Psychology Today Blog: Ban Having Children for 5 Years

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A bestselling author has called octuplets-mother Nadya Sulamen a 'murderer' and warns of overpopulation saying, "we need to lose 4.4 billion people."

“STOP HAVING CHILDREN.” Steven Kotler has declared that responsible adults should stop having children in order to save the planet. Those who are having kids, are being selfish and stealing from the future, the rest of humanity, and “every living thing on the earth,” he wrote. Have too many kids and you should go to jail.

This isn’t a joke. Kotler writes a blog called “The Playing Field” on the Psychology Today Web site. He is a best selling author and an advocate of controlling population growth. His latest solution: a five-year moratorium on having kids.

Kotler’s reasoning is that the planet is running out of resources. “You think the economy is bad now – wait a few years,” Kotler said. “Wait until we’re almost completely out of oil and food and water and available land ... we need to lose 4.4 billion people and we need to lose them fast.”

Those comments came just days after Nadya Sulamen, a single mother of six, gave birth to octuplets, and Kotler had an opinion about her as well. “She’s a criminal,” Kotler declared. “She’s a murderer. She’s not only guaranteeing her kids a very hard life, she’s killing all of us.”

Kotler isn’t the the first person to say humans are destroying the planet. Paul Watson of the radical Sea Shepherd Society, has called for the global population to fall below one billion, because “we are killing our host, the planet Earth,” Watson opined. “I was once severely criticized for describing human beings as being the ‘AIDS of the Earth.’ I make no apologies for that statement,” Watson has said.

Like Watson, Kotler doesn’t think much of humans. In December, writing on “The Playing Field,” he said:

So do I think that a dog's life is worth more than a humans? I think that no dog has ever, intentionally, for reasons of selfish greed, destroyed their home like we have ours. I think that yes, there are way too many people on the planet, and while I'm not advocating mass euthanasia (though mandatory birth control sounds pretty good to me), I think before we start saying humans are worth more than dogs, we need to examine exactly what we have contributed to the quality of life for all species on this planet, not just our own.

Such ideas are hardly original. Thomas Malthus, an influential 18th century economist and philosopher, was an early proponent of population control. He reduced the human position on earth to a mathematical observation: “Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio,” Malthus wrote in 1798. “Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second.”

Nearly two centuries later, America scientist Paul Ehrlich took up the Malthusian standard, and added his own shrill urgency. In his hugely successful 1968 book, The Population Bomb, Ehrlich foresaw that, "In the 1970s and 1980s…hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."

Ehrlich’s answer was “compulsory birth regulation…(through) the addition of temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food. Doses of the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the desired family size."

Of course, Malthus, Ehrlich and other doomsayers have been proven spectacularly wrong. Kolter didn’t address that fact in his piece.

Erin Brown is an intern for the Culture and Media Institute. Matt Philbin is the Managing Editor for CMI. 


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The answer is obvious

Start by killing yourself Kotler.  I mean, think of the rest of us.  Really. 

What an imbecile.

"What you can not enforce, do not command" -Sophocles-

Where are the future

Where are the future taxpayers who will pay back Obama's political payoff scam and support Social Security and Medicare recipients going to come from?

How are we going to maintain a military?

Where is Obama going to get his 'civilian national security force' brownshirts?

Moron. 

NOLI PUGNARE ME OCCIDERE

Why start there?

Just think of how many people think like him?  What, the entire left?

So will Kotler practice

So will Kotler practice what he preaches and remove himself from the Earth? 

 

www.theholyrosary.org

"There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we can not resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary." -Sister Lucia

Sadly, I think this sort of

Sadly, I think this sort of thing is going to be gaining acceptance in the near future. Along with mass genocide, communists just cannot do without that one.

Consider the Source

What everyone here must realize is that Steven Kotler is a nobody.  He has no advanced degree, is not a psychologist, and only claim to fame is 2 books (one fiction, one opinion) and a blog.

He's the kind of kook that should be discredited and ignored.

So in the author's mind

all the people aborting babies are just being good stewards of Earth?

Oh yes, absolutely.

The one thing that all good sociopaths have in common is that they are just so good at justification for selfish and disgusting behavior.

 

 

"We need to lose 4.4

"We need to lose 4.4 billion people and we need to lose them fast.”

You first.  One down, billions to go.

