Population Control - An inconvenient truth

[ColinEssex]

"Buzz Off"! How absolutely quaint, I haven't heard anybody use that in years.

Can I remind you I am perfectly entitled to post opinions here, if you or anyone else decide to read something in it, possibly due to a fairly narrow view, then you are welcome. But bear in mind, there are always several ways of looking at things, not just your way, and likewise, not just my way.

For example, your friend came up with a scenario and is quite possibly the truth. However, given the American gun owners need to kill and draw blood, the "perp" as you delicately call him could just have been walking by, made a comment that agitated your friend, so he shot him. The perp could well be licenced to carry a gun so your friend and wife cooked up the burglar story, I'm guessing there were no witnesses to the whole event.
Just another way of looking at something as an example, yet as is your way, I get chastised for offering a different view. You need to open your mind to other opinions, if you disagree, then fine, no need to get out your pram and have a fit.

Col

 

[isladogs]

SteveR
You hijacked the original thread by raising population control to which I then replied several times.
I moved these posts as it was a side issue to the main thread

I deliberately mentioned gun control in my last post with my planned follow up reply already being considered.
However unfortunately by doing so, I allowed this thread to itself be hijacked.
As a result, I will wait a few days before responding in detail to your previous posts

However, I will say to both yourself & the Doc that by focusing on people in or from the third world or by raising immigrant gangs with minimal justification, the discussion immediately becomes a racial issue.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Colin, criminal gangs are comprised of thugs of any race. And they ARE a reality. My use of them in my response was based on headlines that I see every few days. In the City of New Orleans, well over half of the deadly shootings are gang-related and based on either a turf war or a drug war. Some estimates make it 80%. If Col wants to know WHY people feel the need to carry weapons for protection, just look at the headlines from major cities. Not JUST New Orleans. All of the largest cities have the same problem. And the riots in Paris, though not armed with guns yet, might go that way if Macron can't get control quickly.

If bringing in gangs bothered you that much, though, I'll just tell you that you can find posts somewhere within one of the side departments of AWF in which I have argued that there IS no such thing as "race" (as used in this context). The HUMAN race exists, but those other uses of race are not based in science; they are based in social prejudice. I am not significantly afflicted with THAT problem. (Other issues? Maybe... but not racism.)

And to Col, the "buzz off" is within my right to post as an opinionated response to your post. You know about opinionated responses, right? You've certain made more than enough of them. I said "buzz off" rather than one of the more vulgar options. To be honest, your post wasn't worth a vulgarity. I merely said to you what I frequently say to annoying little gnats buzzing around to spoil a perfectly good outing.

As to your absolutely insulting insinuation about whether Bob and his wife "made up a story" - you don't know Bob. I'll tell you how I feel, though, Col. How would YOU feel if I accused you of making up your stories about your wife and being a caregiver? How would YOU feel if I said you were telling that story simply to gain attention for a lonely old man? This question is hypothetical because I am NOT making the accusation. I'm merely asking how you would feel if I had done so?

Are you SO strongly opinionated as to not be able to see that we have a difference between our two cultures in this regard? And it is this difference that drives our gun laws to be the way they are? "Get out of my pram?" Oh, thanks a bunch for that characterization.

Yes, I know that there are other viewpoints. But if they are wrong-headed (like yours), I dispute them. That is the nature of this section of AWF. Childish? I think you are sadly mistaken, but I've been called worse by better. So I'll consider the source and dismiss the comment.

But let's get back to the thread's topic. Along the lines of population control, just let the people carry guns for a while and watch certain populations diminish. My earlier tongue-in-cheek response is actually half-serious. The world has managed its populations through conflict and starvation for hundreds of millennia. We've got more efficient ways for conflict these days, but as an evolutionary thing, it has ALWAYS been the case that when there is competition for survival resources, the winner is the one that best manages the conflict. And the loser disappears. Population problem solved.

When dealing with "the humanity" of the situation while you are saying "population overcrowding," you are trying to focus on a population and a person at the same time - a problem in wholism vs. reductionism. I don't have any new solutions to offer, but in the past, it was always either "develop new resources" or "kill off excess population." I don't see a change in that, and "humanity" is (at that point) merely a comment or plea from the group that sees themselves among the "excess" group. Harsh? Yes. Nature's reality? Also yes.

For the record, I've always been in favor of the "new resources" path, but we may have outstripped our ability to do take that path quickly enough to do any good. That is what I fear.

