Promoting Childlessness, Celebrating Selfishness
tj
Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
Published: Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 5:15 am
04 ChildlessnessChildlessness is becoming more popular and the proof
is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
popular culture. Maclean’s ran a cover story on August 3, entitled,
“The Case Against Having Kids.” A new book by French author Corinne
Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
against having children, but against becoming parents.
Maier, a mother of two, says people who have children are not good
citizens, because they contribute to some problems afflicting modern
society, such as congestion, add to the environmental impact that
human beings are allegedly responsible for and perhaps even encourage
war by adding another child to a supposedly over-populated planet. It
all sounds pathetically like the cant exhaled by the environmental
scaremongers, zero-population growth activists or even voluntary human
extinction advocates. But get beyond Maier’s citizenship talking
points and the real issues are about the impact of children on the
parents (mostly the mother), not society.
Most of the 40 “good” reasons Maier provides focus on the costs of
children, as in what mothers (might) sacrifice: freedom, money, care-
free relationships, unending happiness and much more. The problem with
this view is that it both idealizes the life of non-parents and
degrades family life. Are childless women really free to do whatever
they want, have sex whenever they wish, meet all their financial needs
effortlessly and never have a moment that is not entirely blissful?
Are parents always miserable, poor, without non-familial relationships
and stuck with their children 24 hours a day, seven days a week?
In No Kids, Maier admits to regretting having her two children,
compares giving birth to torture and breastfeeding to slavery, and
states that, “Your kid will inevitably disappoint you.” She says
children destroy desire within a marriage (how does she explain large
families?) and kill adult relationships. She calls family life an
“inward-looking prison focused on the child.”
On some level, Maier is offering a legitimate cultural criticism of a
certain type of parent, who focuses exclusively and unhealthily on the
child (usually an only child). But Maier and her adoring press go
beyond such criticism to setting up parenting as a complete sacrifice
of the self to the child, a phenomenon that does not occur in healthy
families.
Among the 40 reasons not to have children, Maier includes “you keep
having fun” without them, “you keep your friends,” “you avoid becoming
a walking pacifier,” “your kid will always disappoint you,” “kids are
conformists,” children “signal the end of your youthful dreams,” “you
can’t stop yourself from wanting your kids to be happy” and a number
of other selfish reasons.
Maier seems to be celebrating life without responsibility and
sacrifice and fails to recognize the joys that children do bring
parents. Perhaps that is not surprising. In his 2006 bestseller
Stumbling on Happiness, Dan Gilbert reported that, according to
surveys, taking care of one’s children was among the least satisfying
and enjoyable things individuals did, rated only slightly better than
lawn care and housework. But asking people about their feelings
concerning taking care of one’s children is not the same as asking
whether or not they are happy being parents.
Newer research that scans brain activity finds a strong correlation
between thoughts of one’s children with positive neural reactions.
Another survey reported in Psychological Science earlier this year
found that when weighing rewards with costs, time with children ranked
as the second most worthwhile thing people do. Matthew White and Paul
Dolan, two British academics, said, “When reward is also considered,
time spent with children is ‘relatively’ good time.”
There are plenty of rewards in having children. The disappointments
are usually outweighed by the joys they bring; parents can maintain
relationships with other adults and often create new ones with other
parents, not to mention the enriching relationships they will have
with their children. Rather than “giving up on life,” as Maier says,
parents embrace it. Maier says it takes “real courage to say ‘me
first,’” but that sounds like a justification for embracing hedonism,
self-illusion and irresponsibility.
Maier’s book echoes Mardy Ireland’s 1993 academic treatise
Reconceiving Women: Separating Motherhood from Female Identity, which
claims a false dichotomy in her title. Motherhood can be – is designed
to be – a part of female identity, but not its entirety. Maier and
Ireland sets up a false conflict between child-rearing and self-
fulfillment. The lives of mothers change when they have children, not
for the worse, but to something different. To diminish the idea of
parenting, as the popular media are doing today, is dangerous for both
society and women: society, because it is cultural suicide, and women,
because it discourages motherhood, which may appear more daunting and
joyless in the abstract than it is in practice.
The ideal Maier and her ilk celebrate in rejecting children is to
embrace permanent childishness for themselves. That is selfish and
irresponsible.
SkyEyes
> http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
>
> Promoting childlessness,
Excuse me: the correct term is "childfree," not "childless."
Childfree means you don't have 'em and don't want 'em. Childless
implies that you want them, but for some reason can't have them.
> celebrating selfishness
<Yawn>
> The ideal Maier and her ilk celebrate in rejecting children is to
> embrace permanent childishness for themselves. That is selfish and
> irresponsible.
With the world's population closing in on 7 billion, it's not the
childfree who are being selfish, but those people who *insist* on
having children and damn the problem of human overpopulation.
Now kindly FOAD, tj.
Brenda Nelson, A.A.#34
BAAWA Knight
EAC Professor of Feline Thermometrics and Cat-Herding
skyeyes nine at cox dot net
Tristan
> http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrating-selfishness/
> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
>
> is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
> �The Case Against Having Kids.� A new book by French author Corinne
> Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
> plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
> Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
> against having children, but against becoming parents.
The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think about
it: In bringing another person into the world, you are sentencing him or
her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to an unhappy, even
miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
> Maier, a mother of two, says people who have children are not good
> citizens, because they contribute to some problems afflicting modern
> society, such as congestion, add to the environmental impact that
> human beings are allegedly responsible for and perhaps even encourage
> war by adding another child to a supposedly over-populated planet. It
> all sounds pathetically like the cant exhaled by the environmental
> scaremongers, zero-population growth activists or even voluntary human
> extinction advocates. But get beyond Maier�s citizenship talking
> points and the real issues are about the impact of children on the
> parents (mostly the mother), not society.
>
> Most of the 40 �good� reasons Maier provides focus on the costs of
> children, as in what mothers (might) sacrifice: freedom, money, care-
> free relationships, unending happiness and much more. The problem with
> this view is that it both idealizes the life of non-parents and
> degrades family life. Are childless women really free to do whatever
> they want, have sex whenever they wish, meet all their financial needs
> effortlessly and never have a moment that is not entirely blissful?
> Are parents always miserable, poor, without non-familial relationships
> and stuck with their children 24 hours a day, seven days a week?
>
> In No Kids, Maier admits to regretting having her two children,
> compares giving birth to torture and breastfeeding to slavery, and
> states that, �Your kid will inevitably disappoint you.� She says
> children destroy desire within a marriage (how does she explain large
> families?) and kill adult relationships. She calls family life an
> �inward-looking prison focused on the child.�
>
> On some level, Maier is offering a legitimate cultural criticism of a
> certain type of parent, who focuses exclusively and unhealthily on the
> child (usually an only child). But Maier and her adoring press go
> beyond such criticism to setting up parenting as a complete sacrifice
> of the self to the child, a phenomenon that does not occur in healthy
> families.
>
> Among the 40 reasons not to have children, Maier includes �you keep
> having fun� without them, �you keep your friends,� �you avoid becoming
> a walking pacifier,� �your kid will always disappoint you,� �kids are
> conformists,� children �signal the end of your youthful dreams,� �you
> can�t stop yourself from wanting your kids to be happy� and a number
> of other selfish reasons.
>
> Maier seems to be celebrating life without responsibility and
> sacrifice and fails to recognize the joys that children do bring
> parents. Perhaps that is not surprising. In his 2006 bestseller
> Stumbling on Happiness, Dan Gilbert reported that, according to
> surveys, taking care of one�s children was among the least satisfying
> and enjoyable things individuals did, rated only slightly better than
> lawn care and housework. But asking people about their feelings
> concerning taking care of one�s children is not the same as asking
> whether or not they are happy being parents.
>
> Newer research that scans brain activity finds a strong correlation
> between thoughts of one�s children with positive neural reactions.
> Another survey reported in Psychological Science earlier this year
> found that when weighing rewards with costs, time with children ranked
> as the second most worthwhile thing people do. Matthew White and Paul
> Dolan, two British academics, said, �When reward is also considered,
> time spent with children is �relatively� good time.�
>
> There are plenty of rewards in having children. The disappointments
> are usually outweighed by the joys they bring; parents can maintain
> relationships with other adults and often create new ones with other
> parents, not to mention the enriching relationships they will have
> with their children. Rather than �giving up on life,� as Maier says,
> parents embrace it. Maier says it takes �real courage to say �me
> first,�� but that sounds like a justification for embracing hedonism,
> self-illusion and irresponsibility.
>
> Maier�s book echoes Mardy Ireland�s 1993 academic treatise
> Reconceiving Women: Separating Motherhood from Female Identity, which
> claims a false dichotomy in her title. Motherhood can be � is designed
> to be � a part of female identity, but not its entirety. Maier and
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> tj wrote:
>> http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrating-selfishness/
>>
>> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
>>
>> 04 ChildlessnessChildlessness is becoming more popular and the proof
>> is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
>> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
>> popular culture. Maclean�s ran a cover story on August 3, entitled,
>> �The Case Against Having Kids.� A new book by French author Corinne
>> Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
>> plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
>> Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
>> against having children, but against becoming parents.
>
> The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think about
> it: In bringing another person into the world, you are sentencing him or
> her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to an unhappy, even
> miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly. You'd make a
rotten parent in that case as well.
Me, I have no intention of dying if I can help it, and my children may
have an even better chance of achieving that goal.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Enos Penvy
>
> >> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
>
> >> 04 ChildlessnessChildlessness is becoming more popular and the proof
> >> is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
> >> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
> >> Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
> >> plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
> >> Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
> >> against having children, but against becoming parents.
