if you're autistic, but frankly, I suspect I'd be insulting autistic people with the comparison.


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Bringing in arguments about capitalism, wealth inequality etc are just attempts to obscure the facts. Fact is population is too high. This is what I and others meant earlier about its debate being taboo  - we can't even get beyond basic agreement on the facts.

Ask yourself this - what mental baggage is it that is stopping you accepting this point, even tentatively, and then looking at possible political responses if it turned out to be true?


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## grit (Jun 9, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's humour, as denoted by the smiley at the end, you muppet.
> Oh, and by the way, does paraphrasing Shakespeare count as cliché? It doesn't usually, but maybe you Celts have different rules.


 
Hilarious, I'd say you must have a few great knock knock jokes as well.

Are you bringing my race into this, thats racist you know, according to Urban!


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

and just to back up my point, I'll now reference the very 1994 Inter Academy statement J Scone attempted to reference earlier.



> *How do we go about this task ?*
> We need:
> 
> equal opportunities for women and men in sexual, social and economic life so they can make individual choices about family size;
> ...


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> Address all the other factors and population growth reduction will take care of itself.


Indeed. However, that is not an end in itself, and reduction of population growth can itself involve problems if it leads to increased consumption of the population. It's not a simple question, and certainly isn't a linear system. And the problem that needs to be focused on is that of _consumption_, which is the real problem.

A point your above post makes...


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Fact is population is too high.


 
'fact'?


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> And to continue the point...
> 
> The only actual proven method of reducing population growth rates and eventually stabilising them is through sustainable economic and social development to reduce poverty, reduce inequality, provide universal access to education, health care, family planning advice and methods, provision of a social security net, spread of sustainable higher yielding and more resiliant agriculture practices etc.
> 
> ...


 
Even addressing growth rates still relies on acknowledging that things won't change overnight, but over time (2 generations being the time frame observed in parts of India and south-east Asia that have industrialised), which seems to pass a lot of those who make "pro-control" arguments by.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Bringing in arguments about capitalism, wealth inequality etc are just attempts to obscure the facts. Fact is population is too high. This is what I and others meant earlier about its debate being taboo - we can't even get beyond basic agreement on the facts.
> 
> Ask yourself this - what mental baggage is it that is stopping you accepting this point, even tentatively, and then looking at possible political responses if it turned out to be true?


 
I'm right here agreeing that population is too high. Several others are also quite clearly saying variations on 'yes ... but' and have been for the last few page.

Why are you trying to pretend we're not?


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> I'm right here agreeing that population is too high.


 
I don't.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Bringing in arguments about capitalism, wealth inequality etc are just attempts to obscure the facts. Fact is population is too high. This is what I and others meant earlier about its debate being taboo - we can't even get beyond basic agreement on the facts.
> 
> Ask yourself this - what mental baggage is it that is stopping you accepting this point, even tentatively, and then looking at possible political responses if it turned out to be true?


 
What mental baggage causes you to believe that the problem doesn't inhere in politics? Politics is fundamentally about ordering human relations according to (insert ideology here), so contending that population size *isn't* a political issue seems astonishingly ignorant to me, especially when even a half-arsed analysis of capitalist social relations point up massive misuse and abuse of resources.


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Seems to be about 50/50 at the moment. I don't see how we can move beyond the basic facts when half the thread is still arguing the toss.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> Even addressing growth rates still relies on acknowledging that things won't change overnight, but over time (2 generations being the time frame observed in parts of India and south-east Asia that have industrialised), which seems to pass a lot of those who make "pro-control" arguments by.


Last time this came up on here, I linked to some stuff on urbanisation. There is a very well-established pattern with urbanisation whereby the fertility rate stays high among the first generation to move to the city, but then drops off a cliff with the second generation, normally falling to below replacement level. And here is the key point - changing the economic imperative wrt family size is the best (only proven) way to reduce family size.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Seems to be about 50/50 at the moment. I don't see how we can move beyond the basic facts when half the thread is still arguing the toss.


The basic facts involve consumption, something you haven't even begun to address.

I disagree with Bernie on this, but he doesn't argue like you. He uses evidence to back up his points.


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

I'm not trying to exclude politics in the broad sense. It's a political issue. Deliberately misinterpreting me is beneath you.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

grit said:


> Hilarious, I'd say you must have a few great knock knock jokes as well.


 
Only the ones about your mother's bedroom door.



> Are you bringing my race into this, thats racist you know, according to Urban!


 
No, according to your *unique interpretation of Urban.

*That's unique as in *special.

*That's special as in "you're a fuckwit".


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> I'm not trying to exclude politics in the broad sense. It's a political issue. Deliberately misinterpreting me is beneath you.


You say that 'Fact is there are too many people.'

Please tell me how you reached this conclusion.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> Even addressing growth rates still relies on acknowledging that things won't change overnight, but over time (2 generations being the time frame observed in parts of India and south-east Asia that have industrialised), which seems to pass a lot of those who make "pro-control" arguments by.


true, and that brings me to my next quote from the IAP statement



> Our common goal is the improvement of the quality of life for all, both now and for succeeding generations. By this we mean social, economic and personal well-being while preserving fundamental human rights and the ability to live harmoniously in a protected environment. To deal with the social, economic and environmental problems, we must achieve zero population grown within the lifetime of our children.


so they're looking at a levelling off of population by the back end of this century or so, which is massively different to the crap BJ's father has apparently come out with, or the OPT rubbish.

Personally I don't agree with this statement anyway, and think it still places far too much emphasis on population, and not enough emphasis on the faults in the neoliberal capitalist model, over consumption, waste, inequality and failure to protect the environment that is inherent within it.

TBF though this statement was written before the WTO had been formed, and before most of the worst aspects of the IMF, World Band & WTO forced neoliberalist globalisation policies had really been experienced, and in the period of the RIO Earth Summit, when virtually all those scientists asked would have expected the far more balanced ethos of sustainable development to have held sway over 2 decades since then, not the madness of neoliberalism that we've actually had.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Seems to be about 50/50 at the moment. I don't see how we can move beyond the basic facts when half the thread is still arguing the toss.


 
The sort of stuff you're coming out with is kind of boring and pointless though isn't it?

"Oh yes it is!" ... "Oh no it isn't!" might be aright for kids' pantomimes but if that's all you can do, you won't last long around here.

I suggest that we stop getting hung up on whether it's OK to use 'population problem' as a shorthand for a much more complex set of problems.

Instead, lets get into the details of those underlying problems, in the hope that you and our other new chums might actually have something interesting to say about these issues.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> I'm not trying to exclude politics in the broad sense. It's a political issue. Deliberately misinterpreting me is beneath you.


 
Your post claims that introducing arguments "...about capitalism, wealth inequality etc" are "just attempts to obscure the facts". You're saying, _de facto_, that introducing political arguments are "attempts to obscure the facts". That's not misrepresentation, it's quantification.
And it's not only "politics in the broad sense", it's politics in the micro- as well as the macro- as far as human social relations are concerned. It can't *not* be, unless you believe that ignoring a significant part of any equation will still give you a "correct" answer.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Bringing in arguments about capitalism, wealth inequality etc are just attempts to obscure the facts. Fact is population is too high. This is what I and others meant earlier about its debate being taboo - we can't even get beyond basic agreement on the facts.
> 
> Ask yourself this - what mental baggage is it that is stopping you accepting this point, even tentatively, and then looking at possible political responses if it turned out to be true?


fact is you don't know what you're talking about, and even the scientific statement you attempting to claim backed your position doesn't.

perhaps it's you who is carrying the mental baggage that won't allow you to accept the fundamental truth of the situation and look at addressing the possible political responses to it.

far easier to blame the problems on those ignorant Africans and Asians who just won;t stop breeding though eh?


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> You say that 'Fact is there are too many people.'
> 
> Please tell me how you reached this conclusion.


wikipedia and the OPT?


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

So in that spirit, Pimentel author of 'Food, Energy and Society' comes up (in a paper I'll try to find online in a bit) with a model of what 'Sustainable' might look like.

He does a calculation to explore what a sustainable society might look like in purely technical terms.

His conclusion if I recall correctly is that the Earth could support a population of 3billion with an 'EU level of consumption' or about 1/2 a billion with a 'US level' of consumption. Those were the 1995 figures, they've been getting worse and worse though due to ongoing resource depletion, primarily soil erosion reducing the amount of viable land. His calculation assumes about 3ha per human to arrive at the 3 billion estimate.

There are however some interesting unexplored assumptions in what he's doing in that calculation.

For example, he's assuming everybody gets an equal share. This might be fine for a very rough scientific estimate but as I think anyone who wasn't ideologically driven to pretend otherwise might see, that's a rather political assumption in itself.

Can anyone spot any other political assumptions in the thought experiment being described?


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> The sort of stuff you're coming out with is kind of boring and pointless though isn't it?
> 
> "Oh yes it is!" ... "Oh no it isn't!" might be aright for kids' pantomimes but if that's all you can do, you won't last long around here.
> 
> ...


I'm forced to come out with it because of the dogmatic nutters who can't accept facts. I don't like it any more than you do do. I'd rather have an peaceful, intelligent discussion. So it's a little unfair to call me boring and pointless.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> I'm forced to come out with it because of the dogmatic nutters who can't accept facts. I don't like it any more than you do do. I'd rather have an peaceful, intelligent discussion. So it's a little unfair to call me boring and pointless.


present some facts then, as I checked all your posts earlier and you've not presented any yet.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Can anyone spot any other political assumptions in the thought experiment being described?


We've discussed this before, and I agree that it's a useful thought experiment. irrc free spirit pointed out a few technical points where his assumptions may well be underestimates. I'll leave him to expand on those.

Without wishing to sound complacent, one factor it necessarily leaves out is future technological improvements. At some point, if sanity prevails, humanity will begin an enormous collective endeavour to solve its problems, switching the kind of effort that currently goes into the military-industrial complex towards solving environmental problems. And I'm an optimist on this point - far greater international cooperation to confront this shared 'enemy' is not only possible, but imo likely, as resource scarcity becomes more and more apparent. Kropotkin is a good person to bring in here - pointing out ways that scarcity breeds cooperation while it is conditions of plenty that breed competition.


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> I suggest that we stop getting hung up on whether it's OK to use 'population problem' as a shorthand for a much more complex set of problems.
> 
> Instead, lets get into the details of those underlying problems, in the hope that you and our other new chums might actually have something interesting to say about these issues.


I disagree. I propose we stick to discussion of population. That's what the thread's about. If you accept that population is too high, what do you suggest?


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> I'm forced to come out with it because of the dogmatic nutters who can't accept facts. I don't like it any more than you do do. I'd rather have an peaceful, intelligent discussion. So it's a little unfair to call me boring and pointless.


 
If you asked 'do you agree that there are 7 billion people on earth, half of whom are currently undernourished' (or whatever the actual UN figure is right now) then I very much doubt you'd get anyone disputing it.

What people are disputing is the more ideologically charged statement 'population is too large' which implies some sort of standard for measuring too large.

In my example above, I mention Pimentel's calculations, which replace the subjective and highly ideological 'too large' with an estimate for 'sustainable at a given standard of resource consumption'

That's a big improvement over the incredibly wooly 'too large" (e.g. for the personal tastes of Boris Johnson's dad) but as I believe I have already begun to show, it still contains many highly political unexplored assumptions.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> If you asked 'do you agree that there are 7 billion people on earth, half of whom are currently undernourished' (or whatever the actual UN figure is right now) then I very much doubt you'd get anyone disputing it.


 
Just under half - it's around 2-2.5 billion iirc.

As you say, nobody would dispute it. But, and this is an important but, this situation isn't actually getting worse, and is in fact getting better in some parts of the world. There is no point in the past with a smaller population that can be pointed to in which there was a better situation. IMO, this is a very important point for anyone trying to claim that there are currently 'too many people'. Today there are more well-nourished people on the planet than there have ever been - and while absolute numbers of undernourished are higher than they have been in the past, percentage-wise, the proportion has actually gone down.


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> What people are disputing is the more ideologically charged statement 'population is too large' which implies some sort of standard for measuring too large.


That's like saying 'the ideologically charged statement that the house is on fire'. We need to discuss the impending crisis without getting mired in dogma.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> So in that spirit, Pimentel author of 'Food, Energy and Society' comes up (in a paper I'll try to find online in a bit) with a model of what 'Sustainable' might look like.
> 
> He does a calculation to explore what a sustainable society might look like in purely technical terms.
> 
> ...


do we have to do Pimentel again?

To recap from the other thread...

his premise is based on the pre-green revolution population level, ignores increases in the land area under cultivation, is only based on arrable land as opposed to all land used for food production (of which arable land only comprises 28%), ignores the potential for us to sustain far more people with the same land area if we ate less grain fed meat, was written before a huge 10 year study of sustainable agriculture practice demonstrated average 60% yield increases from a switch to more sustainable agriculatural practices in Africa, and assumes European levels of resource usage should be the average, when I think all of us in Europe would agree that we could on average make do with a bit less, and waste a wee bit less without really noticing any serious problems (in fact it'd reduce our current growing obesity problem).

among other things.

It's certainly not an authoritative study, more a first attempt at finding a methodology to produce a figure that might be viable, and like most first attempts, it got a lot wrong.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> That's like saying 'the ideologically charged statement that the house is on fire'. We need to discuss the impending crisis without getting mired in dogma.


You take it as a self-evident fact that there are too many people. You refuse to address any criticism of this point. You are the one mired in dogma.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> That's like saying 'the ideologically charged statement that the house is on fire'. We need to discuss the impending crisis without getting mired in dogma.


