🚀 go-pugleaf

In article l2jm03INN6m1@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM, chased@rbbb.Eng.Sun.COM (David Chase) writes:
> In article <l2jii3INNpft@jethro.Corp.Sun.COM> jdr@starflight.Corp.Sun.COM writes:
> [... 4 postings]
> >These points are discussed in more detail in an upcoming article in The
> >Futurist, a publication of the World Future Society. They are based on rigorous
> >input-output analyses and computer modeling of the systems involved over
> >geologic time spans.
> 
> I'm not normally this rude, but you burnt out the battery on my
> bullshit meter.  "Compel people not to reproduce?"  Pardon me?  Why
> not try something practical like (a) killing them wholesale (more room
> for us, as long as we are "compelling" people) or (b) raising their
> standard of living and education (works for Europe) or (c) compel us
> (the citizens of the 1st World Countries) to consume a little bit less
> or a little bit more efficiently.
> 
> David Chase
> Sun


Compulsion is not just about a small minority imposing their will on a
resisting majority. It is also about people agreeing to mutually compel
themselves in their enlightened self-interest. The crew of a racing boat
is compelled to row hard in and sync with each other, often beyond the
level of comfort that each would individually accept, but they are in the
boat voluntarily.

Given human diversity, we don't often get the kind of consensus that the
members of a racing boat enjoy. There is usually a recalcitrant minority
who must be compelled against their will. But even they will often accept
that rather than face the perils of the breakdown of the social order.

Historially, societies have in fact compelled their members to limit their
reproduction. We spent 90 percent of our evolutionary history, since branching
off from our primate cousins, doing that. It is a myth that we relied on
hunger, disease, or warfare to do limit us. Primitive humans enjoyed a great
deal more leisure, comfort, and health than that model would imply.

Raising standards of living (as in Europe or Japan) doesn't work, in the sense
of buying us more than a decade or two, at most. Even a world population of
10,000, living like modern West Europeans, would wind up doing to the entire
planet what the Somalis have done to their country, in a few thousand years.
Just because that kind of misery isn't here yet, or happening to you, does
not mean that it won't come here, or come soon enough to affect you or your
children.

I'm sorry, but "a little bit less" or a "little bit more efficiently" won't
hack it. Unless you are only concerned about buying a few years. The numbers
don't work. The situation is much, much worse than you imagine.

---

starflt@uunet.uu.net, jdr@starflight.corp.sun.com
Jon Roland
Starflight Corporation, 1755 E Bayshore Rd #9A,
Redwood City, CA 94063-4142, 415/361-8141