Freckles & Doubt (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
freckles_and_doubt) wrote2009-02-15 10:57 am
freckles_and_doubt) wrote2009-02-15 10:57 am
Entry tags:
putting the secret of life in your pants and sitting down on it
This damned insomnia is causing me to lie awake for hours, doing that small-hours-of-the-morning thing where one's thoughts fall into a groove and circle endlessly, fretting. Last night: my eternal pre-occupation, overpopulation.
This has been sparked by two internet currents recently, the Obama administration's possibly politic but worrying backpedal on family planning in the stimulus package, and the bloody Duggar family, who have just produced their 18th child to the general approbation of their peers, viz. low-income, uneducated fundamentalists and fans of reality TV.
Both the Republicans who blocked the family planning and the Duggans themselves demonstrate the inherent problem in the overpopulation scenario, which is that having children is an emotional and religious hot button which, when jumped up and down on repeatedly as these idiots tend to do, overrides all actual common sense. As a purportedly thinking species we are incredibly mixed-up and disfunctional in our attitudes to sex: between the post-Freudian pleasure principle and the inner Victorian Judaeo-Christian prude, rational sexual function doesn't stand a chance. In the moral and social morass which results, logical consequence goes out of the window. Dear gods, can't these people do basic arithmetic? The world is a finite resource, its capacity even further reduced by humanity's joyous stuffing up of its climate with carbon emissions and other crud. Do the Duggans think that an America in which every family has 18 children is ultimately going to leave anyone anywhere to stand, let alone anything to eat or breathe? Or are they, like the dimwitted fundamentalist Republicans, content to cling to impractical Quiverful codes in the expectation that the Lord will provide? Because I have to say, He's doing a pretty shoddy job to date.
The population control issue brings out my inner jackbooted fascist because I honestly can't see any way in which we're going to reduce our teeming human numbers to anything like rational proportions without the intervention of either dictatorship or apocalypse, and while the apocalypse currently seems more likely I'm not vindictive enough actually to prefer it. The human impulse to breed has become an inalienable right when it really can't afford to be. If the bulk of humanity lacks the basic common sense, education, self-restraint or maturity to limit its own reproduction to suit its environment, then the minority who possesses those qualities has to damned well impose them on the rest in sheer self-defense.
I do believe in democracy, honestly I do, but the 2 a.m. wall against which I continually beat my head is the fact that right now democracy is a luxury for which we do not have the time. China can impose a one-child system successfully because they're a socialist dictatorship, but the outcry if almost any other country were to try it would be intense: our political systems across the world are too fundamentally broken to allow it. In a weird sort of way the current economic crisis is actually hopeful, because it's causing everyone to have to rethink their previous uncritical allegiance to the constant, unchecked growth on which capitalism is predicated. In an ideal world a sea-change in global consciousness would be the ideal way to adapt our population sensibly to our resources, but this is a pipe-dream: it's never going to happen in a short enough time-frame to prevent the consequences of population explosion over the last century. Basically, we're screwed.
As I keep saying, this sort of thing wouldn't happen if we were all orang-utans, who have that sensible tendency for their females to produce only one offspring every six or seven years. It worked quite fine for them until they came into conflict with our ridiculously overproductive species, who nicked all the resources. It's not much of a consolation to think that we're destroying ourselves as well as the orang-utans in the process.
This has been sparked by two internet currents recently, the Obama administration's possibly politic but worrying backpedal on family planning in the stimulus package, and the bloody Duggar family, who have just produced their 18th child to the general approbation of their peers, viz. low-income, uneducated fundamentalists and fans of reality TV.