"Global climate change" hysteria is nothing more than an attempt by the political liberal elite to get further control over our private lives.  Not only how we heat our homes, or how we drive, or what we eat, but what we do with our bodies.  Specifically, the ability to emulate China's forced abortion/sterilization/1 child policies.

Surely people like this stay awake at night, dreaming of ways to force their worldview on the rest of us.

I'm about 10 weeks along with Baby #2.  Lord willing, we'd like to have 4.  I wish I were joking, but a few bloggers who don't have kids have promised me "child offsets" so we can have our 4 children.  He'll take away my right to choose to have children when I'm dead...and if I go, I'm taking a few of them with me.

But, in all seriousness, people like this need our prayers.  They are clearly angry, hurtful, and longing to understand that humankind is a glorious creation, not a blight on the planet.

Aut viam inveniam aut faciam

I'm the proud father of 2, a

I'm the proud father of 2, a third on the way...we hope to have either 4 or 5.  I say the more of people like us, the better to overtake the leftist loons in years to come.  They only have 0-2 kids anyway, so we'll win the demographics battle there!

Kotler - they already do

Kotler - they already do that in that China.  The murdering thugs think nothing of putting a mother in jail if she has too many children or force abort her child. 

Boy!  Would Planned Parenthood like to get a piece of that action or what?  

Remember, its only $1200 for a baby death bag in Florida. 

 

God, what a self-loathing, pathetic, wretched human being.

-Dave

Our clueless political leaders are about to drive us all over a cliff. The time to HITM is now-before we go over.

Listening to a Pelosi or

Listening to a Pelosi or Kerry speech is murder, maybe a liberal can volunteer since it's their idea.

lose 4.4 billion people

Can we start with MSNBC?

Check your decimal placement.

 He said 4.4 billion people..not 4,400 viewers. 

NOLI PUGNARE ME OCCIDERE

Oops

I'm currently 21 weeks along with baby number 5.  My husband works very hard to support us all, and I help out as much as I can to support him in his hobbies to offset the stress.  I guess I'm just a burden to the planet.

Bless you

You're a blessing in this world!  The selfish are the "childless by choice" couples.  You on the other hand are helping to replenish on earth what the selfish so horrendously aborted.   Congratulations on your pregnancy!

Selfish?

I am in a "childless by choice" couple, but not from abortion.....I think that having a child is an enormous responsibility that I would not be financially or emotionally able to provide for. I am in my thirties and with somebody in his forties and we are simply not cut out for parenthood. I do not think it is selfish to choose not to bring children into the world. I think it's much more selfish when a young woman gets pregnant because 'she wants somebody to love her' or for some other reason to fulfill her own personal gratification. I was raised in a loving family and I would not want to give anything less to my child, but as my decisions on choice of career, etc. panned out I could not see myself being fully able to give a child the kind of life I feel he or she would deserve. I just don't understand why people throw the "selfish" label out there the minute they hear a couple is not interested in having children.

That said, yes, this man telling everybody to stop having babies for five years is a loon!

 

Spiker

It's an old ruse....to call people who are childless by choice selfish.  That statement bothered me too, but why dignify such ignorance with a response?

Best to ignore it.

 

 

 

What about childless NOT by choice?

<crickets> 

Oops, did I just say that?  Didn't mean to broach one of those last taboo subjects of the modern world.

But seriously, this is, in my opinion, why we must be very careful in judging others on this subject.  Sometimes that "childless couple" next door is quietly bearing a great lonely cross that they did not ask for, nor ever dreamed could happen to them.

 

And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall.   -- Edgar Allan Poe

Education has failled miserably

There have been numerous predictors of doom and gloom who have been proven to be completely wrong in the past and yet these clowns still get a warm reception in the halls of academia.  With Ehrlich, the attitude is that all that was wrong was his timing.  the problem is compounded when our colleges present this information as if it were new and do nothing to show how utterly wrong it was.  I have 4 kids who have gone to college and ample experience in the BS they is presented as fact. 

For the people who take this crap seriously...

...one can only hope they NEVER have ANY children EVER.

Good Idea

The world's population is currently 6.75 billion. 4.4 billion is 65% of that. Not an easy task.

If he proposed the mass genocide of the entire continent of Asia, that would amount to 4.1 billion (after all, they wouldn't want to live the way they do anyways). But even killing off every man woman and child in China, India and every other country in that part of the world would fall short of his goal by 300 million people.

To make up the difference he could insist that those most likely to agree with his ideas (read. liberals) should instead institute an immediate
forced-sterilization, and zero-tolerance no-child policy for themselves.

