Aging Sex Icon Raquel Welch: Contraceptives Shattered Marriage, the
'Cornerstone of Civilization'
Life Site News ^ | May 12, 2010 | Kathleen Gilbert
Posted on 13 May 2010 06:22:54 by GonzoII
Wednesday May 12, 2010
Aging Sex Icon Raquel Welch: Contraceptives Shattered Marriage, the
'Cornerstone of Civilization'
By Kathleen Gilbert
May 12, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Once hailed as the female sex symbol
Playboy deemed the "Most Desired Woman" of the 1970s, actress Raquel
Welch has now taken a more critical look at the contraceptive
revolution during which she shot to stardom. In a recent column for
CNN, Welch rejoices in the experience of pregnancy, and laments the
havoc that the free-sex ethos has wreaked on marriage and family life.
Welch opens her column by noting that, after Planned Parenthood
founder Margaret Sanger opened America's first "family-planning
clinic" in 1916," "nothing would be the same again."
"Since then the growing proliferation of birth control methods has had
an awesome effect on both sexes and led to a sea change in moral
values," she wrote. "And as I've grown older over the past five
decades -- from 1960 to 2010 -- and lived through this revolutionary
period in female sexuality, I've seen how it has altered American
society -- for better or worse."
Welch counters the notion that career-minded women must avoid
pregnancy at all cost, reflecting favorably on her decision to keep
her children - and crediting the pregnancy experience for helping her
"realize that this process was not about me." "I was just a spectator
to the metamorphosis that was happening inside my womb so that another
life could be born. It came down to an act of self-sacrifice,
especially for me, as a woman."
While Welch praises the morning-after poll for allowing women to delay
childbearing until after establishing a career, she criticizes its
separation of sex from its natural consequence - the responsibility of
childbearing.
"These days, nobody seems able to 'keep it in their pants' or honor a
commitment!" Welch laments - which, as she points out, has led some to
question whether marriage is still a "viable option."
In response, says the former Playboy covergirl: "I'm ashamed to admit
that I myself have been married four times, and yet I still feel that
it is the cornerstone of civilization, an essential institution that
stabilizes society, provides a sanctuary for children and saves us
from anarchy.
"In stark contrast, a lack of sexual inhibitions, or as some call it,
'sexual freedom,' has taken the caution and discernment out of
choosing a sexual partner, which used to be the equivalent of choosing
a life partner," she continues. "Without a commitment, the trust and
loyalty between couples of childbearing age is missing, and obviously
leads to incidents of infidelity. No one seems immune."
Welch describes the horror of her fellow members of the free-sex
generation who, now parents themselves, realized the consequences that
the contraceptive culture had brought upon the next generation -
including rampant oral sex among middle-school-aged children. "The 13-
year-old daughter of one such friend freely admitted to performing
fellatio on several boys at school on a regular basis," she recounted.
"'Aw come on, Mom. It's no big deal. Everyone is doing it,' she said."
Welch concludes: "Seriously, folks, if an aging sex symbol like me
starts waving the red flag of caution over how low moral standards
have plummeted, you know it's gotta be pretty bad. In fact, it's
precisely because of the sexy image I've had that it's important for
me to speak up and say: Come on girls! Time to pull up our socks!
We're capable of so much better."
URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/may/10051205.html
> Abortion, sterilization and contraception, good. Baby, excrement.
> Children, they destroy lives, happiness and marriages. For the sake of a
> normal, decent, wholesome world, abort your child today!
You can do a retro-abortion on your parents' child if you like. Me, I
love my four kids and find they pretty much do the opposite of your claim.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
> I never knew Raquel spoke in the stilted style of a high school pro-
> abstinence essay.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure this was ghost-written for her, but it's an
interesting idea- that the person who was in the thick of things comes
out later and feels likes she's taking responsibility for her part in
it, back then.
Now, we just need to here from Hugh Hefner... wait, I just did! He's
got these Stoli commercials where he's talking to himself at a bar and
acknowledges both that he's the original playboy but also he's just a
guy looking for love.
OK, so we might as well go gaze out the window because some flying
pigs will be by soon.
My personal belief is that sex shouldn't automatically be tied to
conception, that reproductive planning (planning for children, not
just 'going with the flow...') is important, and that there are more
than enough people on the planet now. My solution would be along the
lines of long term, voluntary attrition for a reduction in overall
numbers.
While there is divinity in us, we are not foolproof. It takes effort
to think down the road, both hard work and sacrifice, and trust in
others based on experience.
That said, I'm still a fan of R.W.
berk
Produce a single shred of evidence that Raquel Welch is aging. Go on,
I dare you.
Matt Hughes
http://www.arconate.com
She looks a lot better than when she was younger!
> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote
>
>> You can do a retro-abortion on your parents' child if you
>> like. Me, I love my four kids and find they pretty much do the
>> opposite of your claim.
>
> Lie to yourself all you want. When the time comes, your child
> filth will charge you for the ride to the old folks home.
>
> Your children are filth, stinking turds that should never have
> been allowed to be conceived, and you know it!!! I only hope and
> pray they get sick and die of cancer, the little bastards! Open
> up your eyes, you have nothing and will never have anything thanks
> to those abominations. They've ruined your health, their mother's
> health, your peace of mind, and you can't even admit the truth.
> For the sake of the world, get a gun and shoot the little turns in
> the head while they sleep. You know you want to. You know they
> deserve it. You know you'll be better off when they're dead.
> Baby, bad. Abortion, wonderful!
You are a surprisingly ugly person.
-- wds
> You are a surprisingly ugly person.
You expect trolls to be cute and cuddly?
Matt Hughes
http://www.archonate.com
While she looks fantastic now, I got to meet her in 1974, when
she looked ...
