Overpopulation AND Overconsumption.

[pan]

Both.

[pan]

But Mark, based upon you own definition of overpopulation and territory Ethiopia's "lifestyle" isn't sustainable and hence is looking at a massive die-off.

I agree with you that the Western - or should I say Latter Capitalist - lifestyle is not sustainable (that is as obvious to anyone with a passing acquaintance to reality as the idea that we need air to breathe) and is having devastating effects that are possibly irreversible in the near future. That has never been an issue here.

You keep telling us that the world is round and we say "yes, and...."

[Mark]

So you're saying that the "Latter Capitalist - lifestyle is not sustainable...and is having devastating effects that are possibly irreversible in the near future...," AND WHAT?

AND that we should place equal importance on a problem that isn't as devastating and doesn't have irreversible effects?

[waldopaper]

We really need to reach around these old paradigms.

It doesn't mean they're wrong or any less valid-- but we reach a saturation-point where we simply "parrot the dogma." Most of us have accepted the fact that slavery is wrong... and that witchcraft is largely bullshit, but we shouldn't try to freeze-frame the entire universe until the slave-trade or persecutions for witchcraft no longer exist. We must instead concentrate on designing the next paradigm shift.

The collapse of (what most honkies THINK is global) "capitalism" is huge... but, unfortunately, that will become as "self-evident" as slavery and witchcraft in a very short time. So, THEN what? We should be concentrating on (whatever) THAT (may be) instead of tethering ourselves to the ground dogma to defeat all perceived opponents who would dare challenge our most sacred turf in the sacred history of all turfdom.

The Wee Spiders (who at this point do not realize it) must invent the new paradigm for the sake of their own survival. What are we doing in our last few seconds on this earth to help them? Is that important? If not, than what is? They have heard homogenized versions of "racism" and "sexism" all their lives as "diversity" (whatever THAT is) has been beaten into their heads. Their flat-earth "knowledge" of "economics" is appalling. They can't think beyond the "profit motive" (it seems to me) because their teachers' teachers never thought of imagining such a thing. For generations, self-gain was taught as a "natural" system, Why would anyone think otherwise?

Clue: we are social primates. We depend (always have) on the "collective" for survival.

[Mark]

I think Michael Moore's new film, "Capitalism: A Love Story," which I briefly review here, can be useful for beginners. Also Douglas Rushkoff's, Life Inc., and Frances Moore Lappé's Getting a Grip.

But the new paradigm doesn't have to be invented. It already exists and has been suppressed only through violence. It is, in fact, hardwired. It has taken thousands of years to learn how to dehumanize an enemy and break down an individual's personality completely so that they'll kill another person instead of acting cooperatively in accordance with their survival instinct to save both their lives. And in rare instances the conditioning fails and people cooperate anyway.

I don't think it is possible to change people once they have self-identified as predators. The only useful thing I know of is to warn kids what they're up against if they refuse to become predators and give them examples of refuseniks who survived or whose ideas survived. Given the choice of being predator or prey, most kids would sensibly choose to be predator. But once they realize that's not a full range of options, they can avoid similar traps.

There's a professor from South Africa in Venezuela, Franz J. T. Lee, who teaches that when confronted with a dichotomy, we shouldn't accept that the choice is either this or that--that we can find at least a third option, which he calls "trifferent." Of course if you're trifferent, you're weird. But once the choice is seen as being trifferent or being trapped in a dichotomy, weird ain't so bad. ;)

[pan]

Alas Mark is seems that in spite of your practiced cynicism you are an idealist underneath it all. You do believe in the Noble Savage - the pure human who only becomes tainted by "civilization" - and all we need to do is to remove the taint of "civilization".

While i do fully believe in the "Hard Savage" as pictured in The Lord of the Flies, I don't see humans as a pure tabula rasa either. I tend to see humans as naturally having all of the faults and attributes that they display.

[Mark]

I don't believe that poor people are necessarily noble, pure, or untainted, Pan, although some might be. I do know that uncivilized people do not produce the nonbiodegradable pollutants that are threatening the survival of the planet.

[pan]

Easter Island

Of course, our acceptance and use of the words "civilized", "uncivilized", "advanced", "3rd world", "primitive", etc. tends to reinforce a valuing of exactly the kind of society that is - like Easter Island - consuming us out of sustainability.

[BO]

Actually, what we need is common sense. We need to stop complicating simple issues in order to meet some bullshit political correctness. Tis the globalists, more than anyone, who want to see race issues go away so that labor becomes less of nationalist issue and more of a universal commodity. Hence the free flow of cheap labor.

