Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 9:37 pm Post subject: New goal for humans--self limitation
The main thrust of Western and now world civilization has been and continues to be to maximize humans and humans' consumption patterns at the expense of pretty much everything else.
More and more scientists and others have been coming to the conclusion that this is not a sustainable approach. But most have not yet come to see how deeply we need to re-think our assumptions and goals.
It seems obvious to me that the main goal of world civilization must immediately be to minimize human impact, and I'm sorry, but that often must mean minimizing much about humans that we previously thought we should maximize, numbers, consumption patterns, exansionist aspirations...
On the one hand, a new ethic of limitation has already started in the area of population. As much as people like to point out how tabu this subject is, the fact of the matter is that pretty much everywhere the assumption up to fifty or sixty years ago was that creating more humans was always and everywhere a good thing. Now very few thinking people anywhere would make this claim.
But we have not yet extended this shift fully enough to population, much less to consumption and other areas.
What would a fully developed ethics of limiting humans and human impact look like?
I don't want to rehash all the montequest stuff, though I do give him much respect for raising these difficult issues.
But we do have to do some hard work--very quickly--of rethinking many of deepest assumption of our culture, and that can't happen without a good deal of discussion and uncomfortable (but always respectful, please) debate and discussion, at the least.
Here are some questions that I honestly don't know the answers to:
What are the best structures for effectively limiting humans? Democracy and capitalism were very effective for developing some countries toward maximizing much of the populus. Is the same combination going to be the most effective to achieve the opposite effect?
Does the endless pursuit of knowledge and spiritual expansion necessarily lead to an expansionist mindset in other areas?
What behaviours and beliefs do most of us have that we are not even aware of how they contribute to expansionist ideologies?
Can an ideology of limitation coincide with anything like what we have come to see as humane ethics?
Even if we manage to limit ourselves in some area, how do we convince or force others to abandon the ultimately suicidal and planeticidal expansionist ideologies?
What habbits of language reflect and reinforce our expansionist tendencies? In writing this, I had to change phrases that first came to me like 'maximize limits,' which set even minimizing language in terms of maximizing. Terms that imply growth have become so intertwined and identified with what is desirable, it is hard to even find language that conveys what is called for.
Add your own questions and ruminations on answers.
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 2:07 am Post subject: Re: New goal for humans--self limitation
Sadly I do not think we will ever be able to achieve a self-limiting society. Firstly, because unless it was global in nature any group/county/society who adopted such would be wiped out and assimulated by their neighbours who don't. Same with consumption, those nations who do consume will eventually attack and push out those who don't. Also, in such a society there will always be those who won't want to comply and then enforcement will be necessary and then you end up with something like the abortion swat teams in China.
It seems that the oldest and most effective way of limiting human population growth was and always will be nature's henchmen: disease, famine and war.
Joined: Dec 03, 2004 Posts: 1190 Location: Seattle, Wa.
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 7:00 pm Post subject: Re: New goal for humans--self limitation
Ayame wrote:
It seems that the oldest and most effective way of limiting human population growth was and always will be nature's henchmen: disease, famine and war.
How quickly we reach for good old mother nature to solve our problems. We of such little faith.
Before we default so quickly to mother nature we should seriously entertain Dohboi's idea here of how humans could culturally evolve to impose limits on their growth and consumption.
It is perhaps the most important question of the 21st Century. _________________ Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
Joined: Dec 03, 2004 Posts: 1190 Location: Seattle, Wa.
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 7:28 pm Post subject: Re: New goal for humans--self limitation
dohboi wrote:
Can an ideology of limitation coincide with anything like what we have come to see as humane ethics?
Before we get into the contentious subject material how about something as innocuous as good old frugality which is a cultural trait that we see deeply embeded in the ethics of cultures. Don't we all remember our grandparents, who lived during times of the depression, telling to us to not leave the table until we emptied our plates. Native Americans who wasted no parts of the Buffalo they killed.
Abundant energy has resulted that we have abandoned the ethics and morals around frugality.
In fact, our dear mother nature, who so many of us want to so quickly default to, is the ultimate practitioner of frugality. Ecosystems waste nothing and constantly recycle.
So if your looking for some of the commandments of a sustainable human society that limits its growth and consumption then frugality would be one of them.
If for example through economics and culture we can control the flow of energy so that its cost and value would be cherished this would create the basis to treat energy the way the Buffalo were once utilized.