I didn't walk normally for *hours.*
cd
Between this and the MILFy teachers, it's a good time to be
a boy in jr. high…
> wdst...@panix.com (William December Starr) wrote:
>
>> You are a surprisingly ugly person.
>
> You expect trolls to be cute and cuddly?
I'm just a layman, but I get the feeling that "W.T.S." sincerely
believes the bile that he spews: it seems to me to be too foul to
be faked. Which leads to the ongoing lexigraphic debate: if someone
publicly espouses ugly madness that he sincerely believes in -- as
opposed to saying things he doesn't really believe, just to be a
narcissistic vandal -- is he a troll?
Terry Austin says yes, iirc, but I'm not sure I agree.
-- wds
"William December Starr" <wds...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:hu9qsv$4r$1...@panix3.panix.com...
Once it's clear that he should set himself on fire, further distinctions
seem pointless.
> No, I'm not a troll.
Then you're an idiot.
> I sincerely believe what I write. To make it clear:
> 1. I believe that "God", religion, the "bible" and such are intentional
> lies, a con game,
For that to be so, the clergy would have to not believe in the religion
-- i.e., all of the books of religious nature would have to have been
written by people who knew each and every thing they wrote there were lies.
This is not true, and it's not true that the clergy don't believe it.
There may be a few who are cynical unbelievers pretending to faith, but
not very many; especially these days, being a priest is neither
lucrative nor a particularly powerful position.
So you are wrong in your first belief.
> 2. I want to personally abort every unborn child on the face of the Earth.
> I believe unborn children are a plague upon all humans, everywhere.
So you hate humanity so much that you want us extinct? Or are you so
stupid as to not notice that by achieving your goal, you would render
humanity nonexistent in about 70 years? Or is it more a matter of "if I
die, everyone else needs to so that history ends with me"?
However, when being a priest *was* a powerful position,
cynical misconduct at odds with official belief was
exceedingly common, as Chaucer told us. And today, that is
now true of political correctness, to pretty much the same
degree as it used to be true of Christianity. For example
the content of black studies and women's studies suggest that
those composing the syllabus doubt that women can think
logically, and doubt that blacks can think.
These studies rapidly acquired a reputation so dreadful,
that, like crappers and male homosexuals, they get renamed
every so often. Pretty soon no one wanted to be doing
Black Studies, as the underlying contempt and derision showed
through, so they named it something new, and pretty soon no
one wanted to be doing whatever they were now calling it.
>> For that to be so, the clergy would have to not believe in the religion --
>> i.e., all of the books of religious nature would have to have been written
>> by people who knew each and every thing they wrote there were lies.
>>
>Not every member of a con game has to know it's a con. Often, suckers are
>used to bring in other suckers and to present a "legit" front for the
>collection process.
Very true. The more people running the con believe in it, the better
the chance of success.
It is quite possible for *everybody* involved to be conned. Consider a
religion that starts off as a philosophy. Then add some "playing
telephone", along with a strong desire for followers of that
philosopher to show the authority of the teachings. No overt con
is necessary for this to turn into a full blown religion.
Alternatively, look at code words used by political extremes to
describe the other extreme. Words such as "socialist" lose their
meaning to become magic demon words. (which don't apply to *my*
side's social programs).
--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."
- James Madison
> The world will be a much better place without humans.
You're welcome to leave this world at any time.
Me, I consider the world to be ONLY a good place WITH humans in it --
since "good" is a matter of intelligent judgment, and thus it has to be
supporting intelligent life to be judged good, and humans are MY kind of
intelligent life.
Yes, it really is all about me. Anti-humans BAD. Threatening my
high-tech civilization with your self-hating attitude: BAD. You either
getting therapy or taking a flying leap: GOOD.
Actually, the Earth could support MANY times the current population.
It's only DOOOOOOOOOMsayers that insist that we're about to cause a
COMPLETE DISASTER. When I was younger, the idea that the planet could
support over six billion people was considered insane by many.
Moreover, birthrates drop drastically in all the advanced countries,
and all the other countries are trying to become part of that particular
group. The population will not continue to grow very quickly for very
much longer.
You and I won't be here to see it, but
> your children will. I only wish you live long enough to see the start of
> the next, great extinction event.
We *ARE* the great extinction event. Any species that's gotten in our
way, died.
>
> You and I won't be here to see it, but
>> your children will. I only wish you live long enough to see the start of
>> the next, great extinction event.
>
> We *ARE* the great extinction event. Any species that's gotten in our
>way, died.
And quite a few that didn't.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]
Collateral damage and friendly fire. Other species have done
extraordinarily well by associating with us.
And they were right, it *is* insane. As has become increasingly
obvious.
> Moreover, birthrates drop drastically in all the advanced countries,
> and all the other countries are trying to become part of that particular
> group. The population will not continue to grow very quickly for very
> much longer.
There's a little problem with this. There is no way the earth could
support 7 billion people who live the advanced actual american or even
european way of life, with the actual technology. It just won't
happen. And technology won't evolve quickly enough to accommodate it.
So either a great percentage of the population will have to continue
living in poverty and fueling population growth, or I don't know, the
living standard of the advanced countries will have to shrink
dramatically. In this case it remains to be seen what the dynamics of
population growth will become.
The only real hope IMO, before it's too late people will realize that
population absolutely has to stop growing, and even be reduced,
forcibly if necessary (and it will be). It won't be pretty but they'll
have to do it at some point.
>At the rate humans are going, the planet will be unable to support human
>life be the end of this century. You and I won't be here to see it, but
>your children will. I only wish you live long enough to see the start of
>the next, great extinction event. It should be fun. Don't forget to chew
>out Mother Nature for doing her job.
If things go worse at a constant rate towards your conclusion, then
sometime before then, most people will die. What makes you think
the curve will continue at that rate?
