The Angry Hungry

Merwan writes that I'm "constitutionally incapable" of not having the last word while, um, indulging his characteristic outpouring of verbal diarrhea. In any case, his vituperation is unwarranted and frankly, creepy, considering I wrote just 25 words in my last post to say he focusses too much on population alone, when all here generally agree there are multiple causes--in short, population reduction alone isn't a fix.

Still, while prattling on about Mozart, Bach and Swift as if this lends gravitas to his pretensions, he displays all the tendencies of elitist autocracy, presuming to dictate conditions. I have no idea if he's a republican, (I said republican friends, lack of imagination?) but he certainly has the spirit.

At least he isn't droning on again about euthanizing people.

Well, we can rest assured he won't be in charge of the selection committee.

Too busy trying to be the most pompous ass in the room.

My own "modest proposal" is to euthanize 5 million or so of the uber-wealthy, liberating vast resources with minimal destruction. Just for arguments sake. Let your imagination work on that.

Since he has already bragged he's done with the conversation, let's see him keep his word.

Now I'm done with his conversation.

jclientelle,

"It is not seemly to tell hungry people that the solution to their problem is for them to go away. It is another way of not hearing."

Precisely - well said. With the havoc that's been wreaked on the climate of this planet, there's going to be a flood of refugees that's never before been experienced by any nation, any culture - and it's already started. Here's what we'd better be getting ourselves prepared to answer: are we content to stand at our borders with rifles and say, "Sorry, buddy, but you're not going to come in - tough luck," or are we going to find it within ourselves to say, "Come on in; we'll find a way to make it work somehow?"

I strongly suspect that if we choose the former, that will be the end of us. If we choose the latter, we just might survive. But we'll do so at the expense of being a rich nation, of being car users, and of much else besides. But in a society such as ours, with a modicum of "democracy," we have a wee problem: just as we reject the tyranny of others over our private lives in matters of breeding, so many of those born into privilege - and that, relatively-speaking, includes the vast majority of people in the US - will reject someone else's deciding that our wealth must be shared, distributed more equitably. I hope I'm wrong, but am I?

All my life I've loved the orchestral music of Johannes Brahms more than almost anything else I can name - and yet I have to admit that we may no longer be able to afford it. Or more precisely, that to continue to enjoy it the way Brahms meant to be heard may just constitute an obscenity considering how that money might otherwise be spent (feeding starving children, for instance). But all the sacrifices in the world will not suffice to solve those problems of starvation if our numbers continue to grow. So I wonder about your observation that "population control should not always come up when we discuss hunger." Isn't our burdgeoning population the 900-pound gorilla in the living room that no one wants to talk about, but that had BETTER be addressed?

As I pointed out earlier, if we don't find a solution for it, Ma Nature has one up Her sleeve. She's used it many a time before, and it isn't pretty.

Fact is, I don't want us to come to a point where we feel as though we have to dispense with anyone - and my list both includes and goes far beyond Howard Zinn, Robert Byrd and Helen Thomas. Sad to say, most of us in the west seem to feel that lots of wise and clever souls in e.g. sub-Saharan Africa are indeed dispensible - at least we behave as though we think that. And I'll bet if we got to know some of them, we'd see how priceless and indispensible they are, and how impoverished the world would be for losing them.

It's a galling, hand-wringing, head-shaking conundrum. Is there enough to go around? Not at the level that I consume. But my consuming habits are non-sustainable, and I know it. And in this country, with the kind of infrastructure we have (I'm not just talking about highways and sewers - I mean the /cultural/ infrastructure as well), it's almost impossible to change those habits.

Forgot to say the obvious - it is not the hungry who are polluting the earth with waste products. It is the rich nations, car users, and those with too much who are emitting way way more than their share of waste into the earth's ecosystem.

OK Merwan, but can we spare Howard Zinn, Robert Byrd and Helen Thomas?

We can and should do a lot about solving hunger without getting into population control. But again, OK because it is not a completely unimportant topic.

Population size is a potentially worrisome issue. Remember the closed system topic in biology? In a closed system, the waste products of animals eventually cause the death of the system. We are probably getting close, which could mean decades or millenia.

Forcing people to breed or not to breed is unacceptable because it implies that someone else exercises tyranny over another's private life. Who gets to be the decider?