This may seem far fetched at the moment but let's think about all those consumers who are in debt up to their eyeballs during the current credit crunch we are experiencing in our economuy. It has been the status quo to take whatever equity you have and use it buy a bigger house and bigger car. Up until now our cultural values reinforced this consumption. Slowly the guy the down the street who paid off his home and drove used cars is suddenly coming around to buy your foreclosed home. Won't this start to mold cultural values toward honoring frugality when this will clearly be rewarded? _________________ Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
Joined: Aug 03, 2007 Posts: 4590 Location: Boston Suburbs
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 7:56 pm Post subject: Re: New goal for humans--self limitation
I don't believe that a zero growth society will necessarily be overrun by an infinite growth society. We're not exactly fighting with our bare hands anymore. _________________ http://doomsteaddiary.blogspot.com/
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 9:39 pm Post subject: Re: New goal for humans--self limitation
Can population control go mainstream?
Les Knight, the founder (pastor) of VHEMT - the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement - is religious in his soft-spoken dedication to the principle that humans might be gently persuaded to halt reproduction on a fast dying planet. Although there is no place of meeting and no dues other than voluntary contributions there is a well-developed web-site: http://www.vhemt.org/ VHEMT's slogan "Live Long and Die Out"
For the truly misanthropic there is the Church of Euthanasia, with its’ four pillars of abortion, suicide, sodomy and cannibalism. Their web-site has a guide for "butchering a human carcass" that includes a recipe for barbeque sauce.
Can the notion that net increases of 350,000 additional people on the planet every day is not a good thing ever become a main-stream issue? Maybe and perhaps not as far into the future as people might think.
It will take a big nudge from mother-nature to get this fledgling movement started though... _________________ For reasons long forgotten two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel they were nothing. They had built a house of straw. The thundering machine sputtered and stopped.
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 9:52 pm Post subject: Re: New goal for humans--self limitation
Ayame wrote:
Sadly I do not think we will ever be able to achieve a self-limiting society.
It seems that the oldest and most effective way of limiting human population growth was and always will be nature's henchmen: disease, famine and war.
There was a time after the Black Death in Miedeval Europe that people had learned the lessons of population maintenance. A book by George Huppert 'After The Black Death: A Social History Of Early Modern Europe' brought historic events such as the Black Death Pandemics and wars that ravaged Europe in the 14-1500's as stern lessons for population control.
Huppert's thesis points out that after the Plague had wiped out 1/3 of the population, people in rural farming villages were extremely careful about allowing births to occur. A farmers son would have to wait until one of his parents died in order to marry and have four children, three of which would die before adulthood.
Not true in the cities however. The European cities growth over the period of 1300-1700 choked off most of the resources of the farms leaving farmers and artisans trapped in a never-ending cycle of poverty and starvation which eventually led to a series of violent uprisings. In southwest France alone there were 453 documented revolts against the Aristocracy.
The Aristocracy viewed starvation as a way of controlling the rabble with a good die-off every 20 years or so. In 1779 when Louis the Sixteenth realized that the only way he could pay for foreign wars and royal extravagance was to tax the "new middle class" particularly since the poor had nothing left and the Royals had made themselves exempt from taxation. This motivated the bourgeoisie to throw in their lot with the poor and that led to Storming The Bastille.
It will be interesting to see how massive die-off might be viewed by current elites who will no doubt be able to insulate themselves. _________________ For reasons long forgotten two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel they were nothing. They had built a house of straw. The thundering machine sputtered and stopped.
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 10:38 am Post subject: Re: New goal for humans--self limitation
Ibon wrote:
In fact, our dear mother nature, who so many of us want to so quickly default to...etc
Believe me if I thought there was any other foolproof way of limiting consumption/population over time in a group of bipedal apes I would much prefer it as mother nature's henchmen are brutal. However, they have an extremely reliable track record in regulating population levels in every speicies since the dawn of time. I'm sorry, but I don't have much faith that culture can overcome the biological urge to procreate that is so deep-rooted in our genes.
Ibon wrote:
If for example through economics and culture we can control the flow of energy so that its cost and value would be cherished this would create the basis to treat energy the way the Buffalo were once utilized.
That's one of the problems of such an idealistic society, exactly who is 'we'? And what happens if not eveyone agrees? Would you put them in a
fortress? One of the tragadies of evolution has been the preference of organisms for short-term gain over long-term benefit, especially if the short-term gain is for the individual only and the latter for society as a whole.
mos6507 wrote:
I don't believe that a zero growth society will necessarily be overrun by an infinite growth society. We're not exactly fighting with our bare hands anymore.
Fighting doesn't even have to happen. US white population a minority by 2042: census bureau link
Last edited by Ayame on Sun Aug 17, 2008 10:45 am; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13191 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 10:43 am Post subject: Re: New goal for humans--self limitation
Ayame wrote:
I'm sorry, but I don't have much faith that culture can overcome the biological urge to procreate that is so deep-rooted in our genes.
