On 5 November, the upmarket Nightwaves on BBC Radio 3 aired a discussion about overpopulation between Dr Susan Blackmore (a neuroscientist) and Professor John Gray (of the London School of Economics).
Dr Blackmore said the “fundamental problem” facing the planet today is that “there are too many people”. Professor Gray agreed. Then Dr Blackmore declared: “For the planet’s sake, I hope we have bird flu or some other thing that will reduce the population, because otherwise we’re doomed.”
So, it’s official: at the Beeb it is unacceptable to make crude jokes about having sex with someone’s granddaughter, but it is perfectly OK to wish death upon large swathes of mankind.
Make a rude call to Andrew Sachs’ answerphone and you will be accused of dragging the BBC’s good name through the dirt. Spout misanthropic nonsense about the need for a speedily contagious disease to come and wipe out mankind and nobody will bat an eyelid.
Good Gaia, I hope we die in large numbers. Except for me, my family, and friends.
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Full disclosure: I’m a sociopath.
We don’t need a bird flu. We can just stop all forms of international aid. And the genocides that regularly appear in Africa …
Blackmore wrote an entire book on the thesis that consciousness and individual thought do not exist — that we’re all just a complex of memes that we’ve absorbed from the environment.
I read it, as it happen. Grade A whackaloon material.
I’ll bet nishi is a fan.
My reaction: who’s cashing the royalty checks, then?
This is mild compared to some of the other fevered academics. I remember an evolutionary ecologist from U of Texas at Austin who gave a seminar on the best methods for eradicating up to 90% of the world’s population to save the planet for the rest and the animals. He was focused on using airborne Ebola as an efficient killing machine, never mentioning the horrific way that it kills.
Money quote:Pianka hammered his point home by exclaiming: “We’re no better than bacteria!”
He was interrupted by applause several times.
This is why people like these should never be anywhere near governmental or legislative power.
Dr. Blackmore and Professor Gray – you first. Do make sure you do NOT get a flu shot this year, and make sure you refuse treatment, yes?
How would you like to be one of Dr. Blackmore’s patients?
As I recall, Maj. (P) John, she’s a PhD, not an MD.
Yes, PhD in parapsychology.
Love the way she’s still wearing that edgy punk ‘do well into her 50s.
“Except for me, my family, and friends.”
And that’s exactly what they expect.
Fools.
Fools.
Yep. The examples of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot don’t make the slightest impression on them.
Parapsychology? she’s just trying to make sure there are plenty of ghosts to talk to.
We’re“You breeders are no better than bacteria.”Obviously these fools never heard of the Shakers.
Of course they and theirs get to survive. They are the oooonly ones who truly luv and understand Gaia.
‘Course, it would be fun to watch a bunch of academically incestuous brain farts try to do something practical in a non-populated, eco-harmonious world. Like make agriculture work, or fire pottery, or dig a latrine, or set a broken bone, or make do without electricity, etc…
“Dr Blackmore said the “fundamental problemâ€Â
Jeez another “bible” toting fundamentalist.
“I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”
There are so many threats, you may not need to:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7796663.stm
Pope Benedict XVI has said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction
meya, 99.9% of all the species that have ever existed are extinct.
Did you know there are more trees in the United States now than there were a hundred years ago?
Rich people have the time and resources to care about the environment.
Starving peasants don’t.
Case in point, the American Chestnut.
“meya, 99.9% of all the species that have ever existed are extinct.”
So we seem to be lucky to be around. It might not be luck, to the pope.
Ever notice the idiots who spew this pseudo-intellectual drivel don’t have the stones to practice what they preach?
The pope believes that human beings have some special spiritual merit?
Do tell!
#5 and #6. Thank Heaven for small mercies.
#12 – I am a Methodist, so what?
“homosexual or transsexual behaviour ”
A Darwinian loser.
So we seem to be lucky to be around.
Ever try to define willful ignorance? It’s all there in a nutshell.
Pope Benedict XVI has said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction
I’m sure that’s a really threatening statement. Too bad Catholics can’t be more like the tolerant Muslims in Iran. You stay afraid of the Pope though. My priest told me Sunday it’s time to take action to the streets – so I’ve been filling my pockets with rocks to prepare. We’re in cahoots with the Mormans.