>
> > The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think about
> > it: In bringing another person into the world, you are sentencing him or
> > her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to an unhappy, even
> > miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
>
> If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly. You'd make a
> rotten parent in that case as well.
>
> Me, I have no intention of dying if I can help it,
You're going to die. Just like everyone else.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> On Nov 30, 3:51 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>> Tristan wrote:
>>> tj wrote:
>>>> http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
>>>> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
>>>> 04 ChildlessnessChildlessness is becoming more popular and the proof
>>>> is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
>>>> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
>>>> Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
>>>> plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
>>>> Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
>>>> against having children, but against becoming parents.
>>> The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think about
>>> it: In bringing another person into the world, you are sentencing him or
>>> her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to an unhappy, even
>>> miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
>> If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly. You'd make a
>> rotten parent in that case as well.
>>
>> Me, I have no intention of dying if I can help it,
>
> You're going to die. Just like everyone else.
Threatening me? AND everyone else? Who can say they are going to die
until the time comes, just as none can claim to be immortal until they
reach the end of time?
archie dux
> http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
>
> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
>
>
So, are families with two kids more selfish than
families with five kids? If they were really, really
unselfish, would they aim for 15 kids?
Archie
elizabeth
>
> >> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
>
> >> 04 ChildlessnessChildlessness is becoming more popular and the proof
> >> is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
> >> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
> >> Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
> >> plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
> >> Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
> >> against having children, but against becoming parents.
>
> > The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think about
> > it: In bringing another person into the world, you are sentencing him or
> > her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to an unhappy, even
> > miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
>
> If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly. You'd make a
> rotten parent in that case as well.
>
> Me, I have no intention of dying if I can help it, and my children may
> have an even better chance of achieving that goal.
>
> --
> Sea Wasp
> /^\
> ;;;
>
> - Show quoted text -
You are insane at best. All that lives must die.
Alan Ford
> The ideal Maier and her ilk celebrate in rejecting children is to
> embrace permanent childishness for themselves. That is selfish and
> irresponsible.
Yes, because there are only 7 billion people on Earth and it could be 14
billion by the end of the century, so clearly we must breed like rabbits
if we want to make sure wars, famine and epidemics continue unimpeded.
--
If you don't beat your meat
You can't have any pudding
How can you have any pudding
If you don't beat your meat?
Liz
[----]
>
> The ideal Maier and her ilk celebrate in rejecting children is to
> embrace permanent childishness for themselves. That is selfish and
> irresponsible.
This doesn't make any sense. Why would you, or anyone with a lick of
sense (those categories may be mutually exclusive), want selfish,
irresponsible people to raise children?
Liz #658
hoser1605
<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> Enos Penvy wrote:
> > On Nov 30, 3:51 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> > <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> >> Tristan wrote:
> >>> tj wrote:
> >>>>http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
> >>>> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
> >>>> 04 ChildlessnessChildlessness is becoming more popular and the proof
> >>>> is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
> >>>> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
> >>>> Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
> >>>> plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
> >>>> Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
> >>>> against having children, but against becoming parents.
> >>> The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think about
> >>> it: In bringing another person into the world, you are sentencing him or
> >>> her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to an unhappy, even
> >>> miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
> >> If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly. You'd make a
> >> rotten parent in that case as well.
>
> >> Me, I have no intention of dying if I can help it,
>
> > You're going to die. Just like everyone else.
>
> Threatening me? AND everyone else? Who can say they are going to die
> until the time comes, just as none can claim to be immortal until they
> reach the end of time?
>
> --
> Sea Wasp
> /^\
> ;;;
> Live Journal:http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Got it Sea Wasp. Nuff said.
(�`�.�Craig Chilton�.���) <www.LayoffRemedy.com>
elizabeth <efra...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> All that lives must die.
Well -- so far! But who knows but that science MAY someday
in the not-too-distant future discover the factors that cause the
aging process and come up with they ways to NEGATE them?
Thus making everyone immortal far as long as they can avoid
fatal accidents and terminal diseases. (And science may ulti-
mately be able to do away with the latter, too -- leaving ACCI-
DENTS as the only remaining threat to unimaginable youthful
and vibrant longevity.
That would make for an interesting scenario. Because IF
people found themselves able to live for tens of thousands of
years if ONLY they could avoid being killed in accidents -- then
WHO would dare to roll the dice against that by getting into
cars, trains, and planes anymore?
It could well become a world where ALL commerce and work
becomes done electronically, from home, and where almost ALL
of the fabrications will be done by ROBITICS in factories.
The future could become VERY interesting -- in fact, FASCIN-
ATING!! -- IF we just keep right on LEARNING, STRIVING, and
SOLVING!
Gives humanity a LOT of great things to shoot for!!
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
��� Rest in Peace ���
��� George Richard Tiller, MD ���
��� A True American HERO! ���
��� August 8, 1941 � May 31, 2009 ���
��� Visit -- http://iamdrtiller.com ���
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
-- Craig Chilton <xana...@mchsi.com>
www.LayoffRemedy.com -- Unemployment Solution!
www.ChristianEgalitarian.com -- Fight the RRR Cult!
http://apifar.blogspot.com -- Tactics: Defending Human Rights
http://pro-christian.blogspot.com -- Exposing RRR Bigotry
www.shadowandillusion.com -- Learn "The LOPAQUA Secret!"
www.TravelForPay.org -- Learn how to get PAID to TRAVEL!
SkyEyes
>
> >> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
>
> >> 04 ChildlessnessChildlessness is becoming more popular and the proof
> >> is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
> >> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
> >> Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
> >> plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
> >> Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
> >> against having children, but against becoming parents.
>
> > The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think about
> > it: In bringing another person into the world, you are sentencing him or
> > her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to an unhappy, even
> > miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
>
> If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly. You'd make a
> rotten parent in that case as well.
>
> Me, I have no intention of dying if I can help it, and my children may
> have an even better chance of achieving that goal.
Well, if they do, they'd damn well better stop having children of
their own, hadn't they? I just chose to stop the madness one
generation earlier than you did.
SkyEyes
Why, to keep all the women occupied, of course, so that they don't get
bored and go out and have careers, or run for office, or something.
And to keep the men running tamely on the hamster wheel, sweating away
to put food in all those mouths and too afraid of losing their jobs to
make any trouble for The Bosses.
Enos Penvy
<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> Enos Penvy wrote:
> > On Nov 30, 3:51 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> > <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> >> Tristan wrote:
> >>> tj wrote:
> >>>>http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
> >>>> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
> >>>> 04 ChildlessnessChildlessness is becoming more popular and the proof
> >>>> is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
> >>>> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
> >>>> Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
> >>>> plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
> >>>> Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
> >>>> against having children, but against becoming parents.
> >>> The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think about
> >>> it: In bringing another person into the world, you are sentencing him or
> >>> her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to an unhappy, even
> >>> miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
> >> If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly. You'd make a
> >> rotten parent in that case as well.
>
> >> Me, I have no intention of dying if I can help it,
>
> > You're going to die. Just like everyone else.
>
> Threatening me?
Quit being such a loon.
> AND everyone else?
They're all going to die, too. And they know it.
> Who can say they are going to die
Everyone.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> On Nov 30, 1:51 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>> Tristan wrote:
>>> tj wrote:
>>>> http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
>>>> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
>>>> 04 ChildlessnessChildlessness is becoming more popular and the proof
>>>> is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
>>>> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
>>>> Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
>>>> plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
>>>> Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
>>>> against having children, but against becoming parents.
>>> The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think about
>>> it: In bringing another person into the world, you are sentencing him or
>>> her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to an unhappy, even
>>> miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
>> If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly. You'd make a
>> rotten parent in that case as well.
>>
>> Me, I have no intention of dying if I can help it, and my children may
>> have an even better chance of achieving that goal.
>
> Well, if they do, they'd damn well better stop having children of
> their own, hadn't they?
Why? The planet can support at least an order of magnitude more people
even using current techniques, and more likely several. And there are
LOTS more planets out there. Assuming we don't want to just disassemble
all of them and build a Dyson sphere sometime in the next few centuries
or millennia.
Enos Penvy
> > All that lives must die.
>
> Well -- so far! But who knows but that science MAY someday
> in the not-too-distant future discover the factors that cause the
> aging process and come up with they ways to NEGATE them?
> Thus making everyone immortal far as long as they can avoid
> fatal accidents and terminal diseases. (And science may ulti-
> mately be able to do away with the latter, too -- leaving ACCI-
> DENTS as the only remaining threat to unimaginable youthful
> and vibrant longevity.
Well, that, and murder. And in an overpopulated world, I should think
that would become a more socially acceptable behavior than anyone
would have ever thought.
elizabeth
<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> SkyEyes wrote:
> > On Nov 30, 1:51 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> > <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> >> Tristan wrote:
> >>> tj wrote:
> >>>>http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
> >>>> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
> >>>> 04 ChildlessnessChildlessness is becoming more popular and the proof
> >>>> is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
> >>>> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
> >>>> Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
> >>>> plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
> >>>> Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
> >>>> against having children, but against becoming parents.
> >>> The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think about
> >>> it: In bringing another person into the world, you are sentencing him or
> >>> her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to an unhappy, even
> >>> miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
> >> If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly. You'd make a
> >> rotten parent in that case as well.
