EPTHumans are plague on Earth - Page 15
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Slaughter
United States20254 Posts
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KwarK
United States41970 Posts
On January 25 2013 10:33 Zahir wrote: Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity. So you think this 86 year old man, beloved by millions, is attempting to seem edgy by hating on something universally popular and you're taking a controversial stand against him on the internet and don't care what we think? Sir, I feel you haven't thought this through. And I mean sir in the sense of being polite to you, not the sense in which you're actually a knight. You have to be pretty awesome to become a knight. | ||
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Slaughter
United States20254 Posts
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kmillz
United States1548 Posts
On January 25 2013 11:50 KwarK wrote: So you think this 86 year old man, beloved by millions, is attempting to seem edgy by hating on something universally popular and you're taking a controversial stand against him on the internet and don't care what we think? Sir, I feel you haven't thought this through. And I mean sir in the sense of being polite to you, not the sense in which you're actually a knight. You have to be pretty awesome to become a knight. I didn't get to see the full interview because the links aren't working, but I don't really see much to be thought through on this. He basically just said either we need to do something about overpopulation and over-consumption or nature will take its course and do it for us. So what? | ||
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Gruntt
United States175 Posts
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Gesamtkunstwerk
134 Posts
On January 25 2013 12:30 kmillz wrote: I didn't get to see the full interview because the links aren't working, but I don't really see much to be thought through on this. He basically just said either we need to do something about overpopulation and over-consumption or nature will take its course and do it for us. So what? You don't seem to care whether humanity continues to exist or not. | ||
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kmillz
United States1548 Posts
On January 25 2013 12:34 Gesamtkunstwerk wrote: You don't seem to care whether humanity continues to exist or not. Sure I do, I think controlling population is sick though. | ||
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MarcusWC
Canada55 Posts
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Whitewing
United States7483 Posts
On January 25 2013 12:37 kmillz wrote: Sure I do, I think controlling population is sick though. Is it better for millions (or billions) to die of starvation and hunger, or the ensuing violence over resources, or to put limitations on how many children people can have? One of those two things has far less suffering attached than the other. | ||
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Zergofobic
Macedonia50 Posts
In fact many of them have called for genetically engineered diseases to be released that will wipe over 90% of the population, some are urging HIV type viruses to be put in the vaccines to unsuspectingly curb our numbers and other have called for GMO food to sterilize us and since the 80's studies have found that some GMO food does sterilize mammals in their 3rd generation, in addition to causing cancer in the first generation. These people don't need any media coverage and they need to be in a mental institution with their mass murder syndrome sickness. These are way more dangerous than your average serial killer or mass shooter. I'd call them devil worshipers and enablers, as god created us and if anyone wants to kill us all, then he is a demon serving the devil who wants to destroy god's creation. And even if you don't believe in god, there is evil out there and these people are pure evil. The more people we've had and that has been a constant the better has become. I mean from 5 billion people 150 years ago to 7 billion people today and look how much better it has been. With more people, means more consumption, means more production, more wealth, more people researching and doing stuff and in turn advancing knowledge, science, technology. Plus physically we could fit all 7 billion people in Texas. With the infrastructure and everything else, if we were to clump it up in one giant mega city, it would fit in the USA alone. Plus all of the land on our planet represents only 30% of the mass, 70% is water. Out of those 30% land, 20% are snow/ice. So even with out cities we are a small fraction of the earth and all studies, all simulations show that the population would peak at 9.5 billion people over the next 50 years and start dropping down. | ||
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randommuch
United States370 Posts
