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MisdemeanorRebel
2015 Nov 3, 3:33pm
Shock: WSJ Editorial takes position that the more starving, desperate laborers, the better.
I'll take China over India any day of the week. I'd rather share a bathroom in a dreary concrete dorm, than be half-starved and living on a dirt road, shitting on the unpaved street.
GREAT article. thank you for sharing.
the leftists have become a legitimate threat to our way of life in america.
marcus
2015 Nov 3, 4:35pm
Yeah right. Worrying about overpopulation. That was and is just nuts. I think those libbies just think they know too much math or something. 3 billion people to 7 billion in 50 years? Exponential growth? That's just some psuedo Math jibberish. What's to worry about ?
Funny thing is that to be concerned about global population, and such things as the rapid dying off of species, and the overfishing and polution of oceans, AGW, and all of the other effects that come with population rising naturally is conservative. That's right it's actually conservative.
The right wing has nothing to do with being conservative anymore. If it did, they would be concerned more with such matters. THe number of humans likely to enjoy good lives here on Earth over the next several millenia would possibly be hundreds of times greater with planning than without. But yeah yeah, anything governments do to control or plan, that's bad. We just need to let it all hang out and see what happens. That's conservative ? Really ?
Heraclitusstudent
2015 Nov 3, 4:38pm
I guess the author is so stupid he can't do basic arithmetic. The idea that population can grow... let's say 1.3% / year indefinitely is patently stupid.
That would mean multiplying the population by 50 in 300 years.... only 570 billions people. Surely we can fit that in Texas.
Let's put it an other way: the earth is 150,000,000 km2 of dry land.
So you are talking of 1 inhabitant for 0.0002 km^2 or 200 meters^2. (the area of a house). That on every mountain, desert, jungle, march of this planet.
300 years is a flash in the planet history. It's an instant in historic time.
And this for what?? So we can continue "economic growth" at any cost?
Heraclitusstudent
2015 Nov 3, 4:40pm
Assuming you find a solution to allow that, then what about 600 year from now.
Surely, even the densest republican imbecile can start seeing this is going nowhere. We are heading toward a wall at exponential speed.
Heraclitusstudent
2015 Nov 3, 4:43pm
the leftists have become a legitimate threat to our way of life in america.
Leftists are a threat to your way of life, but 1 human being every 200 square meters is not?
NDrLoR
2015 Nov 3, 5:10pm
Is that supposed to be an answer?
It reminds me a lot of what certain people were prophysying in the 70's: "The Population Bomb", "The Limits to Growth", "The Greening of America", "The Late, Great Planet Earth". It was also a time of bad economy and a new crisis every few weeks. 600 years from now really doesn't worry me.
Heraclitusstudent
2015 Nov 3, 5:22pm
600 years from now really doesn't worry me.
In other words these people in 1970 were absolutely right except your time horizon is so absurdly narrow you think you have the luxury not to care.
Only it doesn't take a genius to see that arable earth is in limited supply, water tables are overdrawn, fish population are collapsing, pollution accumulates.
Even at 7.3 billions people things are starting to get awfully tight. And even at 1%/yrs, we are still on a trajectory for 17 billions people in 2100, in 85 yrs.
I.e. It won't wait 600 yrs, or 300, or 85yrs. We are heading toward catastrophic collapse by the end of this century.
Of course you still don't care because you are an incredibly cynical person who would rather sacrifice the planet than deviate a iota from your "way of life" and ideology.
The idea that population can grow... let's say 1.3% / year indefinitely is patently stupid.
that's why nobody is saying that except for you, who is making shit up to fit your delusional BULLSHIT apocalyptic fantasy jerk-off genocidal orgasm. leave it to a PSYCHOPATHIC SELF-LOATHING ASSHOLE leftist to suggest the only solution is to neuter and/or terminate humans en masse.
the world population growth rate has been in decline since the 1960's and is currently half that rate - it will half again by 2050 to be around 0.5% per annum. not to mention any unforeseen natural disaster or disease to contribute to the ratio, or the inability of governments to support welfare leeches who multiply to obtain funding and housing entitlements AND THOSE BLOOD SUCKERS VOTE DEMOCRAT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
FUCK OFF YOU PARASITE. please put a bullet in your head to help your own cause. sick motherfucker.
marcus
2015 Nov 3, 6:42pm
the world population growth rate has been in decline since the 1960's and is currently half that rate - it will half again by 2050 to be around 0.5% per annum.
