From: sykopath@leland.Stanford.EDU (Mickey)
Subject: Re: Cindy the Disco Queen
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 92 11:16:38 GMT

In article <1992Dec8.164249.27084@edsr.eds.com> hkelly@tantalum.eds.com (Kelly Shuldberg) writes:
>
>>amount of girls and boys is unusual or particularly strange anyway.  *I*
>>wouldn't mind as many as I can afford to support, and as many as my wife
>>would like to have!  Big families are cool.
>
>Yes, but overpopulation is totally uncool.  We're approaching the three
>billion mark in world population, and that is, in large measure, the cause
>of the terrific environmental damage that we're trying to deal with now.
>Nature has a way of dealing with species extravegance, and the results are
>seldom pleasant--starvation, intra-species murder.  Instead of letting your

Thomas Malthus wrong so far != Thomas Malthus will continue to be wrong...?

If anyone's interested in a fictionalized but rather gripping depiction
of this question, try reading "Tuf Voyaging" by some big name (possibly
last name == Martin, but I wouldn't swear to it).

And actually, most of the "terrific environmental damage" on a global scale 
has come from the actinos of the developed (aka industrialized) countries, 
with a relatively small share of the world's population...
...non-industrialized peoples, while certainly capable of rather dramatic
localized damage (consider the Anasazi), find it difficult to contribute
globally to damage to the ozone layer or the accumulation of greenhouse
gasses.
(and then methinks of the rate of rain forest damage, much of it caused
by slash-and-burn agriculture and such, and thinks that perhaps you are
more right than I had thought...hmmmmm...)

>loins run roughshod over the quality of life in general on the planet
>Earth, adopt a kid who really needs a family.  Uncontrolled breeding is a
>ticket to environmental, economic and political disaster.

Ark.  Here I must disagree with you.  I don't know about the rest of you,
but I intend to marry for intelligence and stability above almost anything
else, and to raise my children as much as possible in such a way as
to maximize their potential as human beings first, and contributors to
society second...
...in other words, I expect my children to be worth quite a bit more to
the human race than the average hunk of protoplasm, and certainly to
contribute much more than they take.  
In pursuit of this goal, I intend to limit the number of children I have
to some manageable number...indiscriminate breeding would soon give me
far more children than I could appropriately raise.  However, if I discovered
myself capable of raising six, eight, perhaps even a dozen children
to my (rather high) standards of parenting, I don't think that I would be
doing the human race any disservice by producing more such children
rather than fewer...

While certainly not a believer in compulsory eugenics (i.e. prevent from
breeding those people whose genes you dislike, etc), I do think that it
is rather unwise to advocate that those who are intelligent and aware
enough to *care* about the fate of the planet should not pass on their
(intelligent and aware) genes, while those who are foolish and uncaring
enough to practice "uncontrolled breeding" should flood the gene pool
with their (foolish and uncaring) genes...
In other words, if you've got good enough genes to care about overpopulation,
PASS THEM ON TO THE NEXT GENERATION!!!  They'll need them, with the kind of
world we're likely to leave for them...


Food for thought, hope you were hungry,

Mickey "With my whole heart have I sought Thee: O let me not wander
	from Thy commandments.			      Psalm 119:10." Phoenix.


P.S. is there a better newsgroup for discussions on this topic?  We're
rather far from Brother Jed, but I didn't know where to point it to...?

P.P.S. when is the Jedmeister coming to Stanford again?  I wanna see him!

Newsgroups: alt.brother-jed