The proven method, the humanly acceptable method, is to create conditions where if you produce one or two children they are likely to survive. Also to give women opportunities for education and careers. Create some outlets for satisfaction besides having children. In Europe they can hardly get native Europeans to produce enough children to maintain the population despite financial incentives. This is true even where most of the people identify as Catholics.

That being said, population control should not always come up when we discuss hunger. It is not seemly to tell hungry people that the solution to their problem is for them to go away. It is another way of not hearing.

Swift's pamphlet was clearly satiric to those with enough imagination to see it for what it was. To others, whose thinking was too linear to grasp a range of expression - including satire, which was apparently quite new as an "art form" in Swift's day - it was an abominable, diabolical proposition.

You, Cripes, have the benefit of hindsight where Swift is concerned: you no doubt had a teacher who TOLD you Swift's pamphlet was satiric before you even read it, so you didn't have to figure it out for yourself (am I wrong?). You enjoyed no such benefit where my posting was concerned, and your imagination failed you. You huffed indignation, just as a great many of Swift's first readers did. And even when set straight, you don't see it.

You accuse me of dodging. Why don't you revisit my posts, read between the lines (as one must where satire is concerned), and graciously eat your words?

Better yet, why don't you apply that fine mind of yours to the problem of 6.6 billion human beings and counting, vs. a degraded planet with reduced carrying power.

Or you can just continue to bitch and moan and make a general ass of yourself. My conversation with you is over. No doubt you're glad to learn that.

Please respond soon, so that you can have the last word. I think you're probably constitutionally incapable of having it any other way.

Hugs and kisses,
merwan

Swift's pamphlet was clearly satiric, unlike you. Your single-minded focus on longevity to the exclusion of all other factors makes this clear. You're dodging.

Cripes,

Would you please go back and re-read my posts, and notice how many times I used the term "modest proposal," even placing it in quotation marks to make sure that readers such as yourself wouldn't miss the clue?

You know, there WERE righteously angry people who attacked Jonathan Swift when his pamphlet appeared in 1729, on grounds that he was advocating cannibalism. Well, WAS HE? Or was he responding to a problem (hint: it had to do with a burdgeoning population) with SATIRE, in hopes of making people realize that if they didn't start thinking creatively about the CAUSE of the problem (hint: the insipid phrase "people are the riches of a nation" had something to do with it), they were eventually going to be faced with a crisis that only the most extreme measures would solve?

Not everyone got it. Church types of every stripe rose up in righteous wrath against Swift for daring suggest such a thing. But quite a few people "got it." I'll bet there were plenty of CD readers who understood my satiric intent. Obviously OldStone50 "got it."

NOW do you "get it," Cripes? HAVE YOU NO IMAGINATION AT ALL?

How could the following paragraph not have made the light come on over your head?:

"...if you were ever to be convinced that humankind's choice was between extinction and a self-imposed statute of limitations on longevity, and that these alternatives are indeed exhaustive, which would you choose?"

Read between the lines, Cripes, like a thinking person. The way EVERYONE should have read Jonathan Swift's pamphlet.

You claimed to use anger to make your points. Guess what, my friend. All that anger does is keep you from seeing other people's points. For the love of god, you actually labeled me a Republican! I can't think of any guess in the world that could be wider of the mark.

I've explained my "proposal," as per your request (and it's as frustrating as having to explain a joke to a dummy). Do you have enough imagination to understand the explanation?

Sure. My imagination pictures the euthansia police dragging 51 year olds off to death centers. Your "proposal" leaves little else to imagine. Neither have you bothered to illustrate the details, if you have any, telling us how this could be accomplished without brutality.

It's your proposal, explain it.

Cripes,

Did you notice OldStone50's post above? Did this observation - "...one should be cautious in giving too much credence to early proposals; they are often intended to be metaphorical and provocative." - happen to leap out at you?

Have you no imagination at all?

I suggest you go back and read his post if you haven't, and re-read it carefully if you have.

Merwan:

You still haven't said anything about how your policy would be implemented.
You porposed it.

As far as slippery slopes, look at the history of efforts to restrict any of the basic human rights; oh I don;t know life and liberty? to see how quickly false assurances are shattered.

I misuse eugenics. The argument stands.

