Howdy oddjoe

Dec 10, 2009 -- 7:16PM, oddjoe wrote:

 

 

Dec 6, 2009 -- 2:39PM, KindredSai wrote:

I would be like finding a drug that could cure all diseases. 

The population of the world would reach unstainable numbers.

In which case overpopulation would stifle resources and contribute towards war which would then lead to a population decrease. Things have a natural way of balancing out.

Resources are already running short.

Human Beings are a very intelligent species.   It is our intelligence that has made us the top of the food chain and  the foremost predator on the planet much at the expense of other species.  I still claim natural way of balancing out has been death, wether from war or from disease. 

You claim that "Things have a natural way of balancing out."   Perhaps you can explain how?

I don't want things to balance out with humans.  I want humans to be able to have the upper hand over nature.

Human beings do have an upper hand over nature.  I think that they have to some degree abused that "upper hand". 

And you have not explained how "Things have a natural way of balancing out." 

Hello IDBC

Did I say things have a natural way of balancing out, or was it someone else?  The post nesting had gotten off kilter.

With the cancer treatment, the patient might decide that the misery from the treatment might be worse than the suffering from the disease.

If we don't want to have an upper hand over nature, would we be happier with a simple hunter-gather life?  I think that would be pretty regressive.  Being intelligent should remove us as far as possible from a subsistence lifestyle. 

Thanks IDBC

Since the destruction of the planet is happening faster than technology can save it, I think the world needs a really radical change in governance to promote a steep population attrition.   World peace is very unlikely while there is so much economic inequality.  One idea might be to have a global per capita income established based on the total fixed resources.  Then, when someone brings a new human into the world, he/she still has only that original income, then for two people instead of one, and so on through future generations.  The subsequent members of the family line each gets only an equal share of its pie.  A last member of a family line chooses where his/her share will go after its end. 

Hi IDBC

Having the upper hand over nature isn't destructive per say.  If we were to use our intelligence better, we could manage our use of the global biosphere very sustainably.

Though it appears likely that humans will never learn to share enough to eliminate economic inequality, I think it is dogmatic to say we can't become socially advanced enough to do it.

Until reproduction can be removed as an individual's task and transfered to world society as a whole, one way to reduce the population would be to make it financially unattractive to the individual to have reproductive offspring.

Howdy oddjoe

Mar 16, 2010 -- 4:03AM, oddjoe wrote:

Hi IDBC

Having the upper hand over nature isn't destructive per say.  If we were to use our intelligence better, we could manage our use of the global biosphere very sustainably.

If we do use our intellgence better and if we do manage to manage global resources better than I would be a happy world citizen. 

Mar 16, 2010 -- 4:03AM, oddjoe wrote:

Though it appears likely that humans will never learn to share enough to eliminate economic inequality, I think it is dogmatic to say we can't become socially advanced enough to do it.

I agree.  I would not say that we can't, but I would say that it is unlikely.   I cannot imagine how overcoming or eliminating economic inequality could occur without causing more problems than the problem itself.

It certainly sounds like a noble ideal.   

Mar 16, 2010 -- 4:03AM, oddjoe wrote:

Until reproduction can be removed as an individual's task and transfered to world society as a whole, one way to reduce the population would be to make it financially unattractive to the individual to have reproductive offspring.

So what you seem to be advocating is to take the decision of how many children a family may have out of their hands and to transfer the task to a "world society as a whole"  like the UN?

In Communist China there is a law that takes the task of reproduction out of the hands of the husband and wife and transfers that responsibitly to the "national society as a whole". 

Couples are by the law of the "national scociety" restricted to have only one child per couple.  If a couple already has one child and the woman is pregnant she may be FORCED to have an abortion. 

Do you think such a law should be imposed on "the world society as a whole"? 

Have A Thinking Day And May Reason Guide Us