Earth to Msolga. Do you copy? Over!

dalehileman wrote:


A quick Googling, Fin, reveals that folk who think about that sort of thing estimate we're already overpopulated some 5 to 20 times

I've read of estimates to the effect that we've already depleted the oceans of seafood by 90%

With the encroachment of the humanoid on the world's forests and grasslands I seriously expect an eventual depletion of oxygen

I can't quite deny that
However I can 't see how further crowding could improve things

I would think they are not which is reasonable in view of the fact that they are not agents of extirpation.



It was not Bob. I read it years before I came on A2K.

There are no ugly species. Only ladies take such a position.

That we protect what some called ugly species has nothing to do with the long-term prophecy that only the cuddly and the cute will survive our activities.

I think your "analysis" is of a different sort as that of the prophet I quoted. He probably wasn't thinking of zoos or reservations or utility or animal experimentation. Which are all cruel in their own way. And contra-evolution. Let the devil take the hindmost is evolutionary. You would teach the kids that wouldn't you in biology classes? It would be very remiss of you to censor out of biology lessons, not to say unscientific, both the Handicap Principle and the Devil's Feast principle.

Maybe you're trying to talk up your genetic inheritance. Most evolutionists I have met consider themselves superior. Like they have found out what everybody else knows, and think should be unmentionable in polite conversation, and have arrived at the self-satisfying conclusion that they are trail-blazers and they must be a bit thick and arrogant to imagine that the subject being unmentionable is the result of an oversight or some evil doings.

I trust the visceral reaction of those ladies who fainted away when Mr Darwin unveiled the result of his obsessive note-taking and observations in South America assiduously recorded when he could have been hunting to hounds with those succulent Shropshire heiresses and making love to them in four poster beds after dinner without any artificial aids. (Except for the corsets and the rustling silks). Maybe the ladies today are made of sterner stuff. That might be why they watch all the costume dramas with interest. Possibly with an ineffable yearning.

Still--I know you only use evolution to beat up The Pope.

Yet you initially state that there are extra-human events that cause dwclin in species numbers. Now you wish to deny that the enti impct of environmnetal and human events do cause extinction

MAybe you did and maybe yiu didnt but here on A2K, Gentel said the words of "Cute and cuddly will be saved". You, using that sMW PHRseology made me recall his words.
Its a nothing worth adding to a debate no matter by whom and when.



Somehow you inally end up trying to impeach me. Do I threaten you (Ive asked this of you before and have always wondered what is your problem at polite discussion?


I just thought of it, you ate the Mitt Romney of A2K. You have the need to be the center of the discussion that you will try to occupy both sides of an issue at one time or another. Here youre fishing for data and thats particulRLY HUMOROUS.

Don't you think you should apologise, fm, to A2Kers for putting out that bullshit to people who value your scientific integrity and expertise.

It is not illegal to hunt and kill whales. It is a gentleman's agreement. And one of those is more critical of those who kill whales than anything you are saying.

What it is is a bunch of rascals who are collecting dough off people they have softened up on TV, mostly ladies I imagine, and have purchased a boat and some plush offices with some of the proceeds. Every now and again they go for a ride around the ocean with a satisfactory number of young ladies and, at some pre-arranged point, stage a performance on the high seas with a view to sending the video to all the news organisations so that those who contributed can see what stalwart work they are doing and those who haven't contributed might be persuaded to do so.

Ads are running daily on behalf of imitators to save all sorts of beasts with voice overs suggestive of somebody wringing their hands until blood pours out. You should hear them on the racing channel eliciting pity for retired race-horses. Most are exported to France I've been told.

Studying animals is really quite boring imo. I think it might be caused by being frightened of studying us fuckers who are at least fairly interesting.

That doesn't make any sense fm. There obviously are extra-human events which not only cause dwindling in numbers but extinctions. The vast majority of extinct species went extinct before humans were invented by the all-merciful Divine Providence.

What species has been rendered extinct by human activity. I presume that by "environmental" you mean human causes and not "extra-human" events. I did read that the leprosy virus has been made extinct but I'm not sure I believe it.



You're right there. It's a well known bit of cynicism.



Don't flatter yourself old boy. What exactly was impolite about the quote of mine underneath which you posted that goofball remark? It's bloody impolite not including the Handicap Principle and the Devil's Feast Principle in your much vaunted evolution lessons in schools and claiming to be scientific about the matter at the same time. That's worse than impolite.