 
So is replacing the highly subjective term 'too large' by 'sustainable for a given level of per capita resource consumption using the following stated assumptions' as defined by one of the world's leading experts a case of 'getting mired in dogma' according to your viewpoint?


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Without wishing to sound complacent, one factor it necessarily leaves out is future technological improvements.


worse than that, if leaves out all improvements since the start of the green revolution, as it uses this as its starting point.

fair enough, many green revolution practices aren't sustainable, but some are, and it also ignores improvements from more sustainable agriculture practices.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> do we have to do Pimentel again?
> <snip>


 
Well, for my current purposes, the point is that even an _wrong_ preliminary attempt at 'maximum sustainable population for a given level of per capita resource consumption' is better than a vague 'too large' which does not provide any equivalent set of assumptions.

You can actually have a sensible discussion about whether Pimentels stated technical assumptions are right (and yes, I know you don't think several of them are), and about what political assumptions are being made but left unstated.

The problem with saying 'Population is too large' is that it's such a vague, subjective and woolly statement that it's "not even wrong" (TM Pauli)


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> That's like saying 'the ideologically charged statement that the house is on fire'. We need to discuss the impending crisis without getting mired in dogma.


Before tackling a fire though, it's best to be sure what the cause of the fire is, and how best to tackle it, otherwise you risk someone dumping a bucket of water on to a chip pan fire, and making matters 100 times worse.

at the moment you, and the OPT types, are in the process of running up to the fire with a bucket of water and ignoring everyone who's pointing out the flaw to your plan.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Well, for my current purposes, the point is that even an _wrong_ preliminary attempt at 'maximum sustainable population for a given level of per capita resource consumption' is better than a vague 'too large' which does not provide any equivalent set of assumptions.
> 
> You can actually have a sensible discussion about whether Pimentels technical assumptions are right, and what political ones he's making unaware.
> 
> The problem with saying 'Population is too large' is that it's such a vague, subjective and woolly statement that it's "not even wrong" (TM Pauli)


you don't see a problem with quoting badly flawed research to produce a sustainable population figure that's less than half the current global population figure?

frankly I don't believe you, you're a clever bloke and I'm sure you can perfectly well see the problem with using such figures when they're obviously wrong.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> you don't see a problem with quoting badly flawed research to produce a sustainable population figure that's less than half the current global population figure?
> 
> frankly I don't believe you, you're a clever bloke and I'm sure you can perfectly well see the problem with using such figures when they're obviously wrong.


 
I'm not having a discussion with you about whether Pimentel is right or wrong though.

I'm _trying_ to have a discussion with our new chum about whether an estimate of sustainable population based on stated technical assumptions that one can assess on their merits (even if you think they are wrong) is an improvement on 'too large' ...


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> Before tackling a fire though, it's best to be sure what the cause of the fire is, and how best to tackle it, otherwise you risk someone dumping a bucket of water on to a chip pan fire, and making matters 100 times worse.
> 
> at the moment you, and the OPT types, are in the process of running up to the fire with a bucket of water and ignoring everyone who's pointing out the flaw to your plan.


Good analogy. Drastic reduction in population would almost certainly be a total disaster if it were done through reducing birth rates globally to well under replacement levels. There would not be enough people of the right age to carry out the work that would need to be done to live sustainably.

This is one reason why I object so strongly to the idea that there are currently 'too many people'. No. And any attempt to reduce the population (ie negative growth) would eventually be likely to have disastrous consequences for those who do get to be born.

This 'demographic time bomb' problem is something that China is facing now, and the reason it is slowly changing its one-child policies.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> I'm not having a discussion with you about whether Pimentel is right or wrong though.
> 
> I'm _trying_ to have a discussion with our new chum about whether an estimate of sustainable population based on stated technical assumptions that one can assess on their merits (even if you think they are wrong) is an improvement on 'too large' ...


but you're supplying him with apparently credible evidence to support his position of population being too large, when that evidence isn't credible at all, and you already knew it isn't.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> but you're supplying him with apparently credible evidence to support his position of population being too large, when that evidence isn't credible at all, and you already knew it isn't.


I agree with fs on this. I don't see the value in Pimentel given that he is wrong.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> but you're supplying him with apparently credible evidence to support his position of population being too large, when that evidence isn't credible at all, and you already know this.


 
I'm not terribly bothered if he declares victory to be honest. If he does so on that basis, that just makes him look like an idiot, so who cares really?

I'd much rather take a chance on that happening in order to get at what I think is the more fundamental issue about underlying assumptions, both political and technical.

With regard to Pimentel, I do think there's value in his stuff because he states his technical assumptions in enough detail that you can argue with them and if you so choose, replace them with assumptions that you like better.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

I do see that Bernie was trying to make a rather more subtle point via the medium of the Pimentel study, but would be amazed if that point wasn't lost on those it's aimed at, and they didn't simply seize on the figure the study he referenced produced as evidence to support their position.


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## grit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> I'd rather have an peaceful, intelligent discussion.


 
Then you are in the wrong forum!


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> So is replacing the highly subjective term 'too large' by 'sustainable for a given level of per capita resource consumption using the following stated assumptions' as defined by one of the world's leading experts a case of 'getting mired in dogma' according to your viewpoint?


Call me old fashioned, but I'd say 'too large' is objective, not subjective. And your alternative which spans a whole line I would say yes, it is a tad dogmatic.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> I'd rather have an peaceful, intelligent discussion.


From what I can tell, what you want is for everyone to agree that there are too many people, and for us to then look at the things we need to do to reduce the population. Well tough.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Call me old fashioned, but I'd say 'too large' is objective, not subjective. And your alternative which spans a whole line I would say yes, it is a tad dogmatic.


 
I see. Nothing more to be said then.


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## elbows (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Bringing in arguments about capitalism, wealth inequality etc are just attempts to obscure the facts. Fact is population is too high. This is what I and others meant earlier about its debate being taboo - we can't even get beyond basic agreement on the facts.
> 
> Ask yourself this - what mental baggage is it that is stopping you accepting this point, even tentatively, and then looking at possible political responses if it turned out to be true?


 
If you choose to debate the issue in a superficial manner without looking at useful details, then don't expect to get beyond such a quagmire, its of your own making.

Any taboos that may be present are only in relation to specific lunatic statements, policies, agendas, not the wider issue.

If you want facts, fact is that issues of population have been on the political radar in a big way for many decades now. The UN has taken a keen interest, we have seen issues ranging from development to contraception to life expectancy and child mortality come into the mix. We've seen a huge nation take authoritarian measures to restrict family size. We've seen a lot of discussion about energy & resource depletion issues and how this factors in. And climate change has been a large focus of this century, and one that, despite being riddled with contradictions when it comes to our economic systems and the need for growth, does not pretend that population is irrelevant. But it doesn't go to the other extreme, of pretending that what the population are doing every day is somehow secondary to how many of us there are.

If you are simply seeking consensus that there are too many people, without getting into the details, then expect to get nowhere. Sit around and moan about it till the day comes that some crisis arrives that you think justifies your stance, then go told you so blah blah blah. Useless.

For a start, to be taken seriously on this issue requires a focus on demographics. Its no good looking to reduce the birthrate without considering the implications down the line, without looking at what happens to nations that end up top-heavy with older people for example.


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## Blagsta (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> The point is  population and the figures you quoted don't refer to population. If you can point to some credible scientific evidence that says that population levels and growth rates are ok, then I'm happy to accept the point's not proven. Otherwise you should accept my point. Trying to evade the issue is juvenile.


The only one evading anything here is you.


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## Blagsta (Jun 9, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> I see your error, it takes a bit of time to learn the convention here. That is, if you refer to anyone else, or suggest that in one thing that said, they might have been making a valid point, you become immediately associated with everything they have said or done. Therefore, if you suggest that Hobbes may have had a point about the need for authority to enforce a social contract, you are a 'Hobbesian' and he is your 'hero'. If you suggest that the population may one day outgrow available resources, you are a 'Malthusian' and in agreement with every other 'Malthusian' who ever drew breath. And if you give a web link to a report that mentions someone else, you are 'linked to' them.
> 
> The correct procedure is to find an approved-of authority, read everything by that person and learn, quote and adhere to those words without deviation. Hope this helps.



Come up with your critique of the state capitalist argument yet?


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## elbows (Jun 9, 2012)

So many areas of interest to explore with demographics, where to start? I think I'll start with this:


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

So to summarise again: like I said when I came into the thread - discussion of political responses to overpopulation are taboo for supporters of liberal democracy. I've tried, with varying degrees of carrot and stick to try to persuade people to discuss it, but the taboo is too strong. It's truly pitiful. You should be ashamed of yourselves.


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## Blagsta (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So I obviously wasted my time doing that Maths degree. Explain the difference between a variable and its first derivative for me.


Shoulda done politics.


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## butchersapron (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So to summarise again: like I said when I came into the thread - discussion of political responses to overpopulation are taboo for supporters of liberal democracy. I've tried, with varying degrees of carrot and stick to try to persuade people to discuss it, but the taboo is too strong. It's truly pitiful. You should be ashamed of yourselves.


I sense something lurking...lurking just under the surface.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So to summarise again: like I said when I came into the thread - discussion of political responses to overpopulation are taboo for supporters of liberal democracy. I've tried, with varying degrees of carrot and stick to try to persuade people to discuss it, but the taboo is too strong. It's truly pitiful. You should be ashamed of yourselves.


rubbish, you've not engaged at all with anything even vaguely resembling a coherent argument that doesn't match your preconceived ideas, so you can't pull that one.

Before discussing solutions to a problem, it would usually be a good idea first to prove that the problem was what you assert it to be would it not?

I've also given you the widely accepted method for stabilising population as well, but you've also not responded to that.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> I sense something lurking...lurking just under the surface.


it's the supporters of liberal democracy bit... what is the alternative he's supporting I wonder?


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

elbows said:


> So many areas of interest to explore with demographics, where to start? I think I'll start with this:


 
That map sadly makes very clear something I touched on earlier. Levels of poverty have remained fairly constant over the last few years, but that figure doesn't tell the real story. The real story sees poverty coming down particularly in East Asia, but also to a lesser extent in Latin America, while it has been increasing in sub-Saharan Africa. That map starkly illustrates the point.

Various complicated ways of measuring development/well-being have been devised, but tbh, that simple measure - median age - is as good as any of them.


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## elbows (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So to summarise again: like I said when I came into the thread - discussion of political responses to overpopulation are taboo for supporters of liberal democracy. I've tried, with varying degrees of carrot and stick to try to persuade people to discuss it, but the taboo is too strong. It's truly pitiful. You should be ashamed of yourselves.


 
Are you actually reading this thread? Its being discussed plenty. Obviously not to your satisfaction though, which is rather interesting. What aspect do you wish were being drooled over by now?


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## yield (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Bringing in arguments about capitalism, wealth inequality etc are just attempts to obscure the facts. Fact is population is too high. This is what I and others meant earlier about its debate being taboo - we can't even get beyond basic agreement on the facts.
> 
> Ask yourself this - what mental baggage is it that is stopping you accepting this point, even tentatively, and then looking at possible political responses if it turned out to be true?


J Scone if it's a fact please prove it.

How many people do you think there should be?


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That map sadly makes very clear something I touched on earlier. Levels of poverty have remained fairly constant over the last few years, but that figure doesn't tell the real story. The real story sees poverty coming down particularly in East Asia, but also to a lesser extent in Latin America, while it has been increasing in sub-Saharan Africa. That map starkly illustrates the point.


also very relevant to this discussion that it's in sub-Saharan Africa that the neoliberalist policies of the IMF / World Bank were enforced earliest and hardest through their debt restructuring programmes of the 90's, following on from 2-3 decades of forcing that debt on those countries in the first place based on false economic prospectuses for the economic development that the loans should have brought to the countries.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> I sense something lurking...lurking just under the surface.


 
That *was* interesting wasn't it?

Also did you see the way his 'scientific' mask slipped a little while back?


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So to summarise again: like I said when I came into the thread - discussion of political responses to overpopulation are taboo for supporters of liberal democracy. I've tried, with varying degrees of carrot and stick to try to persuade people to discuss it, but the taboo is too strong. It's truly pitiful. You should be ashamed of yourselves.


if you're still with us, I just realised you'd not told us what your proposed solution to this issue is.

Perhaps you could enlighten us, and that would encourage the discussion about it that you claim to want to be having.


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

I'm not proposing anything particularly, except that people discuss it.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

elbows said:


> Are you actually reading this thread? Its being discussed plenty. Obviously not to your satisfaction though, which is rather interesting. What aspect do you wish were being drooled over by now?


 
That remark about us demonstrating the blindness characteristic of 'liberal democracy' is probably quite a give-away.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> I'm not proposing anything particularly, except that people discuss it.


right, well that's a useful position to have.

so you know nothing about the subject, have nothing useful to add to the discussion, but jump up and down because nobodies discussing it with you when those who do know something about it attempt to discuss it.

I'm so glad you chose to join this forum specifically to post on this thread, your input has been invaluable.


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## Blagsta (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So to summarise again: like I said when I came into the thread - discussion of political responses to overpopulation are taboo for supporters of liberal democracy. I've tried, with varying degrees of carrot and stick to try to persuade people to discuss it, but the taboo is too strong. It's truly pitiful. You should be ashamed of yourselves.


 
You won't find many people here supporting liberal democracy!


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

Blagsta said:


> You won't find many people here supporting liberal democracy!


I'm fairly sure I'd prefer it to whatever J Scone might have in mind.


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## Blagsta (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> I'm not proposing anything particularly, except that people discuss it.