And if it doesn't, then obviously "at the rate humans are going" won't
happen.
(Assuming everything else you are projecting will happen).
Untrue, actually.
You're grossly misquoting me. I thought you have intellectual honesty
but, surprise, it seems I was wrong.
If this is your best way you can argue your position, let me tell you,
it sucks.
How so? Nothing you say afterwards would change any of the above. You
are simply wrong. Many people have done the calculations to show that
the resources exist, using current technology, to support several TIMES
as many people at the current American level of energy and so on usage.
Whether people WILL use the proper approach is probably more a matter
of being forced into actually DOING it rather than saying "no, we can't".
If so, you should have quoted the whole sentence.
Ever heard of global warming ? Deforestation ring a bell ?
--
--
Thinking a little more about it, you might be right. Technically and
ideally speaking that is. Unfortunately it doesn't look likely to be
put into practice very soon.
> Whether people WILL use the proper approach is probably more a matter
> of being forced into actually DOING it rather than saying "no, we can't".
That's easier said than done I guess. It would probably amount to the
US conquering all or most of the undeveloped world and, as you say,
forcing them to go the right way. Then again this will most likely
incur enough loss of life to take care of the problem, or at least
ease it dramatically.
Or we can hope they'll eventually come to their senses. That is, if
global warming gives us enough time and no other major problems pop up.
I cut at the point I intend to respond, unless I feel there's a
relevant piece that will require additional discussion. I simply
disagree with your statement.
>
> Ever heard of global warming ? Deforestation ring a bell ?
Indeed. Though I prefer "global climate change" because "warming"
allows people to sneer at it every time they get a cold day.
You might explain how this proves your point, however. To me this is
equivalent to seeing people misusing credit cards, and from this drawing
a statement that it's impossible for people to properly manage credit.
You state this as though you know I don't. While I do, but no one asked
me to discuss how it might be accomplished. They simply made flat
statements of this being impossible, and I contradicted those statements.
Note: until then, the US will first have to do a lot of work in their
own back yard, to go the right way themselves.
It's not very relevant any more at this point, but by cutting as you
did you significantly altered the meaning of my statement. Which was
actually against the point you were making, since you did indeed
disagree with my whole sentence. Anyway, it has been clarified so
forget about it.
> > Ever heard of global warming ? Deforestation ring a bell ?
>
> Indeed. Though I prefer "global climate change" because "warming"
> allows people to sneer at it every time they get a cold day.
The american obsession with political correctness. :-) How will
"global climate change" improve things in this respect ? The problem
is not climate change, it's warming, whether people believe it on cold
days or not. If the climate change was a cooling, it wouldn't be a
problem at this point, on the contrary.
Sea Wasp isn't talking about things as tiny as virii. Larger animals
than that have benefited greatly from association with humans. Do you
think there would be so many cows in the world, had they remained
wild? There are large numbers of cattle on every continent except
Antarctica. How about dogs? Dogs and humans enabled each other to
live and thrive. How many millions of dogs are in the world that
wouldn't be, except for their partnership with humans?
Same for chickens, sheep, pigs, and every other animal that we regard
as "domestic."
Having said that, we do have a bad habit of causing non-domesticated
plants and animals to disappear, out of both malice (tigers hunted to
near extinction), greed (tuna fished to near extinction), and just
plain ignorance (disappearing Brazilian rain forest, anyone?)
Brenda Nelson, A.A.#34
BAAWA Knight
EAC Professor of Feline Thermometrics and Cat-Herding
skyeyes nine at cox dot net
>Bill Snyder wrote:
>> On Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:28:22 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>> <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> You and I won't be here to see it, but
>>>> your children will. I only wish you live long enough to see the start of
>>>> the next, great extinction event.
>>> We *ARE* the great extinction event. Any species that's gotten in our
>>> way, died.
>>
>> And quite a few that didn't.
>>
>
> Collateral damage and friendly fire. Other species have done
>extraordinarily well by associating with us.
So what war were the Ivorybill woodpecker, the dodo, and the
Christmas Island pipistrelle caught up in? Who were we shooting
at when we hit the Steller's sea cow? What battle along the coast
of Louisiana is causing collateral damage to pelicans and Kemp's
Ridleys?
What's WRONG with you? You're thinking about an issue and yielding a
point? Someone point this poor person to the Rules of Usenet.
That was my point, indeed. Saying the planet CAN'T support the people
is simply wrong. We use a TINY amount of the potential resources
available, we just use them inefficiently because we've had little
reason to do otherwise -- and until relatively recently weren't even
thinking about it.
>
>> Whether people WILL use the proper approach is probably more a matter
>> of being forced into actually DOING it rather than saying "no, we can't".
>
> That's easier said than done I guess. It would probably amount to the
> US conquering all or most of the undeveloped world and, as you say,
> forcing them to go the right way. Then again this will most likely
> incur enough loss of life to take care of the problem, or at least
> ease it dramatically.
> Or we can hope they'll eventually come to their senses. That is, if
> global warming gives us enough time and no other major problems pop up.
Global warming isn't an acute problem. It will be an annoyance -- in a
hundred years, a major annoyance-to-disaster to people in specific areas
-- but it's not the OMG DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND problem that it gets made
out to be.
The best solution would be to drive full-speed-ahead with major nuclear
development. Focused on thorium and uranium breeder reactors. The waste
produced by nukes is orders of magnitude smaller in volume than that
produced by other power generation methods (e.g., coal), isn't really
any more dangerous, and includes zero carbon emissions.
With sufficient energy at your disposal, you can solve a number of
other problems. For instance, if you have plenty of power to burn, you
can synthesize a liquid fuel (ideally gasoline, but that's fairly
complex, so you might settle for methanol) from base constituents --
such as taking it from the air and water. This allows you to use your
current infrastructure (focused on liquid-fuel burning cars, liquid fuel
transportation and dispensing stations, etc.) without a single
significant change. The only change is the actual source of the fuel.