Darwinian loser. I don’t think we don’t know anything of the sort about either behavior dre, in fact it seems, quite the contrary.
It’s amazing that people in the Gaia religion take offence when the head guy of the RC religion talks about what the RC religion means, but tells me I’m intolerant and hatey because I don’t worship the green earth fairy.
Isn’t Britain party to one of those international courts — and some European Union court system as well — that claims to be responsible for crimes against humanity?
Why isn’t Blackmore facing a court for “encitement to genocide”?
Evolution has produced a creature in me that thinks bacon is tasty. Too bad for the pig, although if it were hungry enough it would return the favor I’m sure.
Depending on who’s doing the perceiving, it can be. For some, if a prominent Christian says it, it’s a threat.
These people have intellectually divorced themselves from reality.
PS WTF does the Pope have to do with this post? Am I missing something here?
She’s not inciting genocide. She’s just expressing her fond with that
GodGaia will get on with it.Iraq as a talking point has worn out. Ya gotta change with the times! The Pope is an old, faithful target. Keep an eye out for the Illuminati.
It’s the usual dialectical deflectionism.
Thesis: Blackmore advocates the death of millions of people.
Antithesis: The pope is against gay marriage!
Synthesis: What! The! Fuck!
parsnip commenting on Sarah Palin’s Pentecostal Church speaking in tongues meme in 5, 4, 3…
Speaking of nipply, I need to head into the office and do some more prep work for the class I’ll be teaching in the spring.
Which, according to nipply, is exactly the same as collecting a welfare check.
Have a great day, y’all!
“in fact it seems, quite the contrary.”
Tough to do the evolution thing if you don’t procreate.
Wait a second, does this mean George Bush is Blackmore’s hero? I mean he did start a couple wars which helped thin out the population.
“Good Gaia, I hope we die in large numbers. Except for me, my family, and friends.”
Dan, I realize you’re being tongue-in-cheek here, but it is precisely this kind of, not-in-my-backyard or good-for-me-but-not-for-thee, mindset that the lefties use as motivation and justification for euthenasia, abortion, and radical environmentalism-the lives of endangered species being more important than their human counterparts and all. In their breathless fantasy, all of the godbotherers and other conservative haters are killed off, and only the enlightened loving progressives are left to form their Star-Trek-esque world government..
You’d think they wouldn’t mind a good war every now and then to, you know, cull the herd!
There is a delicious irony at work here though, and those preaching this same dogma just don’t get it or are willfully blind to it…
As SBP noted upthread, it is only the wealthy and successful societies that are able to have time to care about things like environmentalism, enforced diversity, and other left wing crusades. But, the mindset professed by these too boobs on the beeb is generally only prevalent in developed Western societies; indeed many of thise countries are actually experiencing negative population growth…
So it seems that the societies most tolerant of the “progressive” drivel are the ones that are slowly performing cultural suicide; third world immigration to the same notwithstanding. And, the lefties don’t realize that there is no saftey net from their typical hypocrisy here; does anyone in Britain really think that LGBT rights will be sacrosanct in a Britain that practices Sharia law and whose overall society reflects Islamic cultural values? Or, do they really think that radical environmentalists will be indulged in the same kind of society?
Of course, I’m a conservative hater, a classical liberal, and an eeeeeevil RethugliKKKan, so my opinion really doesn’t matter.
“Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 12/23 @ 7:30 am #
Fools.
Yep. The examples of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot don’t make the slightest impression on them.”
Anmother example of reactionary leftistist mindlessness: the “vanguard of the revolution” are always the first to be taken down the cellar and shot in the back of the head.
Yes. Once the revolution comes, revolutionaries become both superfluous and dangerous.
“‘Course, it would be fun to watch a bunch of academically incestuous brain farts try to do something practical in a non-populated, eco-harmonious world. Like make agriculture work, or fire pottery, or dig a latrine, or set a broken bone, or make do without electricity, etc…”
I do believe it was Robert Heinlein who immunized me from that kind of nonsense.
In a paraphrase,
“Back to nature cultists never stop to try to figure out where an axe head comes from.”
