blogspot visitor counter

joi, 12 februarie 2009

Sex is the greatest threat there is to all life on the planet

Sex is the greatest threat there is to all life on the planet.
- according to a academician, on a debate posted on the BBC site

The day began as any other day, waking up, preparation to go to work, coming back home from work, reading some foreign newspapers. Nothing special, just a daily rutine. But something struck me and i decided to share it.

An article was published in ”The Times”, under the name of ”Two children should be limit, says green guru”. The article talks about some statements made by a British writer, activist, who lead the Green Party that considers that each family shouldn’t have more than 2 children. Jonathon Porritt acts as advisor to many bodies on environmental matters, Prince Charles. To be honest I don’t know many things about him, but seems to have quite an influence.

At first I read the article as I was reading anyone’s opinion - with interest, with criticism, but letting freedom of speech to have priority. There are different ways of reading, understanding ones statement, if he was just a green activist, then it would be one thing, but this guy is more than that, he is a government official, so his words are at least a frame of an official position. Of course there is a long way from saying to making laws, and having a state act accordingly, but I guess everybody agrees that everybody’s opinion is something to be taken into consideration, and when that person is a state official, it is already a position/a perspective for future change.
Still, if it would have been the only thing on the matter I most probably would leave the matter aside and go for something else.

But curiosity....

I continued my search on the matter and found on the BBC web site a article: ”Population: The elephant in the room” . Moreover on the same site you can hear a debate on the same topic under the name of: ”One Planet: Population Debate”.

As you probably know there is an entire literature on the matter - regarding population growth, the potential for population to increase rapidly and faster than the food supply available.
One of them is Thomas Malthus. It doesn’t matter if I agree with Thomas Malthus or not, but I have to say that his writings were more of a research on the issue. On the other hand these people in our days talk directly about CONTROL - and this is what I am interested in.
I don’t care about kids, I don’t care if one wants to have thousands of kids, or none.
But, I care when somebody, especially if it’s the one who holds the monopoly of the coercition - THE STATE - tries to control me/my actions.
In order to avoid a pure individualist perspective (not that I wouldn’t agree with a such one, but I don’t fell it’s necessarily atm).
I will point out to real examples in the world. Such solutions are in practice in countries like China or India and the strategy failed in both cases. In India the population kept growing despite the birth control so the method is inefficient, and in China, it lead to a demographical issue, so the policy failed again.

Taking into consideration that the population of the European Union is getting older, and the fact that this is one of the big challenges to the social policies - I feel that the context to introduce such a debate/measure it’s highly inappropriate. On the other hand (and now I am approaching an individualist perspective) this measure is dangerous because they propose an abusive intervention of the government against the individual as a False Salvation Scenario to solve their supposed problems.
(Why I consider it a ”abusive intervention”/”False Salvation Scenario”? Well you can read above: such policies failed, the European Union problem is not the growth of the population, but the fact that it is getting older, the lack of people above retirement age is a challenge to the European social policies, intervention of the government against the individual).

In the end I will come back to Malthus and point out to the fact that he was eventually contradicted in his theory by the development of the free market that supported the population boom in the XIX-th and XX-th century.

As a conclusion I would say that in this period I see a growing legislation/taxes argued on environmental issues that attempt to change the individual’s way of life. Some are well argued and maybe necessarily - policies against toxic wastes - but some are totally irrelevant and don’t have anything to do with our lives.
Taking these things into consideration and going back in the future I can sadly remember that there were different types of regimes that tried to limit individual liberty to the minimum - such totalitarisms as nazism, communism. But today after we got rid of them (mostly) we face other ”Wannabe totalitarian”/”totalitarian in developing” strategies - and all in the name of protecting the environment.

P.S. I am not trying to prove a point such as protecting the environment is not important, but I try to draw lines and separate what is necessarily to be done and what is nothing but a way of control over the population without a real basis.

In the end I can only point to Proudhon words that seem always the best description of the state:

Proudhon - What Is Government?
To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place[d] under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.

7 comentarii:

  1. Regulation is mandatory for the masses TheAnti and I know you are aware of this. Government is necessary for the masses (majority).You can't describe (I think you judged) the government before you describe/judge the people.
    And about your conclusion on the environmental issue I think you going in the wrong way. First of all environment protection has everything to do about our lives because we are living creatures, living on this planet. Sounds like Captain Planet I know but we cannot put ourselves in front especially when we talk about the place supporting our existence.
    In the end , as an answer to the main subject of your article, I must say that adequate measures can be taken only in countries where the people are educated and have the sence of responsability. China and India are not relevant examples.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  2. Can I borrow from you Godwin's "Of Population: An Enquiry Concerning the Power of Increase in the Numbers of Mankind" ?

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  3. 1. regulation is not mandatory it is only a choice - the problem of the state in order to issue regulation comes from legitimacy. At the moment there is not a legitimate state.

    2. you said: ”environment protection has everything to do about our lives because we are living creatures” - totally wrong. Take this for example: dont smoke cause because you pollute the air.
    My point here is that one needs to find a balance between actions and the impact on the envirorment. Therefore not any enviromental issue is good just because it talks about the enviroment.

    3. What is responsability? Between what indicators should it be? What kind of responsability? I would say you actualy have a racist perspective here as you tend to disregard some nations because they are supposed to have inferior culture.
    Moreover China and India are good example as (at least as far as i know) are the only examples where such policies were employed. So why shouldnt we learn from the mistakes made in the past?

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  4. "adequate measures can be taken only in countries where the people are educated and have the sence of responsability. China and India are not relevant examples."

    The percentage of illiterate individuals in these two countries is as you know high. I don't have a racist perspective I am just presenting you the facts.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  5. - Illiteracy can be an indicator to explain the failure of a policy but is only a small frame of the picture in the same time illiteracy may not have a relevant impact over a policy;
    - Illiteracy is not the equivalent of responsability nor a relevant substitute;
    - A high degree of literacy doesnt grand the success of such policies as a literate individual can find arguments to counter the measures by intelectual/legal means.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  6. I strongly disagree the last two points of your comment .

    - literacy leads to responsability

    - illiterate individuals do not take into account measures nor argue policies. A literate individual can find measures acceptable.

    RăspundețiȘtergere
  7. OAUUUUU TheAnti wrote an article and what an article !!

    RăspundețiȘtergere

baga comment