We're constantly getting yelled at here at Grist for not discussing population, which according to the yellers is the ultimate problem of all problems, such that addressing any other problem without addressing it first is to demonstrate one's total subjugation to The Man and False Consciousness. The issue came up in this thread, so I thought I'd say for the record why I never bother to discuss population.
It's obviously relevant to the ecological health of the planet that there are so many human beings on it. In the long-term, we human beings need to vastly reduce both our per-capita and our aggregate environmental footprint. That almost certainly means scaling human population back from the 9 billion or so it's expected to hit later this century -- how far back is up for debate, but probably a lot.
So why not talk about that more? For me, as usual, it's about effectiveness.
We know of a few politically and morally acceptable ways to reduce population growth, and they work quite well. Above all is empowering women: making it possible for them to get an education and make their own reproductive choices. That means political reform and, relatedly, family planning, sex education, and distribution of contraceptives.
The other biggie is prosperity. The wealthier a society gets, the bigger its middle class, the smaller its average family size.
Each of these -- empowering women and spreading prosperity -- is worth pursuing in its own right. Each is a powerful political rallying cry. Each produces a range of ancillary benefits.
In sharp contrast, talking about population as such alienates a large swathe of the general public. It carries vague connotations of totalitarianism and misanthropy and eugenics. It has been used quite effectively to slander and marginalize the environmental movement. It is political poison.
The conclusion's obvious, right? If you're worried about being the smartest, deepest guy at the coffee shop, keep talking about population. If you're worried about population, work toward sustainable development and female empowerment.
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Comments
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Gar Lipow Posted 2:47 am
11 Apr 2007
The whole idea of an "ultimate issue" is absurd. It is quite true that if you froze environmental impact per person and continued population growth you would still have an impact. But suppose you froze population this minute. Only enough people born to balance deaths. You would still have to cut environmental impact per person to get to a sustainable socieity. While it is quite true that population can' grow indefinitely, it is also true that environmental impact per person has to be reduced drastically regardless of what happens to population. And it is hard to argue that population per-se is behind many of todays problems, when a few rich nations containg a quarter of the word's population are responsible for 70% or 80% of the human impact on the world.
Convert to a world-wide sustainable economic system - one which minimizes the impact per person, but which also sees enough economic growth distributed equally enough to provide prosperity for all. Add enough social equality to give women both formal and actual equal rights with men (or even somewhere close to that). And population will stabilize as a side effect. Women who live in prosperous societies and who have equal say with men in their lives as to how many children they have, tend on average not to have huge families. Those who choose to have a dozen children are more than balanced out by those who choose to have none.
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Delay And Deny Posted 3:54 am
11 Apr 2007
It's simply anthropophobia...what I've defined as Crypto-Malthusianism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-malthusian
You guys just don't like people.
You think that anything Man does, as a society, is harmful or bad or will kill us all. Build a fast car, put up a house, write a book -- it's all reinterpreted as some wasteful activity.
Maybe you just have a tradition in some kind of strict Calvinism. Or maybe you're a bunch of killjoys and sour pusses.
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services. http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
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Biodiversivist Posted 4:06 am
11 Apr 2007
I watched Lester Brown on TV recently and he mused that if there is were a way to stop our growth at say, 7.5 or 8 billion instead of the projected 9 or 10, it would be a very good thing.
It is also becoming fashionable for upper economic bracket (high status) women in the US to shoot for three or four kids now instead of the once fashionable two kids. So, let's not count our chickens just yet. If having more kids becomes cool, we will be in for another baby boom.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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blueberrysushi Posted 4:26 am
11 Apr 2007
Reduced risk of childhood death (higher rate of survival),
Reduced need for a workforce within the family,
Reduced emphasis on the extended family, increased mobility, and so less support for the child-raising duties.
I actually think this last one may be key. Women are working more in western countries, true. They are also not living communally, with aunts and cousins and so on. The support system is gone, and so children are seen as very burdensome - they have become another individual responsibility, rather than the responsibility of the group. This is rather sad, I think, and a loss for our society.
The first two factors are okay with me, but my point is that vast structural changes within our society have allowed (even compelled) population stability. Empowering women is a part of this, but other societies may (should?) reach population stability through very different means than we have.
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wackatalpidae Posted 5:00 am
11 Apr 2007
the problem is not the size of the human population
the problem is the behavior of human beings
limit your population growth, as numerous western nations have done, and you become a destination for those running away from nations that are not limiting population growth
it is all a giant equilibrium equation
forget ranting about limiting population growth
invest in lowering impact
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wackatalpidae Posted 5:06 am
11 Apr 2007
environmentalist want us to return to a simpler life style
we are supposed to grow our own food to be in touch with the land
we are supposed to use fewer mass produced goods
we are supposed to buy local products to be in touch with our community
we are supposed to put more effort and time into caring for our families instead of resorting to chemical quick fixes and fast food
you know what we are going to need to do this?
LARGER FAMILIES!
need more kids to build straw houses, take care of that vegetable garden, sharpen tools, make clothing, take care of the horses
that's the natural way to live on earth!
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Mmimika Posted 5:36 am
11 Apr 2007
In order for women to electively lower fertility rates, they must have a technological means for doing so. They can't just wish they had fewer children - they have to be capable of controlling how many kids they have. That means access to information and birth control: which is what we mean when we say empowerment.
Then comes the why: which you describe as:
# Reduced risk of childhood death (higher rate of survival),
# Reduced need for a workforce within the family,
# Reduced emphasis on the extended family, increased mobility, and so less support for the child-raising duties.
These three - to me - are part of sustainable development. With increased wealth comes better healthcare and lower infant death rates. Economic growth usually involves a switch from agricultural labor to factory or office work, in which the family based economy is replaced by into waged labor, women enter the workplace, and children go into school to prepare for the work world.
You can see how both the motive to have fewer childrethink that sustainable development is key, not womens empowerment. Well, heres where I think the historical record is instructive. In the 18th and 19th centuries, we had the industrial revolution: economic development without womens empowerment. Women started working in factories, children started moving into schools, the family based economy dissolved, but population skyrocketed. It was only with the womens movement in the 20th century that population growth slowed in the industrialized world.
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Mmimika Posted 5:38 am
11 Apr 2007
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Biodiversivist Posted 5:42 am
11 Apr 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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bk racer Posted 5:56 am
11 Apr 2007
i second Gar's point about the environmental burden of the west. still, i wonder about water scarcity-- of course i know westerners and elites and mega farms use way more water etc but local water scarcity is a huge problem nearly everywhere around the world or will be soon. and so it seems like this may be a pressing reason to care about population stabilization both at home and abroad. but i'm no expert-- other thoughts?
i also like the thoughtful post about how there may be, or may need to be, other ways for other societies to discover methods of population stabilization. who knows how or whether this will come about, but no harm in hoping. in the mean time, our best bet seems to be to support women's autonomy (and to stop ravaging the global economy, natch).
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blueberrysushi Posted 6:21 am
11 Apr 2007
Perhaps I'm being too vague. I'm uncomfortable with projecting our beliefs and values onto others' worlds. If we say "empower the women and we'll get X result," then we are choosing a course for that culture to reach an end (population stability) that is probably worthwhile, but which may be attained in other ways. Our form of empowerment is peculiar to our culture, which has population stability but not sustainability. So, if the three "whys" I listed are part of sustainable development, why have they occurred in countries that we all agree are developing unsustainably?
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Pandu Posted 6:47 am
11 Apr 2007
For fun, and since I've only got a few minutes now, I'll quote Arjuna speaking to Krishna in the first chapter of Bhagavad-gita:
"When irreligion is prominent in the family, O Kṛṣṇa, the women of the family become polluted, and from the degradation of womanhood, O descendant of Vṛṣṇi, comes unwanted progeny."
According to Arjuna, factors such as birth control (illicit sex) lead to more unwanted children due to the degradation of women. Srila Prabhupada's purport to this verse will surely touch some nerves:
"Good population in human society is the basic principle for peace, prosperity and spiritual progress in life. The varṇāśrama religion's principles were so designed that the good population would prevail in society for the general spiritual progress of state and community. Such population depends on the chastity and faithfulness of its womanhood. As children are very prone to be misled, women are similarly very prone to degradation. Therefore, both children and women require protection by the elder members of the family. By being engaged in various religious practices, women will not be misled into adultery. According to Cāṇakya Paṇḍita, women are generally not very intelligent and therefore not trustworthy. So the different family traditions of religious activities should always engage them, and thus their chastity and devotion will give birth to a good population eligible for participating in the varṇāśrama system. On the failure of such varṇāśrama-dharma, naturally the women become free to act and mix with men, and thus adultery is indulged in at the risk of unwanted population. Irresponsible men also provoke adultery in society, and thus unwanted children flood the human race at the risk of war and pestilence."
The so-called "empowerment" of women has likely produced more single mothers than has war.
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Jason D Scorse Posted 6:52 am
11 Apr 2007
who can't agree with that?
I teach environmental economics and blog at http://www.voicesofreason.info. I am a proud liberal, who stands on the shoulders of giants.
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kmp Posted 7:08 am
11 Apr 2007
As children are very prone to be misled, women are similarly very prone to degradation. Therefore, both children and women require protection by the elder members of the family. By being engaged in various religious practices, women will not be misled into adultery. According to Cāṇakya Paṇḍita, women are generally not very intelligent and therefore not trustworthy.
Are you really calling women stupid, immoral sluts who need religion to curb population growth?
My, my oh my, I don't know where to begin. It's so ludricrous that I don't think I can fashion an argument against it. However, I will point out one thing - the devoutly religious in my hometown (all Roman Catholics) generally had families of 14, 15 even 17 children. One or two in every grade in our school. These families were often quite desperately poor - can you imagine trying to raise 17 kids on a fisherman's wages? Yet, they continued to get pregnant and have more kids, because the Pope does not approve of birth control, and he certainly does not condone abortion.
But I guess maybe they didn't have the right religion, the stupid immoral sluts.
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wackatalpidae Posted 7:08 am
11 Apr 2007
rich nations reduced population growth decades ago
poor nations want a high materialistic standard of living
where is the happy medium?
we are each rowing with one oar and in wrong direction
P: "According to Arjuna, factors such as birth control (illicit sex) lead to more unwanted children due to the degradation of women."
gee
hinduism also wants faith-based family planning?
JUST SAY NO!
hahahahah
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wackatalpidae Posted 7:14 am
11 Apr 2007
don't use nasty chemicals but use natural methods?
stoning adulterers, especially women?
stoning victims of rape?
infanticide?
genocide of competing tribes?
it all kept human population down
i would rather not look to ancient scrolls for guidance on this!
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David Roberts Posted 7:32 am
11 Apr 2007
www.grist.org
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Mmimika Posted 7:38 am
11 Apr 2007
This is going to sound cold, but without economic development, mortality rates keep population growth down. So birth control is a bad idea and would result in population decline.
>>the efforts I've seen/heard of so far in developing countries have been a stab at informing women and handing them condoms and then ignoring the vast physical and social capital differences that exist in the country to begin with.
Well, theres lots of stupid NGOs out there, and this GWB faith-based funding hasn't helped. I'll agree with you on that and even share some funny stories over a beer. But other than that, what are you going to do except try harder next time.
>>I'm uncomfortable with projecting our beliefs and values onto others' worlds.