1. A few /do/ advocate continued growth of population – eg, cornucopians who believe more problems require more problem solvers; and a few /do not/ believe population reduction beneficial - eg, some European countries which haven't the political brights or courage to deal with an aging population by means other than by breeding more workers.

2. I am not familiar with any writer who claims population size management is a silver bullet that will solve all human problems – on the face of it, that is absurd and need not be mentioned. But even more absurd is to reject discussion of one of the main drivers of inequality and inequity simply because there is a sense that the other drivers don't receive enough attention.

3. The misuse of the word eugenics has been addressed. It is perhaps too early to discuss details of population size management program implementation; the legitimacy of establishing a program, ie, the genuine need for it, must first be agreed. Merwan and ilk see the genuine and, even desperate need which makes the legitimacy question obvious to them. There are many others, probably the majority, who are in denial about the severity of the problem and who reject the legitimacy out of hand. Furthermore, one should be cautious in giving too much credence to early proposals; they are often intended to be metaphorical and provocative.

4. Any effort to regulate can be branded a slippery slope. By that reasoning, we should eliminate all government and leave people to settle their differences the good old fashioned tooth and claw way because government is inherently a greater evil than anarchy. Such thinking is, of course, simple uninformed foolishness.

5. Suicide has been prohibited on the basis that the individual belongs to the state or, at best, the community, not to h/erself. The obligation to accept life is surely as onerous as the obligation to accept death, and prohibitions against suicide are at least as reprehensible as any demand that it be committed.

Cripes,

I would appreciate it if you would get your definitions straight (before accusing me of something I'm not guilty of). Please consider:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"Eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of /human hereditary traits/ (emphasis mine) through various forms of intervention....

"Earlier proposed means of achieving these goals focused on /selective breeding/ (emphasis mine), while modern ones focus on /prenatal testing and screening, genetic counseling, birth control, in vitro fertilization, and genetic engineering/ (emphasis mine)."

What I am proposing is not, by definition, eugenics. It is control of population size, pure and simple, nothing more.

I do not deny that "famine and war have been a feature of human life long before we reached the current population level," and it is not lost on me that "there are other economic, social and ecological causes...." But we ignore AT OUR PERIL the fact that 6.6 billion human beings on a planet with finite carrying capacity is an entirely NEW problem - capable, unlike anything we have faced so far, of driving our species to extinction. Did you bother to read the Lovelock article, and consider its ramifications?

And with all respect, it is YOU who are engaging in a "slippery slope argument," not I. The burden of proof is on YOU to demonstrate that one management strategy will lead inevitably to others, targeted at "undesirables."

Whose thinking is muddled here?

Merwan and ilk:

I think you indulge in muddled thinking, keep re-asserting ideas no one disputes and fail to meaningfully respond to objections to your approach.

1. No one is advocating increasing the population, per se, and concede that moderating growth or reduction would help alleviate resource competition.

2. Since famine and war have been a feature of human life long before we reached the current population level, clearly there are other economic, social and ecological causes, which you fail to factor in by focussing on population reduction. In fact, your approach enables those who seek to maintain a brutally unequal status quo.

3. Your proposal for population reduction, a "statute" to eliminate those past the age of 50, itself defines undesirables on the basis of age. That is eugenics. When you raise the proposal, you are obligated to explain just what the hell you think would be the implementation of such a scheme.

4. Finally, you cannot, and have not, refuted my objection that proceding in this way is a slippery slope indeed. What stops the state from including the disabled, racial cat4egories, low-income or low IQ, or any other "undesirable" from euthanasia? Good will, good policy? I doubt it.

5. If you're saying this is an entirely voluntary scheme, you may have to change assisted suicide laws, and anyway, no one is stopping you from setting an example.

OldStone50 writes: "[Achieving lower birth rates] is, in fact, one mechanism to help achieve a better, more livable world for everybody." I concur. But in the face of the catastrophe that's hanging over our heads, I don't think it's going to be nearly enough.

I've followed the sustainability discussion for some years now, and one of the things that's impressed me and continues to impress me is that very few people involved in the discussion are willing to take a hard, head-on look at the underlying problem. The issues are usually couched in terms of such questions as "how are we going to feed our billions?" without taking into account the fact that our billions continue to mount and nonrenewable resources - including those that make large-scale agriculture possible (hence the feeding of those billions) - are disappearing. The sad fact is, we are not going to feed our billions. This is a fact of nature, and all the goodwill in the world on our part will do nothing to change it.