And yeah, we depend on the collective until the collective becomes so large it implodes on itself like a big soufflé. Which brings us back to this current argument.

Some see the population bomb as just that. Others don't see it at all. Nor will they. Unfortunately their irresponsibility effects us all, which is why I have little sympathy for them. Let them breed themselves to death. Just don't do it here. And don't come breaking into my house because your 10 kids ain't gotta enough to eat.

Tis man's own delusions that will end him. The answers are in front of his face, yet he still refuses to recognize them. Fuck the dogma. We need action, based in reality.

[Mark]

From Dr. Mercola's interview with Bruce Lipton:

“Here we are on a planet with 6.5 billion people, destroying each other and destroying the planet, and we base it on this population that’s getting out of control and all this stuff like that.

And then I tell you this.

Well, we see ourselves as single individual entities. That’s a myth perception. We’re not a single anything. We are a community. We are a community of 50 trillion cells under our skin. And every cell is a functional biological equivalent of a miniature person.

Every cell has every function in your body in its body. Every cell is a miniature human, in a sense, in a large population. So under your skin, you have 50 trillion citizens.

Each one has a job, each has healthcare, each gets nutrition delivered to it, the garbage is taken out, and they live in a harmonious society where, if you’re in bliss, you’re actually -- well, you represent yourself as the entity -- no, 50 trillion cells are living in bliss and harmony at the same time.”

He then extends that thought to society as a whole. If you can live in harmony with 50 trillion cells inside of you, why can’t a society made of 6.5 billion people (all made of the same cells), also figure out a way to live in peace?

Dr. Lipton continues:

“And they [your 50 trillion cells] live in a society, and they have rules and regulations, and they’ve been here a billion years before we were here.

And the important understanding is this, is that there’s this old statement that says, “The answers lie within.”

And in fact, from a biological point of view, I have to say, yes, if you understood the dynamics of how energy is exchanged in this system, how the cells have jobs, and the rules that hold them together in this wonderful, cooperative, growing, healthy, loving community that you’ll find in a human body that’s in health, if you look into that population and see how they do it, it’s like, just take those rules and apply it to 6.5 billion people, and this whole world will instantaneously snap into the harmony that a human body can have in a healthy situation.”

[BO]

Oops, too late. Seems the fat cells got outta hand, and killed the host. Bummer.

[Mark]

"...the fat cells got outta hand..." or the white guy ate too much?

Some are saying that he couldn't help it because of some man-made petroleum-based chemicals they call obesogens.

[Mark]

A Millionaire with a Super Yacht Is a Larger Strain on Resources Than Hundreds of Peasant Families

By George Monbiot, Monbiot.com. Posted October 2, 2009.


It's time we had the guts to name the problem. It isn't population; it's consumption. It's not sex; it's money. It's not the poor; it's the rich.

It's no coincidence that most of those who are obsessed with population growth are post-reproductive wealthy white men: it's about the only environmental issue for which they can't be blamed.
[...]

...the old formula taught to all students of development -- that total impact equals population times affluence times technology (I=PAT) -- is wrong. Total impact should be measured as I=CAT: consumers times affluence times technology. Many of the world's people use so little that they wouldn't figure in this equation. They are the ones who have most children.
[...]

...one sixth of the world's population is so poor that it produces no significant emissions at all. This is also the group whose growth rate is likely to be highest. Households in India earning less than 3,000 rupees a month use a fifth of the electricity per head and one seventh of the transport fuel of households earning Rs30,000 or more. Street sleepers use almost nothing. Those who live by processing waste (a large part of the urban underclass) often save more greenhouse gases than they produce.
[...]

In May the Sunday Times carried an article headlined "Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation." It revealed that "some of America's leading billionaires have met secretly" to decide which good cause they should support. "A consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat." The ultra-rich, in other words, have decided that it's the very poor who are trashing the planet.
[...]

The obsessives could argue that the people breeding rapidly today might one day become richer. But as the super wealthy grab an ever greater share and resources begin to run dry, this, for most of the very poor, is a diminishing prospect.
[...]

As the habits of the super-rich show, there are no limits to human extravagance. Consumption can be expected to rise with economic growth until the biosphere hits the buffers. Anyone who understands this and still considers that population, not consumption, is the big issue is, in Lovelock's words, "hiding from the truth." It is the worst kind of paternalism, blaming the poor for the excesses of the rich.