That's one possible scenario, in which population levels off at 10 billion.
But those who thought in the 70s, "gee it might be nice if population leveled off at say 5.5 billion" weren't wrong for thinking about that, even if stopping the growth was impossible for reasons that are complex, but mostly it's nature and human nature. Maybe it's true that there is and was no option to simply letting nature take it's course, but that doesn't mean that raising the alarms about what it means, and actually thinking about what it means is or was wrong.
Who knows, maybe letting nature take it's course guarantees our extinction, where as some kind of planning would have or will eventually avoid that.
The only reason we even were able to grow at the rate we have was because of human ingenuity. Surely if we wanted, human ingenuity could have been focused on leveling population growth at a level that would have been sustainable for thousands or 10s of thousands of years. Maybe that's still possible, but it's clear a lot of damage will be done first that might have been avoided.
MAking these observations and thinking about it and talking about it, is what some morons call being a "blood sucking democrat." Well okay. I call it having an IQ over 80.
SELF-LOATHING ASSHOLE
Actually it's guys like this guy (probably CIC/IRONMAN alt account) that are self loathing assholes. If you hate yourself, then you hate humanity, and you don't care if we destroy the planet and ourselves in the process.
marcus
2015 Nov 3, 6:52pm
leave it to a PSYCHOPATHIC SELF-LOATHING ASSHOLE leftist to suggest the only solution is to neuter and/or terminate humans en masse.
Leave it to a semi-retarded moronic right winger to assume that this is what those who were concerned about population in the 70s (or those who are now) were/are thinking.
Patrick
2015 Nov 3, 7:34pm
Each is a comprehensive belief system, an instruction sheet on how to live, eat and reproduce, a story of how man fell and how he might be redeemed, a tale of impending crisis that’s also a moral crucible.
yup, exactly.
i did a tour of the old soviet union in college just before it collapsed, and was struck by how exactly lenin replaced the jesus of my catholic school time. his picture was in all classrooms, his sayings were holy, and it would be dangerous to question them.
people are pretty consistent, even when they try to be different.
yup, exactly.
i did a tour of the old soviet union in college just before it collapsed, and was struck by how exactly lenin replaced the jesus of my catholic school time. his picture was in all classrooms, his sayings were holy, and it would be dangerous to question them.
people are pretty consistent, even when they try to be different.
With the difference that religion in the West is largely voluntary these days, not sure about Lenin back then ;)
Surely, even the densest republican imbecile can start seeing this is going nowhere. We are heading toward a wall at exponential speed.
Certainly not the White/Caucasian people, they have been declining. I'm not necessarily against de-incentivizing too many kids (not by violent force though, take the welfare away), but the leftists are the ones who welcome our future over-religious overlords (breeding like rabbits) with open arms and taxpayer funds while cursing the receding christian tradition and culture. Leftists in their current form are the much greater menace to society. Good article btw.
Actually it's guys like this guy (probably CIC/IRONMAN alt account)
patrick can verify i have nothing to do with ironman. you're grasping at straws, trollface.
Leave it to a semi-retarded moronic right winger to assume that this is what those who were concerned about population in the 70s (or those who are now) were/are thinking.
Surely if we wanted, human ingenuity could have been focused on leveling population growth
ladies and gentlemen, i give you your moron.
marcus
2015 Nov 3, 8:42pm
Surely if we wanted, human ingenuity could have been focused on leveling population growth
ladies and gentlemen, i give you your moron.
You don't even understand what I mean here. I'm not saying that we should have. I'm only saying that if we wanted to we could. That would have required enough of a will to determine whether such measures would be worthwhile and it would have also required some sort of world government or global cooperation which probably isn't possible until much later when conditions are far far worse. IT's kind of like the individual that abuses themselves terribly, and only quits smoking, drinking or over eating when they are dying.
I know, I know. You only see one way. Let nature take its course. I'm sure you think the issue will take care of itself through wars or plagues or whatever.