Cripes accused me earlier of being a "Malthusian." The fact is, we're all Malthusians now. Like it or not, we're running his experiment - every one of us is contributing to the outcome of it. That outcome is predictable: at the very least, a massive die-back; at worst, a total die-off. We ought to be in emergency mode this very minute, but most of the people I interact with on a daily basis go blithely about their business, oblivious of the looming cataclysm but bitching about higher gasoline prices.

When the worst hits - and it's already started - we're going to be faced with some truly ugly alternatives. One is to "let nature take its course" - to let Darwinian principles rule the day and see who survives long enough to reproduce. If that's the route we choose, then we'll have proven ourselves no different, ethically-speaking, from trilobites, scorpions and cobras - and we might well guarantee our extinction by refusing to take matters in hand. The other option (I say it this way for a reason: the two alternatives I'm outlining may, sadly enough, prove exhaustive) will be to manage the die-back as humanely as possible.

How are we going to do that? How can we go about seeing to it that the burden of continued survival for our species - at the expense of a great many of its individuals - is shared equally and fairly? The addressing of /that/ question was the reason for my first post, above - a post that has drawn a great deal of protest. Well, the protests notwithstanding, I've yet to see it answered.

There have been a number of assertions in this thread that a demographic transition is caused by the provision of economic equality and/or education; e.g., "Research shows that better education and living standards reduces birth rates." I recommend this presentation: http://www.populationandsustainability.org/papers/campbellagm.pdf This, too, is not definitive of course, but there is good reason to doubt that there is a causative relationship between economic/education outcomes and lower birth rates. I don't dispute the observed correlations, only the certainty of causation. Nor do I dispute the moral imperative to generate more equal and equitable outcomes.

What I do assert, although I think it a reasonable assertion, is that larger population size makes achieving equitable outcomes - including food outcomes - more difficult, not less. Achieving lower birth rates is not a policy to avoid achieving equal and equitable outcomes. It is, in fact, one mechanism to help achieve a better, more livable world for everybody.

Jclientelle:

Even were I to grant you that people over 50 don't breed (this is not 100% accurate), they still /consume/ (food, water, medical services - more, in fact, of this last - and depletable resources) as much as people of breeding age, and they create just as much waste - in terms of greenhouse gases and otherwise.

I'm smart enough to recognize irony (that's the kinder term) when I see it, but may I point out that your "modest proposal" targets "undesirables" - a question I've addressed earlier. What I've set forth is not a eugenics proposal. Please don't anyone conflate the two or mistake the one for the other.

People over 50 don't breed.

I suggest we thin out the children before they reach 12. Start with the ones who don't pass standardized reading and math tests. Then perhaps some foot races to find the unfit. Or have an American Idol for Survival and vote some off the earth. The ones who don't make the grade could be a good source of food.

May I recommend this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article...

Note especially the following observation: "I think we will have to be rough on people of my age. But I have lived a darn good life, why should I grumble? One shouldn't be a freeloader."

James Lovelock is 88 years old. I am 58. But I place myself in the same category (age-wise, that is: no arrogant comparison of stature intended!).

Thank you for your response, Cripes. Your more reasoned tone of voice is much appreciated.

Let's begin by acknowledging (would you?) that there actually IS something new about a human population that's growing exponentially: this has not always been the case, so it's a new problem by definition. What's made that exponential growth possible is a limited suite of resources targeted at agriculture, and that's what's in trouble. The price of that agriculture is the loss of "irreplaceables:" topsoil, for instance (not the most pressing of our worries, by the way, but very, very worrisome). Topsoil is generated at a snail's pace: it takes tens of thousands of years for natural processes to build up what it takes us only a generation to destroy.

My point to you (and to Andrew) is that the mechanisms so far known to /reduce/ human population - famine, pestilence, war - are so brutal and indiscriminately savage that we sapient creatures might just be able to do better. It's a given that the only way to reduce population is for the death rate to exceed the birth rate. It would be just great if we could target the birth rate /successfully/. But I ask you, how's that project going? How are we doing?