 

[isladogs]

Doc

Colin, criminal gangs are comprised of thugs of any race. And they ARE a reality. My use of them in my response was based on headlines that I see every few days. In the City of New Orleans, well over half of the deadly shootings are gang-related and based on either a turf war or a drug war. Some estimates make it 80%.

I have no disagreement with any of that.
I also read all sorts of headlines each day - doesn't mean they are all true!

However, I was calling you out on the following:

We have immigrant gangs here, Col, like La Vida Mala and the MS 13 group. Take over whole neighborhoods. (Sound like any of your immigrants?) They have guns and will kill just for "turf supremacy."

together with this

By the way, have any of the UK immigrants brought in weapons?

There are indeed gangs which are comprised of thugs from one ethnic minority group. There are also many gangs that are purely made up of those who belong to the 'indigenous population' as well as those that are mixed race/nationality.

And for the benefit of anyone else reading this and perhaps a trifle confused by reference to Colin & Col, I am not the same person as my near namesake from Essex, most of whose views I also significantly disagree with.

 

[AccessBlaster]

However, I will say to both yourself & the Doc that by focusing on people in or from the third world or by raising immigrant gangs with minimal justification, the discussion immediately becomes a racial issue.

Here is the chat criteria for this section: Chat, debate, argue your point. Nowhere in Jon's description does it say Chat, debate, argue your point with minimal justification.

Most anecdotal experiences would fail this test.

 

[isladogs]

AB
... and your point is what exactly?

 

[ColinEssex]

Doc, I've not actually mentioned gangs and gang wars in the USA. It appears to be you that has a fixation with this. I've not mentioned race either. You see you sneak in these comments presumably trying to stir things.
Yes, I am a carer as my wife has Multiple Sclerosis, if you disbelieve me, that is your prerogative, i am not really bothered what you or anyone else thinks about it.
As you well know, I was merely offering a second scenario to your mate's version. What makes me laugh is your immediate chastisement of a perfectly believable scenario. But, I did make it clear it was an option, I never said their version was fabricated, I did say it was a possibility. Please read my posts carefully.
I think what you need to do is just accept that there are other options or opinions in life, if you continue the way you are going, you could end up with a health problem.
Just chill man, don't take things to heart.

Col (not Colin from Somerset, although I did live in Frome for a few years)

 

[isladogs]

Frome's an interesting town.
My wife used to teach at the large secondary school about 15 years ago.

I'm on the northern edge of the Mendips near Cheddar.
Mind you the gang warfare between Frome and Axbridge is getting quite bad...

 

[Steve R.]

You hijacked the original thread by raising population control to which I then replied several times.
I moved these posts as it was a side issue to the main thread.

Your post was very disappointing, not to also mention very offensive.

I did NOT hijack the original thread. I responded to a post by Vassago, you then asked that I answer some questions, which I did. You responded by asking more questions. If hijacking was of concern to you, you could have moved this discussion to a new thread earlier. In post #8, as an acknowledgement to being sensitive to thread hijacking, I responded:

PS: Should you want to continue, maybe this should be moved to a new thread since this thread is supposed to be on Antarctica ice.

So I believe that a claim can be made that you have been a willing participant in the hijacking of the original thread.

Now take a look at what is happening to this thread. ColinEssex is tossing out his infamous random "hand grenade" posts to make inflammatory anti-Amercian statements. At least you have, in this case acknowledged, how a post can unfortunately lead to unintended hijacking of a thread as emotions rage.

I deliberately mentioned gun control in my last post with my planned follow up reply already being considered.
However unfortunately by doing so, I allowed this thread to itself be hijacked.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

However, I will say to both yourself & the Doc that by focusing on people in or from the third world or by raising immigrant gangs with minimal justification, the discussion immediately becomes a racial issue.

I can only speak for myself, but what you state is another unimaginative tired example where words such as: racism, euthanasia, executions, misogyny, homophobia, sexism, etc are liberally tossed-in to a discussion to purposely misconstrue (in a negative manner) statements that have been made. Take a look at Godwin's law with a liberal interpretation.

 

[ColinEssex]

I'm on the northern edge of the Mendips near Cheddar.
Mind you the gang warfare between Frome and Axbridge is getting quite bad...

Ha ha, I like it. Mind you, Radstock can be a bit iffy on pension day.

We lived in a road called "The Butts" in Frome. That was back in the late 70's, I used to drive coaches for a firm in Paulton.
Ahhhh, happy days.... That was before you get all this internet nonsense and abuse. The best technology we had then was CB radio. I never had one, couldn't understand the lingo! But used to listen on our transistor.