The people who believe we are currently overpopulated were the same ones several decades ago who were predicting world wide famine if we ever approached our current 7 billion.

Considering that we have only explored approx 0.5% of out oceans, it's very difficult to credit any assertion that we've exhausted 90% of its food resources.

As for the depletion of the world's oxygen, your expectation is misfounded. Ocean plankton accounts for more of earth's oxygen than of all it's forests combined.

This fact alone would argue for greater slaughter of whales (at least those of the baleen variety) since they are great harvesters of plankton.

Obviously there is a finite number of people who can live on this planet, but it's more than the current 7 billion and so a statement that there are already "too many of us," if it has any credibility, must be based on some criteria other the ability of the earth to sustain human life.

You, spendius and Cieli, seem to think there are currently too many of us, and I'm interested in the basis for your assessments.

I'm also interested in your thoughts on how the problem is to be resolved.

The population of the developed nations are in decline and so if the overall population is increasing it must be due to those randy and fertile buggers in the undeveloped nations. How to slow them down? Force contraception on them?

We, in the developed world, can't get them to stop clear cutting forests so how the hell will we get them to stop having babies?

I suspect that the current crop of Malthusians see a way to save Gaia and serve the godess of Social Justice at the same time: Redistribution of wealth from the developed nations to the undeveloped.

"Carrying capacity" of our planetary human cosystem had , in about 1985 , been estimated to be bout 10 billion people. We will probably rech that number in the nxt several decades and it wont be nice because most of the growth will ocur in the very underdevelopd regions of the world.

ccording to Shelford's LAw the availability and use of water will become a limiting feature as will be the "open space" allotments.

I dont look forward to living under the sea as a desirable location. Its like living in the caldera of a volcano (like Wyoming)

The situation just looks bad to me. Seen from a distance connurbations look like warts. There are polluted sites that look like suppurating abscesses.

What we can't see doesn't bear thinking about.

I have no idea how to solve the problems. Perhaps if we repealed legislation at the same rate we passed it might serve. I would scrap television. Its impact is too powerful and it is too easily manipulated.

Worldwide compulsory sterilization

I could see why Msolga wouldn't want to come back after seeing this thread.

Hey dale--you only got two down thumbs. I got three.

Hey Spend--join the club

I don't suppose you think it might be because she has to watch the news and see her enthusiastic recommendations for the Arab Spring unraveling before her eyes?

Nah!! It has to be because of our idiotic posts hasn't it? You demean the lady.

If someone ventured to suggested that the max population is 10 million, my bet is that it's 20 or more.

If 10 is the max then we should be seeing real signs of fraying at 7. I don't see them.

Ultimately, to the extent that overpopulation is a serious problem it is regional, not global.

Africa for example: No one nation or the continent as a whole is capable of seizing the land and resources of nations comfortable with their existing human swarms. Emigration is their only possibly effective means of invasion and pressure release and eventually even the African migrants in developed nations will join in the call for closed borders.

Even One World Liberals will not join in a suicide pact with fecund Third Worlders.

You're right that it will not be pretty, but the population rate in the undeveloped world will eventually stabilize for a time through war and famine.

Just watch the West impose mandatory sterilization on Africans as insanely suggested by one poster here.

It won't have to do anything so radical. It will only have to stand by and watch.

carrying capacity isnt a matter of crash and burn, its a matter of a series of sequentially occuring events, many are predictable and others just recordable. Upon reaching 5 billion the first thing the authors noted was the increase of fights over basic resources like water.
A great example where population density was getting maxed out was the Nile and Blue Nile Basins where water had been trappeda nd redistributed (sorta like our own Colorado xcept much more serious a problem)

Carrying capacity is a standard ecological metric and because people make up a different kind of ecosystem (but an ecosystem nonetheless), we demonstrate systemic responses in a different fashion than do passenger pigeons or sunfish .

It's hard for me to understand the decimating that is going on in this thread.
Olga and I both agreed and used to argue.

What is this vile thing?

I'm doubtful of that. It didn't take long at all for the population of Europe to recover after the black death plague. How about WWII. Lots of lives lost, and then came the so called pig in a python, otherwise known as the post war baby boom.

am I decimating this thread? HOW?

Also , the concept of "client" states and emerging powers will spread out the effects of a burgeoning population in one area. Remember that Churchill predicted the rise of militant Islam in like 1908 an his reasons were almost ecological

No, not you.