On January 25 2013 07:32 danl9rm wrote: + Show Spoiler + On January 25 2013 05:17 randommuch wrote: If any of you have read the book Ishmael, I strongly suggest you read it if this kind of thing interests you. This is entirely true. My take on this, and I admit is biased from that book, is that what gave us the right to have dominion over everything else? I try to see myself as equals with things around me; granted we may be smarter than other life forms, but when I look at something easily passed by as insignificant, such as my own cat, I have a great deal of respect for her as an animal. It's something most see as a simple animal, but in all honesty the way life works is incredibly intricate and fascinating to me. I really don't think humans should be held as high as we are putting ourselves. Truthfully, we, and the earth itself, might be better off with half the population we are dealing with currently. I just thought your choice of words was interesting. Genesis 1:28 And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”  On January 25 2013 05:45 radscorpion9 wrote: + Show Spoiler + On January 25 2013 05:17 randommuch wrote: If any of you have read the book Ishmael, I strongly suggest you read it if this kind of thing interests you. This is entirely true. My take on this, and I admit is biased from that book, is that what gave us the right to have dominion over everything else? I try to see myself as equals with things around me; granted we may be smarter than other life forms, but when I look at something easily passed by as insignificant, such as my own cat, I have a great deal of respect for her as an animal. It's something most see as a simple animal, but in all honesty the way life works is incredibly intricate and fascinating to me. I really don't think humans should be held as high as we are putting ourselves. Truthfully, we, and the earth itself, might be better off with half the population we are dealing with currently. But humans created the whole concept of rights, there is no such thing as that in nature. It is simply survival of the fittest. But anyway that's just minor. What you're saying generally can't be true. Look how hard many European countries are working to move from fossil fuels to renewable energy, most of them have moved towards banning coal fired plants. The whole drive towards sustainable logging, all those power-saving measures, recycling programs, sustainable farming and movements towards vegetarianism...its more accurate to say that we are struggling with our nature to want as much as we can get at the cost of the environment and the poor, and many of us are trying to live a more "enlightened" lifestyle now. There are plenty of people like you who care about animals and treat them well, and many are fighting against factory farming. So its kind of extreme for you to say its entirely true that we are a plague on Earth. The world is making major changes, and things are getting better albeit slowly. Once things start getting worse, there will probably be a significant motivation to change. Maybe over a period of several decades we can find a way to stabilize the climate, once its obvious that anthropogenic global warming is real in terms of the frequency and severity of natural disasters (which can't be explained any other way). I guess what I'm trying to say is I look at things from a biological point of view. As humans, because we give ourselves this right that we are meant to expand and grow without considering the life around us (today's a little different with environmental efforts) we drastically increase the rate of extinction among species. I'd be hard pressed to not say that if we weren't around the diversity of life on earth would be much greater than it is today. Looking at it this way, yea, we are indeed a parasite in where we cause the most damage due to our ridiculous numbers. Another thing to think about is if we are taking the idea of evolution into play, here we are pre-homo sapiens, lacking the ability to be self-aware for lack of a better way to put it. Life on earth is flourishing; the problems of pollution, global warming, over-population aren't present. But once we make this step, this jump to where our mental ability is enhanced in where we see ourselves past just having this purpose of surviving, all the harm done by humans starts to unfold. My bio professor who's a plant evolutionist loved playing with this idea of how we overcame this mental gap of sorts. I understand what you're getting at, but I'm sort of biased in this topic being surrounded by teachers who are all environmentalists lol. On January 25 2013 05:32 DonKey_ wrote: + Show Spoiler + On January 25 2013 05:17 randommuch wrote: If any of you have read the book Ishmael, I strongly suggest you read it if this kind of thing interests you. This is entirely true. My take on this, and I admit is biased from that book, is that what gave us the right to have dominion over everything else? I try to see myself as equals with things around me; granted we may be smarter than other life forms, but when I look at something easily passed by as insignificant, such as my own cat, I have a great deal of respect for her as an animal. It's something most see as a simple animal, but in all honesty the way life works is incredibly intricate and fascinating to me. I really don't think humans should be held as high as we are putting ourselves. Truthfully, we, and the earth itself, might be better off with half the population we are dealing with currently. We don't need to be given a right to have dominion over everything else. We can have it because we are capable of it and other species on our planet are not. That's kind of the heart of the issue. | ||