Just with my quick math, With liberals composing at least 30% of  335 mil. North American population and even more of the 773 mil. European population, he should make up that 300 mil. easily in a few decades, meeting and even surpassing his lofty goal of 4.4 billion.

Of course, if life is that bad for him, he could stop being a dammed hypocrite, hang himself, and in dying, be a glorious example of his dedication to the cause.

I pray for the Rapture everyday!

Less of you on this planet, more space for me and my heathen brethren!

Please God take them!

I need some breathin' room!

Odd Job

Be careful what you wish for, OddJob, you just may get it.

You are aware, aren't you, that in the seven years immediately following the event you are wishing for, half of the remaining population of this planet is going to be killed?

And most of them who are going to die are going to die rather horribly, too.

-Dave

Our clueless political leaders are about to drive us all over a cliff. The time to HITM is now-before we go over.

R D Helm

Nahh...! It's gonna be a big party! All kinds of fun!

"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
George Mason

Bolton/KEYES 2012 

Good morning Rock

No need for the rapture. The peaceful religion os ISLAM is working on the population problem already. Oddjob just may find himself as the guest of honor at a Marie Antoinette party.

Present Obama is fixing to speak to Ihockedmydinnerjacket very soon about world peace.

Jesus Loves You

If you're saying the followers of Islam...

cocodrie,

...are to be judged by a radical fundamentalist group of religious zealots, should the followers of Christianity be judged by its own group of radical fundamentalist groups? Clearly, you need to read up on world history.

Peace be with you!

Odd Job

Cocodrie, <crickets>

Cocodrie,

<crickets>

Odd Job

Oddjob

The Crickets disbanded when Buddy Holly died.

Jesus Loves You

cocodrie

Somehow, I imagine that Nut Job would have the same reaction to Holy Water that Homer Simpson did when he interupted Bart's Baptism by Ned Flanders.

"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
George Mason

Bolton/KEYES 2012 

Good afternoon Rock

Thank you for the laugh

Since I belong to the radical religious right I am aware that the bible advises against arguing with a fool, I did it anyway since it isn't a commandment.

Jesus Loves You

Good afternoon Oddjob

Islamists are not group of religious zealots, they are a political terrorist organization. You need to read up on world history, especially the time just preceding the crusades and also the Kuran.

Unfortunately for them the islamists Will be judged by Jesus Christ and condemned by their own depraved acts.

You are right to say that I am a radical fundamentalist. Which of the radical beliefs should I stop practicing? Should I kill/ Should I steal? Should I seduce someone's wife?

You obviously don't believe in moral absolutes.

Just remember, don't stick your neck out if your neighbor becomes a muslim.

Jesus Loves You

And who told you that story?

Dave,

Are you a believer in the Rapture? Are the end of times near? You say half the population are going to die horribly. Hmmm...if I'm part of the half that continues to live...well, PARTY ON! 

Why would I want to spend eternity with the likes of people who judge and condemn me for my views? Why do you hate? WWJD?

Odd Job

Nutjob = Troll

Do you have anything substantive to contribute other than your irrational hatred of religion?

"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
George Mason

Bolton/KEYES 2012 

Hate the sin not the sinner.

SargeRock,

"irrational hatred of religion"?

Tell me how religion is rational so I can be fully aware of my sinful ways?

Odd Job

This isn't about religion.

This isn't about religion. This is about one group of people who thinks they have the moral authority to decide, for whatever reason, that another group of people no longer has the right to live. 

Whenever such a group gains power they've massacred millions upon millions of these unfortunates.

It used to be Mao and Stalin's political opposition, including hundreds of millions of their own citizens.

Then under Hitler it was insane and retarded persons. Then it became Jews.

Today it's non-Muslims around the world and unborn children here at home.

When will conservatives find themselves in the sights of these people? I have no doubt there are millions in this country who would gladly carry out these same policies against anyone their masters decree to be 'unworthy'.

If we ever get rounded up and shipped off to the 'reeducation camps' under Obama, I'll bet the first person we meet when we step from the cattle cars will be OddJob.

And he'll guarantee that those of us who've dare to question him will receive special treatment.

NOLI PUGNARE ME OCCIDERE

Tailgunner

What's wrong with killing retarded people? That would mean fewer democRAT voters.. Ha Ha Ha! See?