The only moron is the one of us that's too stupid and close minded to even consider the possibilities. And who resorts to this kind of bullshit first.
your delusional BULLSHIT apocalyptic fantasy jerk-off genocidal orgasm
leave it to a PSYCHOPATHIC SELF-LOATHING ASSHOLE leftist to suggest the only solution is to neuter and/or terminate humans en masse.
FUCK OFF YOU PARASITE. please put a bullet in your head to help your own cause. sick motherfucker.
Welcome to ignore, you pathetic dimbulb.
HydroCabron
2015 Nov 3, 10:15pm
To wit, what explains the fatal attraction of the secular mind to the politics of impending apocalypse?
Do you know how many right wingers are also perpetually convinced we're facing an apocalypse?
Look around this site, for starters: Fed, debt, "kids these days - we're doomed" - it's all here, except for the "Jesus is coming back in the next 18 months - get right with God" crowd - maybe they're too ashamed to own that belief publicly here.
Biologists will tell you that, independently of the warming, something is definitely up. They could be part of the massive, incredibly organized conspiracy to defraud us all, but I know plenty of biologists of all political stripes who believe we've precipitated an extinction event. Probably not as bad as the Permian-Triassic - cold comfort.
The Earth recovers from extinction events. The problem is that it takes about 10 million years to recover the fumble, reset the clock, run the huddle and make it to the line of scrimmage.
Meanwhile, all across America, conservatives are losing sleep because the dollar has lost 97% of its value since 1913.
You can't make this up.
Heraclitusstudent
2015 Nov 4, 1:48pm
the world population growth rate has been in decline since the 1960's and is currently half that rate - it will half again by 2050 to be around 0.5% per annum.
That's one possible scenario, in which population levels off at 10 billion.
Or 12 Billions. The idiot won't mention that to the extent that growth rate went down it is due in part the policies the article criticizes.
It's the typical attitude you can expect from the WSJ: clinging greedily to every shred of economic growth regardless of the cost, in a world where growth is becoming ever more difficult. Yes, let's deny that anything could possibly affect the world. Just look down. Don't look what's coming. Because gee... the perspective of changing anything is absolutely, totally intolerable.
Let me tell you the future: there won't be a mass extinction. The next thing will be AI. Growth will decouple from human population, capitalism will become obsolete, the WSJ will go bankrupt, and authorities will embrace policies to limit population.
And it will be much better this way.
The idiot won't mention that to the extent that growth rate went down it is due in part the policies the article criticizes.
oh, you just love making up your own shit don't you.
authorities will embrace policies to limit population.
And it will be much better this way.
PSYCHOPATH!
authorities will embrace policies to limit population.
And it will be much better this way.
Better for who?
You got yours, but those icky brown 3rd world people will be subject to forced sterilizations and draconian carbon reduction schemes.
Heraclitusstudent
2015 Nov 4, 4:49pm
You got yours, but those icky brown 3rd world people will be subject to forced sterilizations and draconian carbon reduction schemes.
Better for everyone that lives on this planet.
Besides I never said forced sterilization (or forced anything else) is the way to go.
John Bailo
2015 Nov 7, 1:18pm
You're merging two problems.
Obviously we need to limit, if not severely reduce population.
But that Chinese chose infanticide as a response because they all wanted boys, is a completely separate problem.
I'm for a 1 child per family aggregate approach.
That is, if a family wants to have 5 children, and they find 5 people willing to be childless "aunts" then go ahead, get the IUD and let those who are really qualified to be parents do the job.
I would also reward low birthrate families with all kinds of free tuition and tax credits and even housing as a positive incentive.
New Renter
2015 Nov 9, 4:39pm
that's why nobody is saying that except for you, who is making shit up to fit your delusional BULLSHIT apocalyptic fantasy jerk-off genocidal orgasm. leave it to a PSYCHOPATHIC SELF-LOATHING ASSHOLE leftist to suggest the only solution is to neuter and/or terminate humans en masse.
the world population growth rate has been in decline since the 1960's and is currently half that rate - it will half again by 2050 to be around 0.5% per annum. not to mention any unforeseen natural disaster or disease to contribute to the ratio, or the inability of governments to support welfare leeches who multiply to obtain funding and housing entitlements AND THOSE BLOOD SUCKERS VOTE DEMOCRAT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
FUCK OFF YOU PARASITE. please put a bullet in your head to help your own cause. sick motherfucker.