Look at Andrew's list of solutions. You ask how I would enforce my proposed statute (I /wouldn't/, by the way, but that's another discussion); I ask in turn, how do we enforce Andrew's fixes? Exactly WHO is going to "stop spending on war?" WHO is going to spend that liberated money on "education and improving living standards, fair trade, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy etc."? I don't know where you live, but I happen to endure life in the US, where roughly half the voting population have proven themselves capable of voting for the sorriest sack of shit ever to run for public office. And they've done it because doing so seemed to them to serve their best interests. How is that possible in a reasonably "well-educated" society? And with a shudder of revulsion I acknowledge that there's an awfully good chance that we'll elect a successor to the Idiot-in-Chief who will persist in the same idiocy. Meanwhile, what's happening with US population? (I'm not just talking about immigration here - what's happening to the BIRTH RATE? If you don't know, tell me and I'll point you to the research that lays it out.)

One last comment, then off to work I go. I would not enforce such a statute (of limitations). That would have to be a community affair: a complicit, EDUCATED community, faced with the inevitability of extinction would have to make the decision to act in its own best interests. I realize, of course, that the likelihood of that happening is approximately as great as the likelihood that we will "stop spending money on war and start spending it..." etc. But if we don't do SOMETHING, and QUICKLY, Homo sapiens is going to be one more suite of fossils among millions of other such suites, and nothing more.

Let me put it to you this way: if you were ever to be convinced that humankind's choice was between extinction and a self-imposed statute of limitations on longevity, and that these alternatives are indeed exhaustive, which would you choose?

Merwan:

Andrew makes the point again. Sure, i can write sans anger, but it's a device to make my points.

In any case, sure, there's a lot of people competing for limited resources. That's not exactly new, but the population is larger. So I concede your point. That doesn't mean the answer is euthanasia, even though you say it wouldn't be targeted at "undesirables." Sure.

In fact, exactly how would you enforce such a statute?

I fear the 21st century will be our last.

Naturally reduce the birth rate without draconian policies:

Stop spending money on war, spend it instead on education and improving living standards, fair trade, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy etc.

Research shows that better education and living standards reduces birth rates.

You don't need to impose a one child family policy like China. Its time to move beyond beyond these types of draconian measures. We live in the 21st century.

Cripes,

Maybe - just maybe - the problem there, in case you hadn't noticed, is that there are too many people chasing too few resources. Of course, in any such contest (for limited resources - such as food), there are going to be plenty of "distractions," of the sort that news stories and commentaries typically focus on (who shot first, who's the invader, who insulted whom, etc. etc. et endless cetera). In the case of Israel/Gaza, there's plenty of blame to go around. But when you cut to the chase, it's TOO MANY PEOPLE CHASING TOO FEW RESOURCES.

Since you praised Eric J-D for being dispassionate and thoughtful, I suggest you do the same: be a little less eager to toss insults, and give a little more thought to an idea that you obviously recoil from. You might want to begin by setting aside your righteous wrath just for a minute and asking yourself whether that idea has some merits you've overlooked - such as giving our beleagured species a little breathing room for figuring out the solution to the problem of what to do to ensure that WE - our kind - will have any future at all.

And again, what's YOUR solution? Do you really not see a problem with the daunting number 6,600,000,000 and growing?

Cripes, you seem to accuse me of madness. Perhaps you're right: in a world where our sapient species is headed straight for the cliff of extinction, who can say what is normal? But I think a more serious charge might be leveled at you: that you refuse to acknowledge a fact that's staring you straight in the face. Try reading this: http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/10/750515.aspx - and drawing the obvious conclusions.

The real problem with the linked article is that the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not acknowledged (and most of those who've commented on the article likewise miss the point): but it is mentioned, perhaps without the author's recognizing it. The key words are "twelve children."

The Israel/Gaza conflict is a microcosm. This whole planet is the macrocosm.

Wasn't it Einstein who defined insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting different results?

Cripes,

Call it a "mad scheme" if you like - but please don't equate it with Nazi Germany, which targeted "undesirables." The "modest proposal" I've put forth recognizes that we're all in this mess together.

What's YOUR solution? You want to regulate the birth rate. HOW? Whom are you going to "target?" This has been tried, is being tried, and has not worked - and is not working: even slowed-down growth is still population GROWTH. Now even China is reconsidering its one-child policy /for economic reasons/.

If you want to see the results of madness, look down the road about ten years at a world that's a product of our having continued with the status quo. Call my thinking utopian if you like: I'd call the latter hellish.

