From: pete@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Peter Alexander Merel)
Subject: Re: Global Sterilization (was Re: The Marching Morons)
Organization: Sydney University Computing Service, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 14:21:25 GMT

dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:
>In article <pete.725952784@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU> pete@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Peter Alexander Merel) writes:
>> higher education endows, where would they find the educators, the
>> materiel, the books? Their population is a millstone around their necks,
>> and even if they slow its growth it will slow theirs for generations to
>> come.

>They get them from their own population.  More people means more
>teachers as well.  A fast growing population (and theirs is not
>growing all that fast) just means a slightly larger proportion
>of the population becomes teaches.

You're quite right, their population growth is coming under control, and so
by the definition of moron memes specified earlier in the discussion the 
Chinese don't qualify as morons. Perhaps we should discuss the indians instead.

Nevertheless, I think you underestimate the resources required to produce
a well educated population. Can you point at any non first world country 
anywhere that has one? Resource richness is imho required for good education.
For one thing, you have to get the entire juvenile population to devote all
their time to it. In non first world countries this is an unaffordable luxury.

>> The world has more than enough human bodies. We spread like cancer; we 
>> reproduce without limit; we eat everything; we have no natural predator
>> If we don't act soon to limit our growth we will literally eat ourselves out
>> of house and home. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by 
>> sterilizing ourselves.

>Sigh.  I thought this was a scientific debate, but I see it's just
>another rehash of the same old ignorant misanthropic bullshit.

Paul, I'm not trying to bait you. I admit the language is dramatic, but
there are real problems. Or are you saying that we're not destroying 
ecosystems, using up non-renewable resources and generally fowling the 
planet up at an ever increasing rate of knots? It's very easy to call
people names, friend. Try addressing yourself to the argument. 

If we were to reduce the world population by a very large percentage in
a generation or two it would give us the breathing space we need to set
up sustainable ways of living and developing. We could provide a first world
standard of living for everyone, and save and revive disappearing cultures
and ecosystems before they disappear. Are these not laudable goals? Is there
some better way of acheiving them?

>We don't reproduce without limit.  

Correct. Eventually famine, war and pestilence provide us with limits. However
we do despoil and disrupt living systems wherever we go, and we do double our
population every fifty years. 

>We don't eat everything.  

What don't we consume?

>We are not in imminent danger of running out of food.

How do you define imminent? I believe that the last estimate of the
number of people the earth could sustainably feed I read was ten
billion.  So that's less than fifty years away. But given the
enormously disproportionate use of resources by first world economies
we can expect real trouble sooner than that, no?

>Perhaps I should not be surprised, since this discussion was
>bringing up disturbing racist/social darwinist threads.

Not on my part it wasn't. You brought up the Chinese as an example yourself.
I've been careful to explicitly state that all men are equally capable of
intelligent behaviour, that the overpopulation of "morons" is due to culturally
inherited memes and the natural inclination of first worlders to control and 
hoard resources. 

As to social darwinism, that's a pretty broad epithet on your part. If you
feel like spreading muck, spread it a little finer please.

>	Great moments in humanitarianism:
>	"How can we help a foreign country to escape overpopulation?
>	 Clearly the worst thing we can do is send food . . . .
>	 Atomic bombs would be kinder.  For a few moments the misery
>	 would be acute, but it would soon come to an end for most of
>	 the people, leaving a few survivors to suffer thereafter."
>		Garrett Hardin, 1969.

The comparison is as apt as comparing chemotherapy to euthenasia. I guess
I've struck a nerve - but be cool and tell me what's wrong with the argument.
We're talking very lightly about very serious things, but should these things
not be discussed at all?

-- 
Internet: pete@extro.su.oz.au             UUCP: {uunet,mcvax}!munnari!extro!pete
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