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
1- Our planet has no inherent value just like gas giant planet XYZ has no value. If XYZ gets engulfed by the star it revolves around, we don't care, it's a cosmic event like any other. Any value Earth has is whatever value we give it. We think it's pretty boss because we live on it. 2- Therefore, Earth is only important because we're on it. 3- We're important because we say so. That doesn't make it true but you feel it in your gut don't you? That's why you spend your money mostly on yourself. 4- Earth needs to be preserved so we can be preserved. Others would argue that we need to take care of the planet for the sake of the other organisms, but I'm then again, I have two counterpoints. 1- We're the only ones who think those creatures are important. They themselves don't give a shit. Sapience is the only thing that can make our planet grandiose. As far as animals are concerned, "whatever". 2- We couldn't eliminate life on Earth if we tried, even blowing up all our nukes, some resistant organisms would survive somewhere and millions of years down the line they'd likely manage to evolve into a brand new set of Earthly creatures. We can make things matter as long as we exist. The worst thing we can do is to endanger ourselves, and the only way we can really do that is with WMDs and stuff. Like others have pointed out, the planet is self regulating anyway - if we break it, it doesn't care, it's still good to go for a couple billions of years. Even we are self regulating in a sad way... Hopefully we won't blow ourselves up when we get to that point, but the battle for resources will inevitably get more intense as powerful countries will start to need more resources which they won't have access to. I don't know when that'll happen - or if it will. Hell for all I know someone will invent a miraculous food machine that'll somehow manage to feed 20 billions of people, but until then, we can expect someday in the semi-remote future, shit will break loose and you'll hope to be on the right end of the gun. Earth won't give a fuck though. We're the only ones who are capable of giving fucks. I'd like to hear solutions though. What do we do, start gunning people down right now to save our super resilient planet? Prevent further births? Fine. Who do you think are going to get the cut first? Not me you know, I'm a white dude in a rich country. Let the games begin. | ||
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Slaughter
United States20254 Posts
On January 25 2013 12:59 Zergofobic wrote: These people are called eugenicists and are very dangerous people. Eugenics has been around for over 300 years now and even since the 18'th century have been saying how there are too many humans and we need to be destroyed. In fact many of them have called for genetically engineered diseases to be released that will wipe over 90% of the population, some are urging HIV type viruses to be put in the vaccines to unsuspectingly curb our numbers and other have called for GMO food to sterilize us and since the 80's studies have found that some GMO food does sterilize mammals in their 3rd generation, in addition to causing cancer in the first generation. These people don't need any media coverage and they need to be in a mental institution with their mass murder syndrome sickness. These are way more dangerous than your average serial killer or mass shooter. I'd call them devil worshipers and enablers, as god created us and if anyone wants to kill us all, then he is a demon serving the devil who wants to destroy god's creation. And even if you don't believe in god, there is evil out there and these people are pure evil. The more people we've had and that has been a constant the better has become. I mean from 5 billion people 150 years ago to 7 billion people today and look how much better it has been. With more people, means more consumption, means more production, more wealth, more people researching and doing stuff and in turn advancing knowledge, science, technology. Plus physically we could fit all 7 billion people in Texas. With the infrastructure and everything else, if we were to clump it up in one giant mega city, it would fit in the USA alone. Plus all of the land on our planet represents only 30% of the mass, 70% is water. Out of those 30% land, 20% are snow/ice. So even with out cities we are a small fraction of the earth and all studies, all simulations show that the population would peak at 9.5 billion people over the next 50 years and start dropping down. I wouldn't label him being in favor of eugenics. Eugenics wants to "improve" the species by controlling who can and cannot reproduce and the "less desirable" people would be sterilized. It seems he wants to curb population growth overall rather then judging who can and cannot reproduce to improve the species. | ||
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kmillz
United States1548 Posts