Power_Slave

There is currently famine (food shortage) in India, the worlds largest democracy and it is a capitalist country as well.

Frederick Johnson

Wrong again, you say "Here's a SOLUTION. REDUCE THE PLANET'S POPULATION TO 1 BILLION ! There, PROBLEM SOLVED !!"

Hitler type solutions, or ethnic clenseing are not appropriate.

There have been massive famines throughout history with much smaller global populations.

Negative population growth will reduce the load on the planets resources, but unless you solve the problems Raj Patel and others whose articles have appeared on Common Dreams address in the above article you will not solve the problem.

Thanks to Common Dreams for publishing Raj Patel's article. I've heard Patel on the radio and he is always extraordinarily insightful on the issues of the politics of food and hunger.

I also appreciate the comments of the first three posters. Medusa's question as to the cause of the sudden epiphany is one I've wondered about myself. I'm obviously speculating here, but I'd say it has something to do with the almost viral circulation of two news items in the mainstream media.

The first is the food crisis in Haiti that has led some very poor people to switch from staples of rice and beans (too expensive now) to "dirt cookies." I first read this story in the NYT some months ago, and then saw tv news coverage of it. The media probably latched onto the story because of the pathos the spectacle of people eating dirt generates.

The other story is the critique of ethanol production/consumption and its contribution to global food insecurity. Again, this news item seemed to suddenly reproduce itself within the mainstream media quite rapidly.

I single these out because they seem to me the stories that circulated most widely, but perhaps there are others of which I am unaware. Both also center the focus on either North America or its neighbors, something that might have contributed to whatever sense exists of the issue's nearness to home while also momentarily drawing American attention beyond its borders.

Again, this is all just speculation.

I'm also tempted to attribute the reproduction and dispersion of these stories to structural tendencies within the media (its operation as a more-or-less informationally closed system, its internal competition for audience share, etc.) rather than to something like its conscientization.

To namaste:

No article on CD has ever made me cry.
No post on CD has ever made me cry. Until yours. Utterly beautiful. Thank you.

Re: cripes April 29th, 2008 2:56 am
It is striking how often this argument is used. There seems to be a knee-jerk belief that population size management is mutually exclusive with equality and equity. How sad to see such narrowness of imagination, how oppressing to see such intolerance of exercising the intellect.

Cripes suggested that, given historical instances of demographic transition, all we need do is achieve equality of outcome. Unfortunately, there is no example of equality of outcome on which to make such projections. Each instance of demographic transition has occurred simultaneous with significant inequality of outcome. In fact, an argument can easily be made that it is not outcome equality at all that yields low birth rates, but is instead the collapse of local community, the rise of urban anonymity, an all consuming focus on consumption, and systems of enfranchisement that demand rising higher in the social hierarchy.

I, too, am past the 50 mark and, if it were made so that all over 50s would be given a last supper and sufficient opium and alcohol to finish them off, I'd go merrily along. The problem is, of course, that such a plan is practicably unworkable – just as relying on the demographic transition is also unworkable.

What is needed is regulation. Just as speech and movement must regulated in a crowded world, just as hunting, fishing, and timber cutting must be regulated, just as public and private authorities must be regulated, so must human breeding be regulated. This is not a denial of right, anymore than appropriate limits on freedom of speech is a denial of right. It is merely a mechanism to protect the rights of others from selfishness and abuse.

It is possible and desirable to simultaneously pursue equality, equity, and a rationally chosen, freedom maximizing level of population.

Oh, I almost forgot. Shall the workers be forced to "die in the saddle" without ever a year of rest in their overworked lives, while the sons and daughters of the filthy rich have 50 years of leisure?

Perhaps you think in this utopia of your imagination, there will be more "leisure" for everyone, since you've created so much room on the planet. Ho-hum, Malthus and the the Club of Rome Rockefeller flunkies have been peddling this for long time to justify the schemes of global dictators.

Even your utopian idea that the wealthy will obserrve this "statute" just as the poor (I think not), will never be "fair" in any sense of the word.

Hey, I know, let's try DISTRIBUTING WEALTH, HEALTH AND EDU"CATION MORE EQUITABLY, and the BIRTH RATES WILL PLUMMET, just as they have in every country and social sub-group in history.

Whaddaya think, smart guy?