Procreation isn’t necessarily the end all be all of evolutionary fitness and hence gene transmission. “Quite the contrary” means: here stand many living (and potentially procreating, by the way) homosexuals. How come, if homosexuality is an evolutionary dead-end? You’ll have to be able to account for the obvious – given their presence – falsification of your thesis. Sorry.
“Iraq as a talking point has worn out. Ya gotta change with the times! The Pope is an old, faithful target. Keep an eye out for the Illuminati.”
Don’t forget the Jooooooosssss.
Plenty of lefty hate left over for them, I’m sure
“Pope Benedict XVI has said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction…”
So what Meya, Jeremiah Wright said that the white man’s greed runs a world in need, and believes that the entitlement giveaways are more important than defense spending…
And, Louis Farakhan has spouted all sorts of racist dogma throughout the years, but has supposedly empowered his community somehow…
And Bill Ayers thought that bombing in the name of peace in Vietnam was important…
I thought being a progressive was all about tolerance…
Isn’t the Benedict’s opinion as valid as anyone else’s..?
Your ideas of tolerance seem to be restricted to those views you find useful…
Until someone posts a link to the Pope’s address (in english translation) I wouldn’t be too quick to trust the BBC’s assertions as to what he said, namely this headline:
It could very easily be a mistaken interpretation of his thought.
“Your ideas of tolerance seem to be restricted to those views you find useful…”
DING DING DING DING
WE HAVE A WINNAH!
[…] Dan, who seems to have no intention of saving poor put-upon Gaia by killing himself and his entire […]
They already agree “about overpopulation”, the only discussion was on the means to be used to “cure” it.
In other words it was a discussion about how to go about committing mass murder. They should have brought in some real experts, Too bad the US military has eliminated so many of the true professionals in that field.
Maybe Blackmore is unacquainted with Paul Ehrlich.
How come they weren’t protesting the Live Aid concerts, Bono, Geldoff, et al?
No, Geezer, I don’t think it is exactly, or at least under the theory as I understand it, not necessarily. Try this short article for a flavor of the three hypotheses it considers (this was just the first link that popped up in a googlesearch for “homosexual genetic fitness”).
Lordy, those “Brown People” are going to be the death of us all! “Will pay for scalps.”
Britain takes another step down the path to oblivion.
If we are going to aggressively reduce the population to protect the likes of Blackmore and Gray then we should hire these guys.
Dude. He’s saying “If something doesn’t kill us all, we’re all doomed.”
What?
I’ve got a Progressive friend or two who were severely exercised about Boooosh not raining down condoms all over subsaharan Africa.
Of course it never dawned on them to just get their Hollywood Heroes to fund this whole inspirational operation. I wonder why – must be that ‘good’-intentions thing almost always overpowering ‘good’-works/”and, hey, let’s blame someone else anyway” dynamic Duo of their oso empathetic Religious Dogma, eh?
Why do I get the feeling this is yet another bad faith reading of a quote taken out of context?
Maybe because I’ve heard the whole discussion?
Why do I get the feeling this is yet another bad faith reading of a quote taken out of context?
Yes, why indeed?
And more importantly, who cares?
Parsnips have you decided what MOS to pick yet? I got about 3 recruiters you should talk to just let me know I will give you some phone numbers.
And more importantly, who cares?
What’s another lie compared to the chance of a daily ragegasm, alp?
“What’s another lie compared to the chance of a daily ragegasm, alp?”
Parsnip have you ever said on a left wing website over the last 8 years?
These types have been around for a while. They claimed that the planet could not possibly sustain the population we’re at now. Thanks to the “green revolution” of ever-more-productive agriculture, it can. The main impediments to feeding people tend to be political and economic, in that order. But folks like this won’t acknowledge that.
And more importantly, who cares?
What’s another lie compared to the chance of a daily ragegasm, alp?
Of course, for those of us whose first language is English, your question was “Why is parsnip having one of its crazy feelings again?”
And the obvious response was “Who cares?”
Can’t explain your inability to comprehend even your own question, but you are consistent.
Dude. He’s saying “If something doesn’t kill us all, we’re all doomed.â€Â
What?
Huh? Don’t you recognize a Mighty Pillar when you see one?
Wait a minute….atomic parsnips exist! So who says we’re not replacing the species we’re destroying?