>
> >> Me, I have no intention of dying if I can help it, and my children may
> >> have an even better chance of achieving that goal.
>
> > Well, if they do, they'd damn well better stop having children of
> > their own, hadn't they?
>
> Why? The planet can support at least an order of magnitude more people
> even using current techniques, and more likely several. And there are
> LOTS more planets out there. Assuming we don't want to just disassemble
> all of them and build a Dyson sphere sometime in the next few centuries
> or millennia.
>
> --
> Sea Wasp
> /^\
> ;;;
Yes, you are insane. Kill yourself and anyone unfortunate enough to
be related to you.
SkyEyes
<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> SkyEyes wrote:
> > On Nov 30, 1:51 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> > <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> >> Tristan wrote:
> >>> tj wrote:
> >>>>http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
> >>>> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
> >>>> 04 ChildlessnessChildlessness is becoming more popular and the proof
> >>>> is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
> >>>> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
> >>>> Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
> >>>> plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
> >>>> Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
> >>>> against having children, but against becoming parents.
> >>> The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think about
> >>> it: In bringing another person into the world, you are sentencing him or
> >>> her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to an unhappy, even
> >>> miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
> >> If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly. You'd make a
> >> rotten parent in that case as well.
>
> >> Me, I have no intention of dying if I can help it, and my children may
> >> have an even better chance of achieving that goal.
>
> > Well, if they do, they'd damn well better stop having children of
> > their own, hadn't they?
>
> Why? The planet can support at least an order of magnitude more people
> even using current techniques, and more likely several.
Gee, it can? Got a cite for that?
Man, if we get that many more people on this fucked-up planet, I don't
want to be alive to see it. I'd prefer to go out with the tigers,
thanks awfully.
> And there are
> LOTS more planets out there. Assuming we don't want to just disassemble
> all of them and build a Dyson sphere sometime in the next few centuries
> or millennia.
I'm sorry, I'm just not as sanguine about mankind's ability to sustain
cutting-edge technology *and* deleriously high population levels as
you are. I'm all for space travel and otherworld colonization, but I
think we have a better chance of doing that if we control the
population than if we don't.
(�`�.�Craig Chilton�.���) <www.LayoffRemedy.com>
Envisioning a WONDROUS **Future** World of IMMORTALITY.
DARE to DREAM... and ACHIEVE!
> All that lives must die.
Well -- so far! But who knows but that science MAY someday
in the not-too-distant future discover the factors that cause the
aging process and come up with they ways to NEGATE them?
Thus making everyone immortal far as long as they can avoid
fatal accidents and terminal diseases. (And science may ulti-
mately be able to do away with the latter, too -- leaving ACCI-
DENTS as the only remaining threat to unimaginable youthful
and vibrant longevity.
Medical science has been working quite WELL on MANY diff-
erent projects, such as developing vaccines, and cures. But
it still clings too much to a mindset of "when one is up to his ass
in alligators, who has time to drain the swamp?" The AGING
process is the SWAMP -- and science NEEDS to turn a LOT of
attention to vaccinating against -- and finding the cure for --
the ULTIMATE threat. The aging process. Everything else is
secondary comprised to THAT threat, which ultimately disables
MOST people, and currently is killing ALL of them. FINDING
the vaccines and cures for *that* should be the **HIGHEST**
priority of medical science! There is NO EXCUSE for continuing
to let that slide. If we could get people to the moon and back
alive 40 years ago, after merely 9-year-long crash program --
THIS too should be possible, given the right amount of funding
and dedicated effort.
Just IMAGINE almost everyone in the world having the
youthfulness energy of 30-years-olds, regardless of their
calendar ages!
That would make for an interesting scenario. Because IF
people found themselves able to live for tens of thousands of
years if ONLY they could avoid being killed in accidents -- then
WHO would dare to roll the dice against that by getting into
cars, trains, and planes anymore? Needless to say, all WARS
and dangerous conflicts would become unthinkable and a thing
of the past. This would be the KEY to a truly utopian world!
What WONDROUS changes there would be for the better!!
It could well become a world where ALL commerce and work
becomes done electronically, from home, and where almost ALL
of the fabrications will be done by ROBOTICS in factories.
So what if we took FEWER physical risks, like skydiving and
going on treks up Mt. Everest? The TRADEOFF would be *well*
worth it!
Jon Schild
>
> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
>
Has Sound of Strumpet gotten a new e-mail account under a different
name? Looks like it.
W.T.S.
news:974e77e4-b9b5-479d...@m11g2000vbo.googlegroups.com...
> http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrating-selfishness/
> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
> Published: Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 5:15 am
Sterilization stops them cold, abortion isn't enough. Let the little
darlings burn in Hell while normal, decent adults enjoy the rich rewards
they've earned.
Baby, bad. Sterilization, good!
(A more point by point response later.)
--
http://folding.stanford.edu
Save lives, visit today!
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> On Nov 30, 2:49 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>> SkyEyes wrote:
>>> On Nov 30, 1:51 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>>> <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>>> Tristan wrote:
>>>>> tj wrote:
>>>>>> http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
>>>>>> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
>>>>>> 04 ChildlessnessChildlessness is becoming more popular and the proof
>>>>>> is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
>>>>>> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
>>>>>> Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
>>>>>> plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
>>>>>> Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
>>>>>> against having children, but against becoming parents.
>>>>> The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think about
>>>>> it: In bringing another person into the world, you are sentencing him or
>>>>> her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to an unhappy, even
>>>>> miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
>>>> If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly. You'd make a
>>>> rotten parent in that case as well.
>>>> Me, I have no intention of dying if I can help it, and my children may
>>>> have an even better chance of achieving that goal.
>>> Well, if they do, they'd damn well better stop having children of
>>> their own, hadn't they?
>> Why? The planet can support at least an order of magnitude more people
>> even using current techniques, and more likely several.
>
> Gee, it can? Got a cite for that?
I'll have to check; IIRC James Nicoll has gone into some detail on such
things, often under his ironic tongue-in-cheek heading of "My
Nightmarish Future", where the nightmare is a highly populated world
with a higher standard of living for everyone. But it should be obvious
to any elementary analysis; we use very little of the resources of the
world, despite the doom-and-gloomsayers, there's plenty of space, really
efficient farming in the right areas would grow vastly more food, etc.
The problem TODAY is not -- in any sense -- that we have too many
people on the planet. It's that there currently is no system that
distributes stuff efficiently. The USA has LOTS of food, and even if you
let us eat all that we currently do but could somehow cut out the WASTE,
I'd bet that you'd be able to make a significant dent in the
underfeeding of other countries.
And of course we use some of the stupidest ways to generate power (coal
and oil) instead of nuclear. Which again despite doomsayers, has killed
fewer people by ANY measure than any of the other types of power
generation (save, possibly, hydroelectric... but even there, you've got
lots of fatalities, especially early on, in the building of Super Big
Dams, etc.)
>
> Man, if we get that many more people on this fucked-up planet, I don't
> want to be alive to see it. I'd prefer to go out with the tigers,
> thanks awfully.
More for us, then.
>
>> And there are
>> LOTS more planets out there. Assuming we don't want to just disassemble
>> all of them and build a Dyson sphere sometime in the next few centuries
>> or millennia.
>
> I'm sorry, I'm just not as sanguine about mankind's ability to sustain
> cutting-edge technology *and* deleriously high population levels as
> you are.
High population levels are in fact necessary to sustain really high
technology -- and so far, anyway, the higher the technology, the higher
the population needed. I think that right now to sustain what we have
currently has a minimum population of about 500,000,000 people -- and
that'd be straitjacketing a lot of them in to specific roles, I suspect.
I'm all for space travel and otherworld colonization, but I
> think we have a better chance of doing that if we control the
> population than if we don't.
I suspect you'll need both higher technology AND serious pressure of
population to help drive it -- not in the sense of "we live here in our
squalid billions and that's the only escape", but "out there I can get
my own asteroid a hundred kilometers across and reshape the inside to
what I want." This will require VERY much more advanced technology, and
a lot of people to drive the economy of scale.
(�`�.�Craig Chilton�.���) <www.LayoffRemedy.com>
Enos Penvy <enos...@null.net> wrote:
>>> � �All that lives must die.
>> � � Well -- so far! �But who knows but that science MAY someday
>> in the not-too-distant future discover the factors that cause the
>> aging process and come up with they ways to NEGATE them? �
>> Thus making everyone immortal far as long as they can avoid
>> fatal accidents and terminal diseases. �(And science may ulti-
>> mately be able to do away with the latter, too -- leaving ACCI-
>> DENTS as the only remaining threat to unimaginable youthful
>> and vibrant longevity.
> Well, that, and murder. And in an overpopulated world, I should
> think that would become a more socially acceptable behavior than
> anyone would have ever thought.
I think that murder in such a world would become unthinkable.
ALL of the world's people would fit (fatally, of course) inside of a
cubic-mile-size box. Considering that, there's a LOT of open country
in the world that could be utilized. Just in Texas, alone, for example,
south of Abilene, I know of a stretch of highway that would be
IDEAL for building a megalopolis that could be over 100 miles long!
In a world where virtual immortality could become assured for all,
the NEXT priority should be to make the planet comfortably livable
for all.
Alan Ford
>> Well, if they do, they'd damn well better stop having children of
>> their own, hadn't they?
>
> Why? The planet can support at least an order of magnitude more
> people even using current techniques, and more likely several.