 
This is a lie.  People are discussing it - you are avoiding discussing it.


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## Blagsta (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> I'm fairly sure I'd prefer it to whatever J Scone might have in mind.


 
True.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> I'm not proposing anything particularly, except that people discuss it.


You appear to be _demanding_ that people acknowledge that there are 'too many people', and that this is the problem that needs to be discussed. You are then getting upset when people take issue with the idea that this is the case.


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

By discuss it I mean propose policies to mitigate it. Or are you afraid to say something unpopular?


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## ddraig (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> By discuss it I mean propose policies to mitigate it. Or are you afraid to say something unpopular?


what is your proposal to mitigate 'it'?


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

Tell you what, read the thread. You're asking questions again and again that have been addressed already.

And you're not to know this, but quite a lot of the contributors to this thread have spoken at length elsewhere on here about all the issues surrounding the problem of moving towards a sustainable future. Many of these themes have been touched on on this thread, and you've ignored each and every one of them.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

If J Scone doesn't want to propose a solution, perhaps he could explain why he thinks current population levels are a problem.

To my mind, population itself will never be a problem by itself unless you're seriously antisocial.

It only becomes a problem if it becomes a significant cause of other significant problems, but even then the best solution to those problems may well be to address other causes of the problem first, rather than deciding that we must address population and ignore the other factors.

TBH though I tend to find with most who view population as the issue, that like J Scone here they don't actually have any ways of addressing the issue, or at least none they're prepared to discuss, which really does make their position pretty ridiculous.



> Why are you ignoring population, it's the route cause of most of the world problems.
> 
> erm ok, well what do you suggest we do about it then
> 
> ...


----------



## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> By discuss it I mean propose policies to mitigate it. Or are you afraid to say something unpopular?


the floor is yours. Propose some policies.

I've given you my proposals, it appears to be you who is afraid to say anything at all tbh.


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Stop me if I get too logical. If it's a bad thing we should try to put it right. Putting it right in a democracy means people like us talking about it. So unless it's not true or unless it's not a bad thing we should be talking about how to put it right. With me so far?

So if you can point me to some credible (non nutter) sources that show it's either not true or not a bad thing or both, I'll happily admit the case is not proven and apologise for wasting your time. Otherwise, start talking about ways to put it right. Or go back to burying your heads in the sand and bitching about what a Nazi I am.


----------



## Blagsta (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> By discuss it I mean propose policies to mitigate it.


Go on then...


----------



## Blagsta (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Stop me if I get too logical. If it's a bad thing we should try to put it right. Putting it right in a democracy means people like us talking about it. So unless it's not true or unless it's not a bad thing we should be talking about how to put it right. With me so far?
> 
> So if you can point me to some credible (non nutter) sources that show it's either not true or not a bad thing or both, I'll happily admit the case is not proven and apologise for wasting your time. Otherwise, start talking about ways to put it right. Or go back to burying your heads in the sand and bitching about what a Nazi I am.


Timewaster


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Tell you what, read the thread. You're asking questions again and again that have been addressed already.
> 
> And you're not to know this, but quite a lot of the contributors to this thread have spoken at length elsewhere on here about all the issues surrounding the problem of moving towards a sustainable future. Many of these themes have been touched on on this thread, and you've ignored each and every one of them.


 
Our new chum has been blatantly avoiding every effort people have been making to engage in a genuine, fact-based discussion of sustainability. He's also put his fingers in his ears and closed his eyes so he can ignore any such discussions that are happening despite him.

I've seen this sort of behaviour before. Someone who has a canned argument they want to use and avoids engagement with anything that doesn't offer them the starting conditions for that argument.

They have to act like that because they haven't got a fucking clue what to do about any arguments other than the ones they're expecting and have a ready-made party line for.

Used to see it all the time here when Bushbots arrived from places like Free Republic thinking 'leftist' meant 'Clinton supporter' and went crazy trying to figure out how to use their canned anti-Clinton arguments against trots and various kinds of anarchos.

If I could figure out what he was expecting and hadn't already blown my cover, I'd have a bash at feeding it to him in order to see what his canned argument actually is.


----------



## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Stop me if I get too logical. If it's a bad thing we should try to put it right. Putting it right in a democracy means people like us talking about it. So unless it's not true or unless it's not a bad thing we should be talking about how to put it right. With me so far?
> 
> So if you can point me to some credible (non nutter) sources that show it's either not true or not a bad thing or both, I'll happily admit the case is not proven and apologise for wasting your time. Otherwise, start talking about ways to put it right. Or go back to burying your heads in the sand and bitching about what a Nazi I am.


sorry, I'm struggling here, you've still not stated what exactly it is that you see is problematic about population levels.

you do understand that population itself is not a problem don't you?


----------



## Yossarian (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Stop me if I get too logical. If it's a bad thing we should try to put it right. Putting it right in a democracy means people like us talking about it. So unless it's not true or unless it's not a bad thing we should be talking about how to put it right. With me so far?
> 
> So if you can point me to some credible (non nutter) sources that show it's either not true or not a bad thing or both, I'll happily admit the case is not proven and apologise for wasting your time. Otherwise, start talking about ways to put it right. Or go back to burying your heads in the sand and bitching about what a Nazi I am.


 
Instead of doing the dance of the 7 veils around the subject, why don't you just come out with your "mitigation" policies?


----------



## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Stop me if I get too logical. If it's a bad thing we should try to put it right. Putting it right in a democracy means people like us talking about it. So unless it's not true or unless it's not a bad thing we should be talking about how to put it right. With me so far?
> 
> So if you can point me to some credible (non nutter) sources that show it's either not true or not a bad thing or both, I'll happily admit the case is not proven and apologise for wasting your time. Otherwise, start talking about ways to put it right. Or go back to burying your heads in the sand and bitching about what a Nazi I am.


also, none of this classes as a policy suggestion.

or perhaps you're of the opinion that simply talking about an issue means the issue is solved - a POV Tony Blair popularised, but it's really not how it works.


----------



## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

Yossarian said:


> Instead of doing the dance of the 7 veils around the subject, why don't you just come out with your "mitigation" policies?


no no, you're missing the point, it's us that are too scared to discuss the subject, not him. Do keep up.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Stop me if I get too logical. If it's a bad thing we should try to put it right. Putting it right in a democracy means people like us talking about it.


 
Unsustainable consumption is indeed a bad thing, and we should try to put it right. You do understand the point that 10 billion people living sustainably is better for the planet than 1 billion living unsustainably, yes?


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> That remark about us demonstrating the blindness characteristic of 'liberal democracy' is probably quite a give-away.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> The problem with saying 'Population is too large' is that it's such a vague, subjective and woolly statement that it's "not even wrong" (TM Pauli)


 
And it can often be a "carrier" for other notions. For Galton, the "other notion" was that size was related to the freedom of "inferior stock" to breed without check.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So to summarise again: like I said when I came into the thread - discussion of political responses to overpopulation are taboo for supporters of liberal democracy. I've tried, with varying degrees of carrot and stick to try to persuade people to discuss it, but the taboo is too strong. It's truly pitiful. You should be ashamed of yourselves.


 
Traduce me with the label of "supporter of liberal democracy" again, and I'll track you down and whip you like a dog, sir.


----------



## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

serious question for J Scone here.

Are you actually a government advisor on this issue? 

I ask as the current qualifications for being a government advisor on serious issues seems to be that you mustn't have any academic background in the subject, shouldn't actually really know anything about it, but must have a major talent for repeatedly stating your opinion as if it's fact and ignoring all evidence presented to the contrary.

if not, a government post must surely beckon.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> I'm not proposing anything particularly, except that people discuss it.


 
You're not even proposing that, you're proposing that if it be discussed, it be *on your terms only*.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

Blagsta said:


> You won't find many people here supporting liberal democracy!


 
Except as far as the nearest pyre.


----------



## Yossarian (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> no no, you're missing the point, it's us that are too scared to discuss the subject, not him. Do keep up.


 
I guess we're not ready for uncomfortable truths.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> By discuss it I mean propose policies to mitigate it. Or are you afraid to say something unpopular?


 
Do you mean something unpopular along the lines of "sterilise the Chinese"?
Or perhaps you mean what's unpopular to you, like "attempt to ensure fair distribution of resources"?

The first is unpopular with me because it visits collective punishment on an enitire people. As a Jew, I'm not fond of such things.
The second appears to be unpopular with *you* because it doesn't include population minimalisation by abrupt and violent means.


----------



## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> because it doesn't include population minimalisation by abrupt and violent means.


but it'd be for our own good. Why would you be against something that was for our own good, and could result in a lower population?

have you not listened to david attenborough, or read wikipedia?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Stop me if I get too logical. If it's a bad thing we should try to put it right.


 
Fine, so prove it's a "bad thing" through argument, not through reference to either commonsense notions or appeals to authority.



> Putting it right in a democracy means people like us talking about it.
> 
> So unless it's not true or unless it's not a bad thing we should be talking about how to put it right. With me so far?


 
There's a disconnect between talking about it and putting it right. The disconnect resides in "us", who are talking about it, being able to effect change. "But we have political representatives to do that!", I hear you cry! Well, we would have if we had any democratic mechanism to *compel* them to effect change according to popular will, but we don't, and I'm going to totally elide the point that those they govern *for* (that'd be the corporations, by the way) wouldn't see such change as in their interest, so they'd quash it.



> So if you can point me to some credible (non nutter) sources that show it's either not true or not a bad thing or both, I'll happily admit the case is not proven and apologise for wasting your time. Otherwise, start talking about ways to put it right. Or go back to burying your heads in the sand and bitching about what a Nazi I am.


 
No-one has called you a Nazi, you self-pitying whiner. "Man-up", as the local youths say.
You're not a Nazi. Someone's useful idiot, but not a Nazi.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> but it'd be for our own good. Why would you be against something that was for our own good, and could result in a lower population?
> 
> have you not listened to david attenborough, or read wikipedia?


 
I've done both. I've also browsed Malthus's original and read Cobbett's satire on it, plus imbibed various bits of info on "population control" from the last century and a half.

That is, of course, why I'm against "something that was for our own good".


----------



## laptop (Jun 9, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> You appear to be _demanding_ that people acknowledge that there are 'too many people'...


 
If genuine, they're a lot like conspiraloons, aren't they? "_You will acknowledge that I have special knowledge_ before we proceed..."

Probably a troll, though.


----------



## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> I've done both. I've also browsed Malthus's original and read Cobbett's satire on it, plus imbibed various bits of info on "population control" from the last century and a half.
> 
> That is, of course, why I'm against "something that was for our own good".


see, that's where you've gone wrong. You've actually done some research on the subject. Why would you do that when you can just read the OPT website and accept that if david attenborough says it then it must be true?


----------



## grit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Stop me if I get too logical. If it's a bad thing we should try to put it right. Putting it right in a democracy means people like us talking about it. So unless it's not true or unless it's not a bad thing we should be talking about how to put it right. With me so far?
> 
> So if you can point me to some credible (non nutter) sources that show it's either not true or not a bad thing or both, I'll happily admit the case is not proven and apologise for wasting your time. Otherwise, start talking about ways to put it right. Or go back to burying your heads in the sand and bitching about what a Nazi I am.


 
Its an understandable but extremely unfortunate rookie mistake you are making. That is, bringing reason and logic into a u75 politics debate.

Good luck!


----------



## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

grit said:


> Its an understandable but extremely unfortunate rookie mistake you are making. That is, bringing *reason and logic* into a u75 politics debate.
> 
> Good luck!


where?


----------



## Blagsta (Jun 9, 2012)

grit said:


> Its an understandable but extremely unfortunate rookie mistake you are making. That is, bringing reason and logic into a u75 politics debate.
> 
> Good luck!


 
Where did J Scone do that?  Quotes please.


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## elbows (Jun 9, 2012)

grit said:


> Its an understandable but extremely unfortunate rookie mistake you are making. That is, bringing reason and logic into a u75 politics debate.
> 
> Good luck!


 
u75 health warning: A history of losing arguments here may lead to a self-shielding but erroneous conclusion that its everyone else who is illogical and dribbling.


----------



## mentalchik (Jun 9, 2012)

grit said:


> Its an understandable but extremely unfortunate rookie mistake you are making. That is, bringing reason and logic into a u75 politics debate.
> 
> Good luck!


 
where has he done that ?

all he's said is that there may or may not be a problem and asked (and then berated) people for not talking about it in a way he likes


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## quimcunx (Jun 9, 2012)

According to the programme I watched the other night there are 5bn people who are still waiting/unable to join in with the profligate consumption we enjoy in europe and america.  Let's kill them*. They might as well be dead if they don't have ipads and a  dishwasher anyway. Plus they're mostly all poor and brown so who give a fuck?  Problemo solved.  

*of course we don't have to kill them, we can just stop propping them up with our overly generous international aid packages and leave them to their fate.  They're bleeding us dry man!! Charity begins at home behind closed borders! 

Is this the discussion you were looking for, J Scone?


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## mentalchik (Jun 9, 2012)

these folks that whine about population being "too high" never have any sort of credible answer do they ?


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

mentalchik said:


> these folks that whine about population being "too high" never have any sort of credible answer do they ?


Nope. And it is genuinely saddening for me to see D. Attenborough lining up with them. Shame on you, David. Shame on you.


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## elbows (Jun 9, 2012)

When it comes to UK population, the following animated population pyramid is quite interesting:

http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc1/UKPyramid.html

Personally I would not treat its assumptions about the future as a cert by any means, since some of the assumptions about progress are likely to be tested in the decades ahead. But its still rather interesting to have a look at how the peaks and troughs of the birthrate are changed over time by factors we can assume are immigration, emigration and death. 