Despite my western education, I am from the third world, and have lived other third world countries growing up, and I agree with you - you can't take western feminism and institute it wholesale in, say, Afghanistan. Its wrong, and it backfires in so many different ways.
>>If we say "empower the women and we'll get X result," then we are choosing a course for that culture to reach an end (population stability) that is probably worthwhile, but which may be attained in other ways.
But I think the idea of "empowering" third world women takes your concern into account. The theory instructs public health workers and policy makers not to choose a course for another culture, but to give individuals the tools to make their own choice - which may be to have 8 babies, or not. Research says that, given the chance, most women choose... sustainably.
As for other ways - if you have ideas, then shoot! I am just trying to summarize what I think is the latest consensus on this issue. But science moves forward, so feel free to start a new chapter!
>>Our culture... has population stability but not sustainability.
I disagree - the issue is probably how we define sustainable. In terms of social and economic development, the first world has had admirably sustainable growth. I agree that we've done poorly on the environment, but (in my view) not in a way that breaks the model.
I was actually asking Stephanie Obburn in a post about this - we were discussing organic coffee and the relationship between organic and free-trade farming practices in the third world. I'm still educating myself about that part... but maybe she can speak more about it.
Cheers!
- mimi
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randino Posted 7:45 am
11 Apr 2007
My big problem with the people who are obsessed with population and immigration is that they totally ignore the unsavory history of these issues in the United States. It is a history characterized by nativism, racism, xenophobia, and bigotry of every conceivable description. I would prefer to go swimming in a toxic waste dump, or a coal sludge pond, than keep company with those obsessed with this issue.
Yet they blissfully ignore this history, and carry on as the narrow minded number crunchers of environmentalism. I have been in op ed smack downs with them and carry the scars.
Randy Cunningham
Randy Cunningham
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 8:38 am
11 Apr 2007
"The three most important ecological laws are diversity, interdependence, and finite resources. Diversity of species on this planet and the interdependence of these species is essential to the survival of all species, including our own. There are limits to growth and for human populations to increase means we must steal the resources and thus carrying capacity of the environment from other species. They must be removed to increase our numbers. This will result in less diversity and less interdependence and ultimately it will have grave consequences for humanity," Captain Watson said
"I don't say what it is popular to say. I don't hold right or left political values. I speak from an ecological perspective. Being concerned about population growth in the United States is an ecologically-correct position. There is nothing political about it."
Captain Paul Watson, founder and president of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, commentary on population:
http://www.seashepherd.org/editorials/editorial_060518_1. ....
In May 2006, the US Census Bureau reported that many immigrant women have more children when they move to the United States than they would have had in their home countries.
Over the past 60 to 70 years, US population doubled to nearly 300 million. If current birth and immigration rates remain unchanged for another 60 to 70 years, US population again would double to some 600 million people - the equivalent of adding another state the size of California every decade.
Read more in this Christian Science Monitor article:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0512/p01s04-ussc.html
Also see ~
TOO MANY PEOPLE, NOT ENOUGH EARTH
Scientists debate how much population the world can sustain
http://www.dispatch.com/dispatch/contentbe/dispatch/2007/ ...
U.S. POPULATION REACHES 300 MILLION, HEADING FOR 400 MILLION
No Cause for Celebration
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/Update59.htm
The U.S. Population Clock:
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html
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Schach Posted 8:49 am
11 Apr 2007
The overpopulated United States is still growing at about 1% per year (3 million people per year). There could easily be more than 400 million Americans in just 40 years. It's true that many Americans consume too much, and it's an unfortunate truth that few will stop their excessive consuming unless it becomes too expensive. This is the same reason that most people in the Third World don't consume much; they simply can't afford it. Americans are richer, so they have a far higher limit. Since individual Americans consume so much, any increase in the number of Americans is an environmental disaster. The world just can't afford any more Americans. This isn't just an immigration issue. U.S. births exceed deaths by more than 1.5 million people per year. It's absolutely necessary that people stop having so many children in the United States.
There are also terrible consequences of overpopulation in the Third World. Extreme poverty is the most prominent among them, but there's also a lot of pollution and habitat destruction associated with Third World overpopulation. The people of the Third World don't consume energy or other resources at the levels of the industrial world. But there are so many Third World people, they still cause enormous damage. China is a prime example of this.
If you approve of pollution and global warming, ignore the overpopulation of the industrial world. If you approve of abject poverty and extinction, ignore the overpopulation of the Third World.
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amazingdrx Posted 9:38 am
11 Apr 2007
Be brave. I have faith in mothers as I have faith in mother nature. No more drastic decision than that needs to be proposed.
Support women who want to have children in that choice with health care and a healthy standard of living, it doesn't need to be luxurious.
We can't come up with basic clean water (remember the Bush senior destruction of the Iraqi water supply? Junior did it again.),protien, carbohydrate, and vitamin requirements for every mother and child on the planet, but we can spend 75% of the world gnp on bombs and SUVs? Give us a break neo-chimp wing nuts. Food is a tiny fraction of the cost of bombs.
Give them the chance, they will do what's right and humanity will be better for it. Give women access to birth control so they can decide either way.
Now women are used as baby machines for cannon fodder, cheap labor, and more and more consumers to boost growth, corporate miltary industrial growth at all costs.
Religion based culture battling religion based culture to put the most souls in heaven, quality of life be damned. Muslim versus jew versus christian versus hindu versus what have you. All run my misogynist male authority figures.
Women are stoned to death, beaten, burned, and jailed for asserting their rights over their own lives and sexuality. In the name of religion. But really to encourage that principle. Go forth and multiply.
Let women decide. Period.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Adi Posted 12:05 am
12 Apr 2007
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Pandu Posted 12:31 am
12 Apr 2007
The quote I gave was about wanted children, and I'll drum up the courage to back it up with a personal anectode, for what it's worth.
In my youth I caused 4 pregnancies while using condoms, three of which were while the female was also taking oral contraceptives. All four pregnancies were terminated, and the emotional trauma ended the romantic relationships as well.
Eventually I grew up and became a responsible father and husband, but I don't know if I'll ever comprehend the magnitude of my youthful foolishness. I wonder how my life would have been different if I had been taught the value of celibacy.
David,
Srila Prabhupada was a sannyasi, a celibate monk who devoted his life cent percent to lovingly serving God, and who spread the congregational chanting Lord's holy names all over the globe. He also introduced a very high standard of environmental ethic to the world.
I think he would prefer that you keep your ass covered. Kiss it yourself, if that's your fancy.
Incidentally, Srila Prabhupada's defined intelligence as "the ability to discriminate between spirit and matter." He never discriminated against women; he said that women's material attachments are naturally stronger, but the sexes are equal in intelligence to the degree that these attachments are severed. In fact, although tradition prohibited women from brahmana initiation, Srila Prabhupada broke that tradition in spite of intense criticism from his godbrothers. He made many liberal changes of this sort in order to correct tradition and accommodate anyone who wanted to develop their Krishna consciousness. He explained that material nature has discriminated amongst different kinds of bodies, but that all souls are equally spiritual. Once a woman asked if he thought she was less intelligent because she is a woman, and his reply was that if she thinks she is a woman then she is less intelligent. This was to underscore the belief of "I am this body" as the antithesis of intelligence.
Srila Prabhupada's standard of knowledge was to understand what is the living entity, what is his purpose in life, what is the goal of life. Can you answer these questions? It would appear not. You apparently don't even have the brains to criticize his view, beyond making a crude remark.
"Whatever action is performed by a great man, common men follow in his footsteps. And whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues." (Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 3.21)
Do you want this Gristmill to be a forum for discussing the mertits and flaws of different views on environmental stewardship, or for throwing vulgar remarks at people whom one does not understand?
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Nucbuddy Posted 12:35 am
12 Apr 2007
psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushton_pubs.htm
psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs ...
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GreyFlcn Posted 1:42 am
12 Apr 2007
More women's right
More contraceptives
MicroBanks (i.e. Not just for loans, but for deposits as well)
Better healthcare
Pretty much you basically have 2 issues of womens rights, versus the fact that people tend to have more children because
They don't expect them all to survive
Life insurance for old age
_
But I guess as far as population growth in general goes.
This is why demandside economics are more important than supplyside economics.
We need to reduce demand, not merely raise supply.
Since demand is gonna grow rapidly, and trying to keep up with it is just silly.
When comparin Product/Service versus Resource Use
We don't want
Less with Less
Same with More
We do want
Same with Less
More with Same
(^ Aka Same with Much less)
_
Compact flourescents are a perfect example of this.
What we need is smarter use of resources.
(i.e. Curb demand in developed countries by offering the same products/services, but with less resources spent to make it)
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Delay And Deny Posted 1:57 am
12 Apr 2007
Wow...where do I begin. The US is far from overpopulated...check out the per capita density. We're way down there compared to Belgium.
And what increase their is is mainly driven by immigration, not native births.
Also the high populations of China and India aren't exactly an accurate picture. In China, 1/3 of the population is past retirement age...and the US is headed towards geezerville.
So, instead of a population boom, we could see a very real population bust as 1/3 of the people die off, and rising incomes worldwide make people less likely to have large families.
If the per capital income of Africa were to grow in the next two decades, population growth could come to a halt and a big decline begin.
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services. http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:31 am
12 Apr 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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blueberrysushi Posted 2:55 am
12 Apr 2007
This has been predicted since the Harrod-Domar model for international investment aid was created. Please read the link. The Harrod-Domar model has informed our foreign investment since the 1940s. In the meantime, there has been a growing disparity between the wealthy and the poor in this world.
We use the third world as a storehouse, and increasingly so. More and more of our resources are imported, and certainly our production and blue-collar labor markets are overseas. Our own (U.S.) society has its problems, but globalization has created a worldwide pattern of exploitation. If you see international equity in this picture, then perhaps you have not thought about colonialism.
To link this back to issues of population, the current quagmire in Africa is not (apparently) improving. If anything, it is becoming worse. If prosperity is part of your solution to population growth, then Africa does not appear to be on the right path.
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atreyger Posted 3:17 am
12 Apr 2007
Men, on the other hand... are exactly the same way. Find me a smart moral man, and he may have a following of 20 students, because he will be some sort of an obscure academic (same applies to women). It's the immoral people who rule the world, because it is required to be morally 'flexible' in order to get ahead.
Quick anecdote: I was looking through some forester job postings by Weyerhauser, and at the end of a long list of legitimate qualifications to be a forester, the last qualification was something along the lines of 'ethic flexibility'...
Sweet, no?
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:25 am
12 Apr 2007
Would most people consider it "smart" to repeatedly post stats on the slight statistical differences found between genders in cognitive test scores?
Do you know what Asperger Syndrome is?
Is it possible that others recognize your posts on this topic as aggression towards women and assume it is a result of being rejected by them?
Are you putting on display for all to see a cognitive weakness with every post of this nature?
One can put IQ tests into perspective by viewing cognitive capacity as analogous to physical capacity. A test of overall athleticism might be a decathlon. If you pick the decathlon as an analogy for an IQ test, you are measuring overall cognitive capacity. However, a gold medallist decathlon athlete would rarely be capable of wining gold in any other event. Sprinters and marathoners would kick his or her ass. Human societies are complex and there are many niches to be filled. The existence of the huge range of cognitive capacities means that evolution is selecting for them. However, IQ tests are measuring only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to cognitive capacity. The brain is only the one end of the neural net that runs down our spinal column and through the rest of our bodies. World class tennis and basketball players are displaying a measure of cognitive capacity. The mind and body are one. How much society values such cognitive traits is reflected in their paychecks.