Christ, did someone forget to take their meds again?
Shaman
2015 Nov 10, 2:30am
It's a culture problem and it's already being addressed. Or haven't you noticed that American culture is changing at an ever increasing rate? We are in the middle of a giant experiment to determine what is the most optimal
Culture for our current era. Multiculturalism aside (way aside, it's a propaganda distraction) culture is the essential force to regulate all the necessary factors in society.
Shaman
2015 Nov 10, 2:34am
Some cultures aren't beneficial for their adherents in this era, those cultures will fall by the wayside as their adherents convert to more appropriate cultures. It's happening already, as can be easily seen with the conversion of marriage morals to include gay marriage. It has to continue if society is to move forward to embrace the chances technology has wrought.
Y
2015 Nov 10, 6:02am
How about a chart showing post puberty male-female imbalance for nations initiating wars?
a male-female birth imbalance of 118-100,
I would also reward low birthrate families with all kinds of free tuition and tax credits and even housing as a positive incentive.
You realize that most Western nations in the West (and Japan) have government incentives to have MORE children since their birthrates are already so low? Why do you think Merkel in Germany and the other EU elites are allowing millions of Muslim/Arab refugees into their countries?
I don't think we need more people on the planet, but the West at least needs to maintain our population size to pay our massive entitlement Ponzi schemes.
tatupu70
2015 Nov 10, 9:36am
but the West at least needs to maintain our population size to pay our massive entitlement Ponzi schemes.
Not to nitpick, but the phrase Ponzi scheme has been butchered so badly to where most don't even understand what it is.
By definition, if something works with a stable population, it's NOT a Ponzi scheme.
Heraclitusstudent
2015 Nov 10, 10:36am
Why do you think Merkel in Germany and the other EU elites are allowing millions of Muslim/Arab refugees into their countries?
Most leaders today WANT their population to grow, for economic reasons:
Growth = {population growth} + {productivity growth}
They need growth so desperately that they are willing to bring millions of foreigners in a country to the point of destroying the local culture, all in the name of temporary growth.
The emergence of AI will change this radically, because {productivity growth} will be so high that population won't matter anymore. Robots will produce to pay for entitlements.
You will see western leaders suddenly become anti-immigration. Frontiers will be enforced by shooting on sight.
By definition, if something works with a stable population, it's NOT a Ponzi scheme.
But everyone knows we don't have the same worker/retiree ratio that we once did when our entitlement programs were first created.
tatupu70
2015 Nov 10, 11:51am
But everyone knows we don't have the same worker/retiree ratio that we once did when our entitlement programs were first created.
Yep--that's why we have an issue with social security as the boomers retire. Not because it's a Ponzi scheme.
Yep--that's why we have an issue with social security as the boomers retire. Not because it's a Ponzi scheme.
It's still a Ponzi scheme if we don't have enough people paying in to support the beneficiaries.
Social Security started with roughly 40 workers per retiree. Now it is down to less than 3 workers per retiree and the retirees are living much longer.
We either need to increase our working population or reduce the number of beneficiaries.
tatupu70
2015 Nov 10, 12:08pm
It's still a Ponzi scheme if we don't have enough people paying in to support the beneficiaries.
No, it's really not. A Ponzi scheme is a very well defined scam. Social security doesn't fit in the definition.
Social Security started with roughly 40 workers per retiree. Now it is down to less than 3 workers per retiree and the retirees are living much longer.
We either need to increase our working population or reduce the number of beneficiaries.
Or some of many, many other recommendations. The solutions are well known-it's just up to our politicians to have the will to implement them.
tatupu70
2015 Nov 10, 1:37pm
Why don't you tell us what they are.
I know it's too much to ask for you to do your own research. Get rid of the max out on social security withholding. Reduce yearly increases in payouts. Means test the payouts. Are a few of many, many potential changes.
Comments 1 - 40 of 44 Next » Last » Search these comments
The Tyranny of a Big Idea
Modern liberals are best understood as would-be believers in search of true faith.