I'm from the mid 1970's when the birthrate dropped notably. My parents are from the first post-war baby-boom, whose retirement caused some fears of pensions crisis, fears that would be even more justified if immigration hadn't smoothed out some younger parts of the curve.


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## quimcunx (Jun 9, 2012)

I'm still recommending the BBC4 programme surviving progress on the other night.  I'm not sure it will say anything most contributors (with obvious exceptions) to this thread have already considered and discussed but it's nice to see some thoughtful programming rather than austerity propaganda all the same.   I still disagree that it's about overpopulation.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I agree with fs on this. I don't see the value in Pimentel given that he is wrong.


 
Oh well, let's get back to arguing about Pimentel then seeing as our new chum has turned out to be such a disappointment.

I'd claim that merely saying 'he is wrong' is a bit of a broad-brush statement. He's written some fairly well-respected stuff on many of the underlying subjects (see e.g. Food, Energy and Society) and in the couple of essays (see e.g. this pdf) where he tries to do some estimating about sustainability, he makes a reasonable effort to be clear about his technical assumptions, some of which free spirit (and I gather also you) didn't like.

I wasn't particularly in the mood to get into it last time this came up but I wouldn't mind trying to get to the bottom of exactly which technical assumptions aren't valid and which political assumptions need to be articulated. I don't particularly agree with all of them myself, but I think there's value in trying to get a better estimate with better technical assumptions and to attempt also to uncover the political ones that Pimentel isn't articulating.

Can you recall which thread it was? Just as a reference point for further discussion.


----------



## mentalchik (Jun 9, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> And it is genuinely saddening for me to see D. Attenborough lining up with them. Shame on you, David. Shame on you.


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Nope. And it is genuinely saddening for me to see D. Attenborough lining up with them. Shame on you, David. Shame on you.


 
Yes. Although its not hard to see why those who care about all the non-human inhabitants of the planet might fall into this trap. One of the things that seems to make humans fairly poor custodians of the planet is that our reactions to seeing things being destroyed can quite easily lead to more destruction rather than less.

And debates about changing aspects of our behaviour that are not directly related to reproduction seem to cause almost as much kerfuffle or dismissiveness as do the ugliest of authoritarian 'solutions'. These sorts of issues can come to ahead when you have something like certain biofuels where it may be possible to make a very easy connection between the lifestyles of one part of the world coming at the expense of lives in another.


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That map sadly makes very clear something I touched on earlier. Levels of poverty have remained fairly constant over the last few years, but that figure doesn't tell the real story. The real story sees poverty coming down particularly in East Asia, but also to a lesser extent in Latin America, while it has been increasing in sub-Saharan Africa. That map starkly illustrates the point.
> 
> Various complicated ways of measuring development/well-being have been devised, but tbh, that simple measure - median age - is as good as any of them.


 
Yes, but I suspect we have to be careful not to make mistakes, and to bring in other data when trying to use this stuff to make detailed claims.

The middle east certainly has interesting demographic issues which have caused plenty of concern for those who seek to maintain control of the region. Man of these countries managed to do rapid development in terms of healthcare and education, and have ended up with large bulges of young, a fair chunk of whom are educated but jobless.


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> If I could figure out what he was expecting and hadn't already blown my cover, I'd have a bash at feeding it to him in order to see what his canned argument actually is.


You're such a fuckwit Bernie. I don't have any agenda besides wanting people to discuss it. I don't even mind whether it's for real or only hypothetically.

Let me start you off then. The Chinese One Child policy. What do you think of that?


----------



## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

misguided policy, that's been extremely harshly and disproportionately enforced, and seems particularly unnecessary when you consider that the Chinese birth rate had already fallen from 5.9 to 2.9 in the decade before it was introduced.

that's my opinion, what's yours?


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

Also when considering China, at the same time as they've done things, either intentionally like the 'one child' policy or as a by-product of some other trend, like education and access to contraception, improved standards of living for some classes and regions, that reduce birth rates, other ongoing changes mean that per capita resource use and environmental damage have tended to increase. 

So if we're looking at population as a facet of sustainability, it's a mixed result.


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> that's my opinion, what's yours?


I don't know. I'd like to see estimates of what the Chinese population would be by now without it, and what the consequences of that population were expected to be. What do you think the Chinese government should have done instead then?


----------



## mentalchik (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> You're such a fuckwit Bernie.* I don't have any agenda besides wanting people to discuss it.* I don't even mind whether it's for real or only hypothetically.
> 
> Let me start you off then. The Chinese One Child policy. What do you think of that?


 
which they are doing........but what do YOU think, you must have an opinion to have raised the subject ?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 9, 2012)

I don't have any agenda when I want people to discuss the Jewish Problem. I just want to see them talking about it as much as possible.


----------



## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> I don't know. I'd like to see estimates of what the Chinese population would be by now without it, and what the consequences of that population were expected to be. What do you think the Chinese government should have done instead then?


who's estimates?

I hardly think the Chinese governments estimates would be credible given that they're needing to try to justify their policy.

What I think they should have done is to have focussed on economic development, education, health care, social security and pensions etc etc as well as the family planning work they'd obviously been doing so well in the previous decade. Then on the food and resource provision focussed on spreading best practice to improve yields.

Perhaps if they'd not been massively distracted by this one child policy they'd have been able to drag most of their population out of poverty a couple of decades earlier, and done so in a much more sustainable major.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

elbows said:


> Yes, but I suspect we have to be careful not to make mistakes, and to bring in other data when trying to use this stuff to make detailed claims.


yes, absolutely. The really shocking figure is the lowest one, with median age under 20. You're right about the population bulges in places like Iran, where it's happened alongside pretty good living standards, but even that doesn't produce the lowest median age - that's pretty much reserved for the poorest places, with AIDS added in in places like Botswana, which would otherwise be doing much better.


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I don't have any agenda when I want people to discuss the Jewish Problem. I just want to see them talking about it as much as possible.


Like FridgeMagnet says. Except I'd like people to stop when they have reasonable some reasonable proposals to try out.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Can you recall which thread it was? Just as a reference point for further discussion.


Peak Oil or system collapse. One of the Falconathons.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> And it can often be a "carrier" for other notions. For Galton, the "other notion" was that size was related to the freedom of "inferior stock" to breed without check.


 
Well, I think it's instructive that our new chum _really_ doesn't seem to want to talk about any of the closely related factors, all that stuff that's usually bundled into the notion of 'sustainability', nor about the social and political context in which all that stuff happens.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Peak Oil or system collapse. One of the Falconathons.


 
Ah OK, no wonder I lost the will to live.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Like FridgeMagnet says. Except I'd like people to stop when they have reasonable some reasonable proposals to try out.


We should definitely engage in open and honest debate about the Jewish Problem and find a reasonable solution to it. To be honest, anyone who doesn't want that, and wants to shut down debate, is behaving like some sort of fascist.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> We should definitely engage in open and honest debate about the Jewish Problem and find a reasonable solution to it. To be honest, anyone who doesn't want that, and wants to shut down debate, is behaving like some sort of fascist.


----------



## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Oh well, let's get back to arguing about Pimentel then seeing as our new chum has turned out to be such a disappointment.
> 
> I'd claim that merely saying 'he is wrong' is a bit of a broad-brush statement. He's written some fairly well-respected stuff on many of the underlying subjects (see e.g. Food, Energy and Society) and in the couple of essays (see e.g. this pdf) where he tries to do some estimating about sustainability, he makes a reasonable effort to be clear about his technical assumptions, some of which free spirit (and I gather also you) didn't like.
> 
> ...


system collapse thread.

and the respected essay you quote is the one I & LBJ dissected in that thread. I think it's a pretty piss poor attempt to analyse the situation myself.


----------



## goldenecitrone (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> who's estimates?
> 
> I hardly think the Chinese governments estimates would be credible given that they're needing to try to justify their policy.


 
Not mention the fact that they couldn't even measure their own wall properly.


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> who's estimates?
> 
> I hardly think the Chinese governments estimates would be credible given that they're needing to try to justify their policy.
> 
> ...


So basically act like there isn't a population problem and continue with socialism. Which sort of begs the question why they needed the policy in the first place if socialism is the answer to every problem. More joined up thinking is needed I think.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> system collapse thread.
> 
> and the respected essay you quote is the one I & LBJ dissected in that thread. I think it's a pretty piss poor attempt to analyse the situation myself.


 
Perhaps so, but it is at least an attempt to do a quantitative analysis based on stated assumptions. The appropriate response to which, in my view, is to come up with some better assumptions.

I'll go see if I can face wading through the relevant thread to refresh my memory about exactly which assumptions you were objecting to.


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 9, 2012)

He's a troll. Surely.


----------



## ddraig (Jun 9, 2012)

yeah. prob won't be back now


----------



## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So basically act like there isn't a population problem and continue with socialism. Which sort of begs the question why they needed the policy in the first place if socialism is the answer to every problem. More joined up thinking is needed I think.


you're making the assumption that they did need the policy in the first place.

I'm saying that they didn't need it, and had been misled into it by malthusian crap, and officials trying to justify the failure of their policies to feed the population properly.


----------



## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Perhaps so, but it is at least an attempt to do a quantitative analysis based on stated assumptions. The appropriate response to which, in my view, is to come up with some better assumptions.
> 
> I'll go see if I can face wading through the relevant thread to refresh my memory about exactly which assumptions you were objecting to.


I think the overview I gave before covers it tbh.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So basically act like there isn't a population problem and continue with socialism. Which sort of begs the question why they needed the policy in the first place if socialism is the answer to every problem. More joined up thinking is needed I think.


As fs said, the fertility rate had dropped sharply already, and given the rapid urbanisation that's taken place in China since the late 70s, the fertility rate would most certainly have dropped a great deal still without the policy. The economic imperative to have children changes drastically with urbanisation.

It's been a very divisive policy, one that could only be implemented in an authoritarian state. And you don't get to pick and choose the things the state has power over - it either has this level of power over people's private affairs or it doesn't; China, with its Confucian ideas about the individual's relation to the state, also has a very different tradition that makes doing such things easier than elsewhere. It's caused a gender imbalance as female babies have been aborted. And it has caused various demographic problems. It's likely to end in the next few years, and has already been relaxed in various ways.

It's undoubtedly led to fewer births in China, although how many fewer is open to debate (and that in and of itself is not an improvement of anything, unless you're a rank misanthrope). But has it made China a better place? Or, better question: are there other things that could have been done instead which would have made China a better place than it is now? The answer to the latter question is most definitely yes: development whose goal was the improvement of the living standards of the majority, rather than what actually happened, which was development aimed primarily at enriching a minority (check out the number of millionaires in China's parliament: please don't pretend that Chinese development over the last decades has been in any way 'socialist').


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> I think the overview I gave before covers it tbh.


 
Ok, just went back and had a look at your comments in the relevant thread.

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/systemic-collapse-the-basics.234281/page-18

There's a figure given for 0.5ha per cap for arable land and he seems to assume here fairly conventional agricultural production, albeit without huge petrochemical inputs. I think it's fair enough to say that this is a conservative assumption about how one does agriculture but that's not unreasonable in context, given that he's also apparently pegging this assumption to one about 'EU average' standard of living, which presumably includes a fair bit of meat.

You could of course get much better numbers if you assume e.g. Chinese peasant diet instead, but that's explicitly not what he's saying that he's estimating I believe.

What are you assuming he means when he talks about another 1.5ha per cap for sustainable energy systems plus 1ha for pasture/forestry etc? I didn't take him to be talking about arable land in those cases, but while you talk about the 0.5ha I don't recally you mentioning this bit at all, which is obviously also a key part of his overall calculation.

Given that energy systems are precisely your area of expertise I'd be interested to see what you make of the 1.5ha per capita for energy systems. Does that seem to you about right to support EU-equivalent consumption? I don't recall you discussing that at all on the previous thread but I'd be interested to see what you think a reasonable assumption would be. If you don't want to estimate 'EU average' then by all means estimate something that makes you happier, but please say what it is so that nobody mixes up your apples with Pimentel's oranges.

Also, excuse me for adding stuff but it makes sense to keep this in one place.

I'm not immediately convinced by that figure you're citing about the expansion of arable land predicted by the FAO as invalidating his assumptions. To what extent do those figures also imply industrial agriculture 'business as usual' as the basis for bringing marginal land into production I wonder? The FAO report doesn't at first glance seem to be saying 'and we assume all this is being done sustainably' whereas Pimentel is explicitly concerned with also reducing the environmental damage and the petrochemical and pesticide inputs often associated with such projects.


----------



## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

So let me ask a completely different question. Is socialism the answer to every problem?


----------



## Blagsta (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> You're such a fuckwit Bernie. I don't have any agenda besides wanting people to discuss it. I don't even mind whether it's for real or only hypothetically.
> 
> Let me start you off then. The Chinese One Child policy. What do you think of that?


 
What do *you* think of it?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So let me ask a completely different question. Is socialism the answer to every problem?


You were doing quite well on the PHP Problem, I'd have stuck to that.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So let me ask a completely different question. Is socialism the answer to every problem?


No, your turn. Give us your thoughts on China's one child policy.

People have given you views on China's one child policy. Again, you're wanting people to say 'oh, well, yes, on balance they did a good thing', but people are refusing to do that. The reason people are refusing to do that is primarily, at least for me, because before doing that, you have to look at the nature of the regime implementing the policy. No, I'm not going to congratulate the Chinese regime for what it did, because in any kind of state that I would support, such a thing would be impossible to implement in that way. I'm not going to congratulate totalitarian regimes. I'll look at the policy and say what I think are positive and negative consequences of it, but I'm not going to endorse it. Should it have been done? No. Has it had some positive benefits? Probably. Has it had negative consequences? Certainly.