Col

 

[isladogs]

That's a very strange thing to be offended by

It wasn't intended to be a criticism of you and if you read it again you won't find anything critical in those comments..
I was indeed a more than willing participant and had considered moving the exchange to a new thread earlier. It was in fact your suggestion that prompted me to finally do so.

I then blamed myself for allowing this thread to get hijacked again and explained that was why I had decided to wait before replying properly.
That was the main point behind that post.
It seems you misinterpreted what I wrote.

What I stated was not an unimaginative tired response.
Everything I've said in this exchange was designed to get you to state how you would go about population control. You seemed very unwilling to do so despite initiating the topic

You asked what i would do.
Encourage the redistribution of wealth and provide good quality healthcare to all at the point of use. A higher standard of living and reduced child mortality have both been proven to reduce family sizes over a few generations.
I would also try to get international consensus on ways of preventing multinationals like Amazon, Apple etc from flouting tax regulations across the world. There's more but that would be a big start.

For the record the population in most of Europe is still rising though in most countries the rate of increase is declining. Part of that is for the reasons given above. I haven't checked the statistics for Japan.
It is also true that the population density in most of Europe and Japan is far higher than in the USA and most of the third world
Perhaps therefore efforts to reduce the population should not focus on the third world.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Colin E...

It is clear that you are in your "aggravating on purpose" mode and I have no use for you when you are like that. I'm going to focus on other things for a while. However,...

You are correct, you didn't bring up gangs. I did, as an explanation for why in the USA we still have the "guns for self-defense" mindset. We have armed predators roving around in some isolated segments of many cities. Yes, we avoid them, but that merely means the predators become more wide-ranging because they have stolen everything to steal in their close-in turf. So they are coming out to attack us where WE live even if we DON'T go where THEY live. It is not unique to New Orleans. I've seen headlines from the industrial "midwest" of the USA, including Chicago and a few other cities.

My point was that we see a need and more peaceful ways to address that need have so far been unsuccessful. Thus, until we CAN make inroads, we need to protect ourselves. Believe it or not, I see that President Trump is helping in this matter. Part (not all) of the problem with the gangs is that the kids have no jobs. But with USA unemployment figures dropping, that means more people are working and fewer remain to be predators. This is a good thing whether or not you like "der orangefuhrer" as some folks call him.

 

[ColinEssex]

It would appear from this side of the pond, that, as many Americans own guns, they see themselves as a modern day Wyatt Earp, there to up hold law and order. But, isn't that the job of the police? I'm guessing New Orleans is big enough to have a police force who's job it is to uphold the law and control these alleged gangs that roam neighbourhoods sticking up people like your mate.

Surely, advocating gun ownership for so called self protection is advocating mob rule, dissent and anarchy because they think they are all Dirty Harry, - "go on punk make my day".

It makes matters worse not better. People become judge and jury then squirm out on some weak excuse.

I'm not aggravating on purpose, but I suppose as you say different cultures find it difficult to understand what is the others norm. We have problems here with knife crime as guns are illegal, and knife crime is getting worse so I sort of understand.

Col

 

[AccessBlaster]

AB
... and your point is what exactly?

I find it amusing when you call out a member for high jacking a topic, when two days prior you clipped 15 conversations because it did not fit nicely into your predetermined format. That was a physical high jack.

A member who decides to change the subject (high jacking) could be utilizing a tactic, you might not like it but there is no rule against it.

Let the players play, you have an unfair advantage. You have the ability to bury 15 comments you deem unfit.

 

[isladogs]

AB

Originally Posted by Steve R.
PS: Should you want to continue, maybe this should be moved to a new thread since this thread is supposed to be on Antarctica ice.

I agreed with that and did what was suggested.
And as I've already said, I blamed myself for raising gun control which led to the topic drastically changing again.
I mentioned that to explain why I hadn't responded to SteveR's previous reply.

How does moving 15 posts to a new thread count as burying something?
Let alone something to which I had contributed heavily?

Any other comments whilst you're at it?

 

[AccessBlaster]

Any other comments whilst you're at it?

Sure, since there are many gun topics in this "Population Control" thread will they be buried within their own thread? If so will we be notified in a timely manner.

Also can all the anti American threads be complied into one thread, that way we don't have to hunt thru so many topics to find all of the anti American threads.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

AB

 

[isladogs]

I'll put all of that top of my priority list thus burying several other important issues that I would have done next....

