Ironworks Gaming Forum - View Single Post

Yorick · 09-06-2001, 11:18 AM

This topic was birthed inthis womb.

Moridin, Mauritania has been experimenting with Salt water crops as well as fighting the expansion of the Sahara. It's a great idea. What get's me is when we look at Australia, by far one of the least exploited lands (which is good) but whose most fertile forested areas are along the eastern coast - which now has cities. We historicaly have felt no problem in building cities and destroying forests, yet now when the possiblility or evening the forest/desert ratio back towards forests or grasslands people have a problem.

The witchetty grub is not under exinction. Desert dwelling animals are very small in number (I did not mean size). The Eastern Quokka is, probably totally extinct if not close.

Also, city dwellers have always freaked out their environment. London was a rat infested, plague ridden mess. The answer is not human reduction, but human/environment harmony. The poor have always supported the rich, country to country and within a society. What makes Fjlotsdale et al assume that lesser numbers will make any difference when the same mistakes are being made that city cultures have always made?

The other side of the coin is that it is the poorer nations that capitalism rests on that have the largest population growth problems. Brazil, India. Wealth has generally brought smaller family sizes, less infant mortality and higher life expectancy.

The thing is, I look at Singapore. It has a tiny amount of land, but uses it very wisely. "If you can't live on it, work on it or drive on it, you can bet it looks good." So the saying goes. I come over to America and there are huge, huge tracts of land left unused and ugly. Same in Australia. Cities don't need to take up the room that they do. Remove the car and create the polis and you have greater amounts of people in smaller areas, reliance on mass transit (cheaper, cleaner, cost effective) and walking (fitter humans). More areas of land left for food and restoration to original habitat. (I can't wait for us to run out of oil, and have to rely on solar and wind energy.) With a greater even distribution of wealth, there is less need for a large family to "work the farm" or "take care of the aged".

However this is a substancial mental shift for most western cultures, bred on isolated suburban living seperated from necessities and societies by the car. One cannot live in some areas without one. The shift towards this is more possible than enforced population reduction which removes from humans one of the most completing, circular parts of live. Having a child.

It is the ultimate act of creation. The child becomes a parent. Families are mini societies. We have seen the breakdown of the extended family and the role of grandparents involved in the rearing of children. The industrial revolution removed fathers from the home and child rearing, and has led to the breakdown of the nuclear family. Now we are talking no families at all. Perhaps one child for who? The rich? Remove an eternal source of joy from the poor? The oppressed?

To my knowledge no one has presented a viable humanitarian plan for population reduction. Plenty have put forward plans for greater resource management. I believe the over-population "problem" to be the line in the sand. The line we must draw between staring reality in the face, realising our collective greed and learning to live in harmony with the environment instead of plundering it; and the other side blaming others - mysterious numbers that will take years and a harsh government to regulate so that we don't have to change anything in our own lives. We can stay in the comfort zone safe in the knowledge that short of a bomb, ebola virus or comet, human number reduction won't occur in our lifetime, so we may as well live as we ever have.

------------------
I am the walrus!.... er, no hang on....

A fair dinkum laughing Hyena!

09-06-2001, 11:18 AM	#1
Yorick Very Mad Bird Join Date: January 7, 2001 Location: Breukelen (over the river from New Amsterdam) Age: 53 Posts: 9,246	This topic was birthed inthis womb. Moridin, Mauritania has been experimenting with Salt water crops as well as fighting the expansion of the Sahara. It's a great idea. What get's me is when we look at Australia, by far one of the least exploited lands (which is good) but whose most fertile forested areas are along the eastern coast - which now has cities. We historicaly have felt no problem in building cities and destroying forests, yet now when the possiblility or evening the forest/desert ratio back towards forests or grasslands people have a problem. The witchetty grub is not under exinction. Desert dwelling animals are very small in number (I did not mean size). The Eastern Quokka is, probably totally extinct if not close. Also, city dwellers have always freaked out their environment. London was a rat infested, plague ridden mess. The answer is not human reduction, but human/environment harmony. The poor have always supported the rich, country to country and within a society. What makes Fjlotsdale et al assume that lesser numbers will make any difference when the same mistakes are being made that city cultures have always made? The other side of the coin is that it is the poorer nations that capitalism rests on that have the largest population growth problems. Brazil, India. Wealth has generally brought smaller family sizes, less infant mortality and higher life expectancy. The thing is, I look at Singapore. It has a tiny amount of land, but uses it very wisely. "If you can't live on it, work on it or drive on it, you can bet it looks good." So the saying goes. I come over to America and there are huge, huge tracts of land left unused and ugly. Same in Australia. Cities don't need to take up the room that they do. Remove the car and create the polis and you have greater amounts of people in smaller areas, reliance on mass transit (cheaper, cleaner, cost effective) and walking (fitter humans). More areas of land left for food and restoration to original habitat. (I can't wait for us to run out of oil, and have to rely on solar and wind energy.) With a greater even distribution of wealth, there is less need for a large family to "work the farm" or "take care of the aged". However this is a substancial mental shift for most western cultures, bred on isolated suburban living seperated from necessities and societies by the car. One cannot live in some areas without one. The shift towards this is more possible than enforced population reduction which removes from humans one of the most completing, circular parts of live. Having a child. It is the ultimate act of creation. The child becomes a parent. Families are mini societies. We have seen the breakdown of the extended family and the role of grandparents involved in the rearing of children. The industrial revolution removed fathers from the home and child rearing, and has led to the breakdown of the nuclear family. Now we are talking no families at all. Perhaps one child for who? The rich? Remove an eternal source of joy from the poor? The oppressed? To my knowledge no one has presented a viable humanitarian plan for population reduction. Plenty have put forward plans for greater resource management. I believe the over-population "problem" to be the line in the sand. The line we must draw between staring reality in the face, realising our collective greed and learning to live in harmony with the environment instead of plundering it; and the other side blaming others - mysterious numbers that will take years and a harsh government to regulate so that we don't have to change anything in our own lives. We can stay in the comfort zone safe in the knowledge that short of a bomb, ebola virus or comet, human number reduction won't occur in our lifetime, so we may as well live as we ever have. ------------------ I am the walrus!.... er, no hang on.... A fair dinkum laughing Hyena!