A criticism of neo-Malthusians

[Botnst]

This month: Population control

Since the beginning of time, one of the clearest markers of an enlightened society has been the moral status it attaches to human life. And outwardly, at least, twenty-first-century Western societies express an unprecedented degree of respect for human life.

For example, cultural and political institutions continually talk about the need to uphold human rights. The human rights narrative now shapes policymaking, both domestically and internationally. Many even argue that protecting human rights is a cross-border duty that should override the principle of national sovereignty. Our societies are also increasingly health-obsessed. The phenomenal growth in health expenditure in recent years shows just how much prosperous societies respect individual life today. Western societies will sometimes go to extraordinary lengths in their efforts to keep a premature baby alive or to prolong the life of elderly people or those who are chronically ill.

And yet, alongside the ethos of human rights and the development of heroic medicine, contemporary society appears estranged from its own humanity. To put it bluntly: it is difficult to celebrate human life in any meaningful way when people – or at least the growth of the number of people – are regarded as the source of the world’s problems. Alongside today’s respect for human life there is the increasingly popular idea that there is too much human life around, and that it is killing the planet.

The humanist impulse that once drove the development of the modern world has been replaced by a tendency to view humanity with suspicion, or even outright hostility. The vocabulary of our times – ‘human impact on the environment’; ‘ecological footprint’; ‘human consumption’ – invokes a sense of dread over the active exercise of human life. Apparently, there are too many of us doing too much living and breathing. In a world where humanity is portrayed as a threat to the environment and to the very survival of the planet, human activity – from birth to consumption to procreation – is regarded as a mixed blessing. Consequently, our concern with preserving and improving the quality of life of some people sits uneasily with an increasingly shrill demand to prevent people from being born in the first place.

Today, many green-leaning writers and activists argue that population control is the best solution to the problems we face. This belief that there are ‘too many people’ inhabiting the globe has reared its ugly head numerous times over the past 200 years. Since the times of Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), a catastrophic vision of population growth causing the collapse of society has formed an important part of the culturally pessimistic outlook. Back in the eighteenth century it was predicted that population growth would lead to famine, starvation and death. Today’s pessimists have raised the stakes further: they denounce population growth as a threat to biodiversity and to the very existence of the planet. Twenty-first-century Malthusians are not so much worried about an impending famine: they’re more concerned that people are producing and consuming too much food and other commodities.

more at: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3503

[Carleton Hughes]

I've got one word for youse all{catch hell for it shure as ****}EUGENICS.

[Mistress]

My neurons are having a party.

waste not want not.......

[peragro]

Good article.

A Neo-Malthusian is just an Ehrlichite in sheeps clothing.

I can understand the moniker of pessimism given to the acolytes of Malthus, but I think the author forgot to mention the unbridled arrogance and persistent narcissism found therein as well.

[Botnst]

Originally Posted by peragro

Good article.

A Neo-Malthusian is just an Ehrlichite in sheeps clothing.

I can understand the moniker of pessimism given to the acolytes of Malthus, but I think the author forgot to mention the unbridled arrogance and persistent narcissism found therein as well.

Nice!

[peragro]

So would the correct noun be Gorite, Gorian, Algorite (which sounds somewhat mineral), or Algorian (which sounds very sinister - "The algorian virus was responsible for the death of half the worlds population..."?

[kip Foss]

The belief that, "twenty-first-century Western societies express an unprecedented degree of respect for human life", may be true but it applies to such a limited portion of the world's population, i.e., the Western societies, as not to be a realistic point of argument.

Certainly some western societies spare no expense to save a child who, by all reason, should have been left to die. Granted some survive to lead relatively normal lives while others go on to live what might be considered lives of misery for the next 50 years. Not to mention what these heroic efforts cost the society over these 50 years. Can you imagine how many ordinary children could be helped for the cost of saving one of these children?

All the while the Western societies are saving these children we paid no attention to the hundreds of millions of that have been maimed and slaughtered in the name of every imaginary cause around the world. The 'West' took no notice of every genocide from Armenia to Rwanda, from Tibet to Congo, from the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan to the Central African Republic, and, of course, the ever popular Dafar. Where is our charity and humanity?

I must say that when it comes to these types of countries we don't have much charity because, aside from Armenia, the rest of these people are, dare I say it, little brown and black guys from countries with no natural or strategic resources worth our while. While Bush Sr. was bombing the crap out of Iraq to try and rid the place of an American installed dictator waring tribes in Rwanda were cutting off the hands or killing millions of their own people. Where was America's effort to bring democracy to the unwashed?

Granted there are always the Christian do-gooders who do bring charity to some of these people, but, it comes at a price. Like bums living on the streets, before you get your free meal and a bed you must first listen to the ranting of some Christian hypocrite tell you that if you don't give up your god of 4,000 years and adopt their latter model you are destined to go to hell. I've got news for you Christians, these folks are already in hell and there is little you god can do to help them.