But folks like this won’t acknowledge that.
Thanks for proving my point, John.
A little creative editing, and we see a pro nuclear power discussion transformed into a tired extreme right straw man. The canned responses duly trotted out, “These types have been around for a while”, etc.
High fives all around.
Yes, yes, monkeyboy, we understand, Really, we do. Now step away from the computer and go feed the unicorns. You know how agitated they get when you are late with the ginger snaps and honey cakes.
Finally, alphie expresses his raison d’être.
Pablo: Carin loves it when you speak French.
“Dude. He’s saying “If something doesn’t kill us all, we’re all doomed.—
I think it’s more like, if something doesn’t kill “them”, then “We” are all doomed. “Them” being the types of folks who were subjects of the Crown during the Empire and Colonial days (you know, the savages, the uncilvilized, etc…..) “We” being the enlightened, the “Chosen of Gaia”, or our moral betters if you prefer.
So Obama’s going to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan according to his staff. Wow that is some warmongering sh!t right there. Hey parsnips when are you going to enlist so you can help out the war effort? Now that it is fought on totally honorable terms and for all the right reasons you should be running to your nearest recruiter right?
Mike Duncan, head of the RNC, recently put out a memo that said the Republican Party “has grown too addicted to ideology, places politics before policy, and is bereft of ideas.”
Not surprising seeing the efforts the extreme right puts into propping up the tired straw men of “Commies” and “hippies” over and over instead of engaging in issues that matter to America now.
LOOK! OVER THERE! BUNNIES!!!!
instead of engaging in issues that matter to America now.
Like all the headlines about the way people have to cut back because of the poor economy:
“Obama chooses 30 million dollar retreat to spend holiday.”
“Obama golfs while Rome burns”
“Obama has great pecs while Rome burns”
You know, important stuff.
Bunnies, Where?
The carrot, the stick.
Sweat happens.
If you are going to sock puppet me at least be funny.
Like the rest of the RNC establishment, Mike Duncan has decided to adopt the Slogan of 21st Century Republicans: Just like Democrats, but cheaper! You will, I’m sure, pardon me for not thinking the Slogan particularly effective.
Regards,
Ric
But I’m your sock puppet!
LOOK! OVER THERE! BUNNIES!!!!
= “LOOK AT ME, I’M A PARSNIP”?
At least now I know who the head of the RNC is.
I bet you and your boyfriend try to Pink Sock eachother all the time. Google “pink sock” if you get bored to see the negative side effects of trying that thor.
Guru: Rise, our new-made brothers. Rise and kill. Kill, lest you be killed yourselves. Kill for the love of killing. Kill for the love of Kali. Kill! Kill! Kill!
— Gunga Din (1939)
You will, I’m sure, pardon me for not thinking the Slogan particularly effective.
It pleases me that so many Republicans would rather wallow in the past than work to fix their party.
It pleases me even more that the extreme right is working against the “decent” Republicans.
They should pay a price for encouraging extremists.
parsnip,
You constantly tell us how you feel eg. “Why does this make me feel like…..” or “It pleases me that….”
And it has been made clear that nobody gives a crap. If there is anything that is extreme around here, it would have to be your narcissistic personality disorder.
Thor why do you not just change your name on here to PinkSock. It would be far more appropriate for you considering not only your lifestyle but the content of your comments.
Again, realizing that alphie is truly a worhtless twit, one thing he vomits up is kind of funny. I wonder if he was “feeling” the same way in regards to democrats (when they were losing elections 2000, 2002, 2004) as he does for the alleged demise of the republican party. He still doesn’t get that this iteration of the republican party has been democrat light. That’s why the failures at the polls.
Venerable American Indian saying: “From the perspective of an atomic parsnip, all living things are atomic parsnips. Hay-un-kee-a, Nunwe’.”
The claim has been made that we’re taking the “mass death through bird-flu” quote out of context . . . so, enlighten us! Give us the “rest of the story” that justifies wishing mass death through disease.
Chris that comment had about as much “context” as Rev. Wright saying white people invented AIDS but both are defended by the left. Do not ask me why, I am not a psychologists.