By BRET STEPHENS
Nov. 2, 2015 7:23 p.m. ET
Maybe Sigmund Freud should have been a political scientist. Psychoanalysis might be useless as treatment for neurotics, but there’s something to be said for it as a mode of ideological investigation. To wit, what explains the fatal attraction of the secular mind to the politics of impending apocalypse?
I’m reminded of this again as embarrassed eulogies are being written for China’s one-child policy, which Beijing finally eased last week after a 35-year experiment in social folly and human cruelty. Instituted in the name of resource conservation, the policy resulted in millions of forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations, a male-female birth imbalance of 118-100, and a looming demographic disaster as Chinese grow old while the working population shrinks.
As government policy goes, the one-child policy was as repressive and illiberal as it gets: the ultimate invasion of privacy; the ultimate assault on the human rights of women and girls. Naturally, liberals loved it.
They loved it, in part, because it had been their idea to begin with. Paul Ehrlich helped get the ball rolling with his 1968 blockbuster “The Population Bomb,†which begins with the words: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.†Mr. Ehrlich, a biologist at Stanford, had no scholarly credentials as a demographer or an economist. But that didn’t keep him from putting a scientific gloss on a personal prejudice.
From “The Population Bomb†there came Zero Population Growth, an NGO co-founded by Mr. Ehrlich. Next there was the United Nations Population Fund, founded in 1969, followed by the neo-Malthusian Club of Rome, whose 1972 report, “The Limits to Growth,†sold 30 million copies. In India in the mid-1970s, the Indira Gandhi regime forcibly sterilized 11 million people. Then-World Bank President Robert McNamara praised her for “intensifying the family planning drive with rare courage and conviction.†An estimated 1,750 people were killed in botched procedures.
Power is seductive, as are fame and wealth, and it’s easy to see how being a scientific prophet of doom afforded access to all three. So long as the alarmists fed the hysteria, the hysteria would feed the alarmists—with no end of lucrative book contracts and lavish conferences in exotic destinations to keep the cycle going. It’s also not surprising that someone like Mr. Ehrlich, trained as an entomologist, would be tempted to think of human beings as merely a larger type of insect.
“My language would be even more apocalyptic today,†an unrepentant Mr. Ehrlich told the New York Times earlier this year. “The idea that every woman should have as many babies as she wants is to me exactly the same kind of idea as, everybody ought to be permitted to throw as much of their garbage into their neighbor’s backyard as they want.†Notice what Mr. Ehrlich is comparing to garbage.
But the real question isn’t what drives people to be leaders of a new movement. That’s easy enough to understand. It’s why so many people—usually well-educated, urbane liberals—would wish to be followers.
It isn’t the strength of the evidence. The idea of a population bomb was always preposterous: The world’s 7.3 billion people could fit into an area the size of Texas, with each person getting 1,000 square feet of personal space. Food has never been more abundant. As for resource scarcity, the fracking revolution reminds us that scarcity is not so much a threat to mankind as it is an opportunity for innovation.
What matters, rather, is the strength of the longing. Modern liberalism is best understood as a movement of would-be believers in search of true faith. For much of the 20th century it was faith in History, especially in its Marxist interpretation. Now it’s faith in the environment. Each is a comprehensive belief system, an instruction sheet on how to live, eat and reproduce, a story of how man fell and how he might be redeemed, a tale of impending crisis that’s also a moral crucible.
In short, a religion without God. I sometimes wonder whether the journalists now writing about the failure of the one-child policy ever note the similarities with today’s climate “crisis.†That the fears are largely the same. And the political prescriptions are almost identical. And the leaders of the movement are cut from the same cloth. And the confidence with which the alarmists prescribe radical cures, their intolerance for dissenting views, their insistence on “global solutions,†their disdain for democratic input or technological adaptations—that everything is just as it was when bell-bottoms were in vogue.
China’s one-child policy has been one of the great unrecognized tragedies of our time. It is a modern-day lesson in the danger of environmental fears and the misanthropic solutions they typically inspire. It behooves us to learn its lessons before we repeat its mistakes on a vaster scale.
Write bstephens@wsj.com.