Nut Job

"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
George Mason

Bolton/KEYES 2012 

it depends on which religion

Religions are belief systems that claim to given an account of what the true world is like.  Logically, there are a limited number of mutually exclusive possibilities.  If one belief system claims there is one God, but another claims there is no God, and another claims that there are many gods, they cannot all be simultaneously true. 

Thus, the answer to your question depends upon which religion you are referring to.

 

And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall.   -- Edgar Allan Poe

I volunteer to be the SAIC of his forced sterilization...

...but seeing as how he doesn't really have pair to begin with, the procedure would be entirely symbolic.

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. - Sir Winston Churchill

The Final Solution

"We need to lose 4.4 billion people and we need to lose them fast.”

We should all be very thankful that this inbred moron has zilch power.  There may come a day when madmen like this will (again) wield power.

 

And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall.   -- Edgar Allan Poe

Hitler Revisited

It is well known by now that "visionaries" like Margaret Sanger and H.G. Wells were raving eugenicists who thought Hitler was on the right track, he just went a little overboard and made the whole movement look bad, just for a while.

The problem for eugenicists, from the beginning, has been how to make "...the unbalance between the birth rate of the 'unfit' and the 'fit'and "...the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective" (as stated by Margaret Sanger) palatable to the masses upon which it was to be practiced.  Hitler was obviously not a good spokesperson- he did not know how to be subtle about it.  "Hitler's determination to establish his "Master Race" was embraced by German eugenicists. *17 And eugenicists elsewhere failed to criticise the Germans. In the United States, the Birth Control Review praised the effectiveness of the Germans, and published articles by Rudin and others. *18
But, what I find very interesting is that since WWII, "the eugenics movement continued to thrive, without reform:
The development and promotion of birth control was a major eugenic success...  The discovery of the population explosion and the hysteria about the need to control it was a major eugenic success...  The field of genetics grew faster than fruit flies in the 1950s, and although the accumulating knowledge was valuable, the field was dominated by eugenicists, who could use their knowledge for eugenic purposes.
UNESCO, founded in 1948, was directed by Julian Huxley, a determined eugenicist who used his global platform very effectively...  The welfare state in Britain was based largely on the work of Richard Titmuss, John Maynard Keynes and William Henry Beveridge, members of the Eugenics Society
" (www.eugenics-watch.com/intro.html#history)

And of course, in 1973, the eugenicists were handed the keys to the kingdom when the U.S. Supreme Court discovered the "right to privacy" in the penumbra of the constitution.  But here , in the words of one of the major movers of eugenicists, is the openly stated plan:
"Voluntary Unconscious Selection"
excerpt from Frederick Osborn's Galton Lecture


Conclusion:

"It is eighty-six years since Galton published his Hereditary Genius; eighty-six years since he gave us the hope that the average of human intelligence and character could be raised to the level of the upper five or ten percent today; since he envisaged the eugenic movement as something that would sweep the world and make man at last the master of his own destiny on earth. It has not happened. The eugenic movement is nothing but a few small handsful of men in various countries; here in England, in the United States, in India, in France. They are not influencing public opinion. The very word eugenics is in disrepute in some quarters. Yet I still believe in Galton's dream. Probably most of you do. We must ask ourselves, what have we done wrong?
           I think we have failed to take into account a trait which is almost universal and is very deep in nature. People simply are not willing to accept the idea that the genetic base on which their character is formed is inferior and should not be repeated in the next generation. We have asked whole groups of people to accept this idea and we have asked individuals to accept it. They have constantly refused, and we have all but killed the eugenic movement.
          People will accept the idea of a specific hereditary defect. They will go to a heredity clinic and ask what is the risk of our having a defective child. They balance that risk against the chance of their having a sound child, and they usually come up with a pretty sound decision. But they won't accept the idea that they are in general second rate. We must rely on other motivation.
          Given the right circumstances, people will have children in proportion to their ability to care for them. If they feel financially secure, if they enjoy accepting responsibility, if they have warm affectional responses, if they are physically strong and competent, they are likely to have large families, provided they have reasonable psychological conditioning to this end. If they are unable to feed the children they have, if they are afraid of responsibility, if their affectional responses are weak, people don't want many children. If they have effective means of family planning, they won't have many. Our studies have shown this to be true all over the world. On such a base it is surely possible to build a system of voluntary unconscious selection. But the reasons advanced must be generally acceptable reasons. Let's stop telling anyone that they have a generally inferior genetic quality, for they will never agree. Let's base our proposals on the desirability of having children born in homes where they will get affectionate and responsible care, and perhaps our proposals will be accepted.
          It seems to me that if it is to progress as it should, eugenics must follow new policies and state its case anew, and that from this rebirth we may, even in our own lifetime, see it moving at last toward the high goals which Galton set for it."