Sue Blackmore: Yes, you did, but you didn’t grasp the nettle and nobody can because what it means and I find myself in the situation is thinking is ‘for the planet’s sake I hope we have bird flu or some other thing that will reduce the population because otherwise we’re doomed. As a humanitarian person I want to have cures and to have people not die. I don’t know what to do about this problem. But at least it’s a Free Thinking festival and we need to say that’s the problem. What do we do?
“……I mean what do I do? I want the population to decrease, yet I’m too much of a coward to kill myself. It’s a real doozy of a dilemma. And the funny thing is, only someone as smart as me could have this dilemma, because all the dumb people are just busy trying to survive without considering the consequences of their survival. They’re the ones that should get the runs and die, hypothetically, of course, I am an humanitarian as you know. But that bird flu sure would solve a lot of problems.”
“As a humanitarian person I want to have cures and to have people not die.”
A third grader could have made that idiotic statement. Funny though when you compare it to this:
“I find myself in the situation is thinking is ‘for the planet’s sake I hope we have bird flu or some other thing that will reduce the population because otherwise we’re doomed.”
It is obvious that what she thinks she is “for”, is the planet. That “people” are harming the planet by overpopulation and that it would be great to reduce our population thru a bird flu or something but she “can’t” really advocate that because she considers herself a “humanitarian person” and dude she is really for cures and to have people not die and stuff. Here this is a good line too
“But at least it’s a Free Thinking festival and we need to say that’s the problem.”
The problem being “people”. The solution, which she alludes to, is killing people. She just qualifies it because she knows she sounds like an idiot if she comes right out and says it. Hey though it is a Free Thinking festival, whatever the f@ck that is, so knock yourself out and feel “free” to think the planet is better if we could just get rid of a few million people. Lovely context there.
Mea culpa, Sdferr. A lack of ability to procreate or reproduce is the primary mechanism for survival of the species. Non-reproductive members of a species can aid in survival of the species by aiding reproductive members of its species to reproduce, e.g., sterile worker bees ensuring the survival of the queen. Your understanding is correct.
Parsnips why are you defending the stupid?
AAhhh, the nuance:
“because what it means [super-duper qualifier alert following!]>>and I find myself in the situation is thinking<< is ‘for the planet’s sake I hope we have bird flu or some other thing that will reduce the population because otherwise we’re doomed.”
but of course this justifies it:
“As a humanitarian person I want to have cures and to have people not die.” . . .even though it’s followed by:
“But at least it’s a Free Thinking festival and we need to say that’s the problem.”
. . .you were saying?
Why am I not surprised that a paranoid Narcissist “humanitarian’s” Free Thinking always first involves killing off some people? Or else making them bend her neurotic OCD controllist’s will?
Or that an atomic parsnip would find comfort amongst other atomic parsnips?
If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.
Mr. Pink,
I am amazed at how far the extreme right has to go these days just to find such weak gruel for their herd.
A single line taken out of context from a discussion in England two months ago?
And I thought Darleen was frantic for attacking CNN’s children’s news.
It’s not easy being green, alp!
root veggie
nipping at the vanilla extract again?
“A single line taken out of context from a discussion in England two months ago?”
. . . and it seems even the “context” was frickin’ creepy, like: “but we’re in a Free Thinking festival…”
Oh, shit, parsnip, oh shit . . .
Free Thinking fesival? Did they sell t-shirts? Cotton is murder!
“I am amazed at how far the extreme right has to go these days just to find such weak gruel for their herd.”
So that explains why you are defending these statements? I don’t get it. Well other than your desire to piss people on here off, that I do get, but to defend the stupid while you are doing it is pretty retarded.
parsnip, to clarify: Ms. Blackmore and Mr. Gray want you dead, ALSO.
An atomic parsnip is simply incapable of imagining that there are others who do not have the same intrinsic mental incapacities and derangements that atomic parsnips have. Everyone has to have the same derangements, then it’s only a matter of which “side” is going to “win”.
Either that, or atomic parsnips do sense a difference, fear it, and therefore must either destroy it or enslave it. Exactly as the paradigmatic Racist must
Mr. Gray wants us to go 100% nuclear power for our electrical needs, ushie.
I thought the wingnuts were for nuclear power.
No?