Of course, provided you are satisfied by living like a Somali child,
making $3 a year and eating shit for breakfast on a good day. Everyone's
standard of living will go dratically down, but that's a small price to
pay for breeding like cockroaches.
And there
> are LOTS more planets out there. Assuming we don't want to just
> disassemble all of them and build a Dyson sphere sometime in the next
> few centuries or millennia.
??? Get your ass out of lame Sci-Fi comics and crash-land in reality. No
one's leaving this planet for another at any time. Period.
What a bullshit notion - we'll just pack up our shit and hitch-hike to
Jupiter. Idiot.
Alan Ford
>>> Why? The planet can support at least an order of magnitude more
>>> people
>>> even using current techniques, and more likely several.
>> Gee, it can? Got a cite for that?
>
> Most of the planet is empty of people,
Yeah, it's called oceans, polar ice, deserts and desolate mountains.
Other than those, it's perfectly habitable.
and most of the rest is agriculture. If
> we build a lot more nuclear power plants, we can stack up farms in skyscrapers
> with artificial light. We can, if we choose, have less impact and more room. We
> are already productive enough to end all hunger, cold, and homelessness. It's
> just a question of what we want.
Be the first one on the block to send 99% of your income to feed not
only the people unable and incapable of feeding themselves now, but ten
times more tomorrow.
Enos Penvy
> > (¯`·.¸Craig Chilton¸.·´¯) <www.LayoffRemedy.com> wrote:
> >> elizabeth <efran...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>> All that lives must die.
> >> Well -- so far! But who knows but that science MAY someday
> >> in the not-too-distant future discover the factors that cause the
> >> aging process and come up with they ways to NEGATE them?
> >> Thus making everyone immortal far as long as they can avoid
> >> fatal accidents and terminal diseases. (And science may ulti-
> >> mately be able to do away with the latter, too -- leaving ACCI-
> >> DENTS as the only remaining threat to unimaginable youthful
> >> and vibrant longevity.
> > Well, that, and murder. And in an overpopulated world, I should
> > think that would become a more socially acceptable behavior than
> > anyone would have ever thought.
>
> I think that murder in such a world would become unthinkable.
Increase population density, and you'll see an increase in murders,
particularly in areas where resources are scarce or expensive. We can
see that right now, even though we're still mortal.
> ALL of the world's people would fit (fatally, of course) inside of a
> cubic-mile-size box.
> Considering that, there's a LOT of open country
> in the world that could be utilized. Just in Texas, alone, for example,
> south of Abilene, I know of a stretch of highway that would be
> IDEAL for building a megalopolis that could be over 100 miles long!
Yeah, but who the fuck wants to live in Texas?
Liz
> On Nov 30, 2:25 pm, Liz <ehu...@neo.rr.com> wrote:
>
> > On Nov 30, 3:36 pm, tj <timjone...@hushmail.com> wrote:
> > [----]
>
> > > The ideal Maier and her ilk celebrate in rejecting children is to
> > > embrace permanent childishness for themselves. That is selfish and
> > > irresponsible.
>
> > This doesn't make any sense. Why would you, or anyone with a lick of
> > sense (those categories may be mutually exclusive), want selfish,
> > irresponsible people to raise children?
>
> Why, to keep all the women occupied, of course, so that they don't get
> bored and go out and have careers, or run for office, or something.
> And to keep the men running tamely on the hamster wheel, sweating away
> to put food in all those mouths and too afraid of losing their jobs to
> make any trouble for The Bosses.
I meant besides that. ;)
Liz #658
Ray Fischer
>http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrating-selfishness/
>
>Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
People have children for selfish reasons.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Jon Schild
> Alan Ford <zzz...@qqq.net> wrote:
>
>> Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>>
>>>> Well, if they do, they'd damn well better stop having children of
>>>> their own, hadn't they?
>>> Why? The planet can support at least an order of magnitude more
>>> people even using current techniques, and more likely several.
>> Of course, provided you are satisfied by living like a Somali child,
>> making $3 a year and eating shit for breakfast on a good day. Everyone's
>> standard of living will go dratically down, but that's a small price to
>> pay for breeding like cockroaches.
>
>
Amazing what depths of denial some people can inhabit.
James A. Donald
> Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>
> >> Well, if they do, they'd damn well better stop having children of
> >> their own, hadn't they?
> >
> > Why? The planet can support at least an order of magnitude more
> > people even using current techniques, and more likely several.
>
> Of course, provided you are satisfied by living like a Somali child,
> making $3 a year and eating shit for breakfast on a good day.
Using known twentieth century technology, the earth could support five
hundred billion, half a trillion, at an American, Singaporean,
standard of living.
MarkA
Doesn't it hurt to pull such large numbers out of your ass?
--
MarkA
Keeper of Things Put There Only Just The Night Before
About eight o'clock
MarkA
> Enos Penvy wrote:
>> On Nov 30, 3:51 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>> <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>> Tristan wrote:
>>>> tj wrote:
>>>>> http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
>>>>> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness 04
>>>>> ChildlessnessChildlessness is becoming more popular and the proof is
>>>>> apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
>>>>> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
>>>>> popular culture. Macleanļæ½s ran a cover story on August 3, entitled,
>>>>> ļæ½The Case Against Having Kids.ļæ½ A new book by French author
>>>>> Corinne Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is
>>>>> getting plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the
>>>>> National Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so
>>>>> much against having children, but against becoming parents.
>>>> The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think
>>>> about it: In bringing another person into the world, you are
>>>> sentencing him or her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to
>>>> an unhappy, even miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
>>> If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly. You'd
>>> make a
>>> rotten parent in that case as well.
>>>
>>> Me, I have no intention of dying if I can help it,
>>
>> You're going to die. Just like everyone else.
>
> Threatening me? AND everyone else? Who can say they are going to die
> until the time comes, just as none can claim to be immortal until they
> reach the end of time?
So far as we know, nobody has avoided death in the past, and we don't yet
know enough to know whether we can avoid it in the future, or even if that
is a desirable goal.
Gwen Bennet
> http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
>
> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
Tardo - it's CHILD-FREE, bozo: people have the choose. To me, the
worst kind of selfish fucktard is the one who has a child and doesn't
give a flying fuck about it.
Like many of the alleged pro-lifers who've forgotten it's world aids
day and not have made a mere mention of the suffering children. Not a
single one of mother fuckers. Unless it's to bash gays, of course.
Ray Fischer
When you make silly statements like that it just damages your
credbility.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
SkyEyes
wrote:
> In article <427e9ab6-2555-41e5-8bd5-1a5e5b3b9...@u36g2000prn.googlegroups.com>,
>
> SkyEyes <skyey...@cox.net> wrote:
> > > Why? The planet can support at least an order of magnitude more
> > > people
> > > even using current techniques, and more likely several.
>
> > Gee, it can? Got a cite for that?
>
*Most* of the planet is *not* habitable by anything other than sea
creatures. Of the dry land, the vast majority of it is also not
habitable because it doesn't have sufficient supplies of fresh water
to support large populations.
Very little of the earth is suitable for agriculture, Lambchop. Do
yourself a favor and pick up a copy of _Guns, Germs and Steel_ by
Jared Diamond. Do yourself a favor: read a little less sci-fi.
haiku jones
> On Nov 30, 3:32 pm, Once in a China Blue Moon <chine.b...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> > In article <427e9ab6-2555-41e5-8bd5-1a5e5b3b9...@u36g2000prn.googlegroups.com>,
>
> > SkyEyes <skyey...@cox.net> wrote:
> > > > Why? The planet can support at least an order of magnitude more
> > > > people
> > > > even using current techniques, and more likely several.
>
> > > Gee, it can? Got a cite for that?
>
> > Most of the planet is empty of people, and most of the rest is agriculture.
>
> *Most* of the planet is *not* habitable by anything other than sea
> creatures.
And most of the ocean -- which means most of the
planet's surface -- is basically desert. No minerals,
other than at seasonal turnover means
no phytoplankton most of the year. No phytoplankton
means nothing higher up the food chain, other than
large predators such as tuna and dolphins, passing through.
Coastal waters are where it's at. But adding coastal
waters would not even double the productive surface.
Haiku Jones
> On the dry land, the vast majority of it is also not
W.T.S.
message news:r5n8h59hgcabd8q7b...@4ax.com...
enough tillable land.
W.T.S.
news:chine.bleu-C01E7...@news.eternal-september.org...
> In article <VeudnZXLodpBzonW...@earthlink.com>,
> yourself.
>
I didn't need to, a Doctor did it for a very reasonable price, only $300.00.
Thanks to science, we don't have to live in the dark ages anymore. Best
money I ever spent!
Gwen Bennet
<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> SkyEyes wrote:
> > On Nov 30, 1:51 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> > <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> >> Tristan wrote:
> >>> tj wrote:
> >>>>http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
> >>>> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
> >>>> is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
> >>>> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
> >>>> “The Case Against Having Kids.” A new book by French author Corinne
> >>>> Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
> >>>> plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
> >>>> Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
> >>>> against having children, but against becoming parents.
> >>> The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think about
> >>> it: In bringing another person into the world, you are sentencing him or
> >>> her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to an unhappy, even
> >>> miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
> >> If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly. You'd make a
> >> rotten parent in that case as well.
>
> >> have an even better chance of achieving that goal.
>
> > their own, hadn't they?