And since you make it FROM the carbon in the air, it becomes
carbon-neutral, and eliminates the emissions from other sources which
are now outmoded.
Oil isn't, technically, a power SOURCE. It's a power carrier or storage
medium. We're just using power stored up millions of years ago. We can
repeat the process in close to real-time with current technology, as
long as we address the *MAJOR* issue, which is clean power generation.
Solar and wind, etc., will have some place in all of this, but they
require large areas to work in (areas which in many cases may conflict
with other land usage), aren't terribly efficient, and have a hard time
managing the constant and peak demand cycles.
The dodo was collateral damage from our imperialistic conquest of the
planet.
> Who were we shooting
> at when we hit the Steller's sea cow?
I thought that was DIRECT extinction -- i.e., we meant to kill THEM
because they were tasty and/or useful.
> What battle along the coast
> of Louisiana is causing collateral damage to pelicans and Kemp's
> Ridleys?
The oil spill is a battle of a number of rather esoteric entities.
Same with fission, of course. That's the use of power stored up
billions of years ago, when a supernova got overenthuseastic fusing
heavy nuclei.
Now whether you ought to count proton-proton fusion as power stored
in protons by the big bang or not... well...
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
> > VSim wrote:
Amusingly, both people from the left and right call this name change a
political move by the other side. It's not. It's simply more
accurate.
The easiest variable to predict from climate models is
temperature. Wind is the next most difficult, then precipitation,
and finally storms of various kinds. Yes, these last three things do
affect temperature, but when averaged over time and space radiation
changes are more significant.
So early simulations of the effect of CO2 increase, not only in the
days of hand calculations by Arrhenius in the 1800s but even in the
1960s and 1970s, with models we would consider unbelievably primitive
today, focused mainly on the predicted temperature change, which could
be checked to some degree with paleo-simulations and seemed fairly
reliable. The result was a warming (except in the stratosphere, which
cools). There was some talk of precipitation change, much of which
turned out to be wrong, IIRC, but the focus was on the warming, so the
term "global warming" seemed to summarize the research acceptably.
Models are much better today, so it is worth looking at the
predictions for average precipitation, and put those projected changes
in the debate. Relative frequency and intensity of storms is still
not something we have a good handle on (though I may be out of date
here) but it's evidently going to be part of the package.
So given the above "Global Climate Change" is a more accurate
description of what is happening than "Global Warming". Throw in
ocean acidification and perhaps just "Global Change" is better yet.
whether people believe it on cold
> days or not. If the climate change was a cooling, it wouldn't be a
> problem at this point, on the contrary.
If a cooling trend had started in 1900 or so, rather than a warming
trend, yes, it would be a problem.
William Hyde
>: "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com>
>: Oil isn't, technically, a power SOURCE. It's a power carrier or
>: storage medium. We're just using power stored up millions of years
>: ago.
>
>Same with fission, of course. That's the use of power stored up
>billions of years ago, when a supernova got overenthuseastic fusing
>heavy nuclei.
>
>Now whether you ought to count proton-proton fusion as power stored
>in protons by the big bang or not... well...
Okay, I'm confused... look at the subject line and maybe you'll become
confused too.
--
"Vengeance is mine" saith Montezuma
I assume you're joking.
> > Or we can hope they'll eventually come to their senses. That is, if
> > global warming gives us enough time and no other major problems pop up.
>
> Global warming isn't an acute problem. It will be an annoyance -- in a
> hundred years, a major annoyance-to-disaster to people in specific areas
> -- but it's not the OMG DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND problem that it gets made
> out to be.
I don't think we can be very sure of this. We don't know enough about
it. It could potentially get very bad.
> The best solution would be to drive full-speed-ahead with major nuclear
> development.
I agree that much, nuclear energy with all its shortfalls seems to be
the way forward. But this is just theory, in practice there could be a
lot of problems if it was done on a very large scale (such as
security, terrorism, possible accidents).
This is IMO the general problem here. Technically it might be doable,
if everybody did their part and things got organized well. But it
doesn't seem likely to happen in reality, from what we know about the
world in general and what we've seen so far. You're saying this is
because we've only begun addressing the problem in all seriousness. We
can only hope you're right, I'll keep my doubts for the time being.
"War" means doing to other humans what we routinely do to
most other life forms. When we pump poison gas into the
soil to kill everything that might potentially compete with
our strawberries, including bacteria, worms, and fungi, I am
sure that looks a lot like war to non humans.
The earliest indication of the humanity of our ancestors were
gangs of homo erectus attacking groups of baboons, presumably
to eat them, in a style very similar to human on human
battles. The first indication that they were like us, is
that they killed the way we kill.
In all the years of nuclear operation, the number of accidents has been
miniscule, their death toll laughable compared with many, if not most,
other industries. There's no reason to think things will be WORSE now,
especially with improved technology.
Terrorists... on a well-built reactor, they could literally crash one
of those airliners INTO the reactor and it would barely scratch the
containment vessel.
Security... what sort? It's not easy to steal either fuel or waste for
reprocessing, and they'll have to not only steal it, but process it if
they want to make bomb-class material. Which requires a pretty darn
high-tech facility.
Really, these aren't major concerns except in the minds of the
paranoid. Bad people will find ways to do bad things, yes, but that's
life. You can't plan your life based on what the bad guys do, or they're
dictating your life for you.
It's less specific. The problem right now is warming, even if other
climate variables might also change but the main problem, the thing
that's driving everything, is warming.
> Throw in
> ocean acidification and perhaps just "Global Change" is better yet.
Right. The vaguer the better.