For Nuke power. Agin’ bird flu.
You are really no good at this deflection thing parsnip.
Why would I want to “deflect” away from such an obviously desperate post, Mr. Pink?
I can’t really blame you guys, though.
Reality has such a Democratic bias to it these days it must be painful to peak outside your tattered cocoon.
shorter trolls: anything un-laudatory said about our dogma or our Obamessiah is frantic, desperate and TEH RACIST!!1!!1 eleventy!!1!
parsnip/alphie is not really good at anything.
“Why would I want to “deflect†away from such an obviously desperate post, Mr. Pink?
I can’t really blame you guys, though.
Reality has such a Democratic bias to it these days it must be painful to peak outside your tattered cocoon.”
And what, praytell, should they be posting about here in your obviously “professional” opinion?
I’m sure if the sociopath and Norma Desmond put their heads together, they could come up with at least one post that relevant, Mr. Pink.
That’s nice.
Too bad the discussion is about Dr. Blackmore’s comments.
Who is Norma Desmond?
Parsnip, re #90: Thanks for providing context. Here I’d been agreeing with Dan that Dr. Blackmore is a sociopath, but when you put “I hope we have bird flu or some other thing that will reduce the population” in its proper context, it’s really not offensive at all.
What a fascinating internal debate she must be having, between the part of her that hopes for lots of people (not her or anyone she cares about of course) to get sick and die horribly for the greater good of the planet, versus the Humanitarian Person who wants to have cures and to have people not die.
Spies, Brigands and Pirates: Comment #31 is a thing of beauty.
“Comment by parsnip on 12/23 @ 11:06 am #
Why do I get the feeling this is yet another bad faith reading of a quote taken out of context?”
Because your a fucking clueless idiot?
Oh, and, Parsnip:
“Mr. Gray wants us to go 100% nuclear power for our electrical needs, ushie.
“I thought the wingnuts were for nuclear power.
“No?”
OK. Let’s stipulate that this is relevant after all, and that I am a wingnut.
So, if Prof. Gray supports nuclear power, as I do, I am compelled by the rules of parsnip to support him on the whole “too many people” issue?
Oh, now, the ‘snip can’t help it. He’s a lower grade of troll; not paid well enough to form an opinion on his own.
OT: Did I just hear gunshots outside? That’s slightly alarming…
First, you have to sign on to the whole adoration and blind faith thing as alphie has. Then you’ll be good to go.
support him on the whole “too many people†issue?
Prof. Gray thinks all we need are few adjustments like more nuclear power plants to accomodate the population, JPS.
Do keep trying to fit him with a torn and tattered wingnut straw man suit, though.
What the hell?
Ah, no gun shots. Just some problem when I type J—XMc—
parsnip:
Professor Gray is described as agreeing that there are too many people. What he wants to do about that, on the continuum from allow-mass-death to few-adjustments, I have no idea. (If in fact he does not agree, then I’m sorry to have accepted the account as accurate.) I am just pointing out that while we may well agree on nuclear power, neither ushie nor I am bound to agree with him on anything else.
So I won’t heap scorn on Prof. Gray, except for this: If I were taking part in this freewheeling discussion, and my interlocutor expressed even ambivalence toward the prospect of mass death through disease outbreak, my natural reaction would be to stare in disbelief, then ask coldly, What is wrong with you?
But there I go again with my tattered wingnut straw man suit.
And what, praytell, should they be posting about here in your obviously “professional†opinion?
Fantasy Island, obviously, brought upon you by the Progressive Cult, featuring the atomic parsnip, parsnip, as “Ta-too”[?], who will shout out gleefully, “The Voices, The Voices”, in response to each meme spoken by the other Visiting Atomic Parsnips from the Progressive Holy Book of Fairy Tales, and constituting their “minds”.
Yea, so it will come to pass that dhimmi-wanabees shall also learn the Correct Scriptures of Infantile Perceptions. Or else.
Yeah, that should certainly “do” an atomic parsnip “so good”.
– Little Miss Cornshucks, It Do Me So Good
Presenter: Okay, that’s the well-known neuroscientists Dr Sue Blackmore. A brief answer to that.