More from the same site:

The influence of the eugenicists on abortion in America is perhaps best seen by comparing Roe v. Wade and a book by Professor Glanville Williams, The Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law. The book is cited in the 1973 abortion decision, but the citations alone do not reveal the full extent of the influence. The central ideas in Roe v. Wade are about personhood, and that section is virtually plagiarised from Williams. Justice Blackmun lifted his whole argument from Williams, including the history of abortion, ancient attitudes, the influence of Christianity, common law, Augustine's and Aquinas' teaching, canon law and English statutory law. Williams was a member of the Eugenics Society. *19 Roe v Wade was based on eugenics.

...The influence of the eugenicists on abortion in America is perhaps best seen by comparing Roe v. Wade and a book by Professor Glanville Williams, The Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law. The book is cited in the 1973 abortion decision, but the citations alone do not reveal the full extent of the influence. The central ideas in Roe v. Wade are about personhood, and that section is virtually plagiarised from Williams. Justice Blackmun lifted his whole argument from Williams, including the history of abortion, ancient attitudes, the influence of Christianity, common law, Augustine's and Aquinas' teaching, canon law and English statutory law. Williams was a member of the Eugenics Society. *19 Roe v Wade was based on eugenics.

...

CRYPTO-EUGENICS

           In 1968, the Eugenics Review ran an article summarising some of the activities of the Eugenics Society. The article quoted a proposal made in the late 1950's by Dr. Carlos Paton Blacker, who had been an officer in the Eugenics Society since 1931 (Secretary, then General Secretary, then Director, then Chairman):

That the Society should pursue eugenic ends by less obvious means, that is by a policy of crypto-eugenics which was apparently proving successful in the US Eugenics Society. *22

          In 1960, Blacker's proposal was adopted by the Eugenics Society. A resolution which was accepted, stated (in part):

The Society's activities in crypto-eugenics should be pursued vigorously, and specifically that the Society should increase its monetary support of the FPA [Family Planning Association, the English branch of Planned Parenthood] and the IPPF [International Planned Parenthood Federation] and should make contact with the Society for the Study of Human Biology, which already has a strong and active memberships, to find out if any relevant projects are contemplated with which the Eugenics Society could assist. *23

          Planned Parenthood grew out of the eugenics movement. At the time this resolution was adopted by the Eugenics Society, Blacker was the Administrative Chairman of IPPF. When IPPF was founded in 1952, it was housed in the offices of the Eugenics Society.
          The dominant figure in the eugenics movement in the United States, considered by the English to be a model of crypto-eugenics, was Major General Frederick Osborn, a master propagandist. In 1956, he said people "won't accept the idea that they are in general, second rate. We must rely on other motivation." He called the new motivation "a system of voluntary unconscious selection." The way to persuade people to exercise this voluntary unconscious selection was to appeal to the idea of "wanted" children. Osborn said, "Let's base our proposals on the desirability of having children born in homes where they will get affectionate and responsible care." In this way, the eugenics movement "will move at last towards the high goal which Galton set for it." *24
          Osborn stated the public relations problem bluntly: "Eugenic goals are most likely to be attained under a name other than eugenics." *25 He pointed to genetic counselling as a prime example: "Heredity clinics are the first eugenic proposals that have been adopted in a practical form and accepted by the public. ” The word eugenics is not associated with them." *26
          Osborn is often credited with reforming the eugenics movement after World War II, and purging its racism. However, during the tine of this "reform," he was President of the Pioneer Fund, holding that office secretly from 1947 to 1956. The Pioneer Fund is a notorious white supremacist organisation. Obviously, a secret racist wouldn't purge racism, he would purge open racism, leaving a policy that critics might call "crypto-racism"

Chilling stuff.

It appears Hitler never really died.  He was just a little too enthusiastic.  His proteges worldwide just put on more effective camoflage.

"The future is not set.  There is no fate but what we make for ourselves."

michaelyon-online.com

its shocking but...

After listening to the Left enough, you start to realize that they don't hate Hitler for what he did, but rather for how he did it.

