Forget Peak OIl ... the insects are dying out

Lord Beria3 · Post by **Lord Beria3** » 13 Feb 2019, 08:22

Vortex, son, time you read some Greer.

He will sort out your techno fantasies of perpetual growth!!

Mark · Post by **Mark** » 13 Feb 2019, 10:49

Little John wrote:Meanwhile, the lunatic liberals would have it that human overpopulation is not the root of the problem and that we should all hold hands and sing Kumbaya in a rainbow coloured border-less world.

You just can't resist, can you ?
Any topic, any thread, you have to bring in the politics of hate.

Yes, overpopulation is an issue - but it's very difficult to resolve - Hitler, Mrs Gandhi, Stalin, Chairman Mao all tried different methods, but all were distasteful to say the least.....,
On the other hand, Viktor Orban (Hungarian President) announced a few days ago that women giving birth to four or more children will never have to pay taxes....
Personally, I think taxation could be used in this area - fairly sure that there was a proposal here a couple of years ago to restrict Child Benefit to the first 2 children, but it was dropped (bottled ?) by the Tories....

Overpopulation is 1 of many complex reasons for insect decline, but certainly not the only one - read the post by emordnilap.....
LJ, you're excellent at slating others - WHAT WOULD YOUR SUGGESTION BE ??

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 13 Feb 2019, 11:04

The earth's problems are a combination of too many people wanting too many things (and are going about it all the wrong way) plus that influential and powerful subset of people who want far too much and encourage others to do the same.

So simple!

There's no human-made answer. The earth will deal with it.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 13 Feb 2019, 11:16

One child policy. Enforced ruthlessly. Al of which would be deeply unpleasant. All of which would be far less unpleasant that the alternative unplanned methods. Variously known as War, Famine, Pestilence and Disease.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » 13 Feb 2019, 11:51

Little John wrote:One child policy. Enforced ruthlessly. Al of which would be deeply unpleasant. All of which would be far less unpleasant that the alternative unplanned methods. Variously known as War, Famine, Pestilence and Disease.

OK - China is basically a totalitarian regime - they tried this for many years, with some limited success (granted), but they're now having to relax it....

The only way your proposal can possibly work is in a totalitarian state with little/no human rights or democracy...., agreed ?
In the Brexit thread, you say many times that the referendum result and democracy must be respected and protected at all cost...,
I guess you see no contradiction here - like in many of your polarised views....

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 13 Feb 2019, 12:15

My views are entirely consistent

Right now, democracy is still possible and, while it is, we must hold onto it for as long as possible. However, there are growing pressures, from opposite directions, to undermine it. One is from the globalist, increasingly fascist corporate class and the other is from the older, reactionary forces that have always been in our midst here at home. And the reason the home grown fascists are coming out of the woodwork is to fill the gaping political vacuum left behind by our own globalist leaning political class, including an abject failure of the Left (a major flank of which has jumped in bed with the corporate class) to represent its own internal proletariat,

The only thing that will keep the globalist antidemocratic forces at bay and, in dong so pull the rug from under our internal fascistic forces, is if we wrest national control of our legislature and judiciary away from the globalists. Following that, we then need to deal with, if necessary, the anti-democrats on our own turf. That is an old battle and is one that will never end.

As for the longer term, things are going to just get tougher here as elsewhere in the world. At some point, it will be transparently clear that there are too many people and not enough stuff - most notably the important stuff like energy and food. When that happens, I would certainly hope that the people would democratically decide to implement something like a one child policy. But, if they do not, then one of two things will happen. It will either be forced upon the people. Or, natural population control mechanisms will kick in.

During that time, whether or not democracy will survive is good question. But, right here, right now, it is an irrelevant question.

careful_eugene · Post by **careful_eugene** » 13 Feb 2019, 12:18

In order for any population control measures to work we need to be honest with each other (population as a whole not just members of powerswitch). Abandon any sustainable growth nonsense, make it understood that ultimately the issues that we face (climate change, resource depletion, species extinction) could be mitigated if there were fewer people alive. Once this is accepted, then steps could be taken such as a 1 child per couple policy. The problem is that there isn't a politician alive who's willing to put their name to any of this.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 13 Feb 2019, 13:27

Human nature being what it is the sad probability remains that genocides in the not too distant future will become the reality.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 13 Feb 2019, 13:48

Yes. That is very likely.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 13 Feb 2019, 14:23

Mark wrote:
Little John wrote:Meanwhile, the lunatic liberals would have it that human overpopulation is not the root of the problem and that we should all hold hands and sing Kumbaya in a rainbow coloured border-less world.
You just can't resist, can you ?
Any topic, any thread, you have to bring in the politics of hate.

Yes, overpopulation is an issue - but it's very difficult to resolve - Hitler, Mrs Gandhi, Stalin, Chairman Mao all tried different methods, but all were distasteful to say the least.....,
On the other hand, Viktor Orban (Hungarian President) announced a few days ago that women giving birth to four or more children will never have to pay taxes....
Personally, I think taxation could be used in this area - fairly sure that there was a proposal here a couple of years ago to restrict Child Benefit to the first 2 children, but it was dropped (bottled ?) by the Tories....

Overpopulation is 1 of many complex reasons for insect decline, but certainly not the only one - read the post by emordnilap.....
LJ, you're excellent at slating others - WHAT WOULD YOUR SUGGESTION BE ??