On January 25 2013 12:58 Whitewing wrote: Is it better for millions (or billions) to die of starvation and hunger, or the ensuing violence over resources, or to put limitations on how many children people can have? One of those two things has far less suffering attached than the other. Ok first of all, millions/billions of people have been dying of starvation or hunger for a long time and it is tragic, but that is natural selection taking its course, why do WE have a responsibility to change that by choosing who we think should suffer more? What is your suggestion? Forced abortions? On January 25 2013 13:16 Slaughter wrote: I wouldn't label him being in favor of eugenics. Eugenics wants to "improve" the species by controlling who can and cannot reproduce and the "less desirable" people would be sterilized. It seems he wants to curb population growth overall rather then judging who can and cannot reproduce to improve the species. How would you implement a sweeping population curb fairly across the board? You can't. It's the same thing. | ||
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kmillz
United States1548 Posts
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Powerpill
United States1692 Posts
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AnachronisticAnarchy
United States2957 Posts
On January 25 2013 13:18 kmillz wrote: Ok first of all, millions/billions of people have been dying of starvation or hunger for a long time and it is tragic, but that is natural selection taking its course, why do WE have a responsibility to change that by choosing who we think should suffer more? What is your suggestion? Forced abortions? How would you implement a sweeping population curb fairly across the board? You can't. It's the same thing. Have you not heard of the one child law? We don't need to kill or even abort fetuses. We only need to pass laws limiting births. Also, we won't be choosing who suffers more. We would be passing simple laws that really don't do that much harm and would prevent millions of painful deaths. | ||
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kmillz
United States1548 Posts
On January 25 2013 13:36 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: Have you not heard of the one child law? We don't need to kill or even abort fetuses. We only need to pass laws limiting births. Also, we won't be choosing who suffers more. We would be passing simple laws that really don't do that much harm and would prevent millions of painful deaths. Please explain how you limit births without forced abortions. Edit: Yes I have heard of the law, I strongly disagree with it from a moral standpoint. | ||
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Volkspanzer
United States83 Posts
On January 25 2013 13:21 Powerpill wrote: It is scary how much the population has jumped in numbers over the last century, and where it will be in the near future (nothing doomsdayish, but still quite a lot). I was actually talking with an old female friend of mine who now has two kids, and she asked why I do not yet have any (I am 30 btw). I answered that I was not sure if I wanted kids, and if so, I would probably only want one. Her response was that I had a "selfish" attitude (she plans to have two more by the way). That comment still boggles my mind. It's this lifestyle that may save us yet. As a species, we're the only ones on earth capable of finding fulfillment in something other than procreation. This has proved especially true with recent history, as the average individual has FAR more options to spend their mental and physical faculties on. The more one dwells on other matters, the more their instincts are satiated by other behaviors. Sex is probably the biggest example of this, as it has become more and more faceted in what it caters to. People can have sex for pleasure via protection, homosexuality, pornography, etc. This has become more and more accepted in mainstream society. However, more rural societies still place a lot of value in procreation, whether as a sign of maturity, means of sustaining a small community (survival), etc. Basically, while the instinct is still there, the need to procreate is being replaced with other goals, at least that's what my uninformed opinion on the matter is. | ||
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Slaughter
United States20254 Posts
On January 25 2013 13:51 Volkspanzer wrote: It's this lifestyle that may save us yet. As a species, we're the only ones on earth capable of finding fulfillment in something other than procreation. This has proved especially true with recent history, as the average individual has FAR more options to spend their mental and physical faculties on. The more one dwells on other matters, the more their instincts are satiated by other behaviors. Sex is probably the biggest example of this, as it has become more and more faceted in what it caters to. People can have sex for pleasure via protection, homosexuality, pornography, etc. This has become more and more accepted in mainstream society. However, more rural societies still place a lot of value in procreation, whether as a sign of maturity, means of sustaining a small community (survival), etc. Basically, while the instinct is still there, the need to procreate is being replaced with other goals, at least that's what my uninformed opinion on the matter is. Whats interesting is that a lot of developed countries, take lets say Japan (there was just a thread on this) where the birth rate is really low. This can be attributed to development and a focus away from procreation. Isn't it true that underdeveloped countries have a fairly higher birthrate? | ||
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