Oddly enough, It seems that the inverse of what Galton had hoped for is happening. Instead of the 'fit' (meaning affluent, beautiful and intellegent people) having children in large numbers, it is instead the 'unfit' (poor, destitute, and undereductated) are having large families.

I suppose what the Eugenics people never realized is that after people reach a certain comfort level with their lives, they do not want to disrupt it by having children. Likewise, those they lable 'unfit' have little to lose and their joys in life tend to come from family as opposed to from material goods. In addition, their own welfare system is set up in such a way that it often makes economic sense for the 'unfit' to have kids (esp from the perspective of a single mom seeking government checks).

The end result of all this is that their 'unfit' (and more specifically the third world) will inherit western civilization within a few decades. One needn't look further than to examine native Europeans' declining population compared to the high birth rates by Muslim immigrants there.

This simple failure of intellegence should put Galton and most other Eugenics proponents in their own 'unfit' category as far as I'm concerned.

Liberals should stop having children!

The liberals are already aborting themselves out of existance, so I'm in favor of them not having children at all. Demographics actually favor conservatives because they're having more children already. The liberals make up for it with immigration (legal & illegal) and the brainwashing of our children in the schools. This is why they are so desperate to legalize the illegal aliens and they also want to give prisoners the right to vote!

We actually need more people and not less or we will not be able to compete with the China and India in the future.

Please check out my site below for ammunition to use in the fight!

 

 

www.CrusaderPatriot.com

Makes Sense With All The Global Warming Hysteria

This really shouldn't surprise anyone that Liberals believe this.  It is telling that now, with President Obama, someone like this feels they can say it.  It seems just a matter of time before our China envying President seeks to implement some sort of population control on us. 

Yeesh...

I'm all for forced sterilization of Liberals, Enviro-weenies, or Green advocates.  We can use less of them, certainly.  I wonder if this guy gets his math from the same people who told Nancy Pelosi that we were going to lose 500 million jobs a month.

 Personally, I'm vey surprised that we haven't seen a Jonestown-style mass suicide from a bunch of hysterical Liberals who feel that it's the only way to save humanity or avoid the coming global conflagration.  Then again, how would they be able to tell us how to live our lives?

The reason we haven't seen

The reason we haven't seen that type of mass suicide is that they are the ultimate in hypocrites.  It's the same reason why they hate this country and everything about it, yet they refuse to leave it...

There is a very succinct

There is a very succinct way to describe this mentality:

JUST ENOUGH OF US. WAY TOO MANY OF YOU.

 

Aut viam inveniam aut faciam

Agreed.  If all of the

Agreed.  If all of the socialists/communists/Democrats (redundant, I know) offed themselves, that'd be a good start toward "population control".  

What hypocrisy..."life for me but not for thee", I guess...

I am neither a Malthusian or---

I am neither a Malthusian or--- a proponent of Ehrlich's predictions. However, there is truth in some of what they say. We are procreating at a geometric rate while subsistence is at an arithmetic rate. The third world people with no knowledge of birth control nor any practical ideas of how to make their country, or even their local area more productive are those with the highest reproductive rate. China, simply by the weight of its current population is producing more people than the land, economy or any facet of the human experiment can sustain. So, too in Central, South America and on.

So folks , what's the answer???? What is the most humane methodology?? Do you totally disagree and feel the earth can handle billions more?? Shall we go to the "Soylent Green " solution??? Do we strip the jungles of Africa and Brazil  for farmland???

I do not have an answer. I find  the solutions in the article above to be draconian. Do you here at Newsbusters believe that there is no problem of overpopulation??? Do you think Chinese officials are horrible to set one child per family?? (The Chinese are the most affected.) What solutions do the Chinese have??

Why did the Greeks and Romans reach out to create their empires?? Do you think it was because they just wanted to be in charge of the world??  Do you think there was any chance that they thought they needed the products of the earth to sustain them??? That is what a history professor posited to me back in the 50s.

While I do not agree with what the people above, (Malthus, Ehrlich, etal), I do believe that we have a problem of the nature being denied above.  

Finally, if anyone knows how many people the earth can sustain. please let me know.

Lest you think, I am a "no children" solution advocate--I am the father of 7, 5 are still living.

I simply do not know, but I lean toward population control. I do believe that war is one solution-not mine--but someone's. It has worked in the  past.

 

Declining birthrates

Do you here at Newsbusters believe that there is no problem of overpopulation???