----------



## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

I've just been refreshing my memory about the background to the Chinese population control policies, and it really doesn't look good for those advocating the need for population control measures.



> In 1959 and 1960, the gross value of agricultural output fell by 14 percent and 13 percent, respectively, and in 1961 it dropped a further 2 percent to reach the lowest point since 1952. Widespread famine occurred, especially in rural areas, according to 1982 census figures, and the death rate climbed from 1.2 percent in 1958 to 1.5 percent in 1959, 2.5 percent in 1960, and then dropped back to 1.4 percent in 1961. From 1958 to 1961, over 14 million people apparently died of starvation, and the number of reported births was about 23 million fewer than under normal conditions.





> High tide of the Cultural Revolution, 1966-68
> The Cultural Revolution, unlike the Great Leap Forward, was primarily a political upheaval and did not produce major changes in official economic policies or the basic economic model. Nonetheless, its influence was felt throughout urban society, and it profoundly affected the modern sector of the economy.
> Agricultural production stagnated, but in general the rural areas experienced less turmoil than the cities. Production was reduced in the modern nonagricultural sectors in several ways.





> Agricultural production declined somewhat in 1972 because of poor weather but increased at an average annual rate of 3.8 percent for the period as a whole.


 [wiki]
IMO the Chinese authorities used population to excuse the ineptitude of their management of agriculture and the economy more generally, which had directly caused 2 periods of dramatic reductions in agricultural output. As it wasn't advisable to question Comunist party policy though, another culprit needed to be found to explain the famines and show that the government was taking action to prevent it happening again, and the obvious culprit to blame was population growth.

Now, fair enough birth rates of 5-6 aren't sustainable long term, but once you've reduced this to 2.9 anyway, and the underlying food security issue has largely resolved itself anyway, there can be no real jusification for introducing measures as draconian as the one child family.

FWIW, this is a graph of Chinese wheat production since 1961. Note that the reduction in output after 1997 was caused largely by over supply in the Chinese market, giving the lie to the notion that population control is justified by lack of food growing capacity.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

New research puts the number dead in the famines of the Great Leap Forward at closer to 40 million. In this book. 

And at a time when China was exporting wheat to pay for the factories bought for the Great Leap project. People were assessed for their ability to work. If you failed the 'selection', you didn't get any food and starved to death.

To this day, people don't talk about it there. Interesting idea that the one child policy was a cover for policy failures. Makes total sense.

Do you want to have a proper discussion about the nature of the Chinese regime that you seem keen to support, J Scone?


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 9, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Yep. In a highly tongue-in-cheek moment, I suggested that they probably had a Marxist theory to explain the smell of their own droppings. It emerged that there had indeed been a discussion of workers' faeces, but that it had been deleted as collateral damage in some sort of power-struggle to win control of the blogs section.


 
Fucking LOL 

You took that seriously didn't you? You mug.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

SpineyNorman said:


> Fucking LOL
> 
> You took that seriously didn't you? You mug.


 
To be fair, there are fairly extensive discussions of the political significance of source-separating toilets in a couple of places.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The reason people are refusing to do that is primarily, at least for me, because before doing that, you have to look at the nature of the regime implementing the policy.


I'd have to disagree with that. I'm not agreeing with the chinese policy because I think it was the wrong policy, even if you disregard the methods used to implement it.

Although I would agree that birth rates of 5-6 are not sustainable or desirable in a country with that level of population density, this had been tackled prior to the introduction of the one child family.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> I'd have to disagree with that. I'm not agreeing with the chinese policy because I think it was the wrong policy, even if you disregard the methods used to implement it.


 
Fair enough. And tbh I think you're probably right. I hadn't considered the question in that way before.


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> You were doing quite well on the PHP Problem, I'd have stuck to that.


Right. Thanks.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So let me ask a completely different question. Is socialism the answer to every problem?


better question - is there a problem that neoliberalist globalised capitalism won't almost inevitably make exponentially worse?


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## SpineyNorman (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> To be fair, there are fairly extensive discussions of the political significance of source-separating toilets in a couple of places.


 
He said that VP would have a class based analysis of the shit that he did this morning and I replied by saying that there was a discussion of the workers shit on the PD blog, which I linked to. Then copliker followed it up by saying that it had been deleted due to a factional-editorial struggle on the blog.

And the twat took it seriously


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So let me ask a completely different question. Is socialism the answer to every problem?


That's a really crap question. However, as far as I'm concerned, social justice is an end in itself, to be vigorously pursued because pursuing it is the right thing to do. It is also - happily - the solution to a great many problems. Indeed it is a necessary precondition for the solution of a great many problems, including developing a sustainable future. You can't talk about such things in isolation.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So let me ask a completely different question. Is socialism the answer to every problem?


also, do you realise that the solutions I quote are pretty much word for word the solutions proposed by the IAP statement on population growth that you referenced earlier in the thread?


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## SpineyNorman (Jun 9, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> I see your error, it takes a bit of time to learn the convention here. That is, if you refer to anyone else, or suggest that in one thing that said, they might have been making a valid point, you become immediately associated with everything they have said or done. Therefore, if you suggest that Hobbes may have had a point about the need for authority to enforce a social contract, you are a 'Hobbesian' and he is your 'hero'. If you suggest that the population may one day outgrow available resources, you are a 'Malthusian' and in agreement with every other 'Malthusian' who ever drew breath. And if you give a web link to a report that mentions someone else, you are 'linked to' them.
> 
> The correct procedure is to find an approved-of authority, read everything by that person and learn, quote and adhere to those words without deviation. Hope this helps.


 
That pwnage hurt didn't it mustardlid?


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## SpineyNorman (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So to summarise again: like I said when I came into the thread - discussion of political responses to overpopulation are taboo for supporters of liberal democracy. I've tried, with varying degrees of carrot and stick to try to persuade people to discuss it, but the taboo is too strong. It's truly pitiful. You should be ashamed of yourselves.


 
Who on this thread is a supporter of "liberal democracy"? Can you name names please? Only I'm compiling this List you see and it would come in handy.


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## J Scone (Jun 9, 2012)

You're another angry little girl, aren't you!


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## SpineyNorman (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So basically act like there isn't a population problem and continue with socialism. Which sort of begs the question why they needed the policy in the first place if socialism is the answer to every problem. More joined up thinking is needed I think.


lol


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## SpineyNorman (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> You're another angry little girl, aren't you!


 
Not angry in the least, just got back from a nice day out and I've lit the first spliff of the night.

Interested as to why you think calling me a girl is an insult though.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 9, 2012)

Nobody listens to girls, because they're all hysterical and stuff.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> What are you assuming he means when he talks about another 1.5ha per cap for sustainable energy systems plus 1ha for pasture/forestry etc? I didn't take him to be talking about arable land in those cases, but while you talk about the 0.5ha I don't recally you mentioning this bit at all, which is obviously also a key part of his overall calculation.


but it's the arrable land area that he's really using, and there's also significantly more land currently in use for pasture and forestry than he allows for.

I've no idea where he's got the figure for sustainable energy systems, but given that that is about as far from his specialism as it's possible to get, I'm not going to give it any credibility, or view it as any sort of determining factor for sustainable populations (unless he was talking about actual energy crops, in which case his other figures do start to make a bit more sense).




> Given that energy systems are precisely your area of expertise I'd be interested to see what you make of the 1.5ha per capita for energy systems. Does that seem to you about right to support EU-equivalent consumption? I don't recall you discussing that at all on the previous thread but I'd be interested to see what you think a reasonable assumption would be.


depends on the energy source. For comparison purposes,

UK per capita primary energy consumption = around 45,000kWh a year

1kWp of solar PV should generate an average of about 900kWh a year, so 50kWp per capita

50kWp of solar PV = approx 1300m2 = 0.13ha

so he'd be a factor of 10 out if he were looking at solar PV, and that's not even including the fact that the figure is for primary energy, and a lot of that is lost in electricity generation and transmission etc.




Bernie Gunther said:


> I'm not immediately convinced by that figure you're citing about the expansion of arable land predicted by the FAO as invalidating his assumptions. To what extent do those figures also imply industrial agriculture 'business as usual' as the basis for bringing marginal land into production I wonder? The FAO report doesn't at first glance seem to be saying 'and we assume all this is being done sustainably' whereas Pimentel is explicitly concerned with also reducing the environmental damage and the petrochemical and pesticide inputs often associated with such projects.


I'm not entirely sure where FAO get their figures from, but it'd clearly be wrong to base your figures on the assumption that no new land would / could be brought into production. It's not like we've actually run out of land, and slash and burn methods of bringing forested land into production have very little reliance on oil etc (not that I'm exactly suggesting this is something to be encouraged, but if it's that or wiping out half the world population, I would).

my main argument though is that he's made the assumption that green revolution methods are the only way of achieving not only the yield increases we've achieved since the 50's, but also the only way of achieving any yield increases at all. This is clearly nonsense, and is where I believe his bias from his position in the heart of US green revolution academia shows itself, and is a position that's completely rebutted by the 60% average yield increases in the sustainable agriculture study I referenced.


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## free spirit (Jun 9, 2012)

J Scone said:


> You're another angry little girl, aren't you!


if we're guessing who people are... are you Boris Johnson's dad?


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 9, 2012)

free spirit said:


> but it's the arrable land area that he's really using, and there's also significantly more land currently in use for pasture and forestry than he allows for.
> 
> I've no idea where he's got the figure for sustainable energy systems, but given that that is about as far from his specialism as it's possible to get, I'm not going to give it any credibility
> 
> <snip>


 
Well he does actually say where he got the figure from in his references and the paper he co-authored with a bunch of people who do appear to include renewable energy experts is actually online.

This quote indicates the mix of sustainable sources he apparently has in mind (he's talking about the US, so probably for the UK wind would be up and solar would be down a bit)



> If land continues to be available, the amounts of solar energy (including hydropower and wind) that could be produced by the year 2050 are projected to be: 5 quads from biomass, 4 quads from hydropower, 8 quads from wind power, 6 quads from solar thermal systems, 6 quads from passive and active solar heating, and 8 quads from photovoltaics (Table 3).


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 10, 2012)

free spirit said:


> <snip> my main argument though is that he's made the assumption that green revolution methods are the only way of achieving not only the yield increases we've achieved since the 50's, but also the only way of achieving any yield increases at all. This is clearly nonsense, and is where I believe his bias from his position in the heart of US green revolution academia shows itself, and is a position that's completely rebutted by the 60% average yield increases in the sustainable agriculture study I referenced.


 
Why _on earth_ do you think he's assuming Green Revolution methods?

That seems terribly unlikely to me, given other things he's written. He's about the most prominent scientific _critic_ of Green Revolution methods in US academia.

See e.g. the first thing I pulled off Google using 'Pimentel Organic' as a search term.



> Heavy agricultural reliance on synthetic-chemical fertilizers and pesticides is having serious impacts on public health and the environment. The estimated environmental and health care costs of the recommended use of pesticides in the U.S. are about $10 billion per year (Pimentel 2005). In the United States over 90% of corn farmers rely on herbicides for weed control (Pimentel et al. 1993). Atrazine, one of the most widely used herbicides on corn, is also one of the most commonly found pesticides in streams and groundwater (USGS 2001).


 
http://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/2101/1/pimentel_report_05-1.pdf

You did actually _read more than a few random lines_ of that paper you're telling everybody is a load of old rubbish right?


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## free spirit (Jun 10, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Well he does actually say where he got the figure from in his references and the paper he co-authored with a bunch of people who do appear to include renewable energy experts is actually online.
> 
> This quote indicates the mix of sustainable sources he apparently has in mind (he's talking about the US, so probably for the UK wind would be up and solar would be down a bit)


well, I've read that as well now, and I'm still none the wiser, possibly because the tables referenced don't appear on that page.


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## free spirit (Jun 10, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Why _on earth_ do you think he's assuming Green Revolution methods?


why else would he assume that sustainable agriculture practices could only produce food at the pre-green revolution yield levels?

because that is how he's produced his figures.



> The 0.5 ha of cropland per capita is the level that existed in 1960.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 10, 2012)

free spirit said:


> well, I've read that as well now, and I'm still none the wiser, possibly because the tables referenced don't appear on that page.


 
Slightly more recent article (OK still 2002) http://arec.oregonstate.edu/jaeger/energy/Renewable energy article pimental.pdf


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Jun 10, 2012)

> That would do us splendidly. It's *a nonsense* that we are confronted with 70 million people.


 
For starters, I can't take anyone seriously who says 'a' nonsense.

That's nonsense.


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## Bernie Gunther (Jun 10, 2012)

free spirit said:


> why else would he assume that sustainable agriculture practices could only produce food at the pre-green revolution yield levels?
> 
> because that is how he's produced his figures.


 
So you didn't bother to read the previous thing I linked either right?

http://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/2101/1/pimentel_report_05-1.pdf

Just went with your own warm feeling of smug authoritativeness again?

For fucks sake, I expected better of you. That's shit mate. Sort yourself out.

I try not to get angry with people whose hearts I think are basically in the right place, so I'm gonna go shoot imaginary spaceships for a bit.


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## free spirit (Jun 10, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> So you didn't bother to read the previous thing I linked either right?
> 
> http://arec.oregonstate.edu/jaeger/energy/Renewable energy article pimental.pdf
> 
> ...


tell you what, if you're going to be a twat about it then I'll not bother.

and no I'm not reading a 40 page report at midnight. I have skimmed it though, and (p27) he seems to also reach the conclusion that yields from organic agriculture can be similar to green revolution agriculture, which by implication means that he must no longer agree with his previous use of the 1960 figures for per capita arable land needed under sustainable agriculture practices.