>
People can't even support themselves and are DYING out of hunger, you
stupid asshole, your stupid-ass comment aside.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> On Nov 30, 4:49 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>> SkyEyes wrote:
>>> On Nov 30, 1:51 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>>> <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>>> Tristan wrote:
>>>>> tj wrote:
>>>>>> http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
>>>>>> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
>>>>>> 04 ChildlessnessChildlessness is becoming more popular and the proof
>>>>>> is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
>>>>>> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
>>>>>> Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
>>>>>> plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
>>>>>> Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
>>>>>> against having children, but against becoming parents.
>>>>> The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think about
>>>>> it: In bringing another person into the world, you are sentencing him or
>>>>> her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to an unhappy, even
>>>>> miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
>>>> If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly. You'd make a
>>>> rotten parent in that case as well.
>>>> Me, I have no intention of dying if I can help it, and my children may
>>>> have an even better chance of achieving that goal.
>>> Well, if they do, they'd damn well better stop having children of
>>> their own, hadn't they?
>> Why? The planet can support at least an order of magnitude more people
>
> People can't even support themselves and are DYING out of hunger, you
> stupid asshole, your stupid-ass comment aside.
Distribution problems, you silly person. We grow lots of food. We could
grow LOTS more. But let's say I had enough food to feed everyone in
(choose country that is very short). How would I get it all there, and
make sure it all got distributed, and not taken, etc., and keep it from
spoiling, etc?
The problem isn't getting enough food grown. We can support lots and
lots of people. It's getting rid of the national borders and
organizations that get in the way.
(�`�.�Craig Chilton�.���) <www.LayoffRemedy.com>
If you'd seen the area I'm talking about, you'd see that it
could be almost ideal.
(1) A **huge** region of FLAT land that is nowhere
nearly as dry as the Valley of the Sun, where
Phoenix is -- nor nearly as hot. (90s and low 100s
in the heat of the summer, vs. ~120 degrees in
PHX.)
(2) IRRIGATE the land outside of the cities and it could
be enormously productive. That climate is especially
suited to growing high-quality (long-staple) cotton.
The land is better than the desert land outside of
Phoenix, in which LOTS of crops are grown.
(3) Build desalinization plants on the Gulf coast to furnish
the fresh water. It's already being done in southern
California. And look at the number of people who are
living in Las Vegas!
Remember that with the technology of 40 years ago, we put
men on the moon and brought them all home again safely.
James A. Donald
> > hundred billion, half a trillion, at an American, Singaporean, standard of
> > living.
On Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:03:53 -0500, MarkA <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> Doesn't it hurt to pull such large numbers out of your ass?
So what limits do you think will stop us?
Check them here
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/sustainability-faq.html
Below, I review the various possible limits.
The more people, the more skills and human energy. But
at some point we will start to run short of room on
planet earth, resources, entropy sinks, and food.
With a population of five hundred billion to one
trillion, most of them living a western middle class
lifestyle, we could solve the human genome problem in a
few months with the money one would get by passing
around your hat and free voluntary donations of time and
labor. The boy scouts would have sufficient resources
to build colonies on the moon and in the Kuiper belt.
We would have sufficient resources not merely to map the
human genome, but to understand it, and rework it, and
redesign it, perhaps for purposes such as growing
artificial organs and ending and reversing old age. (A
project vastly larger and more difficult than merely
mapping it.)
Another area where a vast population would come in handy
is the biotechnology and nanotechnology project of
making useful devices that look after themselves like
cats and breed like rabbits, completely absorbing the
biosphere into the technosphere. Again the main
obstacle to us producing such things today is the vast
complexity of such things.
The laws of physics make it impossible to move hundreds
of billions of people to the stars rapidly using known
or reasonably foreseeable technology, but with
immortality, we would have the time and patience to
travel to the stars using less rapid forms of transport.
Immortality is basically a problem of understanding and
reworking an immensely complicated system, thus it is a
classic example the kind of scientific and technological
project that would benefit from a substantially higher
population.
The question then is what are the likely physical
limitations that could prevent such a desirable outcome:
what would we run out of first?
raw materials and energy:
The cost of separating rock into its various pure
chemical compounds is roughly comparable to the cost of
refining ore: Therefore if we were reduced to mining
rock, rather than ore that has already been separated
for us by natural processes, this would increase raw
materials refining costs by roughly five or ten times,
since rock is roughly ten or twenty percent useful ores,
depending on what one counts as useful. We are already
processing low grades of iron ore which not very long
ago would have been considered rock, not ore.
Since the refining and raw material cost of ore is an
insignificant fraction of total costs in an advanced
industrial society, this would not have a substantial
impact. A gradual and orderly conversion to lower and
lower grades of ore, until we are refining rock rather
than extracting ore, will not have any large economic
impact.
A ton of granite contains uranium and thorium
roughly equal to one hundred tons of coal, assuming
breeder reactors and nuclear waste reprocessing. This
ratio is typical of continental rocks, but is not
typical of the earth has a whole: Once we strip mine
the entire continental surface of the earth to about
thirty or forty miles deep, we will no longer be able to
employ fission power. For a population of several
hundred billion immortals, people with a vastly longer
perspective than ours, fission power would eventually
come to be seen as disturbingly finite. Fortunately
this leave more than ample time and resources to create
space based solar power systems.
For some sufficiently large population the waste heat
from all this is going to cook the earth, but if we
assume one trillion people consuming as much energy per
head as people in the USA consume , this is not going to
heat up the earth substantially.
The total energy of sunlight falling on the earth is one
hundred and ten million gigawatts. A population of one
thousand billion people, consuming energy at about the
rate that Americans do would consume about three million
gigawatts. Assuming 40% efficient fission energy
production then this would raise the temperature of the
earth by 3 / 110 / 4 * 300 * 100/40 degrees kelvin,
about five degrees celsius, noticeable and irritating,
but not alarming.
If instead we covered half the ocean with
floating solar cell packs, we could get the same amount
of energy with no rise in the earths temperature.
It is likely that future generations will wish
to use vastly more energy per person than today's
Americans,
One way of doing this would be to use orbital solar
generators, which reduce the amount of direct sunlight
falling on the earth.
In that case a population of seven hundred billion could
enjoy twenty times as much energy consumption as today's
americans at the cost of the day becoming half as
bright, with no change in the earths temperature.
Since we obviously have adequate supplies of rock, and
our entropy sinks are tolerable for a world population
of one trillion, the critical question is living space.
Living room:
To accommodate such a population under conditions
similar to today's middle class American suburbia,
almost the entire land surface of the earth would need
to be turned into suburbia. This of course does not
leave a lot of land for parks, and it leaves no land for
agriculture.
A world population of one trillion (1000 000 000 000)
would fill the whole land area of the earth with suburbs
at the current density of Sunnyvale - dense suburbia
with detached houses and rather small backyards.
Food:
We in the West already eat significant quantities of
meat "helper" and "imitation crab meat", much of it made
in part from stuff grown in vats on chemical feedstocks.
Similarly most of the fruity flavor in soft drinks comes
from fully synthetic foodstuffs -- mostly ketones and
fatty acid esters. These chemicals are mostly in for
the flavor, but they do supply some tiny amount of
calories. Although the food industry does not wish its
customers to know this, some small part of that spare
tire near your belt did not originate from agriculture,
and much that was processed by agriculture (pork and
chicken) did not originate from plants.
In a world population of five hundred million, many of
the enjoyable foods that we take for granted today would
become expensive luxuries, which would mostly come from
peoples backyards, and from special greenhouses full of
grow lights, but we would not become hungry. (We might
however become bored.)
Specialty goods:
How rare would things like wood be?
Well obviously in a world of five hundred billion or a
trillion people we would not use it to build timber
frame houses, but I have repeatedly taken enough wood
out of my backyard to work up quite a sweat, so I guess
we would still have small amounts of wooden furniture
and wooden cutting boards, table tops, and the like,
where we wanted the appearance and feel of wood, but
only a tiny wealthy minority could afford things like
wooden patios, and even a wooden door would be an
expensive status symbol, so if you had a wooden door you
would never dream of painting it, but would instead
carefully oil it and stain it to bring out the grain.
In short, such a relatively high population would have
numerous inconveniences, but they would be
inconveniences, not disasters.
Summary:
In my judgment, the most immediate constraint on a
population close to one trillion is the fact that most
people desire to have a back yard and a garden with
trees, flowers, and vegetables, open to the sun and the
rain. At a population of five hundred million to one
trillion, the neighbors back yard fence would start to
get irritatingly close. The next constraint, for
populations much higher than one trillion, populations
so high that most people could not afford an outdoor
garden, will be entropy sinks -- planetary overheating,
not caused by the anthropogenic greenhouse effect but by
the direct effect of the waste heat of industry.
--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
Smiler
> On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:03:04 -0500, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>
>> Enos Penvy wrote:
>>> On Nov 30, 3:51 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>>> <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>>> Tristan wrote:
>>>>> tj wrote:
>>>>>> http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
>>>>>> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness 04
>>>>>> ChildlessnessChildlessness is becoming more popular and the
>>>>>> proof is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels
>>>>>> and 100,000 abortions every year in Canada, it is being
>>>>>> on August 3, entitled, �The Case Against Having Kids.� A new
>>>>>> book by French author
>>>>>> Corinne Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is
>>>>>> getting plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in
>>>>>> the National Post. But read between the lines and the argument
>>>>>> is not so much against having children, but against becoming
>>>>>> parents.
>>>>> The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think
>>>>> about it: In bringing another person into the world, you are
>>>>> sentencing him or her to death sooner or later, and quite
>>>>> possibly to an unhappy, even miserable life. Is it ethically
>>>>> right to do that?