Both the Republicans who blocked the family planning and the Duggans themselves demonstrate the inherent problem in the overpopulation scenario, which is that having children is an emotional and religious hot button which, when jumped up and down on repeatedly as these idiots tend to do, overrides all actual common sense. As a purportedly thinking species we are incredibly mixed-up and disfunctional in our attitudes to sex: between the post-Freudian pleasure principle and the inner Victorian Judaeo-Christian prude, rational sexual function doesn't stand a chance. In the moral and social morass which results, logical consequence goes out of the window. Dear gods, can't these people do basic arithmetic? The world is a finite resource, its capacity even further reduced by humanity's joyous stuffing up of its climate with carbon emissions and other crud. Do the Duggans think that an America in which every family has 18 children is ultimately going to leave anyone anywhere to stand, let alone anything to eat or breathe? Or are they, like the dimwitted fundamentalist Republicans, content to cling to impractical Quiverful codes in the expectation that the Lord will provide? Because I have to say, He's doing a pretty shoddy job to date.
The population control issue brings out my inner jackbooted fascist because I honestly can't see any way in which we're going to reduce our teeming human numbers to anything like rational proportions without the intervention of either dictatorship or apocalypse, and while the apocalypse currently seems more likely I'm not vindictive enough actually to prefer it. The human impulse to breed has become an inalienable right when it really can't afford to be. If the bulk of humanity lacks the basic common sense, education, self-restraint or maturity to limit its own reproduction to suit its environment, then the minority who possesses those qualities has to damned well impose them on the rest in sheer self-defense.
I do believe in democracy, honestly I do, but the 2 a.m. wall against which I continually beat my head is the fact that right now democracy is a luxury for which we do not have the time. China can impose a one-child system successfully because they're a socialist dictatorship, but the outcry if almost any other country were to try it would be intense: our political systems across the world are too fundamentally broken to allow it. In a weird sort of way the current economic crisis is actually hopeful, because it's causing everyone to have to rethink their previous uncritical allegiance to the constant, unchecked growth on which capitalism is predicated. In an ideal world a sea-change in global consciousness would be the ideal way to adapt our population sensibly to our resources, but this is a pipe-dream: it's never going to happen in a short enough time-frame to prevent the consequences of population explosion over the last century. Basically, we're screwed.
As I keep saying, this sort of thing wouldn't happen if we were all orang-utans, who have that sensible tendency for their females to produce only one offspring every six or seven years. It worked quite fine for them until they came into conflict with our ridiculously overproductive species, who nicked all the resources. It's not much of a consolation to think that we're destroying ourselves as well as the orang-utans in the process.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2009-02-15 01:35 pm (UTC)(link)scroob
no subject
And sobering thought... assuming your bebeh had two children of her own and the Duggar children each had 4 on average, that's 72 to 2 in a generation. You need babies (plural), lots of babies. Especially babies that know how to use long-range weapons to take out other babies. It'll be like Worms only with babies and cute outfits.
no subject
no subject
Good luck with that then.I don't see humanity getting actual brains in the breeding department for a few hundred years.
If the planet lasts that long.
no subject
So now she has 14 kids--apparently because she had a lonely childhood as a single child and wanted to have a big family.
The Duggans only have their own stupidity (and jesus)...this women was aided and abetted in her stupidity by a licensed medical professional.
Perhaps instead of fertility treatment what she really required was psychological treatment--or a hysterectomy!
no subject
Then I heard that 8 embryos *were actually implanted*!!
8 on purpose!!
The *doctor* should be struck from the rolls!!
I'm still in some shock.
Sheri Tepper must be having a lie down somewhere.
I feel you despondence
(Anonymous) 2009-02-16 05:13 am (UTC)(link)We’ve already exceeded global carrying capacity. We are now in “overshoot”. (Visualize a car sailing smoothly, but quite temporarily, through the air after having been driven off of a cliff.)
Global population is nearing 7 billion. Different theorists using different methods seem to end up agreeing that global carrying capacity is probably about 2 billion. (This assumes some level of social justice and a moderate, low by US standards, standard of living. More is possible if you accept a cattle car / Matrix-esque "life".)
In any case, we will get to that much-lower-than-7-billion number the hard way (wars, famine, disease, and their accompanying losses of environmental quality, freedom, and social justice) OR the less hard way (immediately and drastically reducing our population voluntarily). Yes, all of us, yes, everywhere. There is no scenario anywhere in which population growth is a "good thing" long term.
