>From: Rob Schaap >G'day all,
>
> >The food-overpopulation cycle?
> >
> >Here it is in its most simplistic form: People are made out of food. (and
> >water).
> >
> >More food = more people.
>
>People are made of atoms, but would more atoms equal more people?
Look I SAID I presented this in its most simplistic form. Sometimes one
can't type (or even scan and post) three quarters of a book in order to
support a statement. One has to rely upon your good will to examine and
think about the issue in such cases. If you wish ot think that a simplistic
rejoinder has done with the issue and lays it to rest, well and good. But
you're wrong.
>And they
>are made of social relations, too. As Milton told us, certain sets of
>relations encourage lots of babies, and certain ones do not. So let's not
>hint at not feeding starving people,
It's indeed interesting that this is the first action that you construct
from my statement. In fact, equity in food production and distribution is
the only way to begin to bring the overpopulation issue under control. (I am
glad you only managed to accuse me of hinting, however, that's a lot of
progress, usually such a statement accuses me of it outright.) You project
that into my statement because you don't know much more about it. That IS my
fault because I didn't post 75 pages you wouldn't read anyway. Please try to
give me the benefit of the doubt if you can.
If Milton knows what I think he knows he also understands that a general
reduction in food supply for a population as a whole OVER TIME results in
population slowing without killing anyone or causing dislocation or
starvation. BTW, if we are going to "not feed" anyone, I'd start with
fat-cat diners at the Cordon Bleu. Why did you assume I'd start with
starving innocents?
AND You should consider the alternatives staring you in the face before you
object too strongly to this argument.
>and let's start affording women control
>over their bodies, pushing for a rise in the importance of female offspring
>in cultures where they are currently daunting expenses with few pay-offs
>(meaning Mum and Dad have to have more children to get that boy),
>encouraging debt 'forgiveness', opposing IMF 'restructuring' traps, and
>start pushing for some social security in countries where people's only
>hope
>for a tenable retirement lies in surviving male children. The trouble with
>impoverishing the countryside of the third world is that this can create
>more people rather than less, I think.
Yes. I agree with everything you said there. I support it, and work for it.
If anything I wrote is perceived as advocatiing "impoverishing the
countryside, I am misunderstood. That seems to be the porblem on Crashlist
this week, But, hey, that's progress too, we are not yelling at different
viewpoints quite so stridently as before. <g>
>
>And let's remember, too (again, as others here have also said), that we in
>the 'west' or 'north' have ecological footprints incommensurably out of
>proportion to the three billion people I talked about above.
YES! A rather good place to start cutting down consumption, don't you think?
>And also, let's not think we poor few are the teachers - there's a bloody
>great movement abroad! As usual, it's a spontaneous, unexpected backlash
>from a myriad people, organised into a myriad groupings. We gotta feed it,
>get our nourishment from it, and help it grow. Democracy must be the
>answer, I think. If it ain't, we're dead meat fershure ...
I will not let you dismiss us quite so easily. We must teach, if we "get
it". The movement of those who "get it" starting to teach at present the
fastest growing "great movement". It is no longer "we poor few", or haven't
you been looking around?
I would hope that soon we can quit quibbling over who has the purer motives
or ideas and begin to meet together on the little bits of common ground we
can occupy. I don't claim to have all the answers, but I will not cop a plea
to having none of them, either.
tom
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