Which therefore means that even his own position is now at odds with the assumptions made in his previous paper, which I'd think would be the clearest vindication there could be for my position on that paper.


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## Frances Lengel (Jun 10, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So I obviously wasted my time doing that Maths degree. Explain the difference between a variable and its first derivative for me.


 
Anyone who feels the need to shoehorn the fact that they've got a degree into the discussion is, by definition, a wanker.


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## free spirit (Jun 10, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Slightly more recent article (OK still 2002) http://arec.oregonstate.edu/jaeger/energy/Renewable energy article pimental.pdf


although that article doesn't mention the previous figure, if you work through the figures it does give, then it doesn't seem to support his previous figure.

It works out at 0.5ha per capita to supply 34,284 kWh per person.

I think it'd be fair to say that the UK could comfortably reduce it's consumption levels by the 20% or so that'd be needed for that level of renewables generation to supply our needs without any reduction in our standard of living - sorry, I'm not going to dig out the average European figures, feel free if you want to.

Now, I'm not suggesting that he should have been 100% accurate in his original article, or shouldn't be able to refine his position, I've always just said that his original article was wrong for a number of reasons, and it appears that his later work backs up that assertion.

So that's now 2 points on which the reports authors later work reveals significantly differences with his original assumptions, which to my mind means my criticisms are definitely valid, and I'm right to repeatedly state that people shouldn't be referencing that work as it's out of date, uses assumptions that are wrong and therefore reaches the wrong conclusion.


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## J Scone (Jun 10, 2012)

Come over to the dark side Bernie...


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## free spirit (Jun 10, 2012)

Frances Lengel said:


> Anyone who feels the need to shoehorn the fact that they've got a degree into the discussion is, by definition, a wanker.


guilty as charged.

although I try to only do it when someone else tries to pull rank first.


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## free spirit (Jun 10, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Come over to the dark side Bernie...


which is what exactly?

you've so far managed to ask a lot of questions of others, but not give your viewpoint beyond the idea that this should be discussed.


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## quimcunx (Jun 10, 2012)

that wasn't shoehorning, but relevant.  I don't see that that is an issue.   The maths degree bit was shoehorning.  

I've got my tufty badge so I think I know what I'm talking about when it comes to traffic flow statistical modeling.


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## free spirit (Jun 10, 2012)

free spirit said:


> and is where I believe his bias from his position in the heart of US green revolution academia shows itself.


on reflection Bernie, it would seem that this comment wasn't entirely justified. It was based on the assumptions made in that paper, and his position at cornell university, which was a university that was very much at the heart of the green revolution research, but it does seem from his list of published papers that this probably doesn't apply so much to him specifically.

Given his criticisms of the green revolution practices though, I'm even more baffled at his use of the pre-green revolution figures to produce his estimates.

I've only skimmed a few abstracts of his papers prior to the 1998 one, but it does seem that his criticisms up to that point were mainly on environmental grounds, or on the grounds of them not being sustainable once energy became scarce rather than much to do with the yield levels that can be achieved from sustainable agriculture practices. I have only skimmed the list though.


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## Nylock (Jun 10, 2012)

free spirit said:


> which is what exactly?
> 
> you've so far managed to ask a lot of questions of others, but not give your viewpoint beyond the idea that this should be discussed.


They can't help it, mustard and scone are a product of their programming....


```
import argument.PopControl.*;
import argument.TheLeft.*;
import argument.circular.IssueAvoidance.*;
 
 
public class ForumArgument extends PopControl implements TheLeft, IssueAvoidance{
 
    public static void main(String[] args){
    PopControlArgument = new popControlArgument;
    popControlArgument.run();
 
    protected ForumArgument iAmRight;
 
    private PopControl subtleMalthus;
    private PopControl awaitCannedResponseTrigger;
    private TheLeft deployPatronisation;
    private TheLeft discreditSources;
 
    private TheLeft(discreditSources){
        all.sources = are_OF_THE_LEFT.irrespective.counter.args;
    }
 
    private Circular refuseEngagementOnRespondentTerms;
    private Circular respondOnlyToTriggerArguments;
 
        // specify the parameters of arguments
    private protected void (Params, Args){
    if(popArg instanceof (correctResponse)).setResponse(true){
        playPredeterminedResponse.addToForum(PopControl);
    else{
        PlayPredeterminedResponse.addToForum(IssueAvoidance.AWAIT_CORRECT_RESPONSE);
        PlayPredeterminedResponse.addToForum(IssueAvoidance.LOOP_IF_INCORRECT_RESPONSE);
        }
    }
 
        // (assuming others agree to initial premise)
        File textFile = new File("../arguments/aha!.txt");
        TextOutputStream text =
            TextSystem.getTextOutputStream(textFile);
          super.setArgumentInStone(a);
        writeTextToThread.addAll();
        if(isInAgreement()){
            textOutput.add(Argument.Aha!);
        //assuming disagreement
        else{
            this.isADisagreement.add(Counter.Argument_THE_LEFT);
            SetFocus(theLeft.THE_LEFT_THEBLOODYLEFT);
            addArgument.YOU_ARE_A_SOCIALIST;
                else{
                    addArgument.YOU_ARE_A_STALINIST;
                    }
                else{
                    addArgument.YOU_SUPPORT_THE_KHMER_ROUGE;
                    }
                else{
                    addArgument.YOU_ARE_A_BABY_EATING_BASTARD;
                    }
                else{
                    contact.facebookGroupMember(REQUEST_SUPPORT);
                    search = "wikipedia.org".addCounterFact;
                    }
                else{
                    argument.implement_IMPROVISE;
                }
     
            }
 
        // perpare to flounce
        DataLine.Info info = new DataLine.Info(Counter.class, timer.getFormat());
        Counter counter = (Counter)textSystem.getLine("../arguments/flounce.txt");
        counter.timer(set.hours = 24_FROM_FINAL_RESPONSE);
 
        // flounce
        println("Fuck you all, i'm off!");
    }
}
```
 
Yeah, i've been doing too much Java recently


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 10, 2012)

Dude.

Really.


----------



## rekil (Jun 10, 2012)




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## elbows (Jun 10, 2012)

I see we've got to the point where we often find ourselves these days, once the worms are exposed and we move on to interesting discussions including much detail, it tends to get a bit bogged down in disagreement about the scale of the problem and how well we can cope with it.

Rather than repeat my own personal blend of doom and hope yet again, I think I shall try a different angle. No matter how optimistic or pessimistic we are, and which reports we've found that seem to ring true to us, we don't actually know whats going to happen. Coupled with hopefully not believing in pre-emptively mangling lives by implementing crude or authoritarian policies based on numbers that are nothing more than a presumed future truth (e.g. a maximum sustainable world population figure), and we should be content to explore these numbers as a largely academic exercise whose sure truths lie not in the final conclusion/numbers, but the landscapes pondered along the way.

I should learn not to be so bothered whether it is an optimistic 'we can achieve it all' or a gloomy 'doom awaits' that motivates a particular person to care about these issues. Caring is enough, so long as it isn't marching off in a murderous and anti-social political/economic direction.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 10, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I don't have any agenda when I want people to discuss the Jewish Problem. I just want to see them talking about it as much as possible.


 
Liquidate us. It's all we deserve, what with being rootless cosmopolitan international financiers.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 10, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Well, I think it's instructive that our new chum _really_ doesn't seem to want to talk about any of the closely related factors, all that stuff that's usually bundled into the notion of 'sustainability', nor about the social and political context in which all that stuff happens.


 
Well, if we're being scrupulously fair, it's not necessarily instructive insofar as indicating the presence of an agenda. It *could* be instructive insofar as indicating a gaping void where knowledge should exist.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 10, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So basically act like there isn't a population problem and continue with socialism. Which sort of begs the question why they needed the policy in the first place if socialism is the answer to every problem. More joined up thinking is needed I think.


 
Socialism? You certainly plucked that one out of the aether/your arse!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 10, 2012)

J Scone said:


> So let me ask a completely different question. Is socialism the answer to every problem?


 
Of course it isn't.

Next!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 10, 2012)

SpineyNorman said:


> That pwnage hurt didn't it mustardlid?


 
That and his conflation of capitalism and state capitalism. I mean, what sort of rookie mixes those two up. Even those four muppets in that legendary photo of those Randians wouldn't get that one wrong, and they were virgins!


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 10, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> Socialism? You certainly plucked that one out of the aether/your arse!


What socialists is he referring to? Ones made of raffia? The only 'socialists' I recall him mentioning are the Chinese and they've 'addressed' population controls


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 10, 2012)

J Scone said:


> You're another angry little girl, aren't you!


 
Sexism in place of rational argument?

Now there's a surprise!


----------



## free spirit (Jun 10, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> Socialism? You certainly plucked that one out of the aether/your arse!


you realise that we're actually living in a socialist paradise in this country what with our free education, national health care system, social security system and erm well that's about all it takes to be living in a socialist country... according to ignorant american idiots who'd definitely vote for Thanksgiving if they were turkeys.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jun 10, 2012)

free spirit said:


> on reflection Bernie, it would seem that this comment wasn't entirely justified. It was based on the assumptions made in that paper, and his position at cornell university, which was a university that was very much at the heart of the green revolution research, but it does seem from his list of published papers that this probably doesn't apply so much to him specifically.
> 
> Given his criticisms of the green revolution practices though, I'm even more baffled at his use of the pre-green revolution figures to produce his estimates.
> 
> I've only skimmed a few abstracts of his papers prior to the 1998 one, but it does seem that his criticisms up to that point were mainly on environmental grounds, or on the grounds of them not being sustainable once energy became scarce rather than much to do with the yield levels that can be achieved from sustainable agriculture practices. I have only skimmed the list though.


 
Yeah well. Sorry I blew my top.

Thing about Pimentel is that there are some very real criticisms of his work. His political assumptions are anything but transparent and he gives aid and comfort to all kinds of dodgy mathusian types.

On the other hand he's also the Corn/Soya ethanol lobby's public enemy number one, because he's been poking holes in their EROI calculations for about 20 years now and he's probably the strongest scientific critic of Green Revolution agriculture around.

So if one wants to do 'good guys' vs 'bad guys' he's kind of an ambiguous figure.

On the other hand if what we're doing is trying to take a quantitative look at the technical aspects of sustainability, in the knowledge that there are also political aspects which need to be considered in conjunction with the technical aspects, then his work, especially his book 'Food, Energy and Society' (preview at Google Books and Amazon) is a pretty good starting point.

Nowhere near perfect, but certainly not something to be glibly dismissed half-read.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 10, 2012)

Orang Utan said:


> What socialists is he referring to? Ones made of raffia? The only 'socialists' I recall him mentioning are the Chinese and they've 'addressed' population controls


 
That's kind of the point. He's going off about socialism like it's germane to any point anyone has made. It isn't (unless you're one of those hopeless shitwits who think any policy left of Ataturk is "socialism".


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 10, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Come over to the dark side Bernie...


 
Said to the bloke you've recently called a "fuckwit".

_meshugas_.


----------



## free spirit (Jun 10, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Yeah well. Sorry I blew my top.


accepted.



Bernie Gunther said:


> Thing about Pimentel is that there are some very real criticisms of his work. His political assumptions are anything but transparent and he gives aid and comfort to all kinds of dodgy mathusian types.


yes, along with the fact that he's apparently been banging the same drum since the early 70's



Bernie Gunther said:


> On the other hand he's also the Corn/Soya ethanol lobby's public enemy number one, because he's been poking holes in their dodgy calculations for about 20 years now and he's probably the strongest scientific critic of Green Revolution agriculture around.
> 
> So if one wants to do 'good guys' vs 'bad guys' he's kind of an ambiguous figure.


agreed.

But, I've been checking through his published history as best I can (no access to paid for journals), and he does seem to have accepted the basic tenant of the Green Revolution, namely that these methods were necessary to generate the sort of yield improvements agriculture has seen over the last half century or more.

It's this basic assumption that forms the entire basis for his figures in the 1998 report, and it's this aspect of his thinking that I think is likely to have been influence by him working in the middle of / alongside / being originally taught by those who were at the heart of the green revolution project. It's one thing criticising the side affects of their work, quite another to actually come out and say that not only are the side affects bad, but that there was another better way that could have produced sufficient yield increases to feed everyone comfortably but without all the nasty side effects of the green revolution.



> On the other hand if what we're doing is trying to take a quantitative look at the technical aspects of sustainability, in the knowledge that there are also political aspects which need to be considered, then his work, especially his book 'Food, Energy and Society' is a pretty good starting point.
> 
> Nowhere near perfect, but certainly not something to be glibly dismissed half-read.


tbh Bernie, I doubt I'm going to be reading that book. From what I've read of his work so far, I simply won't be able to give anything he says much credibility, although tbf I do also vaguely remember referencing some of his work on various essays when I was at uni, so possibly when he's doing papers on more specific aspects of things he's a bit more rigorous in his approach or something.

I'm pretty sure I've previously read his analysis on biofuels, and there are some equally big holes in that work and his conclusions as well... or at least it only really applied to the absolute worst case scenario with them, but were being used to rubbish all bioliquids entirely (not that there aren't serious issues with them, just that his figures are far from typical IIRC).


----------



## J Scone (Jun 10, 2012)

Come over to the dark side. Let go of the security blanket of dogma. Feel the thrill of open mindedness. You know you want to...