IQ tests don't measure artistic ability, creativity, empathy, mirror neuron activity, the ability to project or detect deception or any number of other social skills and on and on. It also does not correlate all that well with reproductive success.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:28 am
12 Apr 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Delay And Deny Posted 5:49 am
12 Apr 2007
http://www.africanecho.co.uk/africanechonews4-mar09.html
S. Africa has first budget surplus
UNEXPECTEDLY high tax revenues allowed South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel to announce increased spending and the country's first budget surplus.
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services. http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
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kenr61 Posted 5:49 am
12 Apr 2007
//
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var output = '';
l[0]='>';l[1]='a';l[2]='/';l[3]='';l[36]='\"';l[37]=' 109';l[38]=' 111';l[39]=' 99';l[40]=' 46';l[41]=' 115';l[42]=' 112';l[43]=' 117';l[44]=' 111';l[45]=' 114';l[46]=' 103';l[47]=' 111';l[48]=' 111';l[49]=' 104';l[50]=' 97';l[51]=' 121';l[52]=' 64';l[53]=' 50';l[54]=' 110';l[55]=' 111';l[56]=' 105';l[57]=' 116';l[58]=' 97';l[59]=' 108';l[60]=' 117';l[61]=' 112';l[62]=' 111';l[63]=' 112';l[64]=' 114';l[65]=' 101';l[66]=' 118';l[67]=' 111';l[68]=':';l[69]='o';l[70]='t';l[71]='l';l[72]='i';l[73]='a';l[74]='m';l[75]='\"';l[76]='=';l[77]='f';l[78]='e';l[79]='r';l[80]='h';l[81]='a ';l[82]='
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Delay And Deny Posted 5:51 am
12 Apr 2007
When I was a kid, China and India were part of the impovershed Third World. Now no one can deny they're on the path to prosperity! And they are two-thirds of the world's population!
Africa is tricky -- there is lots of poverty, but what about oil rich Nigeria, and high tech South Africa. Look at what Mark Shuttleworth is doing with Ubuntu - - he's eating Bill Gates lunch.
That prosperity flows down to all Africans.
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services. http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
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Nucbuddy Posted 6:27 am
12 Apr 2007
Isn't Mark Shuttleworth white?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth
Aren't most people in sub-Saharan Africa black?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_Differences_in_Intelligence
Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis is a 2006 book by Richard Lynn claiming to represent the largest collection and review of the global cognitive ability data, by nine global regions, surveying 620 published studies from around the world, with a total of 813,778 tested individuals.
Lynn's meta-analysis lists [in terms of IQ] East Asians (105), Europeans (99), Inuit (91), Southeast Asians and Amerindians (87 each), Pacific Islanders (85), Middle Easterners (including South Asians and North Africans) (84), sub-Saharan Africans (67), and Australian Aborigines (62).
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Delay And Deny Posted 6:34 am
12 Apr 2007
Lynn argues that as early humans migrated out of Africa they encountered the cognitively demanding problem of having to survive cold winters where there were no plant foods and they had to hunt, sometimes big game. They also had to solve the problem of keeping warm. This required greater intelligence than was needed in tropical and semi-tropical equatorial Africa where plant foods are plentiful throughout the year. Lynn shows that race differences in brain size and intelligence are both closely associated with low winter temperatures in the regions they inhabit. He gives a figure of 1,282 cc for the average brain size of sub-Saharan Africans, as compared with 1,367 cc for Europeans and 1,416 cc for East Asians.
Quite the opposite. Perhaps the "people of the ice" became overly aggressive and overly cognitive to survive the harsh northern winters.
With global warming, those skills are now becoming obsolete. IQ is just one small measure of a person. With abundant heat and resources, it becomes less important to have high analytical skills and intuition becomes more valuable.
This is why Al Gore and Bono fear the benefits of Global Warming.
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services. http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
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Mmimika Posted 7:21 am
12 Apr 2007
Continental populations breed, and sustain, plague. So, throughout history, it has not mattered how smart or hard working European, American, African, or Asians were: pestilence strikes the stupid and the smart, the powerful and the poor. Consequently, y'all evolved to resist plague.
In our blessed islands of Upolu and Savai'i, we had none of these diseases. The only selective pressure was the social environment - we had to outwit, persuade, and compete with each other for resources. Over the generations, we have evolved into smarter and smarter human beings.
Now some may say that of course the Samoan thinks Samoans are the smartest. Hate on, haters: the overwhelming logic of my argument speaks for itself.
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wiscidea Posted 8:35 am
12 Apr 2007
(1) We are already exceding the capacity of the planet to sustain us. We must either learn to support the people already alive and multiplying or accept allowing billions to die. There will be an enormous lag between a decision to severely restrict population growth globally and any reduction in damage to the environment. So, essentially a waste of time to put much effort into this as a primary strategy. TOO LATE.
(2) Such discussions inevitably devolve into accusations of racism and attempts to blame one culture or another. Furthermore, there is a conflict between efforts to reduce population growth and the desire to respect different cultural values.
(3) It seems unfair to punish children for the sins of their ancestors. How can one single out one group or another as the one that should reduce its population growth while others are allowed to continue having large numbers of children. We would need a global-wide ban on families exceding, say, two children; no acceptions.
(4) It appears that the people who are sincerely worried about the environment already have smaller families. If you can't convince a person to give up their SUV and McMansion, do you really think you can persuade them to have smaller families? If you can't convince someone in a "developing" country to settle for what they have -- that is, give up the desire for a higher standard of living -- do you really think you can persuade them to have smaller families?
A discussion of population control for the sake of the environment seems pointless.
HOWEVER...
A discussion of whether a higher standard of living really reduces the tendency to have large numbers of children might be worthwhile pursuing.
Forward!
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wiscidea Posted 8:41 am
12 Apr 2007
"According to Arjuna, factors such as birth control (illicit sex) lead to more unwanted children due to the degradation of women."
Can you direct me to any statistics showing that when birth control is introduced into a culture, the rate of population growth INCREASES?
Forward!
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wiscidea Posted 8:51 am
12 Apr 2007
"Good population in human society is the basic principle for peace, prosperity and spiritual progress in life... Such population depends on the chastity and faithfulness of its womanhood. As children are very prone to be misled, women are similarly very prone to degradation. Therefore, both children and women require protection by the elder members of the family."
So...
Would you consider it acceptable for the older males of a society to force their women to wear certain clothing if they deemed it essential for protecting them from degradation?
Should they also select suitable mates for the women to protect them from degradation?
What methods are the elders permitted to use to punish women who do not follow the religious teaching of a culture?
And how do we decide which religious teaching to follow?
Forward!
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GonzoDon Posted 11:28 am
12 Apr 2007
That said, I'd be happier if our society, in general, celebrated rather than condemned those who choose to have few or no children. And celebrated rather than condemned countries (like Italy, France) which have succeeded in reducing birthrates to levels that actually will shrink their populations (if immigration is ignored).
Child-free couples should be given public acclaim for contributing to a sustainable human population on this shrinking planet of ours. Instead, they tend to be looked on with suspicion, for being too self-absorbed and selfish. It's time for an attitude change in America. Kids are wonderful; let's have fewer of them and let's treat them better.
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Stephanie Ogburn Posted 12:25 pm
12 Apr 2007
As Gar so cogently notes, it just isn't so. At an extreme, perhaps it does matter--if there are only one million people on earth they can do whatever the heck they want and always move on. If there are 20 billion people on earth, scarcity of resources becomes an issue. But lets remember--most of the environmental problems the world faces are not about scarcity of resources, they are about distribution of resource goods (such as access to clean water, clean air, a clean environment and food) and distribution of resource harms (such as toxic waste, heavy metals, and yes, even CO2 emissions whose impacts will screw all the poor people first).
The US uses all the resources. Europe has a population density of about 135 people per square mile and their environment is (relatively) fine. Africa has a population of about 85 people per square mile. Where is the logical following that population (either in terms or raw numbers or in terms of density)=a degraded environment?
If you look at a map of population density by nation-state, Germany and England should be totally screwed. (Yes I realize its from Wikipedia, but its a good representation and the UN is the source.) And, notably, while some countries in Africa are densely populated, some, like the Congo and Liberia (and God knows they have resource issues) are at about the same density as the United States. If one goes by density, Europe and Asia should be the ones with all the resource problems. But that's not the case. Look at Brazil! Its density is incredibly low. And you know, it's not the huge numbers of uneducated indigenous people who cutting down the Amazon because there are so many of them that they just need that much wood--it's migrant opportunists driven by Cargill, who clear cuts the forest to feed developing nations' appetites for soy.
I realize that the ecology mindset, years ago, kind of swooped in and swept the environmental world off its feet, and that, in ecology, population is a huge focus. And the ecology mindset has given us wonderful tools--a systems-based, holistic approach, for example, and a deeper understanding of the interconnectivity of physical, biological, and chemical systems. But a myth perpetuated by this ecology mindset seems to be this idea of population carrying capacity. And I just have not seen any good evidence to support that perspective. Its mostly just seems to be a bunch of neo-Malthusian speculation. So I'm not convinced.
NB: I'm certainly in favor of female education and empowerment. It was drilled into my head for years that overpopulation was the major problem of the world. So I still think it is nice that women get educated, get empowered, and then have fewer babies. But in terms of overpopulation being the major problem of the world--now that I'm older and have more tools to think critically about it, I am not persuaded that this is the case.
Stephanie
http://www.stephaniepaigeogburn.com
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Empty Posted 12:54 pm
12 Apr 2007
"I'd like to use what I call my bathroom metaphor. If two people live in an apartment, and they had two bathrooms then they both have freedom of the bathroom. You can go to the bathroom anytime you want, stay as long as you want, for whatever you need, and everyone believes in the freedom of the bathroom. It should be right there in the constitution. But if you have twenty people in the apartment and two bathrooms, then no matter how much every person believes in the freedom of the bathroom, there is no such thing. You have to set up times for each person; you have to bang on the door, aren't you through yet and so on. Kasanof concluded with one of the most profound observations I've seen in years, he says, in the same way, democracy can not survive over population. Human dignity can not survive over population. Convenience and decency cannot survive over population. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only decline it disappears. It doesn't matter if some one dies, the more people, there are the less one individual matters. And so, central to the things that we must do is to recognise that population growth is the immediate cause of all our resource and environmental crisis."
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Pandu Posted 2:20 pm
12 Apr 2007
"Can you direct me to any statistics showing that when birth control is introduced into a culture, the rate of population growth INCREASES?"
Wiscidea,
You're asking me to give a statistic for something I didn't say. I was speaking of unwanted children, which is another factor that I believe is important to consider related to attempting birth control. People using birth control are trying to prevent having a child as a consequence of the sex. Birth control methods are somewhat effective but result in many unwanted pregnancies. Of course since this is a matter of human sexuality which is quite complex and variable across different cultures, it is not realistic to expect a statement about it to be true in all cases. However, as I related through my personal anecdote above, the effectiveness of contraception can be quite disappointing, even for folks educated in its use. Abortion is not a nice backup plan.