"Today, many green-leaning writers and activists argue that population control is the best solution to the problems we face". I can't help but think that if people in these third world countries, and many in some of our ghettos, would keep their pants buttoned and there legs together we might not have many of the problems we have today.

Look at the AIDS epidemic in Africa, starvation in the Sahal, the slums of Rio, India, Nigeria, and, yes, even America. When you have African Americans who have 4 kids by 4 different fathers by the time they are 20 you can't tell me that some sort of population control might be worth the effort.

The argument that over population might be one of the causes of Islamic terrorism can not be overlooked. Millions of young, unemployed Muslim males who have become disgruntled and militant because there are not enough jobs make easy fodder for radical Islamist teachers.

What is the answer? Who can say? Unfortunately we will not know until we are too far down the slippery slope to recover.

[peragro]

Originally Posted by kip Foss

The belief that, "twenty-first-century Western societies express an unprecedented degree of respect for human life", may be true but it applies to such a limited portion of the world's population, i.e., the Western societies, as not to be a realistic point of argument.

Certainly some western societies spare no expense to save a child who, by all reason, should have been left to die. Granted some survive to lead relatively normal lives while others go on to live what might be considered lives of misery for the next 50 years. Not to mention what these heroic efforts cost the society over these 50 years. Can you imagine how many ordinary children could be helped for the cost of saving one of these children?

All the while the Western societies are saving these children we paid no attention to the hundreds of millions of that have been maimed and slaughtered in the name of every imaginary cause around the world. The 'West' took no notice of every genocide from Armenia to Rwanda, from Tibet to Congo, from the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan to the Central African Republic, and, of course, the ever popular Dafar. Where is our charity and humanity?

I must say that when it comes to these types of countries we don't have much charity because, aside from Armenia, the rest of these people are, dare I say it, little brown and black guys from countries with no natural or strategic resources worth our while. While Bush Sr. was bombing the crap out of Iraq to try and rid the place of an American installed dictator waring tribes in Rwanda were cutting off the hands or killing millions of their own people. Where was America's effort to bring democracy to the unwashed?

Granted there are always the Christian do-gooders who do bring charity to some of these people, but, it comes at a price. Like bums living on the streets, before you get your free meal and a bed you must first listen to the ranting of some Christian hypocrite tell you that if you don't give up your god of 4,000 years and adopt their latter model you are destined to go to hell. I've got news for you Christians, these folks are already in hell and there is little you god can do to help them.

"Today, many green-leaning writers and activists argue that population control is the best solution to the problems we face". I can't help but think that if people in these third world countries, and many in some of our ghettos, would keep their pants buttoned and there legs together we might not have many of the problems we have today.

Look at the AIDS epidemic in Africa, starvation in the Sahal, the slums of Rio, India, Nigeria, and, yes, even America. When you have African Americans who have 4 kids by 4 different fathers by the time they are 20 you can't tell me that some sort of population control might be worth the effort.

The argument that over population might be one of the causes of Islamic terrorism can not be overlooked. Millions of young, unemployed Muslim males who have become disgruntled and militant because there are not enough jobs make easy fodder for radical Islamist teachers.

What is the answer? Who can say? Unfortunately we will not know until we are too far down the slippery slope to recover.

Many of your points were addressed in the original article. Regarding the "African Americans who have 4 kids by 4 different fathers by the time they are 20 ..." One could easily argue that rather than population control the social engineering policies of the last 40 years are more to blame for the demise of the American black family. BTW, where is Africa America?

[LaRondo]

Originally Posted by Mistress

My neurons are having a party.

Your avatar tells it all ... just between you and me, I had no clue whatsoever that I was a 'Neo-Malthusian' ...

Thanks, Bot!

[Botnst]

^^^ Look up Thomas Malthus.

[LaRondo]

Originally Posted by Botnst

^^^ Look up Thomas Malthus.

I am holding in my hand "On Population" T. R. Malthus, edited and introduced by Gertrude Himmelfarb .... the mother of , nonetheless but, William Kristol ....

[LaRondo]

Originally Posted by Botnst

^^^ Look up Thomas Malthus.

This is really a compelling subject. I started reading this book "On Population", it's fascinating, but not easy to read. Those editions stem back to the late 1700's and early 1800's. Words used, grammar and punctuation are partially very different. Many sentences and paragraphes I have to read 2x, in order to comprehend the content.

It's worth it though .... funny thing is, we're "Utopians" ... huuh at least that's what they thought we would be, 200 some years ago....

[peragro]

Beware the population alarmists
2007-06-30
Nicholas Eberstadt
This week's U.N. "State of World Population" report warns that by 2008, more than half the world's population will live in urban areas. Shock, horror! But there is a serious point to the U.N. report: it wants to slow down urbanization by reducing birth rates. The only problem is that it provides no compelling reason for so doing.
For years, the U.N. Population Fund has been seeking to justify its existence by issuing reports claiming that we must reduce birth rates in poor countries in order to achieve "sustainable development." While intuitively appealing, these ideas are not supported by evidence. In reality, global living standards improved dramatically over the past century, despite a near-quadrupling of human numbers -- and they can continue to improve at current and future population levels.

