> I defined cull as "natural selection". As I said, this cop-out doesn't help either. Your bet of yesterday is:
> If you find any statement by me indicating certainty about anything > except the finite life span of life forms, I'll donate $500 to the > charity of your choice. The finite life span of life forms is trivial (dying of old age), but Natural Selection is something else: the selective PREMATURE death and/or different degree of procreation of individuals who are "unfit" according to nature's criteria. In modern civilized society, "Natural Selection" is practically abolished and as far as selection still happens at all, nature's criteria have been replaced by man-made criteria. (That's why almost everyone wears glasses and we are ruled by fat guys who wouldn't survive a week in the wilderness -- think of Dick Cheney who had 5 bypass surgeries and shot his lawyer instead of a bird.) Even if the excessive collective eco-footprint would "naturally" cause failed harvests and "natural" disasters that kill millions or even billions of humans, it still would NOT be Natural Selection, because the man-made criteria would still prevail, i.e. the fat old billionaire with 5 bypass surgeries could still survive due to his money while millions of poor but "naturally fit" people die. Basically, this is the concept of "the coming cull" if we scrape off the PR. It isn't really about _Natural_ Selection, because humans do the selecting -- and pretty "unfit" humans at that. (_Natural_ Selection may apply among some outcasts thrown into the wilderness -- but that's pretty irrelevant in the big picture.) Causing wars, famines and diseases is not Natural Selection either -- it's mass murder. All of these measures also privilege the rich -- especially those who profit from these measures! The large Predators would have enough money, power and knowledge to reverse the global course -- towards sustainable technology, global peace, prosperity and health, but they choose the opposite direction, due to selfish motives. Culling the unprofitable masses leaves a bigger part of the enviro cake for the rich. They don't care about consuming the ecosystem as long as they do it themselves or as long as it fills their pockets (SUV sales etc.). You made statements indicating certainty about "Natural Selection" in human society, not the finite life span of life forms, so you lost yesterday's bet and owe $500 to charity. >> Btw, nukes are another example of MAN-MADE -- as opposed to natural forces. > > If you can evidence anything that is not natural (supernatural) The > James Randi Foundation has $US 1 million on offer. A few lines later, you confirm that you did understand the difference between man-made and natural: > If anyone exerts the force to expose someone > to high risk of death, (s)he is held responsible for the act. If a human > uses nukes, the human causes the deaths. That was my point: The human causes the deaths! Not the natural forces cause the death. And to use nukes as a tool of "natural selection", with enough population reduction to make a durable difference, would require such a massive use of nukes as to cause a global nuclear winter that would destroy most of the biosphere and cause maximum suffering both for the ultimate survivors and for the majority that would literally die hard. So anyone who would perpetrate this could NOT claim to be an environmentalist or even to minimize human suffering -- on the contrary. > A cull is a selection, not an extinction. There will be coming selection > for humans. So here's your CERTAINTY again: "There WILL be COMING ...." (not already ongoing because perpetual -- but only coming, in the future!). So you lost yesterday's bet and owe the $500 to charity. > > Such an event is commonly referred to as "doom". > > Using your definition, a shrunken human population equals doom. No, a voluntarily reduced reproductive rate below 2.1 (replacement rate) is NOT doom. (Note that the native repro rate in developed countries already is way below 2.1!) Masses of humans getting killed IS doom. And THAT is what you predict with certainty -- no matter how you label it. And that's what the cave-men are demanding. (You posted a website that demands the goal of 100 million people IIRC.) > As I already stated, I think fewer people suffering in the future is not > doom, but rather a positive in my value schema. Progress can also achieve "fewer people suffering in the future" -- even if there are MORE people --, but without committing crimes, and faster. > A sterility virus would > produce less suffering in the future, and that is my ethic. BTW, mumps > made many men sterile in the past, including one of my brothers. You'd have to actively spread mumps or even develop a bioweapon... Involuntary sterilization is genocide and has been used by the Nazis. > Mr Ruess, I stated that selection would continue, with changing rates > over time, including an upswing. I put no timetable on it. Does the word > "coming" have a date? You have to hurry, because the environment is being used up as we speak, and the population curve is still going up exponentially. You have to "select" much faster than they procreate, for a net reduction of billions within 1-2 decades (for comparison: the Holocaust was 6 million in 6 years -- i.e. you'll have to be more effective by a factor of ca. 500). It would be faster and ethical to remove Predators from power and develop sustainable technology, instead of waiting for the 4 horsemen (or helping them) to commit extremely vast and ugly crimes. Did I say develop? The 1-Liter car has already been built in 2002 (by VW). But the Predators are now pushing SUVs that guzzle 15-25 Liters per 100km on hundreds of millions of Chinese bicyclists! Now THAT would be something where those "philanthropist" billionaires should jump in -- build the 1-Liter car in large numbers and outcompete the SUV pushers! (or even develop even less-consuming electrical cars) Instead, the billionaires are cashing in on the SUV profits! > > Is it so hard to stand by your words? > > My words have been defined by me. I will not stand by your definitions. You bend your definitions beyond making sense -- killing/sterilizing humans by man-made criteria is murder/genocide, not natural selection. > > Is it worth losing face for $500? > > I give thousands yearly to envorinmental and population NGOs. (incl > Audubon, a US bird advocate) Great! Then it's certainly no problem to send $500 to the charity I mentioned. > Then you repeatedly use the word "doom." Where have I used that? A (forced) population reduction by several billion people is doom, no matter how you label it. > The whole "profit" idea from population reduction is yours, but I see it > in reverse. I already explained that capital wants *growing markets* > (increased demand) and *oversupplies of labor* to suppress wages. > But you just ignore that, or have no logical rebuttal. I have already addressed this: They cull the *UNprofitable* masses -- those who are uninteresting for the market (too little purchasing power) and for the labor market (unskilled, too old, too high wage demands) anyway! What remains is rich consumers and cheap strong slaves (mainly in Asia). Could this be the "selection" that you're talking about? Predators want *profits*: Wars --> profits from arms trade, "security", resource theft, reconstruction. Diseases --> profits from Big Pharma Famines --> profits from "Free" Trade Being the clever capitalists that they are, they even make a killing off the killing. The markets in the West are already over-saturated, there's no place for growth in consumer items anymore, there are too many unemployed (outcasts) and malcontents demanding too much, whereas the cheap slaves are in Asia. So the Predators dump America and Europe (de-industrialization, "crisis"), suck them dry (cf. Greece, Germany, California etc.) and move on to China and India --> *growing markets* and *oversupplies of labor*! And after they've trashed the global environment, perhaps they'll cull all "the rest of us", so they have the last pieces of ecosphere for themselves... Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