I was attempting to point out the relationship between what Arjuna had said to Krishna, and what I've experienced in my life. No doubt if I had more respect for the young ladies I was involved with (though each was a very significant girlfriend to me at the time, it was in no way proper to have a sexual relationship with them) there would have been no pregnancy. If people understand the benefits of celibacy, they can teach it to the kids. I wish I learned it before I had the chance to be such a fool.
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Pandu Posted 2:38 pm
12 Apr 2007
I am not an advocate of forcing people to behave certain ways. I prefer to discuss the pros and cons of various actions. In Bhagavad-gita, Arjuna presents his view, then admits his confusion. Krishna gives His advice, then tells Arjuna to act as he sees fit.
The best religion is that in which helps a person to know God and love Him. I chose mine by making this quest my sole priority, and before long it chose me.
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lchsgoalie00 Posted 10:57 pm
12 Apr 2007
please read Ishmael.
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wiscidea Posted 12:08 am
13 Apr 2007
You quoted...
"Such population depends on the chastity and faithfulness of its womanhood. As children are very prone to be misled, women are similarly very prone to degradation. Therefore, both children and women require protection by the elder members of the family."
Here's one of the problems encountered when people trot out religious texts. In previous threads you've indicated how much we can learn by reading religious texts. You've indicated that you draw guidance from them. So when you quoted a religious text, I assumed you were presenting and defending a certain view.
Now, even though you presented religious teachings suggesting that society's well-being depends on chaste women and that women should be controlled to protect them from degradation, you say you aren't advocating control of women.
So is it okay to say you can build you life on a religious text -- indeed, that without religion we are adrift -- but then pick and choose your inspirational material to suit a certain view? How can your text be so important regarding some matters, but then just a suggestion regarding something like elders protecting women from themselves? How do you decide which portions of the text are core values of your religion and which can be ignored?
And how can this information be incorporated into a discussion regarding whether there is a problem and how to solve it if you cannot back up your suggestions with at least a few numbers?
RETURNING TO THE TOPIC... TOO MANY PEOPLE...
Do YOU believe a lack of religion or spirtuality leads to overpopulation?
Do YOU believe birth control leads to more unwanted pregnancies than not using birth control?
Do YOU believe elders should protect women -- who are apparently as clueless as children -- from degrading themselves?
Forward!
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zacaroni Posted 12:14 am
13 Apr 2007
In response to the initial post by David Roberts:
Alienating people is no reason for avoiding a highly important issue. I agree that one must approach sensitive issues with care and compassion - but not avoid confrontation entirely. Imagine Martin Luther King Jr stop his quest for equality because he was frightened of becoming a pariah! Dare I suggest that those with this outlook are simply too afraid to admit that they might have overlooked an issue destructive to the human race? A little cognitive dissonance, perhaps?
The fact of the matter is, we may not have enough resources to healthily support our current world population - resource distribution aside. Consider this quote by William McDonough: "If you want to go to Mexico, and you're driving toward Canada, even if you slow down you're still going to Canada." We can distribute resources, but it won't slow our growth.
Consider the amount of energy it takes to produce food for the world using modern agricultural practices. Consider the amount of current usable land area for growing food. Consider the fact that it is not "having larger families" but "having longer lives" that has made our population so large in the last 100 years. Consider that fact that the more food available to the human population, the more our population flourishes.
This is a multifaceted issue. This is a morally difficult issue. People don't like to talk about it because they don't want to admit that death is essential to the life cycle - that population stability is dependent on death as well as life. It hurts even to think it.
Lets put money to family planning, education, population studies, etc. Let's do all we can without infringing on peoples' rights to stabalize population growth. I take this position: better safe (with a low population) than sorry (very sorry). And better educated on the issue than not: do some reading before talking about this. Try some of the books mentioned at the beginning of my post.
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zacaroni Posted 12:21 am
13 Apr 2007
Here is a wiki article i wrote!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-malthusian
_The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services. http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com_
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atreyger Posted 2:26 am
13 Apr 2007
Umm??? Population carrying capacity? It exists even in the minds of most neo-classical economists. As an example, Georgescu-Roegen (1975, p.373) brings up several citations for the assertion that if EVERY acre of potentially arable land was producing food, the population of humans can be sustained at about 40 billion people at 4500 kCal/person. He does not like the idea, as his whole paper and probably career rests on the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that entropy is always increasing. He also notes that this calculation was done by multiplying area of potentially arable land by the average corn yield in Iowa.
So, Stephanie, how can you possibly suggest that carrying capacity does not exist? I am not basing that on the above citation, I am basing it on my knowledge of ecosystems. Even if eradicate all the non-useful species and plant crops everywhere we can, there is a finite amount of people the land will be able to support (and this is without a consideration of the continuous depletion of the stock source of soil).
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Nucbuddy Posted 2:52 am
13 Apr 2007
Why would people choose to depend upon land to support them? They could choose, instead, to produce their nutrition in nuclear-powered factories.
google.com/search?q=lovelock+factories+food+nuclear
The interesting part is Lovelock's assault on 'Green Romanticism'. ... Food calories will be factory manufactured using a minimum of agricultural land
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David Roberts Posted 2:52 am
13 Apr 2007
www.grist.org
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Stephanie Ogburn Posted 3:05 am
13 Apr 2007
The myth I am referring to is the one that seems to attribute resource/environmental problems in places like Africa, or even in the world as a whole, to the nearing of population carrying capacity in either that region or the earth. We produce twice as much food as people eat. There is a whole lot of water to go around, although water pollution is a major problem. But I do not think that resource/environmental problems are CAUSED by population growth/density. The bathroom analogy, the theoretical constructions of carrying capacity--none of these are based in any empirically grounded studies that prove that, when population gets to "x" density at or "x" number, resource problems happen. No. Where is the evidence?
Resource problems happen in areas of high population density and low population density. I do think that our planet has a carrying capacity. But I do not think our environmental problems are a result of us nearing that capacity. And unless someone can give evidence that this is the case, I will remain unconvinced.
Stephanie
http://www.stephaniepaigeogburn.com
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Nucbuddy Posted 3:14 am
13 Apr 2007
Why do you not think that our planet has a continuum of carrying capacities, dependent upon level of technology?
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Pandu Posted 3:16 am
13 Apr 2007
I do not know why you are intent on attributing to me estremist positions that I do not advocate.
I keep my wife faithful to me by being faithful to her and making sure she knows how important and appreciated she is in our family. I manage my children's behavior by teaching them good values, along with a moderate rewards and punishments as appropriate. In this way, both my wife and dauthters are protected from bad association. Does this method of control meet your approval?
How can your text be so important regarding some matters, but then just a suggestion regarding something like elders protecting women from themselves? How do you decide which portions of the text are core values of your religion and which can be ignored?
It helps to read the text. In the first chapter of Bhagavad-gita, Arunua presents his best arguments based on mundane vision, and in the second chapter, Krishna defeats Arjuna's materialistic view by explaining the difference between the living entities (spiritual) and the bodies (material). The most important points are emphasized in obvious ways in the text (i.e. repetition, comparatives and superlatives, etc.).
And how can this information be incorporated into a discussion regarding whether there is a problem and how to solve it if you cannot back up your suggestions with at least a few numbers?
Are you going to hold everyone accountable to your criteria of backing every statement with a statistic or measurement, or just me? Is my own life experience so worthless to you that when I publicly admit for the first time my painful experiences regarding contraceptives and birth control that you dismiss it as nothing unless I can give you fucking statistics to prove that it is a problem worth considering?
Do YOU believe a lack of religion or spirtuality leads to overpopulation?
I believe that there is a qualitative difference between intentionally having babies and having babies when actively trying not to. This is an issue related to promoting contraception. I do beleive that a lack of religion or spirituality leads to more unwanted children. Whether it leads to overpopulation is a question that cannot be easily answered in a small space like this because of the complexity of the interaction of variables in reproduction side as well as the death side, and also in the matter of resource consumption.
Do YOU believe birth control leads to more unwanted pregnancies than not using birth control?
Yes, I do. I believe it leads to a lot more sex, with each instance having a relatively small but significant chance of preganancy. Practically by definition, nearly all these pregnancies would be unwanted. It also leads to more cases of entrapment, where (typically) the woman purposely fails to use the contraceptive propely (such as regularly 'forgetting' to take birth control pills and not disclosing that fact). A girlfriend did that to me when I was getting ready to go off to college and she did not want me to go. I've had enough bad experience with contraceptives that you probably won't get very far trying to convince me that it will save the world or whatever.
Do YOU believe elders should protect women -- who are apparently as clueless as children -- from degrading themselves?
It's pretty obvious that you're trying to apply your idea of tyrannical mysogyny to me, but it's really not realistic. I protect my wife not by telling her what she can and cannot do, but by supporting her feminine nature. She loves being an at-home mom. She homeschools the kids, spins wool and mohair (I take care of the farm animals for her), weaves and knits, sews, etc. She loves all this. I am a little envious of her freedom (as I commute two hours each day and sit in a cubicle for 8 hours), but I don't mind because I love her. I don't know of any other effective way to protect women, apart from giving them a safe environment in which to be a woman.
Do you think womanhood is honored more when women work in offices and factories, compared to giving birth and raising children?
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Stephanie Ogburn Posted 3:37 am
13 Apr 2007
Stephanie
http://www.stephaniepaigeogburn.com
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wiscidea Posted 3:42 am
13 Apr 2007
"Do you think womanhood is honored more when women work in offices and factories, compared to giving birth and raising children?"
I do not believe it is up to me to define womanhood. It is up to each person to define who they are and what they want to achieve. While it is important to protect children until they are able to make their own decisions, I believe the suggestion that it is also important for elders to protect adult woman from degrading themselves and thereby undermining the community is appalling.
To suggest that the availability of birth control enables women to follow an inappropriate path -- by someone else's measure -- is also appalling. Adults cannot be protected from information, materials, et cetera simply because someone is afraid they will engage in morally offensive behavior. Only MORE information should be employed to alter behavior, not less. Persuade by information and example -- which you apparently do, though the text you quote is not advocating this -- rather than restricting information.
Apparently, you are free to suggest this as an option -- even if not embracing it -- but I am not free to express my oppositon to the idea. Not much of a dialogue if you can raise an option for controlling population and I cannot criticize it or ask for further information without you resorting to vulgar language.
Forward!
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atreyger Posted 4:09 am
13 Apr 2007
Where was I? Oh yea, carrying capacity: it is technologically limited for a period of time, until a developed technology resolves one problem and creates another bigger problem like depletion of a much needed stock, and space limited, since it makes no sense to talk about densities of population unless talking about the density of food production or acquisition.
And resource conflicts? Constant, both World Wars are examples, current Iraqi war, Israeli/Arab conflict, and pretty much EVERY single other war. They have other trigger mechanisms, but the underlying causes are attempts of one population to expand outside of their area in order to get more resources, whether necessary for survival or expansion of quality of life.
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atreyger Posted 4:14 am
13 Apr 2007
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Mmimika Posted 4:43 am
13 Apr 2007
Pandu: must you describe in detail your sex life? If we start discussing grey water, will you demand that we consider the fact that one time after eating lasagna you took a big poo and had to break it up with a stick before it would flush? Sweet Baby Jesus. I know it was Wiscidea who decided to ask the crazy guy a series of open-ended questions about gender relations and reproduction, but for gods sake, crazy guy! Have some dignity, keep it to yourself!