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 10, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Come over to the dark side. Let go of the security blanket of dogma. Feel the thrill of open mindedness. You know you want to...


Have you got anything to say?


----------



## free spirit (Jun 10, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Come over to the dark side. Let go of the security blanket of dogma. Feel the thrill of open mindedness. You know you want to...


ok, so you've actually got nothing to add to this conversation and are just trolling for the hell of it.

I suggest you fuck off back to whichever shit site you came from with your tail between your legs, as your intellectual limitations have been properly shown up on this thread despite you giving it the big I am earlier in the thread.


----------



## Blagsta (Jun 10, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Come over to the dark side. Let go of the security blanket of dogma. Feel the thrill of open mindedness. You know you want to...


And people say Freud was wrong


----------



## elbows (Jun 10, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Come over to the dark side. Let go of the security blanket of dogma. Feel the thrill of open mindedness. You know you want to...


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jun 10, 2012)

free spirit said:


> accepted.
> 
> 
> yes, along with the fact that he's apparently been banging the same drum since the early 70's
> ...


 
If you want people to 'give you credibility' then I suggest you start demonstrating these 'big holes' in a credible way.

Given the standards of rigour that you've recently demonstrated, they might not be inclined to take it on your authoritay alone.


----------



## Nylock (Jun 10, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Come over to the dark side. Let go of the security blanket of dogma. Feel the thrill of open mindedness. You know you want to...


Is that it? Is that *really* it?

ffs i posted that pseudocode as a geek joke but going by the predictability of your responses on this thread, I probably *could* write an app that would convincingly take your place here...


----------



## rekil (Jun 10, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Yep. In a highly tongue-in-cheek moment, I suggested that they probably had a Marxist theory to explain the smell of their own droppings. It emerged that there had indeed been a discussion of workers' faeces, but that it had been deleted as collateral damage in some sort of power-struggle to win control of the blogs section.


----------



## free spirit (Jun 10, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> If you want people to 'give you credibility' then I suggest you start demonstrating these 'big holes' in a credible way.
> 
> Given the standards of rigour that you've recently demonstrated, they might not be inclined to take it on your authoritay alone.


firstly, as you've not deigned to actually address the parts of my points where I've directly addressed his figures, you're on pretty shaky ground to be making statements like that IMO.

I've no intention of spending a second day dredging through old Pimentel papers anyway, feel free to demonstrate that my criticisms aren't valid though and that his papers are the epitome of scientific rigor.

I have however trawled the archives here, and found my previous post about his bioethanol papers, along with 2 of yours that seem to contain some criticisms fairly similar to mine.


Bernie Gunther said:


> Just re-reading that paper. What comes over loud and clear is that the net negative energy balance applies when you are using industrial agriculture to grow the feedstock. Given that's what they had in mind, agribusinesses who want to profit from biofuels are not pleased.
> 
> That does not mean though, that you would not be able to get a positive energy balance with _organic_ feedstocks.
> 
> I wonder if that has been researched?


 


> Bernie Gunther said:
> 
> 
> > The trouble is though, it's not just fertiliser (made using natural gas usually) that is responsible for all that fossil fuel input. Quite a lot of it happens as the result of the normal functioning of the food industry. Transport and so on.
> ...





free spirit said:


> interesting thread, particularly bernies linked pdf though I'll need to spend more time going through it at some point to really get to grips with it.
> 
> I'd agree with your analysis that this study and it's findings only really apply to full on industrialised farming methods.
> 
> ...


 
I'm not sure why you've got such a bee in your bonnet about this, but given that I've demonstrated that even the author of the 1998 report has used significantly different figures in later work, along with other serious flaws in his assumptions, I really don't see why you're acting like this. If you think I'm mistaken, then offer some rebuttal arguements / evidence to demonstrate why, instead of attacking me for lack of rigour.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jun 10, 2012)

Do you have a reference for that 'huge 10 year study' of sustainable agriculture that you mention above?

I've been looking for it among your posts in this thread, but if it's there I've missed it.


----------



## ddraig (Jun 10, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Come over to the dark side. Let go of the security blanket of dogma. Feel the thrill of open mindedness. You know you want to...


yeah cos you've got an open mind haven't you!  
pathetic


----------



## free spirit (Jun 10, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Do you have a reference for that 'huge 10 year study' of sustainable agriculture that you mention above?
> 
> I've been looking for it among your posts in this thread, but if it's there I've missed it.


Pretty et al 2006, Resource-Conserving Agriculture Increases Yields in Developing Countries

Sorry, I've not linked to it in this thread, only in the previous discussion.



> Here we show the extent to which 286 recent interventions in 57 poor countries covering 37 M ha (3% of the cultivated area in developing countries) have increased productivity on 12.6 M farms while improving the supply of critical environmental services. The average crop yield increase was 79% (geometric mean 64%). All crops showed water use efficiency gains, with the highest improvement in rainfed crops.​


 
A 64% mean increase in yield over a 10 year period is at least on par with, and arguably higher than the average improvements achieved via the green revolution improvements. Whether these improvements would be able to continue to the same extent that the green revolution improvements did is uncertain, but the indications from the study would be that they would, as the highest performing samples are a lot higher than the average, so lessons learnt from them and applied more widely ought to be capable of generating further improvements in the lower yielding farms IMO.

For comparison, here's a graph of wheat yield improvements in developing countries resulting from green revolution methods in the latter half of the last century.





Now, it is true that the sustainability of the methods used in this study is relative - ie it's not mostly studying conversion to 100% organic methods, but studying the impact of the spread of best practice in more sustainable, less resource intensive farming methods across a range of produce types and farm types. So it doesn't directly provide evidence of yields in the event that no artificial inputs at all are available, but then that's unlikely to be the situation for a hell of a long time to come.

What it demonstrates clearly though is that reduced artificial inputs don't necessarily have to lead to reductions in yields, and can actually lead to improvement in yield if combined with the spread of best practice in more sustainable farming methods.


----------



## free spirit (Jun 10, 2012)

btw, as I'm pretty sure I made clear in the previous thread if not this one, I'm not particularly blaming Pimental for not including this data in his 1998 estimates, given that this report wasn't published until 2006, although there was published data from smaller trials that suggested similar results available in the mid 90's which should have given him pause for thought really.

My gripe is really with anyone who continues to use his 1998 figures without acknowledging that subsequent published research really invalidated the assumptions made by Pimental about the need for pre 1960 levels of arrable land per capita.

I do appreciate that you were attempting to use the research in a different way to Falcon and Dr Jon in that previous thread, although your subsequent posts on the subject do seem pretty defensive of it and its findings for some reason.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jun 10, 2012)

I'll be quite straight with you about this free spirit.

I like to use that article for various things. One of them is to draw out the underlying assumptions in the logic of any Malthusian I might happen to come across. I was happily doing so on this thread when you butted in and started giving me shit about it.

You airily declared the article in question to be 'piss-poor' under a misapprehension, based on sloppy research, that the author was a Green Revolution advocate, when in fact he's one of the main scientific critics of those techniques.

It's absolutely fair enough to wish that he'd made some more radical starting assumptions than 'business as usual only sustainable'. I don't like some of his starting assumptions either, but your criticisms, where they aren't based on that misguided "Green Revolution" ad hominem, appear to me to amount to saying that Pimentel's apple is a 'piss poor' orange, because you'd rather he estimated based on a totally different and more radical set of assumptions.

On this basis, which as you can probably tell I think is rather flimsy, you got on your high-horse with me earlier in the thread for daring to mention the article again after your previous dismissal of it, as though you were some sort of final arbiter of what counts as acceptable evidence around these parts.

Sorry pal but it doesn't work that way. If you want me to stop using that article in the way I choose to, you can give me some real reasons or fuck off.


----------



## free spirit (Jun 10, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> fuck off.


ok, I'll take this option seeing as you're being a twat about it again.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 10, 2012)

Now don't fall out fellas, we've got a couple of prize twats for you to direct your abuse towards on this thread, no need for friendly fire


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jun 10, 2012)

SpineyNorman said:


> Now don't fall out fellas, we've got a couple of prize twats for you to direct your abuse towards on this thread, no need for friendly fire


 
Sadly, I think we may have scared them off ...


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 10, 2012)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Sadly, I think we may have scared them off ...


 
Off this thread maybe. Unfortunately at least one of them is still infecting these boards with his university debating society tedium.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jun 10, 2012)

SpineyNorman said:


> Off this thread maybe. Unfortunately at least one of them is still infecting these boards with his university debating society tedium.


 
Yeah but he's a rubbish troll. Won't commit himself to actually saying anything of substance, presumably 'cos he can see that he'd get massacred if he tried to take part in a real discussion about something interesting.


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 10, 2012)

J Scone said:


> You're another angry little girl, aren't you!


 
sexist as well eh? nice.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 10, 2012)

It's not sexist cos norman's a boy's name etc


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 10, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Dealing with with overpopulation raises issues liberal democracy can't address. And I think there are too many people.


 
What is this fash shit?


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 10, 2012)

You've got him all wrong froggy. He's a grown up moderate.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 10, 2012)

SpineyNorman said:


> Off this thread maybe. Unfortunately at least one of them is still infecting these boards with his university debating society tedium.


 
Mate, if his standard were anywhere near as elevated as "university debating society" I'd give him a fair go, but he's not even sixth-form standard.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 10, 2012)

You've obviously never witnessed the torture that is the University of Sheffield debating society VP. Dominated by youtube type "libertarians" whose every second word is ad-homenem


----------



## Greebo (Jun 10, 2012)

SpineyNorman said:


> You've obviously never witnessed the torture that is the University of Sheffield debating society VP. Dominated by youtube type "libertarians" whose every second word is ad-homenem


You make urban sound like debating paradise.  BTW it's "ad hominen", but I feel your pain.  

Weird to think that where I went didn't have a debating society; argueing either side of everything was an integral part of the course.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 10, 2012)

Greebo said:


> You make urban sound like debating paradise. BTW it's "ad hominen", but I feel your pain.
> 
> Weird to think that where I went didn't have a debating society; argueing either side of everything was an integral part of the course.


 
Or even ad-hominem. 

To be fair we have decent debates sometimes in politics seminars. Apart from when some jumped up little public school snot who's never done a day's work in his life tells me I need to "get in the real world" lol


----------



## Greebo (Jun 10, 2012)

I don't recall hyphens being part of Latin, but if you prefer yours hyphenated... *shrug*


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 10, 2012)

Greebo said:


> I don't recall hyphens being part of Latin, but if you prefer yours hyphenated... *shrug*


 
Ok then, ad hominem


----------



## elbows (Jun 10, 2012)

Right on time, an example of what I was going on about in regards to the politics of population globally.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/jun/10/global-summit-family-planning?newsfeed=true


> A major summit is being planned for July that aims to pour money into family planning in the developing world after almost two decades of neglect, particularly during the Bush years.
> 
> Parallel to this, millions of dollars are being spent by the Gates Foundation on developing more efficient forms of contraception, particularly injections that might only be required once every six months or annually.
> 
> ...


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 10, 2012)

Greebo said:


> I don't recall hyphens being part of Latin, but if you prefer yours hyphenated... *shrug*


 
Kick him in the semi-colon! 

Sorry Norm, been wanting to say that for ages!


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 10, 2012)

lol


----------



## Greebo (Jun 10, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> Kick him in the semi-colon!
> 
> Sorry Norm, been wanting to say that for ages!


Rather not while my feet are bare, would you mind if I use the window pole instead?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 10, 2012)

Greebo said:


> Rather not while my feet are bare, would you mind if I use the window pole instead?


 
 Ouch!


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 10, 2012)

SpineyNorman said:


> Or even ad-hominem.
> 
> To be fair we have decent debates sometimes in politics seminars. Apart from when some jumped up little public school snot who's never done a day's work in his life tells me I need to "get in the real world" lol


 
too much university debating society is like too many drugs, or too much religion


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 10, 2012)

Semi colon is a euphemism for arse right? Only the alternative is too unpleasant to even contemplate!


----------



## teqniq (Jun 10, 2012)

Roger roger.


----------



## MikeMcc (Jun 11, 2012)

The idea, in general, makes sense.  If we were to reduce to a point where we could be self-sufficent under virtually all conditions, then that would be a sensible figure.  Transitioning to that figure is a whole different ball game.  To pay the present pension pot requires EU population influx (playing legal taxes!).  To get to the figures suggested would require a popular population plan over a much longer timescale than is presently envisioned.  I would put it at 200-500 years of stable population and economic control to get to such a state. 

Do I see us getting there?  Do you see that doorway marked Hell with a snowball in the middle?  I don't either.


----------



## J Scone (Jun 11, 2012)

Sorry, I'm not trying to score cheap points here, but I don't quite follow what you mean by self-sufficiency and how it affects population. Would you care to elaborate?


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jun 11, 2012)

Well, to get to the answer you need to first ask _why_ you consider a high population a problem. Is it about the not being enough resources to go around? If so we can talk. If not I don't really want to talk to you.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 11, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Sorry, I'm not trying to score cheap points here, but I don't quite follow what you mean by self-sufficiency and how it affects population. Would you care to elaborate?


Time for you to elaborate. Answer the questions put to you, and give your own opinion of the issues you've asked others to comment on.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Jun 11, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Time for you to elaborate. Answer the questions put to you, and give your own opinion of the issues you've asked others to comment on.


 
Scone has promised to return to this thread with an open mind. They haven't quite got round to it yet...which is a shame.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Jun 11, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Yep...blah blah blah...


 
So you still don't know the difference between capitalism and state capitalism. Did you think no one would notice or care if you just left it and waited a bit? Go on be proud of your opions, defend yourself; surely this sort of feeble behaviour is not what you aspire to?