>>>> If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly.
>>>> You'd make a
>>>> rotten parent in that case as well.
>>>>
>>>> Me, I have no intention of dying if I can help it,
>>>
>>> You're going to die. Just like everyone else.
>>
>> Threatening me? AND everyone else? Who can say they are going to die
>> until the time comes, just as none can claim to be immortal until
>> they reach the end of time?
>
> So far as we know, nobody has avoided death in the past, and we don't
> yet know enough to know whether we can avoid it in the future, or
> even if that is a desirable goal.
Nobody can have avoided death in the past, otherwise they would still be
around!
Apart, that is, from Mel Brooks' "2000 year old man" :-)
--
Smiler
The godless one
a.a.# 2279
All gods are bespoke. They're all made to
perfectly fit the prejudices of their believer
Ray Fischer
>In article <34998d7b-263f-4a0b...@e27g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
> SkyEyes <skye...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> On Nov 30, 3:32�pm, Once in a China Blue Moon <chine.b...@yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>> > In article
>> > <427e9ab6-2555-41e5-8bd5-1a5e5b3b9...@u36g2000prn.googlegroups.com>,
>> >
>> > �SkyEyes <skyey...@cox.net> wrote:
>> > > > � � � � Why? The planet can support at least an order of magnitude more
>> > > > people
>> > > > even using current techniques, and more likely several.
>> >
>> > > Gee, it can? �Got a cite for that?
>> >
>> > Most of the planet is empty of people, and most of the rest is agriculture.
>>
>> *Most* of the planet is *not* habitable by anything other than sea
>> creatures. Of the dry land, the vast majority of it is also not
>> habitable because it doesn't have sufficient supplies of fresh water
>> to support large populations.
>>
>> Very little of the earth is suitable for agriculture, Lambchop. Do
>> yourself a favor and pick up a copy of _Guns, Germs and Steel_ by
>> Jared Diamond. Do yourself a favor: read a little less sci-fi.
>
>the appropriate radiation. With an alternative power source
"Magic" doesn't create food, asshole.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Ray Fischer
>> > hundred billion, half a trillion, at an American, Singaporean, standard of
>> > living.
>
>
>So what limits do you think will stop us?
You're changing the subject.
>
>Check them here
>http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/sustainability-faq.html
>
>Below, I review the various possible limits.
>
>The more people, the more skills and human energy.
Trite propaganda with no basis in fact.
> But
>at some point we will start to run short of room on
>planet earth, resources, entropy sinks, and food.
No kidding?
>With a population of five hundred billion to one
>trillion, most of them living a western middle class
>lifestyle, we could solve the human genome problem in a
Are you on drugs? Or just trolling?
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Ray Fischer
>Gwen Bennet wrote:
>> On Nov 30, 4:49 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>> <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>> SkyEyes wrote:
>>>> On Nov 30, 1:51 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>>>> <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>>>> Tristan wrote:
>>>>>> tj wrote:
>>>>>>> http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
>>>>>>> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
>>>>>>> 04 ChildlessnessChildlessness is becoming more popular and the proof
>>>>>>> is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
>>>>>>> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
>>>>>>> �The Case Against Having Kids.� A new book by French author Corinne
>>>>>>> Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
>>>>>>> plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
>>>>>>> Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
>>>>>>> against having children, but against becoming parents.
>>>>>> The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think about
>>>>>> it: In bringing another person into the world, you are sentencing him or
>>>>>> her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to an unhappy, even
>>>>>> miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
>>>>> If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly. You'd make a
>>>>> rotten parent in that case as well.
>>>>> Me, I have no intention of dying if I can help it, and my children may
>>>>> have an even better chance of achieving that goal.
>>>> Well, if they do, they'd damn well better stop having children of
>>>> their own, hadn't they?
>>> Why? The planet can support at least an order of magnitude more people
>>
>> People can't even support themselves and are DYING out of hunger, you
>> stupid asshole, your stupid-ass comment aside.
>
> Distribution problems, you silly person.
Patent stupidity, liar.
> We grow lots of food. We could
>grow LOTS more.
Says who, moron?
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Ric Locke
Transmitting AIDS to others is a civil right for homosexuals, as is
unlimited access to taxpayer funds to keep them alive so they can infect
more people. This was established when the disease first appeared in the
United States.
Regards,
Ric
Ray Fischer
>> People can't even support themselves and are DYING out of hunger, you
>> stupid asshole, your stupid-ass comment aside.
>
>That's because we choose to live this way. What happens when Africa gets an
>extra special famine? Once the money is changes hand, surplus grain arrives from
Do you idiots actually look at the numbers or do you just accept
whatever bullshit you're fed?
> It's not a
>question of whether there's enough food,
Yes, it is.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
James A. Donald
> *Most* of the planet is *not* habitable by anything
> other than sea creatures. Of the dry land, the vast
> majority of it is also not habitable because it
> doesn't have sufficient supplies of fresh water to
Do what the jews do - put greenhouses over your
agriculture. Then the water cannot escape.
In the hottest part of the greenhouse, have sea water
evaporating - then you can afford to lose some water.
And you want to farm the oceans. That part is easy:
Allow fish ranchers to claim exclusive fishing rights to
large patches of water. Just add iron, ocean turns
green. The fish ranchers net fish, returning a
proportion of the desired fish to spawn more, and not
returning any of the competitors or predators of the
desired fish.
So we can farm 100% of the planet, Hmm, what do we do
about the part covered by ice. Oh yes, greenhouses, only
make them double glazed.
But hang on there. I want to build suburbia over 100%
of the planet. So let us have nuclear power and food
synthesis. With nuclear power, can make DME from
limestone and water, grow fungi on DME. Everyone winds
up mostly eating something like quorn.
Now what about building suburbia over the oceans? Well,
it is easy to build up over water where the waves never
get very large - observe all those floating markets in
Asia. The problem is that the ocean can get mighty big
waves. Still, container ships are not all that
expensive. Make the containers into apartments, link
the container ships together with sliding bridge
structures that can absorb a fair bit of wave movement,
problem solved. With that approach, we can support a
world population of a couple of trillion.
James A. Donald
Famine is caused only by war and socialism. No one is hungry because
of overpopulation.
James A. Donald
> planet's surface -- is basically desert.
It is desert solely for lack of iron, which problem can easily be
fixed. Just privatize fishing rights.
The Chief Instigator
> On Tue, 1 Dec 2009 07:25:06 -0800 (PST), Gwen Bennet wrote:
>
So, when did you start abusing LSD?
--
Patrick L. "The Chief Instigator" Humphrey (pat...@io.com) Houston, Texas
www.io.com/~patrick/aeros.php (TCI's 2009-10 Houston Aeros) AA#2273
LAST GAME: Houston 2, Toronto 1 (OT, November 28)
NEXT GAME: Thursday, December 3 vs. San Antonio, 11:05 AM
Ray Fischer
>> *Most* of the planet is *not* habitable by anything
>> other than sea creatures. Of the dry land, the vast
>> majority of it is also not habitable because it
>> doesn't have sufficient supplies of fresh water to
>> support large populations.'
>
>Do what the jews do - put greenhouses over your
>agriculture. Then the water cannot escape.
And air cannot get in and the plants die.
>In the hottest part of the greenhouse, have sea water
>evaporating - then you can afford to lose some water.
Of course, such a massive investment in equipment is completely
unaffordable, which means that you'd have to drastically reduce
everybody's living standards.
>And you want to farm the oceans. That part is easy:
Moron.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Ray Fischer
> rfis...@sonic.net (Ray Fischer) wrote:
>
>> > Distribution problems, you silly person.
>>
>> Patent stupidity, liar.
>
And yet a billion people don't have enough food right now.
>> > We grow lots of food. We could
>> >grow LOTS more.
>>
>> Says who, moron?
>
>USDA which pays farmers to slaughter dairy cows,
Typical rightard stupidity. As if dairy cows amounted to a
significant amount of food value.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Ray Fischer
>> People can't even support themselves and are DYING out of hunger
>
>Famine is caused only by war and socialism.
And not drought, or lack of fertilizer, or soil erosion, or floods,
or weeds, or insects...
The degree of arrogant stupidity exhibited by these morons is
impressive. Humanity struggles for millenia to feed everyone and this
stupid asshole just blithly announces that all the issues are moot, and
that it's all solved by magic.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
George Orwell
"(�`�.�Craig Chilton�.���) <www.LayoffRemedy.com>" <x...@m.com>
wrote:
Nobody ever went to the fucking moon and came back you twit.
They would have been dead from radiation before they ever got
there.
Il mittente di questo messaggio|The sender address of this
non corrisponde ad un utente |message is not related to a real
reale ma all'indirizzo fittizio|person but to a fake address of an
di un sistema anonimizzatore |anonymous system
Per maggiori informazioni |For more info
https://www.mixmaster.it
Lars Eighner
<974e77e4-b9b5-479d...@m11g2000vbo.googlegroups.com>, the
lovely and talented tj broadcast on alt.atheism:
> The ideal Maier and her ilk celebrate in rejecting children is to
> embrace permanent childishness for themselves. That is selfish and
> irresponsible.
Nonsense. It is the narcissistic breeders who insist on producing their own
biological children in a world of nearly 7 billion people who are selfish.
--
Lars Eighner *Atheist #1965* use...@larseighner.com <http://larseighner.com/>
7.5 hours since Warbama declared Viet Nam II.
Warbama: An LBJ for the Twenty-First century. No hope. No change.