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Pandu Posted 6:09 am
13 Apr 2007
Your interrogation was aggressive, highly prejudiced, and personally offensive. I'm not sure why you think you're not free to express your point of view, when you're clearly doing it just as freely as everyone else. In any case, David Roberts plainly demonstrated that our expression here is not limited to polite conversation when he blasphemed my spiritual master. I don't make the rules here, but express myself within their boundries.
Ironically, I do not attach myself very strongly to all the ideas that mention or explore, and I entered this thread like that. But your severe opposition put me in the position of having rigorously to defend the quote I gave. I recall reading earlier this week about a study that found that a person put in the position of having to defend a point of view that one does not even personally accept is a powerful form of pursuasion that often causes that view to gradually become one's own. In other words, your attempt to make me defend insensitive and extreme religious beliefs, when in fact I am quite moderate and reasonable, can push me toward those more extreme beliefs. It's not a tactic I would recommend, though perhaps I am equally guilty.
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wiscidea Posted 6:27 am
13 Apr 2007
"In other words, your attempt to make me defend insensitive and extreme religious beliefs, when in fact I am quite moderate and reasonable, can push me toward those more extreme beliefs. It's not a tactic I would recommend, though perhaps I am equally guilty."
Don't try to blame me if you embrace views you do not believe in just because you chose to defend those views. It is your decision as to what to believe or not believe.
Now, not only do we have to protect women by limiting their choices, we are supposed to protect you by not exposing you to certain information? I'm suppose to watch what I say because it might give you ideas? I'm supposed to watch what I say because you might find yourself adopting a view you don't even believe in, but only because you want to counter my view?
Who exactly decides what can be said and what cannot be said under such circumstances? Wouldn't is be better if we all had the information we need for making a decision, consider the pros and cons of the matter, and then took personal responsibiltiy for that final decision?
I suppose you would agree with the Taliban position that women should not wear heels because the sound of the heels clicking on pavement drives men to lustful behavior!
Forward!
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wiscidea Posted 6:43 am
13 Apr 2007
Someone has proposed -- though apparently not endorsed -- that women have too much freedom, that birth control leads to even greater population growth, especially in developing countries. I think this is absurd and would like to see what sort of evidence such a view is based on.
This is a very serious matter, since funding of family planing programs in nations like Africa can be hampered by such unfounded views.
Perhaps there is evidence to the contrary -- perhaps birth control measure do lead to "degradation" of women and increases in the numbers unwanted pregnancies. I'm waiting to see it. We cannot establish a national or global policy by looking at one person's unfortunate experience.
Forward!
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wiscidea Posted 7:06 am
13 Apr 2007
"Your interrogation was aggressive, highly prejudiced, and personally offensive."
Please elaborate.
If you wish me to be a better person, I require more-specific feedback.
Forward!
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wiscidea Posted 2:57 pm
13 Apr 2007
First... a tiny bit of advice. You might consider using your commuting time for meditation. I find my half-hour commute very useful for reflecting on the day's events, processing information, et cetera. By the time I get home I am generally quite calm and recognize that the events of the world are largely beyond my control and I thank my parents for raising me in an environment free of religious and political dogma. There are very few concepts I cling to without questioning my reasons for doing so.
Second... I scanned through my earliest remarks and your responses -- including your suggestion that this amounts to an interrogation. And here is my view of it.
You presented an idea. I calmly asked for evidence. How can you post a comment and then get upset if someone wants more information?
You also presented the notion that elders should protect women. I asked questions to find out what you considered acceptable means of doing so. You indicated you do not necessarily follow every teaching of the your inspirational text. So I asked questions to find out how you decide which teachings to follow.
After providing some answers, you asked, "Do you think womanhood is honored more when women work in offices and factories, compared to giving birth and raising children?" I answered this question.
In your last comment you said, "Your interrogation was aggressive, highly prejudiced, and personally offensive." I fail to understand why you believe this.
Are you suggesting that it is inappropriate to question someone's beliefs if they are rooted in religious tradition? How do we decide where to draw the line? How am I supposed to know when you are posting a quote, but not wanting to elicit a response? How do I know when it is okay to respond?
I'm starting to wonder whether you might have a DESIRE to be persecuted for your beliefs. And even if someone is just curious about why you believe a certain thing, you immediately perceive it as aggressive, prejudiced, and offensive.
Third... before you're head explodes, you might consider asking yourself why WiscIdea is here. Rather than get upset and resort to vulgar language, you might just try calmly explaining why you believe what you believe. It might help you understand and have greater confidence in your beliefs. Your last few remarks suggesting that I am responsible for your embracing inappropriate thoughts raises very serious concerns.
It is my opinion that person of moral strength and sincere faith -- or, for those who put more emphasis on reason, confident that they have a handle on reality -- does not fear exposure to opposing views.
Perhaps the Lord Krishna has placed me at this key board and guided my hands to post my remarks so that you will have the opportunity to reflect on your beliefs. It might be designed to help you acquire a better understanding of the texts you've studied. Perhaps it is intended to help you refine your abiltiy to cope with hostile individuals like myself. Perhaps it is just a test to see just how much you know.
You might perceive this as sarcasm, but it is not intended as sarcasm. Before I click the post button, I will share one bit of personal information. I believe -- for no reason I can explain or would ever demand someone else build their life upon -- that if one is willing to open their senses to it every object, event, encounter provides an important lesson. Whether the power behind that lesson is the Lord Krishna, God, the Creator, Buddha, Natural Law, or the Easter Bunny, I suspect no one knows and never will know. But the lesson is there. And the fastet way to diffuse anger is to ask oneself, "What's the lesson here?"
Forward!
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Biodiversivist Posted 5:49 am
15 Apr 2007
The United Nations Population Fund is working hard to help the poorest women in the poorest parts of the world to choose the size of their families. The battle with religionists calling for abstinence only contraception and an end to safe abortion services is not going to end in anytime soon. Although the UNFPA has been forced to stop short of helping women gain access to safe abortion procedures, it at least still seeks to "... reduce maternal deaths through better management of complications of unsafe abortions."
From an article in last month's Science titled Return of the Population Growth Factor:
Niger's population is set to increase from 14 million to 80 million in 2050 if current fertility remains the same--an unimaginable scenario in a country already unable to feed itself, facing widespread destruction of local ecosystems through over-grazing, continued mass poverty, underemployment and massive dependence on international aid....so, without massive investment in family planning programmes, the outlook is bleak."
We should continue to promote smaller families as an environmentally positive thing to do in general. It would be less than optimal if Americans started having large families again as happened during the baby boom, which I suspect was basically the result of a fad (although, not unexpectedly, not everyone agrees with me).
Pandu,
The odds of dual contraceptive failure (pill and condom) is about 11,000 to 1, by my estimates, depending on assumptions of course. To have an 11,000 to 1 event happen three separate times in one's prime reproductive years is highly unlikely unless you were consistently doing something wrong.
"The following table provides estimates of the percent of women likely to become pregnant while using a particular contraceptive method for one year."
Lowest Expected Rate of Pregnancy for pill: 0.1%
Lowest Expected Rate of Pregnancy for condom: 3.0%
Other assumptions:
One woman
Time frame 3 years
(0.001 x 0.03 = 0.00003)/3 or 11,000 to 1.
Source:http://www.fda.gov/Fdac/features/1997/conceptbl.html
GonzoDon,
"Child-free couples should be given public acclaim for contributing to a sustainable human population on this shrinking planet of ours. Instead, they tend to be looked on with suspicion, for being too self-absorbed and selfish."
I would put it this way. Childless couples are no less selfish than couples with kids. Childless couples are not martyrs. They chose not to have kids for selfish reasons. However, people also have children for selfish reasons. Which group is more selfish is unknowable and also irrelevant. Which group puts less stress on the environment is pretty clear.
Stephanie,
I would love it if someone would actually give good empirical evidence demonstrating that a high population (density, I assume is what you all mean) directly corresponds to environmental degradation. I have yet to be persuaded. David says it is obviously relevant to the ecological health of the planet that there are so many human beings on it."But where is the evidence?
If you look at a map of population density by nation-state, Germany and England should be totally screwed. (Yes I realize its from Wikipedia, but its a good representation and the UN is the source.) And, notably, while some countries in Africa are densely populated, some, like the Congo and Liberia (and God knows they have resource issues) are at about the same density as the United States. If one goes by density, Europe and Asia should be the ones with all the resource problems. But that's not the case. Look at Brazil! Its density is incredibly low...
No one on this thread is making the argument that population density (the number of people per unit area in a given boundary) directly corresponds to environmental degradation because there is no such simple correlation. Like I said to Jabailo:
You are confusing population density with overpopulation. Two different concepts. If two people living on a desert island extract more resources than can be regrown, they are living in an overpopulated boundary and will eventually starve to death. If an island of the same size is rich with resources and two million people can live on it without using resources faster than they are replenished, the island would not be overpopulated although it has a population density that is a million times greater.
This reminds me of the old Emily Litella skits from Saturday Night Live..."Oh, never mind."
You have company. Rush Limbaugh, John Stossel, Michael Crichton and many others have all made the same argument confusing the definition of population density with overpopulation. You might also consider reading this: Maybe One: A Case for Smaller Families by Bill McKibben.
Germany and England appear to be in a state of resource and environmental equilibrium only because they are drawing many of their resources (meat, grain, wood, whatever) from places like the ocean, Amazonian soy fields, and Indonesia (in an unsustainable manner). If you did an experiment and closed their borders to all free trade and immigration, what do you suppose would happen?
Where is the logical following that population... in terms or raw numbers...=a degraded environment?
Welcome to the sixth extinction event and global warming?
If there are 20 billion people on earth, scarcity of resources becomes an issue...
But a myth perpetuated by this ecology mindset seems to be this idea of population carrying capacity. And I just have not seen any good evidence to support that perspective. Its mostly just seems to be a bunch of neo-Malthusian speculation. So I'm not convinced.
The concept of carrying capacity can't both be "a bunch of neo-Malthusian speculation" and a limit of 20 billion people. Pick one. E. O. Wilson is not considered by many to be a neo-Malthusian: "The key problem facing humanity in the coming century is how to bring a better quality of life -- for 8 billion or more people -- without wrecking the environment entirely in the attempt."
Of course, the polar opposite of a neo-malthusian is the hate monger Ann Coulter: "We believe in populating the earth until there's standing room only, and then colonizing Mars."
I realize you just pulled 20 billion out of the air, but until resource extraction and replenishment reach equilibrium, we won't know what number of people can sustainably live on this planet. Certainly, the more people there are the harder it will be to accomplish.
But lets remember--most of the environmental problems the world faces are not about scarcity of resources, they are about distribution of resource goods...
That argument, like the Malthusian one, is getting a little dog-eared. It has a problem called human nature. Clean water can't be economically distributed from Lake Michigan, or from the ice moons of Jupiter for that matter, to Ethiopia. Water resources have to be located inside or near the boundaries that need them. Distribution of water resources, like all resources, have to be economically feasible.