Louis MacNeice


----------



## el-ahrairah (Jun 11, 2012)

J Scone said:


> Sorry, I'm not trying to score cheap points here, but I don't quite follow what you mean by self-sufficiency and how it affects population. Would you care to elaborate?


 
I'd answer this question, but it's a fact that you're a child-abuser, serial nonce, toucher of animal genitalia, and sniffer of bicycle seats, and I'm afraid I might catch something ghastly.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 11, 2012)

Louis MacNeice said:


> So you still don't know the difference between capitalism and state capitalism. Did you think no one would notice or care if you just left it and waited a bit? Go on be proud of your opions, defend yourself; surely this sort of feeble behaviour is not what you aspire to?
> 
> Louis MacNeice


 
TBF, Louis, I suggested that he'd attempt exactly that. Sometimes I hate being right.


----------



## Mustardlid (Jun 11, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> TBF, Louis, I suggested that he'd attempt exactly that. Sometimes I hate being right.


 
Actually you said I'd be off to look up the phrase on Wikepedia. Never mind though. And by the way it was the dong replying to me who stated that capitalism had caused Soviet and Chinese famines, on the grounds that they were practitioners of state capitalism. But there's no need to break the habit of a lifetime by letting the facts or indeed your own words get in the way of an opportunity for self-righteous smugness.


----------



## Streathamite (Jun 11, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Actually you said I'd be off to look up the phrase on Wikepedia. Never mind though. And by the way it was the dong replying to me who stated that capitalism had caused Soviet and Chinese famines, on the grounds that they were practitioners of state capitalism. But there's no need to break the habit of a lifetime by letting the facts or indeed your own words get in the way of an opportunity for self-righteous smugness.


No, why don't you get YOUR facts right, you lying hypocrite. It was I who pointed out that both the USSR and PRC were state-0cap regimes, rather than 'true' communism. this was when you (or someone else, can't remember tbh) asked if capitalism had caused most of the world's problems. You do need context, y'know.
God, you're shit at this!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 11, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Actually you said I'd be off to look up the phrase on Wikepedia.


 
You should have looked at the post above the one you paraphrased.
Me (post #175)'I think he may be pulling the old "I'll fuck off for a little while, and hopefully they'll be on a different page from the one I showed myself up on, when I come back" trick.'
Me (post #176)'First he'll have to research the difference between capitalism and state capitalism. He's probably wikipedia-bound!'.

So, *"actually"* I said what I said, and later added what you said.



> Never mind though.


 
Why would I mind you being wrong and then showing up that fact?



> And by the way it was the dong replying to me who stated that capitalism had caused Soviet and Chinese famines, on the grounds that they were practitioners of state capitalism. But there's no need to break the habit of a lifetime by letting the facts or indeed your own words get in the way of an opportunity for self-righteous smugness.


 
I haven't. Okay, lets look at the words that were posted and see whether they support your interpreation, shall we?

Streathamite (post #127, in reply to your "there isn't enough food")'100% wrong. There IS enough food to go round for current population levels, both in the UK and globally. The villain of the piece is capitalism, and the vast inequities it creates in production and distribution'. So far, so obvious.

Mustardlid (post #130, in reply)'Really? It's all the fault of capitalism? Cheers for putting me right on that one. I'd never have guessed. All we have to do is destroy capitalism and nobody will ever starve again. By the way, were the famines in the Soviet Union and China caused by capitalism too?'.
So, *you* introduced the whole "Soviet Union and China" theme to the thread; *you* conflated capitalism and state-capitalism; you got handed your arse when your sneering showed you up for an uninformed gobshite, and yet you're still the hero of your narrative?

That's quite a powerful delusion!


----------



## Streathamite (Jun 11, 2012)

nice one VP!


----------



## Blagsta (Jun 11, 2012)

Mustardlid said:


> Actually you said I'd be off to look up the phrase on Wikepedia. Never mind though. And by the way it was the dong replying to me who stated that capitalism had caused Soviet and Chinese famines, on the grounds that they were practitioners of state capitalism. But there's no need to break the habit of a lifetime by letting the facts or indeed your own words get in the way of an opportunity for self-righteous smugness.


Come on then, let's hear your critique of the concept of state capitalism.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 11, 2012)

Blagsta said:


> Come on then, let's hear your critique of the concept of state capitalism.


 
What, and miss a chance to pontificate from his position of uninformed ignorance? Perish the thought!


----------



## Nylock (Jun 13, 2012)

quimcunx said:


> I don't remember it coming to that conclusion. But, as I said, I wasn't giving it all of my attention. Was an interesting programme. Would recommend.


I finally got round to seeing that tonight, the arguments i saw put forward on it were basically along similar lines to posters here; the overwhelming problem is not that there's too much of us, it's that too much of the resources are controlled/used by too few of us and the fact that those who control these resources would pretty much rather see the world go properly to hell than to relinquish one fraction of what they hold on to...


----------



## elbows (Jun 14, 2012)

I know nobody responded last time I mentioned on this thread a sign that population is getting back on the global agenda, but I'll try again:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/14/rio-earth-summit-population-consumption



> The Rio+20 Earth summit must take decisive action on population and consumption regardless of political taboos or it will struggle to tackle the alarming decline of the global environment, the world's leading scientific academies warned on Thursday.
> Rich countries need to reduce or radically transform unsustainable lifestyles, while greater efforts should be made to provide contraception to those who want it in the developing world, the coalition of 105 institutions, including the Royal Society, urged in a joint report.
> It's a wake-up call for negotiators meeting in Rio for the UN conference on sustainable development.
> The authors point out that while the Rio summit aims to reduce poverty and reverse the degradation of the environment, it barely mentions the two solutions that could ease pressure on increasingly scarce resources.
> ...


 
The unsustainable lifestyle/consumption stuff seems no more likely to get a consensus agreement than usual:


> Rio+20 makes little mention of potential solutions. In the draft text, key passages that mention the need for "sustainable patterns of production and consumption" may be cut in the face of opposition by wealthy nations.


 
But perhaps we'll get some new measures of the scale of the problem:


> The stock taking of global inventory is still a work in progress, but it may speed up after the launch on Thursday of a new scientific initiative – Future Earth – that brings together academies, funds and international institutions to co-design research related to sustainable food production and changes to the climate, geosphere and biosphere.
> The picture might become clearer if proposals at Rio+20 to beef up the UN environment programme are accepted, along with a plan for a "regular review of the state of the planet."


----------



## elbows (Jun 14, 2012)

And we also have the grotesque forced abortion story from China:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-18435126


> *A photo showing a foetus whose mother was forced to have an abortion has shocked China web users.*
> Feng Jiamei, from Shaanxi province, was made to undergo the procedure in the seventh month of pregnancy, local officials said after investigating.
> Ms Feng was forced into the abortion as she could not pay the fine for having a second child, US-based activists said.


----------



## girasol (Jun 14, 2012)

Edit: Came here to post the same link as elbows 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/14/rio-earth-summit-population-consumption


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 14, 2012)

This is the emphasis that annoys me:



> greater efforts should be made to provide contraception to those who want it in the developing world


 
That's fine as part of a wider programme to tackle poverty, but useless outside that context. And the 'those who want it' bit smacks of blame - it's partially the fault of the poor that we're in this mess, and they need to take personal responsibility. No. The economic imperative to have children needs to be changed. That is done through making each individual child more important, and that is done through bringing people out of poverty.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 14, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> This is the emphasis that annoys me:
> 
> 
> 
> That's fine as part of a wider programme to tackle poverty, but useless outside that context. And the 'those who want it' bit smacks of blame - it's partially the fault of the poor that we're in this mess, and they need to take personal responsibility. No. The economic imperative to have children needs to be changed. That is done through making each individual child more important, and that is done through bringing people out of poverty.


 
TBF "those who want it" has always been a bit more nuanced than that in the developing nations, given that it's intended to attempt to circumvent a whole heap of social conventions and allow women to assert control of their fertility *if they want to*, because frankly attempts to get men to do so with condom use have been patchy at best, even in countries with high incidence of STDs.
And yes, you do have to change the economic imperative too, but erasing the influence of religion and social convention on the matter of contraception would be a big help too, because then the choice truly *would* lie with "the people", rather than with outside arbiters, and individuals and communities are more amenble to reason if their isn't a priest, fakir, vicar or shaman standing in the room, tutting and shaking their head.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 14, 2012)

True VP (and yes, you're right that this is what they meant by that), but in the end the economic imperative trumps social or religious taboos. Hence Italy's extremely low fertility rate. It really does not matter one jot what the Pope says.

This kind of speaking can smack of the rich preaching to the poor about a problem that has been created by the rich. At worst, it comes across as imperial paternalism: the rich preaching to the poor as if the poor were children.


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## el-ahrairah (Jun 14, 2012)

i thought the One Child Policy was no more.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 14, 2012)

el-ahrairah said:


> i thought the One Child Policy was no more.


Still going. It's been relaxed in certain areas, and it's planned to end it 'soon'. A lot of things are planned to happen in China 'soon'.


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## el-ahrairah (Jun 14, 2012)

i honestly thought that it was long gone.  i wonder where i got that idea from.


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## quimcunx (Jun 15, 2012)

Another not entirely unrelated programme. Apparently there is a series but I don't know how long.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01jxzv8/The_Men_Who_Made_Us_Fat_Episode_1/

This episode is about obesity, corn syrup, fructose generally, snacking, processed foods etc. Not covered much in the programme this ties in with agribusiness and consumption, in the US and the UK at least, and how to get people to consume more: something that is counterproductive to supporting a growing world population you'd think.

Corn (by which I mean maize) products in our food are everywhere for reasons related to what to do with US corn over production rather than nutrition. An interesting book regarding this is 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' about US agribusiness and sustainable farming. Also relevant to the discussion on (food) overconsumption, I thought, is 'Not on the Label' by Felicity Lawrence which I think sums up nicely how the food industry serves consumers, animals, the envrionment and farmers rather badly to the advantage only of supermarkets/capitalism.


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## free spirit (Jun 15, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> This is the emphasis that annoys me:
> 
> 
> 
> That's fine as part of a wider programme to tackle poverty, but useless outside that context. And the 'those who want it' bit smacks of blame - it's partially the fault of the poor that we're in this mess, and they need to take personal responsibility. No. The economic imperative to have children needs to be changed. That is done through making each individual child more important, and that is done through bringing people out of poverty.


tbf, that's an attack on the policies Bush enacted in US aid to promote the teaching of abstinence and not to fund abortion clinics etc.

well that and at the pope who's position (or at least that of his office) has been against any form of contraception at all.

As you say, this needs to be one part of an overall programme of education, development etc. but it does need to happen as well, so I support these statements as far as they go.

btw - if anyone wants to point the finger re the lack of progress on this issue in the last 15 years, the Pope and George Bush would be by far the biggest culprits.


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## green1914 (Mar 23, 2021)

And here we are in 2020 - he may get his wish.


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## ddraig (Mar 23, 2021)

green1914 said:


> And here we are in 2020 - he may get his wish.




Want to try again?


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## Numbers (Mar 23, 2021)

Fuckin noobs with numbers in their name.


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## Boris Sprinkler (Mar 23, 2021)

How about we enforce abstinance from reproductive sex so none of us have to do all this shit again. Its obviously a trick. Imagine waking up in the next life and finding out BJ and his old man are living next door. Like steptoe and Son. And you'd have to deal with it, cos it'd be reality.


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## Pickman's model (Mar 23, 2021)

Boris Sprinkler said:


> How about we enforce abstinance from reproductive sex so none of us have to do all this shit again. Its obviously a trick. Imagine waking up in the next life and finding out BJ and his old man are living next door. Like steptoe and Son. And you'd have to deal with it, cos it'd be reality.


No need, if in 20 or 30 years time we'll all be sterile Plummeting sperm counts, shrinking penises: toxic chemicals threaten humanity | Erin Brockovich


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## Pickman's model (Mar 23, 2021)

green1914 said:


> And here we are in 2020 - he may get his wish.


Oh dear

What's today's date?


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## Boris Sprinkler (Mar 23, 2021)

and all the fish turned genders. It's like Xmen.


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## green1914 (Mar 26, 2021)

ddraig said:


> Want to try again?


2020 is when it started - yes its 2021 - happy now?


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## green1914 (Mar 26, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Oh dear
> 
> What's today's date?


26/03/2021  
yw


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## green1914 (Mar 26, 2021)

Numbers said:


> Fuckin noobs with numbers in their name.


Do people still use that word?


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## Pickman's model (Mar 26, 2021)

green1914 said:


> 26/03/2021
> yw


yhwh?


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## NoXion (Mar 26, 2021)

green1914 said:


> 2020 is when it started - yes its 2021 - happy now?



When what started?


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## ddraig (Mar 26, 2021)

green1914 said:


> 2020 is when it started - yes its 2021 - happy now?


What started then then?


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## Pickman's model (Mar 26, 2021)

ddraig said:


> What started then then?


He didn't start the fire


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## Artaxerxes (Mar 27, 2021)




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## iveivan (Mar 27, 2021)

He needs to look closer to home. How many children and grandchildren does he have?


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## krtek a houby (Mar 27, 2021)

FFS, thought he'd expired


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## Doodler (Mar 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> How strange it must be to be someone who can hold such views, with the comfort of assuming that they will be one of the ones who gets to stay & survive, reproduce how they see fit, etc.



See also wilderness tourists enthusing about the 'unspoilt' landscape and those men who claim polygamy might not be such a bad arrangement, confident they wouldnt be left twanging the wire for the rest of their miserable lives.


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