Robibnikoff
"Lars Eighner" <use...@larseighner.com> wrote in message
news:slrnhhc9cj...@debranded.larseighner.com...
> In our last episode,
> <974e77e4-b9b5-479d...@m11g2000vbo.googlegroups.com>, the
> lovely and talented tj broadcast on alt.atheism:
>
>> The ideal Maier and her ilk celebrate in rejecting children is to
>> embrace permanent childishness for themselves. That is selfish and
>> irresponsible.
>
> Nonsense. It is the narcissistic breeders who insist on producing their
> own
> biological children in a world of nearly 7 billion people who are selfish.
Guilty! ;)
--
Robyn
Resident Witchypoo & Belly Dancer Supreme
BAAWA Knight
#1557
Fritz Wuehler
"(�`�.�Craig Chilton�.���) <www.LayoffRemedy.com>" <x...@m.com>
wrote:
Nobody ever went to the fucking moon and came back you twit.
Anonymous Remailer (austria)
In article <slrnhhc9cj...@debranded.larseighner.com>
Lars Eighner <use...@larseighner.com> wrote:
>
> In our last episode,
> <974e77e4-b9b5-479d...@m11g2000vbo.googlegroups.com>, the
> lovely and talented tj broadcast on alt.atheism:
>
> > The ideal Maier and her ilk celebrate in rejecting children is to
> > embrace permanent childishness for themselves. That is selfish and
> > irresponsible.
>
> Nonsense. It is the narcissistic breeders who insist on producing their own
> biological children in a world of nearly 7 billion people who are selfish.
There are only a handful of countries who have uncontrolled
population problems. China, India and Pakistan are the biggest
offenders, the rest are from Africa. Africa is the only
civilized country as they have embraced population control
through mass slaughter, and they employ AIDS to cull the
careless who escape. They have apparently studied history and
are criminalizing gay behavior to avoid becoming weak like the
USA. The strong will survive this century. Those who cater to
homosexuals are weak and will simply be killed off.
Liz
<mixmas...@remailer.privacy.at> wrote:
[----]
> Africa is the only civilized country ...
Africa is not a country. Sarah, is that you?
Liz #658
Ric Locke
> In article <4b1613e1$0$1614$742e...@news.sonic.net>,
> rfis...@sonic.net (Ray Fischer) wrote:
>
>> James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>>> Gwen Bennet
>>>> People can't even support themselves and are DYING out of hunger
>>>
>>>Famine is caused only by war and socialism.
>>
>> And not drought, or lack of fertilizer, or soil erosion, or floods,
>> or weeds, or insects..
>
> None of which affect all farms simultaneously world wide.
>
>> The degree of arrogant stupidity exhibited by these morons is
>> impressive. Humanity struggles for millenia to feed everyone and this
>> stupid asshole just blithly announces that all the issues are moot, and
>
> The issues are moot.
>
>> that it's all solved by magic.
>
> It's solved by technology. You seriously need to learn about modern agriculture.
He won't. He probably still has a hard-on for Rachel Carson, who's
indirectly killed more children than anyone short of Pol Pot.
Regards,
Ric
Ric Locke
> On Tue, 1 Dec 2009 22:12:58 -0600, Ric Locke <warric...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, 1 Dec 2009 07:25:06 -0800 (PST), Gwen Bennet wrote:
>>
>>> On Nov 30, 3:36?pm, tj <timjone...@hushmail.com> wrote:
>>>> http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
>>>>
>>>> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
>>>
>>> Tardo - it's CHILD-FREE, bozo: people have the choose. To me, the
>>> worst kind of selfish fucktard is the one who has a child and doesn't
>>> give a flying fuck about it.
>>>
>>> Like many of the alleged pro-lifers who've forgotten it's world aids
>>> day and not have made a mere mention of the suffering children. Not a
>>> single one of mother fuckers. Unless it's to bash gays, of course.
>>
>> Transmitting AIDS to others is a civil right for homosexuals, as is
>> unlimited access to taxpayer funds to keep them alive so they can infect
>> more people. This was established when the disease first appeared in the
>> United States.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Ric
>
> So, when did you start abusing LSD?
You must be a hippie from the Sixties. All that emphasis on chemicals
and self-medication has to come from somewhere.
When AIDS first appeared in the United States the CDC wanted to treat it
like, you know, a disease, identifying carriers and separating them from
the population to prevent its spread. The "bath house" culture went into
full damage control mode, eventually getting regulations, legislation,
and court rulings to the effect that such straightforward epidemiology
and disease-control measures were an untoward and unConstitutional
intrusion upon the homosexual lifestyle. They then lobbied for, and got,
extensions of the various Government health-care subsidies to purchase
the vastly expensive "cocktails" needed to suppress HIV (we still can't
"cure" viral infections, and may never be able to).
Which is to say, my summary stands. The AIDS virus is very nearly
non-transmissible, requiring direct fluid transfer, usually blood. It is
therefore transmitted largely either by accident (to a health-care
worker, for instance) or by sex practices that cause breaking of the
skin barrier -- predominately anal sex, or the "dry sex" preferred by
some Africans. Since it is a civil right for homosexuals to engage in
such unsafe practices with an arbitrary number of partners, and to
remain in the general population to do so, it is a civil right of
homosexuals to transmit AIDS to others; since it is a civil right of
people with AIDS to have the taxpayers subsidize their expensive
treatment, it is a civil right of "gays" to maintain populations of HIV
for that purpose.
Regards,
Ric
Ric Locke
No, but the point is correct and stands.
The future belongs to those who live in it. Since you and your
(putative) offspring won't be there, your opinions are irrelevant. Why
don't you just go ahead and kill yourself, and stop bugging the rest of
us?
Regards,
Ric
Rambo Jones
I second that motion.
I wish she'd stop breathing the same air that I breathe.
--
R. Jones
Gwen
> On Tue, 1 Dec 2009 07:25:06 -0800 (PST), Gwen Bennet wrote:
> > On Nov 30, 3:36 pm, tj <timjone...@hushmail.com> wrote:
> >>http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
>
> >> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
>
> > Tardo - it's CHILD-FREE, bozo: people have the choose. To me, the
> > worst kind of selfish fucktard is the one who has a child and doesn't
> > give a flying fuck about it.
>
> > Like many of the alleged pro-lifers who've forgotten it's world aids
> > day and not have made a mere mention of the suffering children. Not a
> > single one of mother fuckers. Unless it's to bash gays, of course.
>
> Transmitting AIDS to others is a civil right for homosexuals,
This makes ZERO sense. You are an asshole, by the way.
Gwen
> > <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> >> SkyEyes wrote:
> >>> On Nov 30, 1:51 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> >>> <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> >>>> Tristan wrote:
> >>>>>>http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
> >>>>>> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
> >>>>>> is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
> >>>>>> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
> >>>>>> popular culture. Maclean’s ran a cover story on August 3, entitled,
> >>>>>> “The Case Against Having Kids.” A new book by French author Corinne
> >>>>>> Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
> >>>>>> plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
> >>>>>> Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
> >>>>>> against having children, but against becoming parents.
> >>>>> The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think about
> >>>>> it: In bringing another person into the world, you are sentencing him or
> >>>>> her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to an unhappy, even
> >>>>> miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
> >>>> If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly. You'd make a
> >>>> rotten parent in that case as well.
> >>>> Me, I have no intention of dying if I can help it, and my children may
> >>>> have an even better chance of achieving that goal.
> >>> Well, if they do, they'd damn well better stop having children of
> >>> their own, hadn't they?
> >> Why? The planet can support at least an order of magnitude more people
>
> > stupid asshole, your stupid-ass comment aside.
>
Are you living in a hide somewhere in a NYC sewer?
Gwen
wrote:
> In article <c5e25301-959f-4fe8-984c-570f32a0b...@d21g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
> Gwen Bennet <bennetwitho...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > People can't even support themselves and are DYING out of hunger, you
> > stupid asshole, your stupid-ass comment aside.
>
I suppose the people who could once afford rice and vegetables for
daily meals" choose to starve because of somebody else's choice.
Rambo Jones
Why is it always "somebody else's fault" with you assholes?
Just hurry up and die.
--
R. Jones
(�`�.�Craig Chilton�.���) <www.LayoffRemedy.com>
Submoronic Bigot, BILL TAYLOR (aka "George Orwell")
Gee, THANKS, Taylor, for this FURTHER reminder to everyone of
what an IGNORAMUS you are! What's next? Holocaust-denial?
ROTFL!!!!
(�`�.�Craig Chilton�.���) <www.LayoffRemedy.com>
Submoronic Bigot, BILL TAYLOR (aka "Fritz Wuehler
Gee, THANKS, Taylor, for this FURTHER reminder to everyone of
what an IGNORAMUS you are! What's next? Holocaust-denial
AND for reminding us all that BOTH "Fritz Wuehler" AND "George
Orwell" are two of your aliases, in these two IDENTICAL posts.
ROTFL!!!!
And AS for: <fr...@spamexpire-200912.rodent.frell.theremailer.net>,
see SIG, below:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Comment to an ANONYMOUS COWARD
"Bravely spoken by someone who not only dares not use his real
name, who not only beyond that employs an anonymous remailer --
but who, to be really, really certain that no one can ever connect
him with his bravely-expressed opinions, sets the X-No-Archive
flag as well.
"Tell us, little one, is there anything you believe in strongly
enough to stand up for?"
-- Cary Kittrell <ca...@afone.as.arizona.edu>, 11-3-08
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Ric Locke
What a clever argument.