It is not human nature to ship for free or at a loss food grown in our back yard to the far side of the planet where it is needed. This is a fact of life, a constraint that has to be part of the solution set. You want to see evidence of that? Let's both write down how much of our paychecks are going to feed the 800 million slowly starving people on this planet. Poverty reduction is needed so they can grow and trade food. Poverty reduction is enhanced with lower fertility rates and vice versa, in a mutually enhancing circle.
And you know, it's not the huge numbers of uneducated indigenous people who cutting down the Amazon because there are so many of them that they just need that much wood--it's migrant opportunists driven by Cargill, who clear cuts the forest to feed developing nations' appetites for soy.
The people cutting down the Amazon and plowing up the Cerrado are citizens of Brazil using foreign investment to create a product to trade to others. They are doing it in an effort to reduce their poverty. The demand for soy is a result of three main things: A growing human population, poverty reduction all around the world, including the developing nations of China and India, and now biofuels. I would call these people converting ecosystems into farmland, farmers, not transient opportunists.
The treatment of indigenous people at the hands of Brazil's citizenry is an age-old concern and how our forefathers pushed aside the indigenous people where our homes are now located. These citizens of Brazil attempting to take the land from other citizens of Brazil are a genetic mix of Portuguese and Native American genes resulting from the earlier clash of cultures that reduced the original population from several million to a few hundred thousand. The indigenous people being pushed aside had pushed aside someone else and so it has been for all of human history. I for one wish success to the indigenous landowners in their efforts to fight off the power brokers.
It was drilled into my head for years that overpopulation was the major problem of the world. So I still think it is nice that women get educated, get empowered, and then have fewer babies. But in terms of overpopulation being the major problem of the world--now that I'm older and have more tools to think critically about it, I am not persuaded that this is the case.
Back to Dave's main point. It is counter productive arguing that population is or is not "the" major problem in the world. It clearly is "a" major problem, among many exacerbating things like war, poverty, hunger and biodiversity loss. The two most effective means of dealing with it in any case are the combination of women empowerment and poverty reduction, so that is what we should focus on. We must also focus on preserving what remains of our biodiversity and on ways to meet the needs of three billion more people and those striving to escape poverty. It would be easier to do that if a contraceptive technology existed that could allow women to dodge the 50 percent unplanned pregnancy rate that is sending us to 9 billion instead of 7.5 or 8.
The following is an excerpt from the Scinece article:
MDG 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. It will be almost impossible to reach the target of halving the number of people living on less than $1 a day by 2015 without a large-scale recommitment to family planning. In sub-Saharan Africa, partly as a result of rapid population growth, the number of people living in extreme poverty rose from 231 million in 1990 to 318 million in 2001. The U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) pointed out that almost 1.5 billion young men and women will enter the 20-to-24-years age cohort between 2000 and 2015, and if they don't find jobs "they will fuel political instability." (5).
MDG 2: Achieve universal primary education. Voluntary limitation of family size is also essential for developing countries striving to meet the MDG of eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2015. Children in large families, especially girls, are less likely to enter school, more likely to drop out, and are sick and hungry more often than children from small families in the same community. In the poorest countries as a whole, two million additional schoolteachers are required each year to keep up with population growth and to maintain the current, inadequate levels of primary education. Uneducated girls marry earlier and tend to have more unintended pregnancies, setting up a pernicious cycle of sexual inequality and high fertility (6).
MDG 3: Promote gender equality and empower women. The ability to choose if and when to have a child is central to the autonomy of women. Sir David King, the Science Adviser to the U.K. government, told the group that with respect to fertility decline, "There is little doubt in my mind that female empowerment to control fertility is a key part of that equation." (7).
MDG 4: Reduce child mortality.Given the same level of health care, a child born less than 18 months after an older sibling has a death rate two to four times that of a baby born after a 36-month interval (8). An estimated one million infant deaths a year could be prevented if all births were spaced a minimum of 2 years apart.
MDG 5: Improve maternal health. The expansion of the health infrastructure to meet the needs of women in childbirth cannot keep up with the growth of the population as long as fertility is high. Family planning saves women's lives by reducing unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions, and it is estimated that improved access to family planning could prevent 150,000 maternal deaths each year (9). The proportion of potentially fertile women who want no more children or wish to postpone the next birth for at least 2 years, but are not using contraception, exceeds 20% in 24 sub-Saharan nations and 30% in nine of these countries (10).
MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. Family planning, by preventing unintended pregnancies in the first place, is the most cost-effective way of reducing mother-to-child transmission of AIDS. In 1 year, even the low use of contraception in sub-Saharan Africa prevents over twice as many cases of maternal-to-child transmission of HIV than the cumulative total of cases prevented by antiretroviral therapies (170,000 cases versus 65,100) (11). Condoms are now the most popular method of contraception among sexually active single women in Africa and Latin America (2). However, the difference between the number of condoms needed in Africa and the supply is roughly 1.9 billion a year (12).
MDG 7: Ensure environmental sustainability. The roots of environmental degradation are found in consumption patterns among the world's economic powerhouses and rising demands of growing local populations. For example, burgeoning demand for goods in North America, Europe, and China leads to deforestation in Brazil and Africa, but so do the needs of subsistence farmers to feed their large families. In oral evidence, Sir David King noted that, "the massive growth in the human population through the 20th century has had more impact on biodiversity than any other single factor."
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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caniscandida Posted 9:44 am
15 Apr 2007
you know that I generally admire you for your interesting contributions to Gristmill. But on the issue between you and Pandu, Pandu makes much more sense.
To be sure, I do not know what to make of the learned commentary that Pandu laid on us. It is certainly interesting, but also foreign, and difficult to understand. It comes across, to most of us in the US, I guess, as misogynistic, patriarchal and patronizing; and one wonders, if Pandu at all suspected that, why he should be surprised by such responses as your own and that of DR.
Nevertheless, your response to him does indeed come across as challenging, aggressive and prejudiced. You seem angry about a number of things: that Pandu is a religionist; that he considers a teaching from a religious authority to be relevant to the discussion of this thread; that he has certain ideas about women and authority that you find objectionable. And that is fine, you have every right to feel that way. But then, are you not being disingenuous when you claim to be a man of peace, asking only for information, with a completely open mind?
As for your concluding lesson about "lessons," I wonder why you suspect that "we will never know" their origin. Why do you feel that human wisdom is doomed to such limitations for all eternity?
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Stephanie Ogburn Posted 9:49 am
15 Apr 2007
I agree with you in a lot of ways. Especially when you write this:
Germany and England appear to be in a state of resource and environmental equilibrium only because they are drawing many of their resources (meat, grain, wood, whatever) from places like the ocean, Amazonian soy fields, and Indonesia (in an unsustainable manner). If you did an experiment and closed their borders to all free trade and immigration, what do you suppose would happen?
And this is precisely why I feel such a strong focus on population is misguided. When you mention the sixth extinction event and global warming, I don't draw the connection that you (and others) seem to draw between those happenings and overpopulation. If I were to draw a simplistic connection (which I am somewhat loathe to do) I would draw it between U.S./developed world consumption which creates resource scarcity in developing nations, leading to the possible existence of what you and others might call overpopulation in some of these countries.
But I do not think the root cause of this is overpopulation. If overpopulation is a scarcity of resources for a group of people per given land area, it would seem as if this "overpopulation" is created by developed world extraction patterns, not simply by people having too many babies. (although that construction, too, is overly simplistic) Of course, now that the problem's been created, it seems to make sense to help women with contraceptives that work, and education that empowers them.
Of course "war, poverty, hunger, and biodiversity loss" are major problems. I am interested in thinking and learning about what causes these problems, and "overpopulation" almost never seems to be the cause. I think what I am arguing against is the decontextualization of overpopulation. If a place becomes overpopulated, or resource scarce for the number of people who live there, is that because the women just started having babies like crazy since they are uneducated? If so, have they always been having babies like crazy and have they now reached a tipping point? Or have their livelihoods and base of resources changed so significantly that it now appears that they are overpopulated?
I find the tipping point explanation generally less persuasive than the latter one, which can often be connected in some way to extraction or some form of colonialism. I guess I feel like overpopulation is too simplistic of an explanation, and that it doesn't merit a necessary listing as one of the top problems because focusing simply on overpopulation makes it far too easy to ignore the developed world's role in all of this, just like the Millenium Development Goals you listed do. It is notable that only in MDG 7 are we mentioned, and then only in one sentence. It's so easy to focus on poor, overpopulated Africa and Asia. Let's fix them! I feel that first we need to work on ourselves. Which is not to stay international development must cease--it is happening, and it can do good--but it seems a bit of a cop-out to talk about overpopulation without thinking about why a place might become resource scarce for its population burden and how the developed world social structure. I think that stronger connections need to be made between the developed and the developing world. Too often there is a simplistic divide, and the connections are hidden. These connections need to be made more transparent, and focusing so strongly on developing world overpopulation obscures the connections.
Stephanie
http://www.stephaniepaigeogburn.com
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wiscidea Posted 3:10 pm
15 Apr 2007
I do not agree with everything you say, but I do respect your opinion. Please elaborate on how my questions were "aggressive, highly prejudiced, and personally offensive" prior to Pandu's suggestion that they were. I think this is an important issue as it establishes what is and what is not an acceptable topic for discussion. Furthmore, I'm apparently unable to recognize when I've crossed whatever invisible boundary exists.
Can you really hold it against me that I asked for additonal infomation when someone SUGGESTS that the availablity of contraceptives leads to increased population growth?
And if someone SUGGESTS that women are as likely to be led astray as children and, therefore, should be protected by elders, why can't I ask quesions regarding how this is accomplished?
If we can't ask such questions because it might offend someone's religious leanings, than there are very few questions we CAN ask... anywhere, anytime.
Finally, if Pandu is offended by my questions and comment, then I might be equally offended by Pandu's question and what it implies. Pandu wrote...
"Do you think womanhood is honored more when women work in offices and factories, compared to giving birth and raising children?"
I find this "aggressive" because it puts me in a position where I must defend people I do not even know, but who are not able to speak for themselves. I find this "prejudiced" because women who choose to work in offices and factories deserve as much respect for their contributions to society as those who choose to work at home. Some must work in offices and factories because it is necessary for caring for their children. Pandu is assuming that they do not have children and esentially saying they are not honoring womanhood as much as someone who chooses to work in the home. He does not know them and is not in a position to not judge whether they "honor womanhood". I find his remark "offensive" because there are women who cannot have children or choose to be celibate. I also find it "offensive" because it implies that it is wrong for a man to work at home, raising children, while his wife works outside the home. Why does a couple choosing to do this deserve less respect? Finally, I find it "offensive" because both of my parents had to work to care for their family, my brother and their wives work outside the home (and have raised very responsible and caring children), both I and my wife must work, and I have a very good friend who is caring for his two daughters while his wife completes medical training. He is a very good father and she is a very good mother, but, by Pandu's standard, they are not "honoring womanhood". Yet, they are very nice people and contributing much to a healthy and stable society.
I'm not at all angry while typing any of this. And Pandu can do whatever he wishes in his personal life. But I assume, here at the Grist website, we are discussing national and global issues and what sorts of national and global policies might help preserve our natural environment. And I'm just questioning Pandu's suggestion that a healthy society depends on women remaining at home and that we "honor womanhood" only when women have children and remain at home to raise them... and that contraceptives undermine society. He should not post such comments in a public forum if he is offended when people ask for details.