Merwan:

Can you imagine the implementation of your mad scheme? Look at the precedents. Nazi Germany? Are you insane? Do you think this will be done any differently than the distribution of the death penalty, medical care, living-wage employment or housing?

Putting people to death at age 50 as POLICY is a recipe for state-sanctioned murder and exploitationof the powerless.

Like all utopians, you are a fool, imagining your silly plans will be carried out fairly by a benficient ruler.

Withdrawn Consent,

Although I do not have Frederick's permission to speak for him, I'll offer my own reading.

First of all (and assuming Frederick wasn't being ironic when suggesting that the solution to the problem is a reduction of human population to 1 billion), if we don't find a way not only to /manage/ our numbers but to /reduce/ them drastically, Ma Nature's going to do it for us. And it's possible that we could do it more humanely than She. But a solution cannot be said to be truly humane unless it is also fair. That means that it must fall on everyone's shoulders equally - no targeting of "undesirables." The only way I can think of to do this is to impose a statute of limitation on years of life. I suggest 50 years of age, for a start (I more than qualify, having outlived my welcome by eight years, and if everyone wants to buy into the program so that Homo sapiens can have a future, I'll be the first in line for the big send-off).

Fifty years should be plenty of time for people to create something of lasting value (Mozart, Schubert, Martin Luther King, Jr., any number of others come to mind) and to raise their children to maturity (so that the problem of orphaned children need not arise). Their "sending-off" on their 50th birthday should be a celebration of a continued life for our species, accompanied with due fanfare and rejoicing. It should be something like a religious ceremony. People should be able to feel good about it.

Just imagine the housing and medical services that would suddenly become available at the first great pruning. To say nothing of the foodstores.

I'm not being ironic. Which is better: to impose such a statute of limitation, or let Ma Nature solve the problem of our outrageous numbers by starving everyone indiscriminately?

Merwan:

You actually cite a link to the Gaza crisis to support your nutty theories about over-population? Then go on to say the cause is "unacknowledged" in the article? No f__king wonder. The problem there, in case you hadn't noticed, is that Israel is holding almost two million people in captivity on a spit of desert land. That's a POLITICAL and MILITARY problem, genius. But you cite an anecdotal mention of a family with twelve children as proof of what? That no medical supplies, food, fuel, electricity or money is allowed in the open-air prision that is the Gaza? Christ, what a stretch.

News flash: Procreation is the revenge of the oppressed.

Two words, "Soylent Green" !

Frederick,

Does that mean you are volunteering yourself and your family for slaughter to achieve this noble goal? If not, then who exactly did you have in mind for slaughter to achieve your final soution?

With the privatization of food production, the key component of population reduction was put in place. Now, as Kissinger once proclaimed, "Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people." We are on the cusp of policies by those in power that will begin to reduce the population to that 1 billion or less Mr. Johnson calls for in the comment above. And the best part is that it will be done in a way that they can wash their hands of, saying that the mass starvation and ensuing impoverishment of much of the world was beyond their control. Just those market forces at work. Oh, well, as long as I have my steak for dinner, I guess it's all for the better...

Here's a SOLUTION. REDUCE THE PLANET'S POPULATION TO 1 BILLION ! There, PROBLEM SOLVED !!

There'll be a "let them eat cake" moment. Then, and only then, will things change.

"But the voices have so far been ignored."

So not true. Agent Orange creators Monsanto swears the only reason they are creating transgenic mutant organisms (falsely termed genetically modified 'foods') is the SOLVE WORLD HUNGER.

Cause Monsanto and Cargill and the rest of Big Corp Agriculture are all about the helping, baby.

jcclientelle That's it exactly. The issue gets "meetinged to death". Same old, same old.

........

Also, I'm curious - have people just noticed this past week that most of the world is starving? Or was it convenient to pretend there was no problem, or that it wouldn't come home to you/us? We could safely ignore it?
I don't understand the suddenness of the epiphany.

Good article. The World Bank investigating hunger....

While the poor starve, those in charge form commissions and publish reports. Classically these reports co-opt the voices of the poor and their authentic supporters and mask the urgency of the problem with bland bureaucratese, lists of causes with no weighting whatsoever and hand-wringing about the difficulties of finding solutions.