John Gray: Well, people want forbidden thoughts, they say this is all too conformist and we’ve heard it all before. I think we’ve heard one now. Do I share it? Only in part. There’s a twofold cause I said in the present situation. It’s worldwide industrialisation plus the present level of human numbers which is unsustainable. But I don’t see the solution to that in bird flu or some other catastrophe. First of all, because that involved cataclysmic suffering but also because it would take down an awful lot of the other lifeforms because it would be associated with terrible wars. What we’ve really got to think of is a way in which we can get through the next 50 years and at that point, I believe, population will begin to trail off as it has done and is beginning to do in many parts of the world.
Well, as long as the suffering isn’t cataclysmic, and an awful lot of other lifeforms aren’t taken down, that’s different!
Parsnip,
You can quit quoting Gray because Blackmore is the one that suggested the apparent usefulness of a Pandemic, while simultaneously hand-wringing over the “humanist” aspect of that necessary evil…
Folks of a similar mind can at once agree and disagree on a wide variety of issues; a human capacity that you, and the masters of tolerance in the Democratic party, seem determined to to do away with by defining views you disagree with as forms of hate speech or otherwise seek to diminish by dismissing out of hand as irrelevent, incurious, out of touch with modernity…
If we’re all so Neanderthal, might I suggest that you stick to Kos and HuffPo, where the opposing points of view are never tolerated, individuality is carefully prescribed, and the Rapture of the One’s election is unceasing. You might as well sing your hO!sanna’s there with the rest of the choir, because here all you’re not gonna find anyone from the dark side…
I know, I know…I denounce myself…
There’s a twofold cause I said in the present situation. It’s worldwide industrialisation plus the present level of human numbers which is unsustainable.
See it’s really so simple and clean: Gray’s solution would obviously be to stop worldwide industrialisation [modernization], thus killing off a lot of people. Voila!
OT: Did I just hear gunshots outside? That’s slightly alarming…
Indeed. Except for the farmer’s field behind me echoing a few shotgun blasts of area hunters, I have yet to hear good unexpected gunfire.
I suppose if the world were populated with millions of Dick Cheney’s, this would not be such a poser.
Free the Cows!!!
Rachel Carson, you magnificent bastard!
If Marx’s “Big Industry” is bad, I take it that worldwide industrialisation must be the Doomsday Machine? According to Progressive Scripture?
Can’t a Voice please weigh in here?
Major John,
Here in rural Texas gunfire is never “unexpected” in any real sense. People do like to practice.
I don’t have your experience in more extreme environments, of course. If my understanding is anywhere near correct, it would be likely to bias my opinion somewhat if I did.
Regards,
Ric
Major,
What are they hunting in your neck of the woods this time of year?
“Comment by Mossberg500 on 12/23 @ 4:21 pm #
Rachel Carson, you magnificent bastard!”
She led to the deaths of how many little brown people?
Free the Cows!!!
You Free the Stallions first!
She led to the deaths of how many little brown people?
And still counting! Move over Margaret Sanger! All your dead brown people are belong to us!
Oh, I forgot “w00t”, sorry!
woot=w00t
Damn!
Ric,
I hear you – since I live at the edge of suburbia and the countryside we don’t have much room to go “plinking” within earshot of my house.
Bob,
If it flies, it dies. Ducks and I hope some of the #$%&ing geese, but I don’t hold out much hope it will help keep those feathered &hitbags numbers down enough.
Oh, and Ric…I did used to like fireworks. Not so much anymore.
“I hope some of the #$%&ing geese…”
Due to the droppings, or the never ending chatter that sounds like an endless cocktail party?
“Maw, get me my gun!”
All the green grass held the Geese in the subdivisions, parks, etc.. in our area of Southeast WI. The crop fields were pretty empty all season.
This cold weather should push a lot of migrating birds far south for our hunt in Arkansas early January. The hunting should be spectacular.
I love hearing the huge flocks of snow Geese from miles away and watching them land. Especially when it is off the nose of my barrel. The White fronted eat up better though.
After January, I miss the sound of gunfire in the morning. Sure, I could travel to Chicago to hear it in the evening, but, it isn’t the same….. Maybe it’s the boom versus the pop, pop, pop? A driveby with a shotgun would be much more successful I think.