Forward!
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spaceshaper Posted 11:27 pm
15 Apr 2007
Such an "experiment" pretty much did happen in England during WWII. Pre-1939 a huge proportion of Britain's foodstuffs were imported, traded for equally substantial exports in manufactured goods. German U-Boat blockades essentially closed this highly developed trading pattern. Motor fuel, clothing, and most conspicuously food were all severely rationed for the duration of the war and for some time after. The effects of food rationing interestingly included a number of noticeable public health improvements, especially of school-age children who at the end of the ration period averaged more than an inch taller than before the war. It also resulted in the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, which severely restricted opportunities for developing existing and potential farmland, concentrating development in relatively high-density cities, towns and villages. This legislation, conceived as a strategic necessity to conserve farmland for food self-sufficiency in time of war, remains probably the most important piece of environmental regulation ever enacted in Britain. This Act and its successors still inform development control law throughout the country and is undoubtedly the reason why there is still so much open land and productive agricultural activity in this very densely populated island nation.
Undoubtedly this is a problematic precedent in the US, where any such initiative in our present context of self-indulgence and denial would undoubtedly fall prey to vociferous accusations of unlawful takings. It could however be a useful study for the future when the times are likely to be less forgiving of human foolishness.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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Pandu Posted 1:44 am
16 Apr 2007
I haven't read anything here since Friday, so I can't comment on the new stuff. I have been thinking about this over the weekend, though. I did take a look Friday evening, but as soon I saw the way the discussion was still going, I decided not to waste more of my time arguing.
In the matter of my revealing some personal details that I consider relevant, I still think that was appropriate. It's easy to sometimes forget when talking about population, that it's not simply numbers. They are people, real people, as in human beings essentially like ourselves, every one of them. And for that reason, I think it's entirely appropriate for some human stories to be included in the discussion. If someone thinks that telling some of my story is to sacrifice my dignity, well, I think it's a small price considering the subject matter and how many lifes are at stake.
I did use one explicit word, and people here have called attention to it many times. Ironically, it refers to precisely the act that is central to this population discussion, although I didn't use it in that context. I know I probably should not have used the word in anger, but I was quite upset at the belittling of my life experience. Most people do not make decisions based on statistics, but on their own lives. I don't expect that to change soon.
I frequent this messaging space because of my commitment to an environmental ethic, but I feel that I have an unusual perspective, which is that one eye sees the world through a Western scientific construct, and the other sees it through an Eastern spiritual one. They're virtual opposites, but part of the same world. The spiritual side simply does not accept the same limitations as the scientific one. It sees the Personality of Godhead as the controller of everything and portrays the world like a long dream with matter made out of consciousness itself. It calls for a different way of interacting with the world.
I don't expect public policy to be made according to my views, but most people have some sort of a belief in God, and this has a huge impact on policy. I can understand how irrational the religious people must seem to the atheistic class. We occasionally hear of right-wing terrorists bombing abortion clinics, and obviously that doesn't help. But I see us as supposedly working for the same goal - learn to use the Earth's resources more efficiently for a better future. I think it's a shame that some people want the discussion limited limited to one-sided political solutions.
The main point I wanted to make is simply that the use of contraceptives can increase the number of unwanted pregnancies. People use contraceptives thinking they can have sex without pregnancy, but it often fails (or rather, pregnancy succeeds according to nature). Virtually every pregnancy that results from contraceptive failure begins as an unwanted one. As they say, it's not nice to fool with Mother Nature. It may also be unwise.
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wiscidea Posted 3:12 am
16 Apr 2007
I don't think the solution is to give up on getting contraceptives to where the might be needed. The solution is to ensure that people receive adequate information about how to use and that they are stored properly until they are used. This requires a bit more effort on the part of government and non-government agencies to understand local climate... meaning the culture AND the weather. Furthermore, the material and information should be delivered by local representatives. I would have assumed that this is already being done. Apparently not.
Unfortunately, the religious right is inclined to interfere with the study of different cultures as well as education attempts. I recall reading about a study of sexual activity at truck stops and the culture surrounding prostitution. The religious right cosidered it an awful waste of money. But anthopologist were able to look at human behavior and come up with more-effective means of stopping the transmission of HIV and other STDs.
In my opinion, we need more information rather than limiting access. Human diginity demands that individuals have the information and power to make their own decisions.
Forward!
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David Roberts Posted 3:26 am
16 Apr 2007
In contrast, studies overwhelmingly find that contraceptives and family planning reduce unwanted births, and in contrast, that abstinence education (religious or otherwise) does nothing at all to reduce such births.
It's fine if you share your personal experiences. I like having a forum where people can do that. What people object to is you substituting your personal experiences for mountains of empirical data.
And I'm afraid that anybody who claims women need to be controlled and protected by men, based on their "essential natures," is going to get told to kiss my ass, no matter how seriously the proposition was offered, no matter what role the speaker may play in anyone's religious tradition. That kind of thinking is toxic and stupid, and it's produced more suffering than just about any other prejudice in history.
www.grist.org
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MarkUK Posted 4:11 am
16 Apr 2007
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Pandu Posted 5:24 am
16 Apr 2007
I wasn't blaming, simply stating a fact. I believe it's healthy to have one's views shift in response to different experiences, and I welcome experiences like that. I mentioned it as a courtesy, since I thought your tactic would have the opposite of its intended effect, and I know it's difficult to see oneself doing it.
I suppose you would agree with the Taliban position that women should not wear heels because the sound of the heels clicking on pavement drives men to lustful behavior!
That's precisely what I was talking about. Heels clicking on pavement? High heels are about the most un-sexy thing I can think of; but if I was worried about getting aroused like that, I would go live in a hermitage.
Someone has proposed -- though apparently not endorsed -- that women have too much freedom, that birth control leads to even greater population growth, especially in developing countries.
I do not know why my position is still being portrayed as something that it has never been. I have not said that contraception leads to greater population growth. I said that can lead to more unwanted pregnancies. Am I the only one who can see these as two different concepts?
It is my opinion that person of moral strength and sincere faith -- or, for those who put more emphasis on reason, confident that they have a handle on reality -- does not fear exposure to opposing views.
Coming back to this for a moment... This statement makes it obvious how little you understand me. In my own religion, I'm somewhat infamous for identifying the difficult questions and asking them. I was nearly banned from my own temple for asking why a popular guru was glorifying an unrepentant child molester. They say there is something that would undermine my faith, I go right for it, in order to find out if I've put my faith in the right place. In this way I've gone back and forth between favoring science or religion many times.
Here's something from Biodiversivist:
The odds of dual contraceptive failure (pill and condom) is about 11,000 to 1, by my estimates, depending on assumptions of course.
I think the assumption there would be `ideal conditions.' Without getting into the nitty-gritty, condoms can easily break. Regarding the pill, my then-girlfriend did not turn out to be responsible enough to take them as prescribed. Knowing that abortion was an option made it easier to take risks. We did not know the extent of the emotional impact.
Caniscandida,
I'm not at all surprised that there's little support for what I've said here. The Gristmill group is not a microcosm of the world, and I think that people may be getting upset in part because some variation of the view I presented is held by a great many people in the world. I don't believe that most people here understand it, but I think understanding each other would help.
Sometimes I'm surprised to find your support in this forum, considering how difficult it is for others to even understand what I'm saying. It's only fair that I say in return that your writing has definitely helped broaden my thinking, and I always look forward to reading your comments.
Now back to Wiscidea:
And if someone SUGGESTS that women are as likely to be led astray as children and, therefore, should be protected by elders, why can't I ask quesions regarding how this is accomplished?
The simple answer is don't normally think of women as childish, and in general I haven't thought much about it. Obviously that's not a subject that can be explored here! I find it odd, however, that women's empowerment, in addition to promoting extramarital sex, has become almost synonymous with giving a woman the legal right to kill a growing fetus in her womb as if it were some kind of parasite that took residence there for no reason. Every one of us was a parasite like that.
David,
After seeing you repeatedly blaspheme my spiritual master, it is going to be difficult to give any value to whatever else you might have to say. I'm sorry I joined in this discussion, and I will definitely reconsider next time I'm inclined to contribute to another.
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Tom Philpott Posted 5:56 am
16 Apr 2007
Given the woeful level of discourse inspired by his retrograde sexist ramblings, all I can say is: I hope Pandu's pledge proves more effective than his birth-control efforts.
Victual Reality
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Nucbuddy Posted 7:04 am
16 Apr 2007
Abstinence is murder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGQb3iVhYJI
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JohnF Posted 5:48 pm
16 Apr 2007
First David, you say you never bother to talk about population. Your justification is that:
talking about population as such alienates a large swathe of the general public. It carries vague connotations of totalitarianism and misanthropy and eugenics. It has been used quite effectively to slander and marginalize the environmental movement. It is political poison.
Well, in this post you did talk about it, and you weren't tarred and feathered and you didn't set back the environmental cause.
I disagree anyway that it's such "political poison." The UN talks about it as do environmentalists such as Lester Brown and well known organizations such as Population Action International. They all do good work, have not hurt the environmental movement, and could use some help.
Just as important, I suspect you'd agree that those "vague connotations of totalitarianism and misanthropy and eugenics" are today all serious misconceptions, as I think biodiversivist touched on above. Rather than avoid the topic, wouldn't a better approach be to inform, clarify, and educate, so that people can see the population issue for what it is, see how it interacts with women's issues and economic factors, and see that we can deal with it with humane measures which are in fact the opposite of anything misanthropic? Shedding light rather than covering up seems the better route. That's the route I take on my own blog, and so far it seems to have been productive and generally well received.
I've written several posts which touch on this. One is here, another here.
For those who question the population-environment link, I might suggest this post for starters.
Also for those folks, and concerning the question of population versus consumption levels in the North versus the South, there is actually a simple equation, first published by John Holdren (last year's president of the AAAS), which sheds light. Total consumption (global or for an area) equals population size times per capita consumption. If you think about this you find that we simply can't ignore either factor in the equation in either part of the world.
Finally, David, I would add another small quote from the recent Science article biodiversivist mentioned:
The loss of attention to population has created formidable problems for the future. Some countries are undergoing explosive and possibly unsustainable population growth: Niger with 15 million today could hit 80 million in 2050, and Afghanistan could grow from 30 million to 82 million...
The authors are hinting at the harm that has come in recent decades from people avoiding the population topic. We need not continue that trend.
If Science and the people and organizations I mentioned above can talk openly about population, David, you can too, man! The great thing is that, just as you said, addressing women's issues and economic issues (which I would submit entails some serious economic restructuring, but that's the other 50% of what I write about :) ) has beneficial effects on population as well. But we lose effectiveness if we take everyone's eyes off all the interrelated goals.
http://growthmadness.org/
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Pandu Posted 12:26 am
17 Apr 2007
The data begins in 1960 and ends in 2006. They show a 15.6% increase in the number of children, and an 11.1% REDUCTION in the number of children living with two parents. (Am I required to find numbers to show that single parent families are less stable than two parent families?) In this time, of the children living with one parent the percentage of children in mother-only housholds fluctuated between 83 and 93%.