 

[Steve R.]

Currently doing some research. I ran across this Wikipedia page: Sub-replacement fertility. One factor, concerning population growth concern that I overlooked is the effect of increasing life expectancy.

From the Wikipedia article:

As of 2010, about 48% (3.3 billion people) of the world population lives in nations with sub-replacement fertility. Nonetheless most of these countries still have growing populations due to immigration, population momentum and increase of the life expectancy.

Further down the Wikipedia article:

Current estimates expect the world's total fertility rate to fall below replacement levels by 2050, though population momentum continues to increase global population for several generations beyond that.

Maybe peak population is on the horizon?

Additionally, the article notes:

In 2015, all European Union countries had a sub-replacement fertility rate, ranging from a low of 1.31 in Portugal to a high of 1.96 in France. The countries or areas that have the lowest fertility are in developed parts of East and Southeast Asia: Singapore, Macau, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea. Only a few countries have had, for the time being, sufficiently sustained sub-replacement fertility (sometimes combined with other population factors like higher emigration than immigration) to have population decline, such as Japan, Germany, Lithuania, and Ukraine. As of 2016, the total fertility rate varied from 0.82 in Singapore to 6.62 in Niger.

 

[isladogs]

I made much the same points in post #31

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I'm guessing New Orleans is big enough to have a police force who's job it is to uphold the law and control these alleged gangs that roam neighbourhoods sticking up people like your mate.

There we have the sad reality of suburban flight from urban blight. The police force, like ALL city functions, is cash-poor as its tax base erodes. It didn't help that after Hurricane Katrina trashed large parts of the city in 2005, many people left for other states to live with (literally) distant relatives. Many of them have not come back. Not only the poor people left, but so did the middle-class folks who lost everything and just decided to give up on the flooding. (That's another topic for another time.) When you lose a big chunk of population, you lose from the tax base as well. Therefore, the city has to "make do" with fewer resources than they might once have had.

Too many people want too many services and in order to assure that as many functions are funded as possible, the city has to underfund every function. So the police department does as good a job as they can, but they don't have enough people to blanket an area with active patrols. They have not, in the last ten years, EVER reached what they consider "full staff" for patrols, emergency response, and clerical duties.

We recently had an investigative report in TV and our newspapers that showed that 911 (emergency) response times were in the 30+ minute range many times. All it took was one big incident and suddenly all the police in one district were soaked up with traffic control, crowd control, scene investigation, witness interviews, etc. So police from other districts had to respond to later calls and they still had issues in their own area as well.

In a situation where one response is enough to make emergency responses unavailable, we don't feel like "Wyatt Earp" but we know that the harsh reality is that we might have to defend ourselves. This is why many people want guns for protection.

Surely, advocating gun ownership for so called self protection is advocating mob rule, dissent and anarchy because they think they are all Dirty Harry,

Actually, you've again looked at it from the wrong side of the coin. The mob already exists. (e.g. my references about street gangs.) Anarchy exists in some of those neighborhoods. Dissent exists. Gun ownership might be the ONLY thing standing between you and the gangs some nights if you are unfortunate enough to live in those parts of the city. And the people who DO live there drained all of their savings to recover from Hurricane Katrina so cannot afford to move elsewhere. Literally a "damned if you move and damned if you stay" situation.

Sorry to hear that your side of the pond is encountering an uptick in knife attacks, but at least it gives you a reference to consider.

Let's also be clear that the worst problems are mostly centered in specific neighborhoods. The truth of our gun statistics is that not everyone here has or thinks they need a gun. The majority of people for whom I personally know their status do not own guns. And of the ones that do, over 2/3 only have a hunting rifle used when they go hunting for food.

The hunters participate in hunting clubs that use wildlife management concepts to thin herds that have grown too large for their habitat. They observe strict quotas for hunting so that they do not depopulate the species. So no, not all of our people see themselves as Wyatt Earp. Some might see themselves as more like Davey Crockett, who was among other things a famous hunting aficionado of 200+ years ago.

I'm sure you understand that newspapers tend to emphasize the dramatic or violent events so that you never actually see "real" numbers. Therefore, some of what you see on the TV must be considered as "skewed" with respect to reality. After all, how many news shows would have viewers if they showed stories in proportion to the events in your normal population? They HAVE to cherry-pick the stories to keep their ratings - which results in giving people the wrong impression.