> > If the climate change was a cooling, it wouldn't be a
> > problem at this point, on the contrary.
>
> If a cooling trend had started in 1900 or so, rather than a warming
> trend, yes, it would be a problem.
Right now the problem is warming. We could use a little cooling.
Yes there is, the very fact that we would be drastically changing the
scale at which it's done. At present AFAIK less than 10% of the
world's energy comes from nuclear. If we're to go somewhere around 80%
or higher, it's bound to bring problems. That said, I agree it should
probably be done, or at least tried. But we should be aware that there
will in all likelihood be problems. Hopefully not too big ones.
On the contrary, you have to do it.
> or they're dictating your life for you.
They are, to a very large extent. But as you say, that's life.
ITYM "certainly will"
also change but the main problem, the thing
> that's driving everything,
Everything? Certainly not ocean acidification.
> is warming.
Well, no, the driver is anthropogenic GHG emission.
>
> > Throw in
> > ocean acidification and perhaps just "Global Change" is better yet.
>
> Right. The vaguer the better.
You want to focus on one aspect, fine. But there's nothing vague
about an increasingly acid ocean. We could conceivably solve the
temperature problem and still have centuries of problems with the
ocean, if we let it get acid enough.
> > > If the climate change was a cooling, it wouldn't be a
> > > problem at this point, on the contrary.
>
> > If a cooling trend had started in 1900 or so, rather than a warming
> > trend, yes, it would be a problem.
>
> Right now the problem is warming. We could use a little cooling.
Well, IIRC a La Nina may be developing.
William Hyde
No, I don't. I didn't change my life because of bullies; I kept on
doing whatever I felt like doing. They may have beaten my body on
occasion, but they didn't change my mind or my habits.
The world needs to learn that lesson. If a few terrorists can cause the
most powerful country in the world to change everything it does -- for
the worse -- the terrorists are winning that exchange, and winning it so
big that almost everything else is anticlimax.
Terrorists and their ilk ARE NOT A THREAT to this country (the USA). To
individual people, yes -- but then, so is driving, to the tune of tens
of thousands of people a year dead and many more injured. The USA is
*supposed* to represent something better than paranoia, fear, and
get-them-before-they-get-us. To do that, sometimes you have to take a
shot or two before you strike back, and sometimes the shots may even
hurt. For a little while.
Individual people who lose those close to them will be hurt. But that's
not something that you can PREVENT -- or if you can, you'll be creating
a country that isn't one worth living in. We've already seen some of
that, and it's not pretty. Life is risk, for good and bad.
So what do you propose, ignore them altogether ? That's not an option
either. The US may be overreacting, but something surely needs to be
done about them. And if so, they've already dictated your life to some
extent, if only that you have to pay more taxes for taking care of
them.
Besides, we were talking about bad guys in general. That's much more
than just terrorists.
Treat them as what they really are: criminals. We don't generally go
around creating new Constitution-breaking emergency powers because
Hannibal Lecter's on the loose; we catch him, try him, convict him, and
lock him away. (and the few times we have done something like it, that's
been a mistake. See RICO, for instance.)
Do the same thing with terrorists. What we *SHOULD* have done about Bin
Laden was exactly that. We use the Army as the arresting officers,
because it has to be done overseas and the criminal in question has real
weapons and support. But once we caught him, bring him back, put him on
trial, and, assuming he was convicted, lock him in a regular
high-security prison.
DON'T make it a bigger deal. DON'T do more headlines. DON'T change our
internal laws or behaviors. Treat the terrorists as exactly what they
are -- not political figures to be respected, not Shadowy Forces of Evil
Beyond Our Reach, just as nasty dirty little bits of goods what's been
found out, as Agatha Christie would have put it, as vicious little
weasels that think that there's something special and glorious in
committing mass murder to scare people.
> Besides, we were talking about bad guys in general. That's much more
> than just terrorists.
The terrorists are the ones with the big spotlight. Most baddies are
either already handled by other laws, or need less handling; e.g., the
proper solution to the War on Drugs is to legalize them (to the same
level as alcohol). There's a reason we don't see organized crime focused
on bootlegging liquor to any significant extent any more: once it became
legal again, the criminal market vanished. I have no idea what the
remaining 'shiners get out of it that makes the risk worthwhile, but
they're the last holdouts of an age in which Al Capone and his ilk
practically ran cities. Once Prohibition ended, they faded quickly; the
same would happen to the drug-related crimes.
Exactly. It's much more difficult than with regular criminals, and the
US has no jurisdiction there.
> But once we caught him,
But you haven't caught him.
> > Besides, we were talking about bad guys in general. That's much more
> > than just terrorists.
>
> The terrorists are the ones with the big spotlight. Most baddies are
> either already handled by other laws,
Exactly. The point was, by doing this they already run our life to a
significant extent. You can't avoid this.
That's due to an insane diversion to do something that had nothing at
all to do with the job we were SUPPOSED to do.
>>> Besides, we were talking about bad guys in general. That's much more
>>> than just terrorists.
>> The terrorists are the ones with the big spotlight. Most baddies are
>> either already handled by other laws,
>
> Exactly. The point was, by doing this they already run our life to a
> significant extent. You can't avoid this.
No, they don't necessarily run *my* life. They may cost me a little
money, but that's a far cry from changing the way things in my daily
life have to be DONE (see what you had to do to get on a plane and fly
in 1972 (when I first flew to Norway), versus now), or passing laws that
give non-Constitutional powers out to law enforcement, or rearranging
the entire structure of government (such as when suddenly 30-odd
government agencies were transformed into sub-organizations under DHS).
White tail deer for example. There are far more deer (and much
larger deer) in the U.S. now then during pre-Columbian times,
specifically because humans create gigantic farms and deer are
perfectly adapted to living off them.