No.  From 2006, an article on declining birthrates in the European Union (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4768644.stm).  From a sidebar:

In Europe 2.1 children per woman is considered to be the population replacement level. These are national averages

  • Ireland: 1.99

  • France: 1.90

  • Norway: 1.81

  • Sweden 1.75

  • UK: 1.74

  • Netherlands: 1.73

  • Germany: 1.37

  • Italy: 1.33

  • Spain: 1.32

  • Greece: 1.29

Source: Eurostat - 2004 figures

This article from the NYT also backs that up (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/magazine/29Birth-t.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all)

This article talks about declining birthrates across most industrialized nations (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/05/the_end_of_motherhood.html).

So the problem is nations, run by despots, tyrants, and communists not effectively using their nation's resources (both natural and human) to best support populations.

"Population control" of any kind smacks of genocide and other mass eugenic programs - wherein the powerful decide to eliminate a weaker, less desireable group of people for the sake of some "greater good."

Global warming - excuse me, global "climate change" - is so much hooey so as to make the situation where the powerful can elimate the undesireables.

Nothing more.  Nothing less.  And nothing else.

Aut viam inveniam aut faciam

Moderncomm

"So the problem is nations, run by despots, tyrants, and communists not effectively using their nation's resources (both natural and human) to best support populations.

"Population control" of any kind smacks of genocide and other mass eugenic programs - wherein the powerful decide to eliminate a weaker, less desireable group of people for the sake of some "greater good."

This is what I think best describes it. If the "despots" were to turn their energies to making their countries better places-- I agree, most problems would not exist.

Population control --I should not have used that expression I guess, because --when I reread it , it reminded me of Hitler and his efforts.

I meant having people educated so that they make good choices. I hope my questions did not evoke a belief that I am a control freak over other peoples' lives. I am also pro-life and strongly anti-abortion. 

I got the impression that you think I am in the "other camp". I am not--I just have questions about what NBers think on this issue.

Those 3rd world countries

May have a high birth rate, but they also have a high mortality rate. Nature's law, the strong survive and the weak perish. If you can't figure out a way to feed, clothe, house and defend yourself then you're not going to make it. Ever read any Jack London?

In order to be pro-choice, one must first be born. Ah, the irony.

how many people the earth can sustain?

misterbill, if all 6 billion people moved to the United States, there would be 3 people per acre!

v

"God has created a world big enough for all the lives He wishes to be born."  Mother Teresa

OK then--my small feedback indicates-

there is no overpopulation problem. I appreciate the feedback. I hope you are not upset with me that I am still not sure.

Among the reasons for doubt-- the overfishing of our oceans

The slash and burn of the Amazon jungle

Please -- I am not arguing I am right or wrong or that I know. It is just that these thing exemplify the geometric/arithmetic ratios of people to subsistence. (and it makes me nervous).

 

I sure as heck do not want to sound like another Al Gore.  (well maybe I would sell my principles for $140 million, too.)

 

Nahh-- I couldn't do that!! Better offer anyone????

"God has created a world

"God has created a world big enough for all the lives He wishes to be born."  Mother Teresa

...so Steven Kotler says to stop having children.

...God says be fruitful and multiply.

Hmmm...just who should we listen too?

v

"The child is the most beautiful gift of God to a family, to a nation. Let us never refuse this gift of God. My prayer for each one of you is that you may always have the faith to see and love God in each person including the unborn. God bless you."  Mother Teresa

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

Let's not forget these happy people, http://www.vhemt.org/ . Their motto: “May we live long and die out”.

Yes people really do think like this. "Phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth's biosphere to return to good health. Crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less dense." Less dense indeed. Once you have made the big leap to voluntary human extinction it's just a small step to involuntary human extinction.

do these people have brains?

Baseballmaven

These anti-human-ists crack me up--I'm glad they're not breeding--wouldn't want to perpetuate that blood line.

 Do they even realize that if we all stop having children (except, of course, for Islamists who continue to have children at a high rate), then we might as well deterimine that we'll be living under an Islamic reign in the next couple of generations.

Representatives of Western Civilization--the USA, Canada, Europe--had better wake up before we're all told to "convert or die."

(Read Mark Steyn's America Alone)

I've said it before...

I've said it before and I'll say it again - Since 1973 America has killed somewhere between 35 and 50 million unborn Americans.  Wassamatter, Steve, not  moving fast enough for ya?

"I dont need to read a newspaper to know the world's been shaved by a drunken barber."

Walter Brennan, The Colonel, Meet John Doe, 1941