Population Control

[storysunfolding]

I'm not liking where this thread is going...

I have 5 grand on a credit card currently. I pay 0 interest until february. I will recieve 20 grand before the end of january and spend $1400 a month with what I consider to be a luxurious lifestyle (including rent utilities gas and food in that number) though I do put some money into things like christmas funds,

I have the nintindo wii, 4 controllers and 5 games which blew out my allowed luxury fund for two months. but after my accident damaged the nerves in my right hand a one handed game was worth the ~600 I spent on it

[CNF2002]

Perhaps. I can't wait to see the numbers for 2006. Here's hoping that America got a slap in the face when they were told of the negative savings rate of '05. Especially with it looking like social security is doomed and pensions are non-existent.

Still, I think we spend too much on gadgets and toys and then complain that we work too much to make a living.

Yeah, I think $600 is too much for a gameboy. Then again I have a N64 that I can't play because I refuse to pay $20 for a used game cartridge.

[asiantay]

Yeah, right. Throw a bunch of kids with attention spans of 10 minutes into a room, hand them a numbered ticket, and make them sit for 4 hours and wait 20 minutes in 4 different lines while the 'teachers' keep passing you off into other lines because they don't want to deal with your problems.

Let me know how that turns out

CNF, you missed the point of my post... sounds like you are a product of a failed public education. Let me show you, through hyperbole, my point...again:

1. The current PUBLIC SCHOOL system is GOVERNMENT FUNDED.
2. The current PUBLIC SCHOOL system is INEFFICIENT.
3. The PRIVATE SECTOR is very EFFICIENT.
4. Get GOVERNMENT out of PUBLIC SCHOOLS and allow PRIVATE SECTOR to take over (This is an example of DEREGULATION).

If you'd like a crayon-colored picture, PM me.

*Ignore the subtle undertones of sarcasm*

[sv-wolf]

Any chance this might be a "modest proposal" by CNF?

I don't think anyone got that asiantay! Not everyone reads 18th century English Lit. But the point is made. I thought CNF was joking too when he first posted this thread. (Ref: Jonathan Swift wrote a satirical essay 'A Modest Proposal' in which he suggested that the way to solve the problem of starvation in Ireland was to persuade the Irish to eat their own children.)

CNF. It took me a while to believe you were being serious!

So, here's another perspective. Population dynamics are complicated and they are not independent of other factors. Whether a society can feed its people depends on many things including the way economic production is structured, the way wealth is distributed and upon the prevailing level of technological development. There is no such thing as absolute overpopulation.

The vast number of hungry and starving people in the world don't get that way as a result of the world's inability to produce enough food for them to eat. Far from it. It is a result of the economic systems under which these people live - systems which deny them access to the commodities society produces, or could produce. For example, in most famines you typically see food being exported out of the famine area to find more lucrative markets elsewhere.

So cutting down the population is not the only answer. Establishing a more equitable distribution of wealth and a less wasteful and chaotic form of production would solve the problem instantly. For years, the WHO produced figures to show that the world could easily feed and provide for any foreseeable increase in human population IF production were established on a rational basis, which it isn't.

It isn't rational because we don't organise production to meet human need, we organise it to satisfy the needs of the mega rich. And of course, when the non-mega rich start to go hungry it is they, the poor, who are usually called upon to make the sacrifices.

CNF. Your proposal (whether it is a 'modest' one or not) is effectively just another scheme to shift wealth upwards and hardship downwards.

OK I know this kind of angle is not popular and I've held back until now, but I can only hold back for so long. Done!

[asiantay]

I don't think anyone got that asiantay! Not everyone reads 18th century English Lit. But the point is made. I thought CNF was joking too when he first posted this thread.

DING DING YOU GOT IT! But, come on! Swift's "A Modest Proposal (For Preventing the Children of the Poor in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick)" is the most revered example of sustained sarcasm. Oh well, you have a very good point. I guess this can be some peoples' "I Learned Something New Today" thing.

[CNF2002]

CNF. It took me a while to believe you were being serious!

There's a thin line between what is serious and what is not in this thread.

But hey, people make a living making up impossible solutions to impossible problems.

Really, no one's complaining about needing a license to breed Collies and being forced to neuter one prior to pick-up at the SPCA...so really I don't see why my mandatory sterilization policy is being so poorly received.

My cat certainly hasn't complained. And look at the responsible adult feline he turned out to be.

[sv-wolf]

Really, no one's complaining about needing a license to breed Collies and being forced to neuter one prior to pick-up at the SPCA...so really I don't see why my mandatory sterilization policy is being so poorly received.

If I knew nothing else about you, I would be able to tell from just that one remark that you are not English!!!!

[roscowgo]

I'm as usual ranting about something entirely different. not unusual for me.

[logitech104]

I think people get confused on what they want and what they need.

[WVUChrome]

What do you think of my policy?

I think you seriously need to read Daniel Quinn's books "Ishmael" and "My Ishmael." You may be more right than you know.

Later,
WVUChrome...