I like sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson's idea of "Child Credits";
every adult human is granted a 3/4 child credit, allowing a couple
to have one kid with "half" a kid left over.
They can then either buy another 1/2 credit and have another kid
or sell their 1/2 credit on the open market (or sell their entire 1.5
child credits, if they don't want any kids at all)
As long as the kids are born under the credit system, the State
guarantees their full schooling, medical care, day care, etc. but
any kids born "off the grid" (i.e. without the necessary credits)
receive no government aid AT ALL and it's up to the parents to
pick up the check.
Of course this system is predicated on having completely reliable
birth control available, otherwise the couple could claim that the
pregnancy was an "accident" and they shouldn't be responsible
for the costs of raising the child.
I'd say more importantly, oil is more valuable as plastics
in manufacturing than it is as a fuel and unlike using is as
a fuel, plastics be recycled afterwards into new products.
Once you burn that gasoline in your car, it's gone for good.
On the other hand, we waste shit loads of oil manufacturing
essentially useless plastic products.
For example, I'm a smoker and every single pack of cigarettes
I buy is wrapped in cellophane plastic, even thou cigarettes
don't really need that level of or preservation, they're not on
the store's shelf long enough to go stale.
And even if the extra halves all get matched up, in a few generations
the population dwindles to nothing. Ahh, people who hate their own
species so much they want to arrange its extinction.
Your statement is stupid for two main reasons:
1) Each couple would have 2.5 credits which would provide for
replacement.
2) You assume (stupidly) that once in place the system would never and
could never be changed.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Not to ruin your point, which I agree with, but cellophane is named
after cellulose, which mostly comes from trees.
Plastic grocery bags and AOL CDs on the other are two great landfill
disasters.
Carl
a.a. 1966
EAC Liar, Damned Liar, and Statistician
"Ray Fischer" <rfis...@sonic.net> wrote in message
news:4c0f1382$0$1582$742e...@news.sonic.net...
> Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>Ed Stasiak wrote:
>>>> VSim
>>>>
>>>> The only real hope IMO, before it's too late people will realize that
>>>> population absolutely has to stop growing, and even be reduced,
>>>> forcibly if necessary (and it will be). It won't be pretty but they'll
>>>> have to do it at some point.
>>>
>>> I like sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson's idea of "Child Credits";
>>> every adult human is granted a 3/4 child credit, allowing a couple
>>> to have one kid with "half" a kid left over.
>>>
>>
>> And even if the extra halves all get matched up, in a few generations
>>the population dwindles to nothing. Ahh, people who hate their own
>>species so much they want to arrange its extinction.
>
> Your statement is stupid for two main reasons:
> 1) Each couple would have 2.5 credits which would provide for
> replacement.
3/4 + 3/4 = 1.5, well below replacement. What was that word someone used?
"Stupid"?
I don't think the US would have caught him anyway. And I don't think
they'll ever catch him. If they're very lucky they might kill him
accidentally in some raid.
Anyway, the point is, there's no way Osama could be treated like a
regular criminal (until he's caught, if he ever is, that is). It's
just a totally different ballgame.
As for the diversion that had nothing to do with the job, I don't
quite agree. Sure, Saddam had no WMDs, that's ancient history by now,
and also no operative ties to Al Quaida, so the reasons the US gave
for the invasion were of course bullshit. But, it's not at all very
sure that it was useless against the terrorists in the long run. My
reading of things (and I have no hard evidence to support it, it's
just the way I see it) is that the US just needed another country
under its close control in the area, besides Israel (to a much greater
extent than other countries like Saudi Arabia) and Iraq just happened
to be the best candidate for it.
> >>> Besides, we were talking about bad guys in general. That's much more
> >>> than just terrorists.
> >> The terrorists are the ones with the big spotlight. Most baddies are
> >> either already handled by other laws,
> >
> > Exactly. The point was, by doing this they already run our life to a
> > significant extent. You can't avoid this.
>
> No, they don't necessarily run *my* life. They may cost me a little
> money, but that's a far cry from changing the way things in my daily
> life have to be DONE
It's not just that, come on. There are places you cannot go to,
schools you'd better avoid for your kids (and I don't mean you in
particular, it might not apply to you), gated communities etc.
Besides, there are many more bad guys. How about some in the
government, who caused the banking meltdown by lax oversight and
accepting bribes ? Or the guys in the banking industry themselves, who
were pretty much guilty of it all but got away largely unpunished. And
so on.
You're exaggerating here. It wouldn't last forever, just until the
population is brought down to acceptable levels. Nobody can deny life
would be much happier for everybody if we were less than a billion,
and by everybody I don't mean just humans, but also most animals and
the planet in general. That's not equivalent to wanting to arrange the
extinction of the species.
In *my* universe, 3/4 + 3/4 adds up to 1.5.
If we'd stayed focused, he'd either be captured or dead by now. And we
wouldn't be in Iraq, either.
>
> As for the diversion that had nothing to do with the job, I don't
> quite agree. Sure, Saddam had no WMDs, that's ancient history by now,
> and also no operative ties to Al Quaida, so the reasons the US gave
> for the invasion were of course bullshit. But, it's not at all very
> sure that it was useless against the terrorists in the long run.
They weren't involved in supporting terrorists in any significant way,
as far as we know, and thus while Saddam Hussein was a total bastard he
wasn't a justifiable target.
My
> reading of things (and I have no hard evidence to support it, it's
> just the way I see it) is that the US just needed another country
> under its close control in the area, besides Israel (to a much greater
> extent than other countries like Saudi Arabia) and Iraq just happened
> to be the best candidate for it.
The best information I've heard indicated that there were internal
discussions of going after Iraq even before the administration finished
getting settled in, and 9/11 was a great excuse to push it through. And
the reason had nothing to do with such high (even if reprehensible)
strategy, just with Bush going after the guy that (a) threatened his dad
once, and (b) his dad hadn't quite taken down.