Considering these data along with the obvious so-called 'empowerment' of women during the time period, one has to wonder if women do not care as much about their children as previously thought, since the percentage of women not living with her children has more than doubled between 1960 (4.3%) to 2006 (9.9%). Or, one can look at the rise the percentage of children living in mother-only households (nearly tripled from 8.0% in 1960 to 23.4% in 2006) and see that in these cases a mother's job has become much more difficult. She may be the sole means of income for the family, and she will have to do all the parenting. Perhaps she remarries (someone she met at the office?), making her children adjust to a foreign father figure. Perhaps the most amazing number is the increase in the percentage of children living only with a mother who was never married. That percentage actually rose from 4.33% in 1960 to 43.37 percent in 2006. I wonder how many of those children were planned, or were the result of contraceptive failure.
Regardless, these data point to a reduction in family stability. "Traditionally, many researchers defined family stability in terms of factors related to family structure (for example, single parenthood)." (http://www.futureofchildren.org/information2827/informati ...) The emergence of different kinds of patchwork families has given rise to the need for evaluations of the specific qualities that make a family stable, but it is hard to substitute for nature's arrangament. When the family is less stable, more attention has to be focused on the hard struggle for existence, with less remaining for investing in quality of life. Thus it can be said that the so-called 'empowerment' of women leads to more women separated from their children (or more precisely more children separated from their mothers) and more women raising children without the children's fathers. Both of these are difficult situations that have been fueled by so-called women's empowerment.
When introducing so-called 'progressive' contraception policies to economically less developed countries, one should anticipate cultural resistance (widespread belief in gender roles such as have been vociferously rejected in many of the above comments) and significant disruption of the traditional family structure.
One might also consider the ethics and wisdom of meddling with foreign cultures and especially their sexuality, reproduction, family values, and family structure. It may well turn out as successful as bringing democracy to Iraq.
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Biodiversivist Posted 1:59 am
17 Apr 2007
Such an "experiment" pretty much did happen in England during WWII ...The effects of food rationing interestingly included a number of noticeable public health improvements, especially of school-age children who at the end of the ration period averaged more than an inch taller than before the war.
Blockades have been used all through history to prevent trade to starve enemies. The British blockade of Germany in WW I was more successful than the German one of Britain in WW II.
Which of the following do you suppose accounted for the average improvement in health?
The urban poor had better access to protein and vitamins because everyone got the same rations.
The average Britain lost weight.
Spam (part of the ten million tons of food imported from the United States as part of the Lend Lease act to make up for food shortfalls).
Britain imported 55 million tons of food per year before the war.
http://www.iwm.org.uk/upload/img_400/rations.jpg
One week's ration
No doubt that draconian food rationing beats starvation, but it was something the citizens of Britain endured not enjoyed. In addition to everything else they had to do, they were also required to tend a garden, as is now done in Cuba. The closed border threw them into a general state of poverty, not unlike that seen today in Cuba and North Korea. They always had a black market and began trading again as soon as they could afford to do so, much to the relief of the general citizenry. Today they import about 40% of their food. It was a short-term act of desperation and luckily they did not have a major crop failure in that window. The best strategy to avoid occasional famine is to have diverse and distant trading partners who can take up the slack when food crops fail from weather, pestilence, or whatever reason, or so claims Jared Diamond in Collapse.
The Irish potato famine was an example of a lack of food and trading diversification.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Mmimika Posted 2:14 am
17 Apr 2007
Census data is great for many things - but not this. 1. you're going to have to do a lot more math to show causal relationships between the trends you see. Let me save you the trouble: they aren't there. 2. Even if they were, it wouldn't help your case, because the US is not third world country. US demographic trends are governed by very different forces than those in India or Afghanistan or my beloved Samoa.
Bigger and badder statisticians than you have journeyed into the data over the last few decades and wondered about the relationship between population, womens empowerment, family stability, contraception and all of that. The results are in, and womens empowerment - within the framework of existing traditions and combined with economic development - results in a reduction of poverty and in stabilized population numbers.
Re: Being Hare Krishna
You have every right to be proud of the spiritual solutions that you've found in your own life. I don't know why you would seek affirmation here though - this isn't a U.U. church, its a political blog.
Re: Cultural imperialism
No one here likes cultural imperialism masked as feminism. Thats not women's empowerment, and its not what we're talking about here. Women's empowerment means giving women the education and funds and tools to make their own choices about their families lives. It doesn't mean judging their culture as sexist, and then forcing them to abandon their customs or religious beliefs. That would be women's dis-empowerment.
Conclusion:
Women's empowerment has not caused population growth. Not by encouraging people to have more sex, not because of millions of broken condoms, or reams of lying women who are not really on the pill, not by destabilizing family and creating rafts of single mothers and welfare scamming baby machines. If you don't like women's empowerment, fine! Scream it from the rooftops, be loud and proud. But don't hide behind fake facts, its undignified in a man.
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Mmimika Posted 2:41 am
17 Apr 2007
"the best strategy to avoid occasional famine is to have diverse and distant trading partners who can take up the slack when food crops fail from weather, pestilence, or whatever reason, or so claims Jared Diamond in Collapse."
People in the midst of crop failure are deathly poor and can't buy food from their trading partners. that point, you've got a political problem, (E.P. Thompson, the Moral Economy) - and you're at the mercy of your overlords and whether or not they give a damn if you live or die. So, crop failures which occurred in England and did not result in famine, (because the rabble successfully secured rationing and price controls) but similar crop failures which occurred in India and Ireland, did result in famine, either because the people didn't have the political traditions of resistance in time of famine, OR because the English didn't care whether folks lived or died.
Never read Diamond's collapse, famine knowledge comes from developmental econ and economic history.
Based on that, and IMHO, part of why famine happens today is because of the way US Aid is managed - as a bilateral tool to achieve policy ends. US Aid floods third world food markets with cheap or free grain, which of course kills local production which can't compete. The country decides that the US, their trading partner, is their backup in case of famine. Then, the US decides that for political reasons that that food is needed elsewhere, for example in the Great Russian Grain Robbery of 1972. All of a sudden, the supply of grain disappears.
Famine creation famine number 2 - US agricultural methods, involving high yield, but high risk methods (monocrops which demand expensive fertilizers, pesticides, and mechanical inputs) replace traditional methods, which are lower yield and lower risk (more famine-proof because they are bio-diverse mixed plantings, suited to the climate and soil, and don't create a haven for pests.) This, combined with - OK, undiversified trading partners, I'll give you that - but thats really shorthand for talking about US AID which creates that situation - and a lack of local emergency grain stores - creates the backdrop for famine to occur.
The best way to avoid famine is to be self sustaining, agriculturally. Use low-yield, low-risk methods. Maintain local silos in case of famine - don't rely on the US needing to do your country a political favor in the exact year you have a famine. And, when all else fails, make sure that the overlords give a damn whether you live or die. Not willing to claim I know for sure how to achieve the last.
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Biodiversivist Posted 7:17 am
17 Apr 2007
That is why poverty has to be minimized. People with money can always buy or trade for food when local crops fail. A low soy crop yield in the US is hardly noticed. You cannot have famine unless you also have poverty. Many diverse trading partners is an indicator of low poverty, and as in a stock market, a diverse portfolio is a low risk one.
"The best way to avoid famine is to be self sustaining, agriculturally. Use low-yield, low-risk methods. Maintain local silos in case of famine"
Most cultures through history were organized just that way and many collapsed as a result when population outgrew resources in their alloted boundary (seperated by a no man's land from another culture like ant nest), triggered by draught or pestilence. On the other hand, all cultures collapse in the end.
Why not use silos located somewhere else, like the United States for storage?
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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wiscidea Posted 7:51 am
17 Apr 2007
I think reliance on "silos located somewhere else" is a problem because if those silos happen to be in a country like the United States, the food could be used to pressure developing countries into helping us achieve not so laudable goals. For example, food aide might be withheld from nations that do not fully help us -- as in embracing torture, violating civil rights, getting rid of environment- and labor-protection laws, and whatever else the neocons can dream up -- fight the "war against terror", from nations that do not open their markets to certain U.S. interests, from nations that do not provide assistance in the "war against drugs", from nations that have laws permitting abortion, from nations that sell oil to anyone who opposes our will, et cetera.
If I were a developing nation that wanted maximum independence, political freedom, economic freedom, and a democracy respecting the desires and goals of local people, the last thing I would do is put myself in a position where I might have to rely on the United States for food or medical aide, even if I could afford to buy the food when needed. Any nation putting itself in that position for any resource -- say, OIL -- is not just foolish, but reckless.
Forward!
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Mmimika Posted 12:51 pm
17 Apr 2007
re: Poverty
Yes, famines don't just happen all of a sudden. They are the final crisis at the end of years of sliding through poverty into malnutrition into mass starvation. Poverty and Famine are the same, just a difference in scale, and my argument for avoiding famine is basically just the start of a long argument about how to rise out of poverty.
re: population's outgrowing their resources in their alloted boundary... well, we can avoid that by empowering women! I am guessing that is Diamond's argument, it sounds super-meta. In fact I have always found him so meta that the only policy solutions to any of the patterns he points out, in my mind, are spiritual. In my imagination, the issues he notices require the complete enlightenment of all of mankind to solve, at which point we'd be some kind of... perfect, wise, society, that transcends our animal nature and doesn't do dumb stuff anymore.
Darn, I missed ANOTHER bus writing this post. argh!
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:58 pm
17 Apr 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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wiscidea Posted 11:48 pm
17 Apr 2007
I don't have the book in front of me, but if I recall correctly, Jared Diamond lays out the problems pretty clearly. In particular, I recall his themes of "creeping normalcy" and "the wealthy believing they are immune to harm". His final chapter outlined several explanation for why a society just doesn't see the writing on the wall... or doesn't want to see it... or why individuals assume they will no be effected.
This is at least a start to solving the problem, recognizing the symptoms of impending collapse and recognizing that other societies have failed to cope with it. Furthermore, in the past there have always been greener pastures to escape to or at least other civilizations to carry on when another kills itself. Jared Diamond points out that THIS time there is no other place to go to, no virigin land to exploit or take away from someone else.
I assume that Jared Diamond continues to work on this issue. But the take-home message from Collapse, as far as I've thought abou it, is... Jared Diamond is telling us what's wrong and how others failed cope. WE clearly know what is wrong. WE clearly know that others have failed to cope -- there are actual records. And WE have know excuse for not facing the problem head on. It is now up to think about what Jared Diamond has presented and ACT on it.
It would be really great if there was a blog -- or a special section on the Grist website, since collapse of human civilization is somewhat connected to environmental issues -- where Jared Diamond's Collapse, each case he discusses, and each reason for failure to cope he presents could be discussed by informed people like those visiting and posting comments on the gGrist website.
Forward!
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wiscidea Posted 11:51 pm
17 Apr 2007
Forward!
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JohnF Posted 2:07 am
21 Apr 2007
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jdk Posted 11:05 am
19 Nov 2007
It is not enough to say that in poor countries, once living standards rise, women are empowered and kids are educated, there will be a concomitant decline in birth rates. In some countries, the birth rates run so high and the resources are so thinly spread that the people can't begin to climb out of poverty.
It is also of the essence for rich countries to acknowledge as a matter of environmental justice that they consume, and their progeny will continue to consume, at much higher rates than, and with detrimental effects on, the rest of the people on the planet.
Sustainability, as well as fairness and justice, lie in the balance.
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Amfora Posted 3:54 am
11 Mar 2008
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