🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <5nfrbr$e1c@panix2.panix.com>,
  erg@panix.com (Edward Green) wrote:
>
> Jim Carr <jac@ibms48.scri.fsu.edu> wrote:
>
> Oh boy,  inflammatory political issues on sci.physics!  My absolute
> _fave_ (wink at Keith Ramsay here).  I mean,  I never develop any
> emotional energy over physics (wink at myself here).
>
> Just remember,  I didn't start this one...
>
> >Kirby Urner wrote:
> >}
> >} I think it also begins with a scientific position: the we have the
> >} means to accomplish this result, have for some time.  That makes
> >} the current agony neither an 'act of nature' nor an 'act of God
> >} or gods', meaning willful inaction is starting to supply historians
> >} with new ways of looking back on our time ...
> >
> > One trusts that historians will look at the data.
> >
> >J.W.Rich@xtra.co.nz writes:
> >>
> >>Starvation on this planet is an act of man. As Kirby says we have the
> >>means to solve the problem.

Yeah, some sorry Historian in the future is going to look back at the
data and weep a solitary tear? A lot of good that does _now_. Or _ever_.

[trim]
> >>It is politics, politicians, political
> >>philosophy that gets in the way ...
> >
> > At which point one should identify the politicians and philosophies
> > responsible for halting the distribution of that food.
>
> Nor should one forget Malthus.

Please, if you would, what's Malthus' story? I can not forget that I
don't know. Something to do with my hardwiring. My H/W from an earlier
generation. ;-)

[trim]
> Well,  you _know_ what is going to happen:  Tribe B is soon straining
> at the borders of its half of the forest,  looking hungrily at Tribe
> A's relatively unpopulated paradise,  and _demand their share_.

Can't Tribe A start building vertically upwards? Food and VCRs/TV/CPUs
can be mass transported into town from anywhere in the world and elevated
mechanically up to like 10 to 200 floor levels high, ground conditioning
dependent?

I bet you mean that we'd eventually still reach some sort of border
limitation. 2D or 3D doesn't matter.

> And they are right to do so.  No individual child born to his intimate
> family of twenty sibling in the teaming squalid megalopolis of B
> incurred this fate through original sin;  no child in A incurred his
> privileged status through original virtue.
>
> And you know what the A-meisters say:  Hang on,  we started out with
> the same cards,  we just played ours with a little more foresight.
> You are telling us that we _cannot_ exercise foresight,  because no
> matter what we do,  you will simply outbreed us,  and our share will
> be no bigger than yours,  as individuals.
>
> It seems to me they have a pretty solid stance also.

[Whistle]. OK. Breeders, on your marks, get set... Breed!

> I'm not an ethicist,
[...]
> But it seems to me plausible that while we are asking the bad old
> first world to give up some prosperity to help the less fortunate,
> they may with equal justice demand an immediate reduction in birth
> rate -- no if's,  and's or but's,  and no damn excuses.  There earth is
> probably _already_ grossly overpopulated.  Why 6 billion?  Who decided
> on this figure?  Nobody,  of course;  it is an act of men.  But I
> reject any morality that requires the more fortunate to temporarily
> alleviate suffering,  at the same time accelerating the slide toward
> the inevitable mass poverty.

I have a question. When the Spainards and the other Europeans landed on
the "Americas", did the natives insist their Earth didn't have available
resourses to sustain the unwanted immigrants? Basically, why 6B? How many
people can a demographic actually sustain? Where are the mathematicians
fuc|<In' now? Huh?

[trim]
> If the manufacturers pull out will the children be _better_ off?

Were the children better off before? It's not so obvious. The Income
Prison we do time in has accounted for the quality of life our children's
children's children (Hi Moody Blues! ;-) are allocated to have.

[trim]
> Right now I'm more disgusted with stereotypical liberals than
> stereotypical conservatives;  but that's probably just because they
> are the dominant species here in NYC.

I live near Wash DC, the dominant species here are Elephants and
Jackasses? Donkeys? Independents? ...Actually I have no clue. I haven't
really met them all. Maybe tomorrow. :-)

"If the line between science fiction and science fact doesn't drive
      you crazy, then you're just not tr(y)ing!" --- Mahipal
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/3178/mew3.html  The |meforce> Paradox

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