But even if that was the reason, it's not excusable, has nothing to do
with fighting terrorism, and wasted lives and money on both sides.
>
>>>>> Besides, we were talking about bad guys in general. That's much more
>>>>> than just terrorists.
>>>> The terrorists are the ones with the big spotlight. Most baddies are
>>>> either already handled by other laws,
>>> Exactly. The point was, by doing this they already run our life to a
>>> significant extent. You can't avoid this.
>> No, they don't necessarily run *my* life. They may cost me a little
>> money, but that's a far cry from changing the way things in my daily
>> life have to be DONE
>
> It's not just that, come on. There are places you cannot go to,
> schools you'd better avoid for your kids (and I don't mean you in
> particular, it might not apply to you), gated communities etc.
Gated communities? Those aren't "bad guys" (though the association
runners may be, or individuals living there may be). They're an extended
privately-owned location. I can't go there for the same reason you can't
just walk into my house.
And again, they don't run my life; I have individual decisions there to
make about risk and benefits, but they aren't changing the way the law
of the land tells me how to do things.
> Besides, there are many more bad guys. How about some in the
> government, who caused the banking meltdown by lax oversight and
> accepting bribes ? Or the guys in the banking industry themselves, who
> were pretty much guilty of it all but got away largely unpunished. And
> so on.
They're not changing the way the government works (well, any more than
rich people doing things and wiggling out of getting caught have since
the dawn of time) just for the sake of protecting me from a threat that
really isn't that large. I.e., the reaction to the terrorists is
equivalent to changing the entire banking industry methods and
operations not because they caused a huge collapse, but because they
took down three local banks.
I would deny that very strenuously, as we need *AT LEAST* that many to
maintain our current technology, on which I depend for my life and
livelihood.
As far as it goes, paper doesn't degrade significantly in landfill, either.
The AOL CD, though, has no discernible purpose except as a poor quality
drink coaster.
Obama is supposedly carrying out your strategy, with the result that
not only is Osama doing fine, but in addition we are losing in
Afghanistan.
Nation building is an inherently bad idea, because no one knows how to
build nations, while the everyone knows how to destroy nations, and
the US army is very good at destroying nations. Just destroy any
nation that causes us grief, and pretty soon, no one will be causing
us grief.
While it is indeed inexcusable, and certainly cost a lot of lives and
money, it does have much to do with fighting terrorism IMO. We might
not agree here though.
Yeah right. It would mean much less technology is needed, because
there would be much more natural resources per capita, besides,
ecological concerns would be greatly reduced. Everything would be
cleaner, simpler, healthier and closer to nature. Looks like a no-
brainer to me.
What's this nonsense anyway about a billion people needed to maintain
current technology ? Where do you have this from ? The one thing I
agree with, less people might mean a slowdown in scientific and
technological advances. But I could live with that.
No, he's not, and it's too late to take the proper strategy anyway.
You need people to build the gadgets. You need more people to build the
gadgets that make the gadgets. You need more people to make the gadgets
that make the gadgets that make the gadgets. And so on for several
layers. Then recognize that there's several thousand of those
multilayered gadget-making things. Then recognize that all of those
require people to acquire the raw materials to make the tools to make
the machines that dig the ore to feed to the factories to make the raw
materials that...
My physical life depends on a number of high-tech medicines. Consider,
to begin with, the albuterol rescue inhaler; a pressurized steel
container which is designed to fit into a simple plastic case which
allows the inhaler to vent into my mouth and lungs an EXTREMELY precise
dose of a microcrystalline dispersed mist of albuterol.
Do you have *ANY* idea what the existence of such a device implies, in
terms of the dozens or even HUNDREDS of technological capabilities and
specializations involved therein? How the fact that it is affordable by
any reasonable standard requires not just the tremendous mass of the
steel, oil, plastics, pharmaceutical, and computer industries (for only
with computers could you manufacture and fill such containers to such
rigid specifications for so little money), but also an economy of scale
such that hundreds of thousands or millions of those inhalers can be
produced and sold every month (implying hundreds of thousands, at least,
of customers FOR THAT ONE PRODUCT)?
And that is one single product. While many products have overlap in
their technologies and in their customer base, the number and diversity
of resources and technologies and products of our current civilization
is immense, inter-connected, and mindbogglingly complex in the number,
type, and size of industries needed to produce, distribute, and support
them.
If you were to put the planet on "lifeboat" rules, so to speak -- that
is, a place for everyone, a job for everyone, and everyone does exactly
that job -- you MIGHT manage to maintain our civilization
(technologically, anyway) with a hundred million people. But if you want
it to be a reasonably flexible civilization, with some redundancy, some
stability, and some choice in its people's lives, you'll need that
billion. Probably more.
>Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>> VSim wrote:
>> >>>>
>> > You're exaggerating here. It wouldn't last forever, just until the
>> > population is brought down to acceptable levels. Nobody can deny life
>> > would be much happier for everybody if we were less than a billion,
>>
>> I would deny that very strenuously, as we need *AT LEAST* that many to
>> maintain our current technology, on which I depend for my life and
>> livelihood.
>
>Yeah right. It would mean much less technology is needed, because
>there would be much more natural resources per capita, besides,
>ecological concerns would be greatly reduced. Everything would be
>cleaner, simpler, healthier and closer to nature. Looks like a no-
>brainer to me.
Have you ever LIVED close to nature? I have; it sucks.
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
I'm selling my comic collection -- see http://www.watt-evans.com/comics.html
I'm serializing a novel at http://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight0.html
OK, these are obvious truths but vague. How do you come up with the
number of a billion ? Did you make a study ? Do you have a reference ?