And yet virtually every non-civilized culture of humans limited their populations deliberately, remaining within the carrying capacity of their territories for thousands of years. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 11:13 am Post subject: Re: New goal for humans--self limitation
Ludi brings up an important area where ethics of many traditional societies differ sharply from most modern ones-infanticide.
Killing babies is pretty much the bottom of the barrel for most of us, and I am certainly no advocating it here. But it is notable how common place this practice is in many small-scale traditional societies and also throughou Europe before the introduction of Christianity. I can't bring myself to feel remotely comfortable with it, but I can intellectually understand how traditions such as infanticide of twins came to be extablished and maintained.
For a small community which must dpend completely on local resources that may suddenly greatly diminish, a community that even in good times is living barely above subsistence, birth of say twins or triplets is a potential tragedy that could threaten the viability of the whole group.
These types of practices represent stark examples of the depths to which we may need to rethink our assumptions. I would like to think that preventive practices could minimize the need for such dire measures in any future, but that may be optimistic.
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 12:27 pm Post subject: Re: New goal for humans--self limitation
Ludi wrote:
And yet virtually every non-civilized culture of humans limited their populations deliberately, remaining within the carrying capacity of their territories for thousands of years.
If they were so happy and comfortable at home why did groups of hunter gatherers leave and go and live in the harsh conditions of the Artic or make the unknowing and potentialy fatal trek across the baring strait? Just out of curiosity? Also, if this were true then we could expect there to have been no instances of violent confrontations between hunter gatherer groups over territory in the whole of prehistory?
Maybe they practiced certain traditions to limit population growth to a certain extent (infanticide, herbal remedies etc). However, it is also well documented that violent adult male mortality is on average 30% for hunter gatherer groups. Also there would have been little prospect for individuals suffering from any deformity (blindness, lameness etc.) to survive and procreate. Also, without modern day medicine any severe wound would have been life threatening and any bone fracture a great setback. I think they may have been trying in the right direction but I am sure mother nature also gave them a helpful push.
Ibon wrote:
Native Americans who wasted no parts of the Buffalo they killed.
Are you aware that the native americans herdered buffalos off cliffs in huge stampedes and in huge buffalo jumps (approx 800 + animals killed) much of the animals were wasted with only the most desirable parts taken as there was just too many to process.
:edit: spelling
Last edited by Ayame on Sun Aug 17, 2008 12:42 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13191 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 12:34 pm Post subject: Re: New goal for humans--self limitation
Granted many of the methods used by other cultures to keep population down are not pleasant to our minds, but, my point is there is plenty of evidence human groups are capable of limiting their population.
Just sayin.'
If you prefer to believe they can't, that's ok. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Joined: Sep 29, 2004 Posts: 2330 Location: Pennsylvania, USA
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 5:24 pm Post subject: Re: New goal for humans--self limitation
Of all the problems that we blame on the PTB, the biggest problem facing mankind has nothing to do with them. Population control is something humans will have to learn or we will destroy the earth. It's really simple; before you decide to have a baby, ask yourself what kind of life you can provide for it. People pumping out one baby after another with no means of support are criminals IMO. A baby is a very precious little person in development and needs a lot of commitment and resources to make this little person into a self-sufficient, responsible, productive member of society. We have a world today which is largely filled with people living bleak, dependent, existences. That has to stop. _________________ "That's the problem with mercy, kid... It just ain't professional" - Fast Eddie, The Color of Money
Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:36 am Post subject: Re: New goal for humans--self limitation
"violent adult male mortality is on average 30% for hunter gatherer groups"
Should we see this as another traditional means of population control. Most fighting in traditional societies was/is of necessity small scale--something more violent than a vigorous game of Rugby but much less than the massive slaughter of emperial armies in ancient and modern times. B. Ehrenreich had an interesting book (sorry, spacing out the name) about the roots of warfare in what was essentially ritualized acts of mutual human sacrifice.
Kingcoal, I like your basic sentiment, but the critique of such positions is that they seem to imply that only the wealthy should be allowed to have kids. What do you say to such critiques? Is this your position?
Joined: Dec 03, 2004 Posts: 1190 Location: Seattle, Wa.
Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 11:25 am Post subject: Re: New goal for humans--self limitation
Kingcoal wrote:
Population control is something humans will have to learn or we will destroy the earth.
When the truth of the above statement becomes undeniable as a result of natural consequences then we will indeed look at self limitation from a far more pragmatic point of view compared to the moral and ethical dilemma from where this subject is currently framed.
This morning in the newspaper was information about the Gates Foundation funding a major anti-smoking campaign in China. I find myself feeling strong sentiments that this is money very foolishly spent. _________________ Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
News
Discussions
Resources
Members
Forum FAQ
Search
Usergroups
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