Classically, the main purposes underlying such commissions and reports are -

1. To disguise the deliberate policies and the key players that contribute to the tragedy

2. To discourage further prying on the basis that the matter has been completely investigated already

The New York Times and the press in general will typically publish summaries of such reports without much independent verification of the situation. They will look concerned. Then their readers will tsk tsk ever so briefly, forget and continue shopping.

I've been following Raj's work since he published in the Guardian a while ago about obesity and culture. I am reading the book, which has only been released this month in the US. All I have to say is read the book. Thank goodness for writers such as Raj, who have the experience and the voice to put it all together.
Readers may also want to read Mark Winne's 'Closing the food gap' , for a very american view of the issue.
What is very clear, is that if the status quo of corporations and Government prevails, we in the globalised north, will begin to really suffer, but not before millions more in the global south suffer even more.
Try telling that to the christian pastors of churches across america, and see if they do anything. They should!

Eric J-D:

Thanks for contributing your dispassionate and thoughtful remarks. It's hard, for me anyway, not to be outraged when we see the current beam of media attention turned towards world hunger, as if the poor didn't already know for centuries their deprivation has social causes. But it provides an opening for the Mathusian malcontents to peddle their thinly veiled eugenic fantasies. It must be opposed vigorously. Thanks.

To the Malthusians: your arbitrary assignment at age 50 to euthanize people by "statute" is unfounded and foolish. People over 50 are repositories of cultural, historical and technical knowledge without which families, communities and yes, even corporations would be impoverished. Can you envision the spectacle of state-mandated "police" actions hunting down excaped 51 year-olds who resist the "law." Not to mention people who have spent a lifetime WORKING have a reasonable expectation they should be able to enjoy the fruits of their labors in later life. What would you do with their assets, give them to callow, indulgent children? The state? Despicable.

And why stop with age? Why not euthanize low-income or low IQ citizens? Or 50% of young people? They're not very productive. Or the disabled and wheelchair-bound? We can get along without Steven Hawkings. Or drug users, who never contributed anything? Oh, gee, that's not actually true.. People who spend too much time typing on blogs? You opened the door, who knows where it will swing? You trust the state to make these decisions, I'm sure. They've done so well regulating everything else. Profoundly, profoundly anti-american, anti-liberty and anti-human.

Hey, even better, why stop with the "least productive"? Let's euthanize the biggest consumers, starting with the very rich. Why, killing one or two million would free up resources that could feed ten, twenty, a hundred times their number. Logic compels us to this conclusion. The idle sons of privilege, the yacht crowd and poodle-walking, cosmetic surgery addicted matrons, let's score their performance to the commonweal. How efficient! Save money on the furnaces! Hell, let's euthanize the entire US population for consuming a quarter of the world's resources with just 6% of the population.

Or, you can just make a voluntary statute, and be the first to volunteer. You may have to talk to your soul-mates in the republican camp about changing their opposition to assisted suicide, but I'm sure you can work that out.

I've resisted getting back into this conversation (and perhaps I should resist more strongly) but I feel like the following point needs to be stressed:

In conversations about world hunger, the issue of world population and schemes to address its growth come up far more frequently than issues of overconsumption of world resources of all sorts (food, petroleum, etc.). What this says to me is that people tend to address this issue from a largely Malthusian and demographic perspective.

Addressing something like world hunger from such a limited perspective is foolhardy, however, since it fails to take account of so many other non-demographic factors that contribute to the creation of the immiseration of half our world.

Why anyone thinks euthanizing people over 50 will be more "successful" than reducing birth rates escapes me. It certainly does create an ugly potential for abuse--and extension of existing patterns of exploitation, elimination and heck, just plain old murder--which I don't see advocates actually responding to.

Also true is the comment that famine has plagued the human race for millennia, long before this population explosion, and reducing population won't solve the problem, if it not the really the cause. Funny, even the MSM admits THERE IS NO OIL SHORTAGE and NO SHORTAGE OF FOOD, there is a shortage of people who can afford to buy it at speculators prices.

At some point, we have to address the violently disparate distribution of resources. Those who refuse insist we accept the status quo as unchangeable or immutable "human nature." Bullshit. It is contrived by those holding the levers of power and is no more "normal" than lcoking up millions of our citizens or the rape of Haiti. Snide references to liberal preferences for equality of "outcomes" notwithstanding, this is base justification of evil.