I am a redneck from a carmine county of a red state. I have bad teeth,
and I live in a century-old house of sloppy construction with a tin
roof. There are defunct cars in my yard. Insult me, do. The exercise
should be amusing.
Regards,
Ric
elizabeth
> > <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> >> SkyEyes wrote:
> >>> On Nov 30, 1:51 pm, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> >>> <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> >>>> Tristan wrote:
> >>>>>>http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
> >>>>>> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
> >>>>>> is apparent not only in sub-replacement fertility levels and 100,000
> >>>>>> abortions every year in Canada, it is being mainstreamed in the
> >>>>>> popular culture. Maclean’s ran a cover story on August 3, entitled,
> >>>>>> “The Case Against Having Kids.” A new book by French author Corinne
> >>>>>> Maier, No Kids, 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, is getting
> >>>>>> plenty of media attention, including a page 3 feature in the National
> >>>>>> Post. But read between the lines and the argument is not so much
> >>>>>> against having children, but against becoming parents.
> >>>>> The people who DO have children are the truly selfish ones. Think about
> >>>>> it: In bringing another person into the world, you are sentencing him or
> >>>>> her to death sooner or later, and quite possibly to an unhappy, even
> >>>>> miserable life. Is it ethically right to do that?
> >>>> If you have such a terribly bleak worldview, certainly. You'd make a
> >>>> rotten parent in that case as well.
> >>>> Me, I have no intention of dying if I can help it, and my children may
> >>>> have an even better chance of achieving that goal.
> >>> Well, if they do, they'd damn well better stop having children of
> >>> their own, hadn't they?
> >> Why? The planet can support at least an order of magnitude more people
>
> > stupid asshole, your stupid-ass comment aside.
>
> grow LOTS more. But let's say I had enough food to feed everyone in
> (choose country that is very short). How would I get it all there, and
> make sure it all got distributed, and not taken, etc., and keep it from
> spoiling, etc?
>
> The problem isn't getting enough food grown. We can support lots and
> lots of people. It's getting rid of the national borders and
> organizations that get in the way.
>
> --
> Sea Wasp
> /^\
> ;;;
> Live Journal:http://seawasp.livejournal.com- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Yes, and if it weren't for gravity, you'd get a gold medal in
gymnastics, right?
elizabeth
You won't be here and any of your offspring will have no regard for or
consideration of your existance.
juanjo
> In article <ir9bh59itdaetov823semq5pbgh7qcu...@4ax.com>
> "(¯`·.¸Craig Chilton¸.·´¯) <www.LayoffRemedy.com>" <x...@m.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Tue, 1 Dec 2009 15:14:14 -0600,
> > "W.T.S." <m...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> > > (¯`·.¸Craig Chilton¸.·´¯) <www.LayoffRemedy.com>wrote:
juanjo
<fr...@spamexpire-200912.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> wrote:
> In article <ir9bh59itdaetov823semq5pbgh7qcu...@4ax.com>
> "(¯`·.¸Craig Chilton¸.·´¯) <www.LayoffRemedy.com>" <x...@m.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Tue, 1 Dec 2009 15:14:14 -0600,
> > "W.T.S." <m...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> > > (¯`·.¸Craig Chilton¸.·´¯) <www.LayoffRemedy.com>wrote:
You said that already you realize? You need a new tin foil hat.
James A. Donald
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> >Do what the jews do - put greenhouses over your
> >agriculture. Then the water cannot escape.
Ray Fischer
> And air cannot get in and the plants die.
Works OK in Israel.
James A. Donald
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> >Famine is caused only by war and socialism.
(Ray Fischer) wrote:
> And not drought, or lack of fertilizer, or soil erosion, or floods,
> or weeds, or insects...
All of which are easily remedied unless war or socialism prevents the
transport of goods and food.
The Chief Instigator
> On 02 Dec 2009 04:49:19 GMT, The Chief Instigator wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 1 Dec 2009 22:12:58 -0600, Ric Locke <warric...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Tue, 1 Dec 2009 07:25:06 -0800 (PST), Gwen Bennet wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Nov 30, 3:36?pm, tj <timjone...@hushmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> http://www.theinterim.com/editorials/promoting-childlessness-celebrat...
>>>>>
>>>>> Promoting childlessness, celebrating selfishness
>>>>
>>>> Tardo - it's CHILD-FREE, bozo: people have the choose. To me, the
>>>> worst kind of selfish fucktard is the one who has a child and doesn't
>>>> give a flying fuck about it.
>>>>
>>>> Like many of the alleged pro-lifers who've forgotten it's world aids
>>>> day and not have made a mere mention of the suffering children. Not a
>>>> single one of mother fuckers. Unless it's to bash gays, of course.
>>>
>>> Transmitting AIDS to others is a civil right for homosexuals, as is
>>> unlimited access to taxpayer funds to keep them alive so they can infect
>>> more people. This was established when the disease first appeared in the
>>> United States.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Ric
>>
>> So, when did you start abusing LSD?
>
> You must be a hippie from the Sixties. All that emphasis on chemicals
> and self-medication has to come from somewhere.
You're 0 for the power play, kid. I've never been a hippie, considering I
was all of fourteen (and a sophomore in high school) at the end of the
1960s.
> When AIDS first appeared in the United States the CDC wanted to treat it
> like, you know, a disease, identifying carriers and separating them from
> the population to prevent its spread. The "bath house" culture went into
> full damage control mode, eventually getting regulations, legislation,
> and court rulings to the effect that such straightforward epidemiology
> and disease-control measures were an untoward and unConstitutional
> intrusion upon the homosexual lifestyle. They then lobbied for, and got,
> extensions of the various Government health-care subsidies to purchase
> the vastly expensive "cocktails" needed to suppress HIV (we still can't
> "cure" viral infections, and may never be able to).
>
> Which is to say, my summary stands. The AIDS virus is very nearly
> non-transmissible, requiring direct fluid transfer, usually blood. It is
> therefore transmitted largely either by accident (to a health-care worker,
> for instance) or by sex practices that cause breaking of the skin barrier
> -- predominately anal sex, or the "dry sex" preferred by some Africans.
> Since it is a civil right for homosexuals to engage in such unsafe
> practices with an arbitrary number of partners, and to remain in the
> general population to do so, it is a civil right of homosexuals to
> transmit AIDS to others; since it is a civil right of people with AIDS to
> have the taxpayers subsidize their expensive treatment, it is a civil
> right of "gays" to maintain populations of HIV for that purpose.
>
> Regards,
> Ric
You're just passing yourself off as a feeble impersonation of a certain
Reichskanzler seven decades ago, IMO.
--
Patrick L. "The Chief Instigator" Humphrey (pat...@io.com) Houston, Texas
www.io.com/~patrick/aeros.php (TCI's 2009-10 Houston Aeros) AA#2273
LAST GAME: Houston 2, Toronto 1 (OT, November 28)
NEXT GAME: Thursday, December 3 vs. San Antonio, 11:05 AM
The Chief Instigator
> On Wed, 2 Dec 2009 06:57:41 -0800 (PST), Gwen wrote:
>
No regards to you, Bubba...I got raised Appalachian (since I'm a native of a
Kentucky coal camp) despite growing up in Columbus, Tulsa, and finally
Houston, and I say it as I see it.
James A. Donald
> > homosexuals,
On Wed, 2 Dec 2009 06:57:41 -0800 (PST), Gwen
> This makes ZERO sense. You are an asshole, by the way.
If no one is allowed to forcefully stop from doing X,
you have a right to do X.
If, on the other hand, people are allowed to forcefully
stop you from doing X, then you have no right to do X.
Thus homosexuals have a civil right to deliberately or
recklessly spread AIDS by means short of violence in
that you cannot apply to AIDS infected homosexuals the
measures that one can and does apply to people with
typhoid and so forth.
Other people, however, have no right to complain about
them doing it, in that they can forcibly stopped from
complaining if they are complaining in a place of work
(end run around the first amendment). People do,
however, have a right to complain if they are not in
their place of work.
Liz
> On Wed, 2 Dec 2009 03:59:45 -0800 (PST), Liz wrote:
> > On Dec 2, 6:09 am, "Anonymous Remailer (austria)"
> > <mixmas...@remailer.privacy.at> wrote:
>
> > [----]
> >> Africa is the only civilized country ...
>
> > Africa is not a country. Sarah, is that you?
>
>
> No, but the point is correct and stands.
>
Yes, the point that Africa is not a country is correct.
I really dislike people who have no sense of humor. They have no
reason to live except to be an irritant to their betters.
Liz #658
Liz
> Ric Locke wrote:
> > On Wed, 2 Dec 2009 03:59:45 -0800 (PST), Liz wrote:
>
> >> On Dec 2, 6:09 am, "Anonymous Remailer (austria)"
> >> <mixmas...@remailer.privacy.at> wrote:
>
> >> [----]
>
> >>> Africa is the only civilized country ...
>
> >> Africa is not a country. Sarah, is that you?
>
> >> Liz #658
>
> > No, but the point is correct and stands.
>
> > The future belongs to those who live in it. Since you and your
> > (putative) offspring won't be there, your opinions are irrelevant. Why
> > don't you just go ahead and kill yourself, and stop bugging the rest of
> > us?
>
>
>
> I wish she'd stop breathing the same air that I breathe.
Too bad. Your wish is not granted. Plus I get the air first, and you
have to breathe sloppy seconds. Ha!
Liz #658