How much of our current technology is basically junk we could easily
give up ? How much of it would become useless anyway because of easier
food production and ecological restrictions ?
We did have technology 20 years ago, and it was mainly produced in the
US, Western Europe, Japan and maybe a few other places in Asia. At the
time I doubt there were much more than 1 billion people in all these
countries. And clearly not all of them were involved in techno
production.
Bottom line, I find this idea of yours very hard to believe. If you
ask me, if by some magic tomorrow the US remained alone in the world
(not that I'd like this to happen), they would have no trouble
providing comparable technology to themselves. Maybe some cheap
chinese products would disappear from the market, but nothing
essential.
It depends on how close. We wouldn't all become hunter-gatherers.
Stirling did something very like it when doing his "Island in the Sea
of Time" work. Eric Flint's had to do similar stuff to figure out how
his transported "colonists" could maintain their tech, or have to junk
it because there would be no way to keep it working.
> Did you make a study ? Do you have a reference ?
I'll poke around and see if I can find one of them. There's a lot of
stuff out there about just how many people it takes to support industries.
> How much of our current technology is basically junk we could easily
> give up ?
The problem is that the "junk we can easily give up" is often
supporting, or directly derived from, or even inspiring/driving, the
stuff we can't. Technology usage for entertainment, for instance, drives
a lot of the advances in several different technologies, but those same
advancements also get used for other, much more vital, things.
"Junk we can easily give up" is also often a matter of opinion.
> How much of it would become useless anyway because of easier
> food production and ecological restrictions ?
No significant amount I can think of, unless you intend to drive the
technology backward. Since my physical life, and that of at least two of
my children, depends on current technology, I will fight anyone who
wants to drive it backwards. Even more so because my current job focuses
on cutting-edge R&D.
> We did have technology 20 years ago, and it was mainly produced in the
> US, Western Europe, Japan and maybe a few other places in Asia.
And the technology in question can't do a lot of the things it does
currently.
> At the
> time I doubt there were much more than 1 billion people in all these
> countries. And clearly not all of them were involved in techno
> production.
A lot of the others were supplying the raw materials, my friend. And
you can't exclude that part of the chain. Or the purchasing/market side,
where in order to make my inhaler (for example) cost only $10 instead of
$10,000 you need to have many, many, MANY people buying it. The
purchasers of the technology are part of the chain that makes it
possible for the whole thing to work, rather than someone saying "yeah,
we could do that, but it'd cost forty million dollars for the prototype,
and how are we going to make THAT back?"
Regards
JFWR
Most of these nutters have never even tried to grow a vegetable
garden. If they had, they wouldn't be so sanguine about the
"benefits" of "organic" growing methods.
The vital things will be done anyway, albeit maybe at a slower pace.
> "Junk we can easily give up" is also often a matter of opinion.
Well, if the junk that now costs $1 will cost $100, I guess many will
swiftly change their opinion.
> Since my physical life, and that of at least two of
> my children, depends on current technology, I will fight anyone who
> wants to drive it backwards. Even more so because my current job focuses
> on cutting-edge R&D.
No offense but you fighting it won't be a matter. It will of course
come to this only if and when it will be absolutely necessary, and I
suspect that a lot of serious stuff will have to happen before people
admit it. For now we can still hope it won't get to that.
> > We did have technology 20 years ago, and it was mainly produced in the
> > US, Western Europe, Japan and maybe a few other places in Asia.
>
> And the technology in question can't do a lot of the things it does
> currently.
That's mostly because of less know-how. Today we could do much more
with the same manpower. Of course not all the things we actually do,
there would most likely be a setback of a few years but in a similar
amount of time it would be won back (without significantly increasing
the population).
> > At the
> > time I doubt there were much more than 1 billion people in all these
> > countries. And clearly not all of them were involved in techno
> > production.
>
> A lot of the others were supplying the raw materials, my friend. And
> you can't exclude that part of the chain.
Of course not. Somebody will have to do that too. But they'll manage.
People are inventive. Technology is improving, including robots, and
what better area to employ them than mining ? Besides, they will now
only need raw material for a billion people instead of 7 billion.
> Or the purchasing/market side,
> where in order to make my inhaler (for example) cost only $10 instead of
> $10,000 you need to have many, many, MANY people buying it. The
> purchasers of the technology are part of the chain that makes it
> possible for the whole thing to work, rather than someone saying "yeah,
> we could do that, but it'd cost forty million dollars for the prototype,
> and how are we going to make THAT back?"
Again no offense, some things will have to be given up at begin. Maybe
some for a longer period of time. Eventually your inhaler, or some
other equivalent technology, *will* get back to costing only $10, even
with just 1 billion people to manufacture and buy it. In the meantime,
you can't have anything without giving something in return. Hopefully
the healthier and more natural way of life will OTOH reflect in the
general health, though that remains to be seen. As I said, it will be
done only when absolutely necessary.
And yet organic methods are applied and have a market.
>> Or the purchasing/market side,
>> where in order to make my inhaler (for example) cost only $10 instead of
>> $10,000 you need to have many, many, MANY people buying it. The
>> purchasers of the technology are part of the chain that makes it
>> possible for the whole thing to work, rather than someone saying "yeah,
>> we could do that, but it'd cost forty million dollars for the prototype,
>> and how are we going to make THAT back?"
>
> Again no offense, some things will have to be given up at begin.
I do not "give up" my life for anyone except possibly my family and
friends. No offense. So no, I'll keep what we have now.
Of course, all this assumes that population would have to shrink
abruptly, like if it was determined that global warming has to stop by
tomorrow. In the more likely case it was done gradually over a few
generations, no technology would have to be given up, just new ones
would arrive at a somewhat slower pace.
Anyway, sorry to hear about your condition.
Eh. Had it since I was 21 months old, so to me it's the way life
normally IS.