Re: Privatizing the Public: Whose agenda? At What Cost?

[Ray Evans Harrell]

In the 1970s when scientists began to study allergies they uncovered an
interesting point about certain types of obesity.   The people who were
eating believed they were starving in spite of the huge amounts they ate.
Nothing satiated their hunger.   The food they were eating they were
allergic to.    So if they ate one of that type of food they would desire it
all day long in the search for satisfying the hunger.    But the allergy
wouldn't let the mechanism of "satisfaction" take over.    Eat one sugar

donut and you were likely to eat the dozen that you had bought.

On the other side of that is the stress mechanism that calls up various
types of skills from the population when there is the need.    Like Coyotes
and space, our evolutionary side seems to provide exactly what we need in
the way of people when the society is under stress.   But we don't know it.
So we keep trying to provide what we need by producing more.  

 

Fundamentalists are basically at odds with the future.    They are under
stress from the whole technological frontier of present day science as well
as the science of evolutionary archeology.     What is the answer?   To have
more kids that they CAN control, in fact, for YOU to have more kids and
let them adopt them if you don't want them.  

 

I'm speaking of other than the
historical "poverty" reason needing kids (because they die so easily and that
they are the "poor" retirement policy).   

 

Consider how illogical it is for
orthodox Jews to encourage Jewish marriage when there are problems in the
gene pool.   I see many genetic issues here in New York from the large
European Jewish population.    The cure would be intermarriage but
with conversion there is a huge dropout from orthodox Judaism.   

Judaism's very intricate system of manners and spiritual processes almost
requires being born into it for one to be comfortable.   The answer is the
three subgroups of Judaism that are less strict about the manners and rules.
But with the huge world populations of other groups (Southern Baptists 31

million not to mention Catholics [almost two billion] and Moslems [1.1

billion]. the 14 million total Jews worldwide are fewer than American

Indians to the total population of the US (2 million).    When you consider

the small population base it makes a kind of sense to propagate, no matter

what the outcome.

 

When you read the extinction laws for Native Americans you realize that

the US government is already planning for our extinction and I don't mean

extermination.    So population is "complicated."    Is it any wonder that

groups with other complicated identities feel threatened when their base

is small.  

 

That complication is not only political but it has a psychophysical basis as

well that makes designing populations seem hopeless. 

 

But I would say again, as I did yesterday.   Everything individual is a gift and 

every group is an important part of the human identity that not only is crucial 

but is not erasible except by extermination.   That we hold so tenaciously onto 

out identities is, for me, an issue of evolution and human nature.   It must 

serve some purpose and I believe that it does. 

 

Got to go see Falstaff tonight at the Met.

 

REH  

 

But the problem IMHO is that we don't understand the mechanisms that

drive our need to propagate and that is the problem.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Ray Evans Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "futurework" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Michael Gurstein"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Selma Singer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, April 20, 2002 8:21 AM
Subject: Re: Privatizing the Public: Whose agenda? At What Cost?


> Ray Evans Harrell wrote:
> [snip]
> > What most don't realize is that there are no human beings to spare.
> [snip]
>
> Shakespeare's Falstaff referred to "food for powder",
> when applying cost effectiveness considerations to
> military recruiting.
>
> A while ago I listened to a piece on NPR about
> why the Russians were concerned about casualties
> in the Chechnya War, whereas for centuries Russia
> has had a reputation for applying Shakespeare's
> idea:
>
>     http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/etc.html#fn27
>
> What changed their feelings? The fact that today many
> Russian families have only one child and therefore
> they do not have any children to spare.
>
> It seems to me to be an iron law that
>
>     The more there are the less each is worth
>
> I don't like it, but I don't see any way around this truth.
>
> Do you?
>
> I once slightly modified an IBM morale-boosting
> slogan (1978, Poughkeepsie):
>
>     You are the *in*difference.
>
> Yours in [the fantasy of...] individuality....
>
> \brad mccormick
>
> --
>   Let your light so shine before men,
>               that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
>
>   Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
>
> <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>   Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/