There is no need for governments to alter our patterns of reproduction. Moreover, apart from morally reprehensible coercive schemes such as China's one child policy, it is not clear that government population policies can do much to change human numbers anyway.

Let's start with the much discussed idea of "overcrowding." If population density is taken as the basic criterion for overcrowding, India and Rwanda (each with over six times the world's average population density) would surely qualify as "overcrowded." But Belgium is considerably more "overcrowded" than Rwanda, and oil rich-Bahrain is three times as "overcrowded" as India. Wealthy, urbanized Monaco, meanwhile, is the most "overcrowded" country in the world, at 700 times the world average.

In most minds, the notions of "overcrowded" and "overcrowding" conjure images of hungry children, unchecked disease, squalid living conditions and teeming slums. Those problems are all too real in today's world -- but the proper name for those conditions is "human poverty."

Even though the number of people on the planet has increased considerably over the last 200 years, we are not running out of resources and we are certainly not getting poorer. Consider the twentieth century's "population explosion": between 1900 and 2000, human numbers almost quadrupled, leaping from 1.6 billion to six billion. But global GDP per capita quintupled over this same period.

Over these same years, furthermore, food production has steadily outstripped population growth, while practically all natural resources -- ranging from copper to aluminum -- have become cheaper in real terms: which is to say less scarce.

These trends provide some clues as to why there was a "population explosion" in the first place. It was not due to people suddenly breeding like rabbits -- it was because they finally stopped dying like flies. Over the 20th Century, average life expectancy doubled from around thirty years to over sixty years and infant mortality rates have declined substantially all over the world. With fewer people dying, populations increased, even though global fertility levels have been in decline since the 1960s.

This "health explosion" caused the "population explosion" -- and this dramatic, ongoing health surge is in large part due to unprecedented and extraordinary improvements in material living standards, particularly over the past few decades. Food continues to become cheaper and medical technology continues to improve.

Nevertheless, proponents of population stabilization worry that human numbers will more than double over the coming century unless governments take action. But their plans to control population by imposing State-mandated family planning have no scientific basis.

Globally, there is no causative link between the availability of contraception and fertility levels -- the rate of contraception use is virtually identical in Jordan and Japan, for instance, but Jordan's fertility rate is more than three times higher. In 1974 Mexico brought in, a national family-planning program. Brazil has never implemented such a program but, during the following 25 years, Mexican and Brazilian fertility levels fell at nearly identical rates.

The truth is that parental preference is the key determinant of family size amongst illiterate people in poor countries, just as it is among educated people in rich countries. Anti-natal population plans are therefore futile -- unless they follow China's lead and impose coercion with its terrible consequences.

At any given income level -- including even very low income levels -- parents around the world have been opting for fewer children since the 1960s. As a result, future world population may be far lower than the population alarmists have imagined, and "world population stabilization" will be achieved without the emergency government interventions they advocate.

Fortunately for our troubled planet, "overpopulation" is not a problem. With sensible policies, health and prosperity will continue to spread around the world, as will continuing improvements in nutrition and medicine.

Human ingenuity has historically found the answers to the problems of scarce resources, and it is humans who create the technologies that allow us to accommodate larger numbers of people on the planet, in increasing comfort.

By ignoring the potential of human beings, anti-natalists blame the poor for their poverty and propagate false solutions. The poor need economic freedom so they can raise themselves up, not sterile U.N. schemes.

Professor Nicholas Eberstadt is Wendt Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and Senior Adviser at the National Bureau of Asian Research.


Article Source: The China Post (Taiwan)

[Botnst]

Originally Posted by LaRondo

This is really a compelling subject. I started reading this book "On Population", it's fascinating, but not easy to read. Those editions stem back to the late 1700's and early 1800's. Words used, grammar and punctuation are partially very different. Many sentences and paragraphes I have to read 2x, in order to comprehend the content.

It's worth it though .... funny thing is, we're "Utopians" ... huuh at least that's what they thought we would be, 200 some years ago....

Remember that Malthus was a pre-darwinian and a cleric of some sort. So he is not really a scientist and is more closely allied with scholasticism. You'll see that begin to come out as he describes human morality in relation to his population studies. In some aspects it is a small step from Malthus to Himmler.

B

[LaRondo]

Originally Posted by Botnst

...it is a small step from Malthus to Himmler.
B

“Why call the whole world’s attention to the fact that we have no past? Himmler is digging up these mud huts and enthusing over stone axes. All we prove is that when the Romans were erecting great buildings our ancestors were living in mud huts.” Hitler’s Machiavellian point was that “we really should keep quiet about this [primitive German] past” (Rudolph Hess).

full essay:
http://israelendtimes.com/blog/2007/06/30/gothic-grotesque-precursor-of-modern-horrors.htm