There’s an idea. Take a ganbanger hunting! Population problem solved in one easy lesson.
Not sure what a ganbanger is. Gangbanger maybe?
What’s good for the goose, is good for the ganbanger!
These types have been around for a while.
Yep. Thomas Robert Malthus, 1766-1834.
I also found this tidbit in Blackmore’s Wikipedia article”
In 1977, she married fellow academic Tom Troscianko, and they had two children: Emily Tamarisk Troscianko (born 1982) and Jolyon Tomasz Troscianko (born 1984).
So, she pumped out two spawn while believing the the world was wildly overpopulated.
I’m sure there’s some justification for that, but I’m damned if I can see what it is.
Spies, Brigands, and Pirates:
Reminds me of a good line from Newsweek back in the ’80s, back when the press could be counted on to wise off to both sides. A profile on Sting quoted him on the dangers of overpopulation: “‘We have got to get the population under control,’ the singer said. Sting is the father of five.”
Sounds like Blackmore belongs to the “Ebenezer” school of thought. “If the poor are going to starve, they’d better go ahead and do it! And decrease the surplus population.”
I think there are way too many people on this planet, but the problem will take care of itself. Starvation, arable-land and water depletion, overfished seas, climate change, famine, disease, crop failure, fertilizer shortages, fuel and energy shortages, economic contraction, and a shitload of war will change things drastically over the next thirty or forty years. But I’m patient enough to wait and see if I’m wrong.
151 – you forgot locusts, rain of frogs and the Angel of Death passing by taking the firstborn.
I think you shall wait, thankfully, in vain.
Or, you could be part of the solution. Too many people, jon, exhaling CO2. Think about it.
[…] thanks to Dan Collins over at Protein Wisdom for reminding me to say […]
151 – you forgot locusts, rain of frogs and the Angel of Death passing by taking the firstborn.
My Progressive friends tell me to not overlook the Carnivorous Bullfrogs, either, you know, the ones which were brought West by the evil pPioneers so as to keep something of their previous “home” with them. I’m not shitting you!
Those frogs are overtaking the native frogs here in Arizona. But I can’t really say I give a crap as they’re frogs after all. Killing the interlopers isn’t always a bad idea, but I can’t say I’m hot and bothered by these particular pesky newcomers.
Still, I believe in Peak Oil, the Long Emergency, and much of the rest. The world is changing and being changed for the worse, and we’ll probably ride out the rough spots with our combination of geographic luck and plucky can-do. We’re a resilient nation when we pull our heads from our asses and get to work on things that matter.
And the trees need me to keep breathing, Pablo, so I can help reforestation and make another ice age and we can all be Vikings! Drinking mead, wind-powered international trade with few barriers, odd helmets, and Spam! It’ll be awesome and you can thank me later, unless I cut your head off and make a kickass drinking vessel from your skull. In which case I’ll thank you.
No, the trees need us all to drive Hummers.
Wait, I thought we were warming the planet? Does algore know about this coming Ice Age?
PS – Swords are cool and all, but I recommend bringing a gun. Or three.
As Jefferson said long ago:
“One change makes us warmer
While one change makes us cold
But the one that Al Gore brings you
Won’t do much that’s been foretold
Go ask Al Gore, when you’re over-snowed!”
Or something like that. I think “Global Weirding” is the best term, since warming would likely result in a cooling of Europe and a slowdown of some ocean currents. And the changes can be quite sudden, if the historical record is to be believed. Which is a big “if” to some and a potentially-devastating “if” to others. But I think methane is probably a bigger fear than CO2, since CO2 emissions can be more easily offset (in theory, of course.)
But I think the real fear is energy, mostly natural gas and oil shortages. I don’t see much hope on those fronts. The global warming/change/weirding/whatever is small potatoes compared to that issue. Depletion in known stocks, combined with all the friends we’re making in oil producing areas and our superb economic foundation, makes me think that a flooded Gulf Coast will be a minor issue compared to that stuff.
But I think the real fear is energy, mostly natural gas and oil shortages.
Plenty of uranium and thorium for breeder reactors.
We just need to build them.
I don’t know where this “plenty” is, but it’ll be hard to get it to market even if every possible shortcut is taken. But I agree, we better get started anyhow.