Yes a drop in population would cause problems, but none of those problems are as big as the problems, suffering, and environmental collapse that is certain to occur if we don’t.
I disagree with any argument that there is some “right to reproduce”. If there is any "right to reproduce" it's in the concept that one has the freedom to nurture a child or children and form some sort of family. Biological reproduction is not necessary to do that and there are many in need of this sort of nurturing.
This is a global issue with local and nation-state consequences. For example, immigration is a consequence of overpopulation, not a cause of it. Likewise, global climate change is not impressed by national boundaries.
No technological / "alternative energy" options have the capacity or can be ramped up fast enough to avoid major global calamity. That isn't to say we shouldn't do them. Aggressively shifting to alternative energy is necessary, just not sufficient.
For more comprehensive analysis of all this I suggest
Bandura etc.
http://growthmadness.org/2008/02/18/impeding-ecological-sustainability-through-selective-moral-disengagement/
Albert Bartlett on the exponential function as it relates to population and oil:
http://c-realm.blogspot.com/2008/12/kmo-interview-with-albert-bartlett.html
Approaching the Limits www.paulchefurka.ca
Bruce Sundquist on environmental impact of overpopulation http://home.alltel.net/bsundquist1/
The Oil Drum Peak Oil Overview - June 2007 (www.theoildrum.com/node/2693)
http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-playing-field/200902/the-five-year-ban-because-a-billion-less-people-is-a-great-place-to-st
http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-playing-field/200902/the-five-year-ban-global-over-population-part-ii
...and of course the classic "Overshoot" by Catton
~Baka Karasu
"Quiverful"
Whereas in many Third World countries one has to have five, or more, children in the hope that one or two will survive long enough to care for their parents in their old age. This is always assuming the parents don't get HIV & die of AIDs, leaving their parents to care for their children.
But since Christian (& virtually any other kind of) morality became the purview of the Fundamentalist (ie: those who don't really think things through, including their beliefs & the impact of their lifestyles), & everyone else chose 'Freedom' (aka 'Rampant Individualism') then, as you say, it looks like only war, disaster or Totalitarian takeover might help. Which is a great shame & greater indictment of population density - most of which is between the ears!
Overpopulation
(Anonymous) 2009-02-17 07:32 pm (UTC)(link)I should introduce myself. I am the author of a book titled "Five Short Blasts: A New Economic Theory Exposes The Fatal Flaw in Globalization and Its Consequences for America." To make a long story short, my theory is that, as population density rises beyond some optimum level, per capita consumption of products begins to decline out of the need to conserve space. People who live in crowded conditions simply don’t have enough space to use and store many products. This declining per capita consumption, in the face of rising productivity (per capita output, which always rises), inevitably yields rising unemployment and poverty.
This theory has huge implications for U.S. policy toward population management. Our policies that encourage high rates of population growth are rooted in the belief of economists that population growth is a good thing, fueling economic growth. Through most of human history, the interests of the common good and business (corporations) were both well-served by continuing population growth. For the common good, we needed more workers to man our factories, producing the goods needed for a high standard of living. This population growth translated into sales volume growth for corporations. Both were happy.
But, once an optimum population density is breached, their interests diverge. It is in the best interest of the common good to stabilize the population, avoiding an erosion of our quality of life through high unemployment and poverty. However, it is still in the interest of corporations to fuel population growth because, even though per capita consumption goes into decline, total consumption still increases. We now find ourselves in the position of having corporations and economists influencing public policy in a direction that is not in the best interest of the common good.
If you’re interested in learning more about this important new economic theory, I invite you to visit either of my web sites at OpenWindowPublishingCo.com or PeteMurphy.wordpress.com where you can read the preface, join in my blog discussion and, of course, purchase the book if you like. (It's also available at Amazon.com.)
Please forgive the somewhat spammish nature of the previous paragraph. I just don't know how else to inject this new perspective into the overpopulation debate without drawing attention to the book that explains the theory.
Pete Murphy
Author, "Five Short Blasts"