I don't see any hate in LJs post just exasperation at the illogical stance of many liberals, some of whom have left this forum, who complain about the damage done by economic growth but support the mass immigration that is used by neoliberal globalists to support that growth.

Over population or rising population, in itself, is not a problem for the UK and most of Europe. The European population has been static or dropping since the 1950s, in the case of the UK anyway, as most Europeans have not been having enough children to replace each other. The population of the UK has risen from about 42 million in the early 50s to the over 64 million today completely on the back of mass immigration and most of Europe is the same. Stop immigration and Europe's population starts to fall.

Population rise in the rest of the world has been shown to be overcome by educating women and giving them an economic value without any need for government imposed birth restriction or punitive taxation. Educating women is not a great problem as it can be funded by aid schemes (programs for our US friends) but giving them an economic value could be a problem when trying to stop economic growth. This might be tackled by giving them goats and teaching them to grow food more efficiently and organically. There have been several aid programs giving goats to women which have found that it increases the survival rate of children, which paradoxically leads to fewer children being born, gives the women an income and an economic value and improves health, which again leads to fewer children being born as fewer are lost to disease and ill health.

Tackling the rising population in some of the more hardline Moslem countries might be a problem though as women are seen as a chattel still and their education is not something that the men would contemplate at the moment. Neither is their leaving home to become of economic value outside the home because of cultural taboos over women's place in the world.

Viktor Orban is trying to solve the falling population issue in his country that other leaders have solved with the mass immigration which is unacceptable to him and his voters. What is needed in Europe and the rest of the world where falling population is becoming a "problem" is a reordering of the economic and banking system to allow for a contraction in output from the economy. A change to an "Islamic" banking system, one not predicated on the charging and paying of interest, is an essential for this as this interest is the driver for the requirement for constant economic growth.

"fairly sure that there was a proposal here a couple of years ago to restrict Child Benefit to the first 2 children, but it was dropped (bottled ?) by the Tories...." under pressure from those liberals again and, ironically, globalists worried about not enough children fuelling economic growth.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 13 Feb 2019, 16:40

The main reason it was dropped, I think, was due to the complaint that rich people would be unaffected by the loss of benefit and so would be unfairly advantaged in terms of being able to have more kids than poor people. Which, on the face of it, is an entirely legitimate complaint.

However, it occurs to me that if poor people had fewer kids and rich people had more kids, this would have the indirect effect of spreading the wealth about more.

Post by **clv101** » 13 Feb 2019, 21:09

kenneal - lagger wrote:"fairly sure that there was a proposal here a couple of years ago to restrict Child Benefit to the first 2 children, but it was dropped (bottled ?) by the Tories...." under pressure from those liberals again and, ironically, globalists worried about not enough children fuelling economic growth.

Little John wrote:The main reason it was dropped...

Proposal wasn't dropped. Child benefit has been cut for 3rd+ children (obviously not for kids already born when the change was announced). The first child gets Â£20.70 per week, 2nd now only gets Â£13.70 per week (figures haven't increased with inflation for a couple of years) and any subsequent get nothing. The other recent change to child benefit was that if either parent earns more than Â£50k per year you have to give some back, at Â£60k, you don't get any child benefit.

Both of these changes were brought in by Cameron's government.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 14 Feb 2019, 05:56

The problem is, in terms of population control, if this had any reducing effect on the actual population size, the government would respond by increasing net migration. It is literally just like what they would do if the money supply were to contract due to debt being paid down and no new debts being taken on. Indeed, one might argue that increasing the supply of debt based money and a consequent increasing requirement for debtors to take that debt on are inextricably linked

raspberry-blower · Post by **raspberry-blower** » 14 Feb 2019, 11:12

kenneal - lagger wrote:
Tackling the rising population in some of the more hardline Moslem countries might be a problem though as women are seen as a chattel still and their education is not something that the men would contemplate at the moment. Neither is their leaving home to become of economic value outside the home because of cultural taboos over women's place in the world.

Actually the birth rate in the Gulf states is slowing down considerably, Ken. For example, since the turn of the century until now, the fertility rate in Saudi Arabia has declined by approximately 40%:
http://www.worldometers.info/world-popu ... opulation/

This is not to say that in all Islamic states fertility rates are declining at this rate and that births are still outpacing deaths at an exceedingly wide margin in the GCC states at present. So there will continue to be an expanding population that needs feeding, water etc

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 15 Feb 2019, 14:28

Little John wrote:The problem is, in terms of population control, if this had any reducing effect on the actual population size, the government would respond by increasing net migration. It is literally just like what they would do if the money supply were to contract due to debt being paid down and no new debts being taken on. Indeed, one might argue that increasing the supply of debt based money and a consequent increasing requirement for debtors to take that debt on are inextricably linked

The birth rate in Britain is below replacement rate now which is why we have mass immigration still.

The Saudis are trying to cut down on the cash handouts to the indigenous population because they must know that theri oil is running out. Lowering cash handouts will make people think about having that extra child or two.

Re the cuts in UK child benefit, they will save the government money immediately, reduce the number of high wage expectation adults in the future and increase the number of low wage accepting immigrants that can be bought in to keep British industry going and British workers in their place. What's not to like from a Globalist point of view?