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Oso
08-08-2003, 09:00 AM
and we keep filling it up with people since it's not PC to tell people what to do with there gamete's. Although I think China and Japan may have figured this one out.

anyway...my pondering is thus:

we, as humans occupying this finite space, actually need wars and famine and pestilance to check out population since we're too stupid to do it ourselves.

what would the world's population be if all the millions of people who have been killed in all the wars and black death's and genocides had lived to reproduce?

the world population grows by 75 million people every year.

is it any wonder that we are losing species of animals every year?

geez, we need to be killing 75 million people a year just to stabalize.

and if this is a wrong way of thinking then what is a right way?

eventually, probably in the not too distant future, we'll eat ourselves out of existence anyway.

my best answer is to pull the cork on the space program and open it up to commercial interests and get some of us of this friggin planet.

Surferdude
08-08-2003, 09:30 AM
You don't have to kill people....just use condoms:D :p

KFord
08-08-2003, 09:39 AM
I wouldn't worry about us seeing the day that we over populate this planet. I would worry about the war that is bound to happen that will bring the population back to small numbers. All it will take is one "good" war or unexpected disease, and the so called problem is solved. Should the day come that we have actually over populated without a single war, resources will be so short that war is certain. While you are correct in being alarmed at our birth rates, you are underestimating out abilities to kill ourselves off at a much faster rate. The population numbers may be climbing, but war technology and the spread of untreatable disease is right there with it.

Ming Yue
08-08-2003, 09:43 AM
I think if I really applied myself, I could probably kill a million people this year, but no promises. That leaves 74 million for you guys to deal with. :p

<rant>
Commercialization of space is a great idea, but it will take decades to develop and implement, and then more decades to actually get people who are worthy of the responsibility of colonization to buy that it's a good idea to leave thier swimmin pools and movie stars and go live in a little plastic bubble for the rest of thier lives so that they can further the healthy development of humankind by testing and building and engineering a new civilization in an uncharted frontier.

For the record, sign me up. I can be packed and ready in half an hour. :)

Then during those decades we're still reproducing like ****roaches down here and sucking up available resources. We need a more immediate solution and limiting the number of children families can have (a la china) is, I believe, the wisest and most humane one.

Additionally, I find it distressing that people are spending thousands of dollars on fertility drugs and winding up with multiple babies instead of simply adopting an existing child that needs a loving home.
</rant>

chen zhen
08-08-2003, 09:58 AM
Surfer, 90% of the worlds population lives in less-developed countries, and they can't afford condoms or other kinds of prevention.
Thats one of the reasons behind the population-boom & AIDS.

ZIM
08-08-2003, 10:34 AM
Reading Malthus again, Oso? :D

Surferdude
08-08-2003, 12:58 PM
Originally posted by chen zhen
Surfer, 90% of the worlds population lives in less-developed countries, and they can't afford condoms or other kinds of prevention.
Thats one of the reasons behind the population-boom & AIDS.

O yea hahaha:D :o :rolleyes:

Christopher M
08-08-2003, 01:53 PM
Originally posted by Oso
my best answer is to pull the cork on the space program and open it up to commercial interests and get some of us of this friggin planet.

I've always been highly dubious of the relative rewards of the space program. An ocean program would yield significant rewards far sooner, be far more economically efficient, and would translate directly into a more efficient space program upon it's culmination. Aiming for Mars when we haven't dipped our foot in the majority of our own planet seems a little misguided.

Another excellent answer would be to address population distribution rather than population itself. The earth as a whole, even restricting ourselves to habitable landmass, is far from being overpopulated - it's just that the population we have is poorly distributed. Again, rather than aiming for Mars, we should aim for information, energy, and good distribution to allow for a more distributed mode of living.

Laughing Cow
08-08-2003, 01:55 PM
Read an interesting study recently:

If China became like the USA and Japan, fully industrialised and so on that would gripple the world. Economies would tumble and so on.

Problem is not just over-population, even if we stabilise population at the current levels, the earth couldn't support everybody living a first world standard.

Imagine every poor person in the world driving a car and the ensuing pollution shortage of fuel and other resources.
That is if we could build said cars. roads, etc.

Fresh Water levels are dropping across the world, most of the currently available fresh water has been so polluted that it is unfit for human consumption and often can't even be used for industrial purpose without treatment.
The great lakes in the USA are such an example.

Look at the middle est where Israel and Palestine already started to fight over access to fresh water sources, at the moment Israel controls it all.

My Home country has started to sign agreements where we will sell some of our excess water(Glacier ice) to turkey and other countries.

In Europe at the moment they are considering shutting down the nuclear reactors as they are lacking the water to cool them sufficiently.

In Japan in some areas ground water levels have dropped that lakes and rivers are disappearing due to Industry over-drawing round water.

Right now our biggest curse is industrialisation, as we want more goods and the production of said goods depletes natural resources that we need to live.

Cheers.

Christopher M
08-08-2003, 01:57 PM
Originally posted by KFord
I wouldn't worry about us seeing the day that we over populate this planet. I would worry about the war that is bound to happen that will bring the population back to small numbers. All it will take is one "good" war or unexpected disease, and the so called problem is solved. Should the day come that we have actually over populated without a single war, resources will be so short that war is certain. While you are correct in being alarmed at our birth rates, you are underestimating out abilities to kill ourselves off at a much faster rate. The population numbers may be climbing, but war technology and the spread of untreatable disease is right there with it.

I couldn't disagree more. Check out a population graph of the human race and look for the great plague: it's a blip.

Nature, by and large, doesn't operate catastophically. It's almost inconcievable how one "good" war or unexpected disease could wipe out the human race. More reasonable would be a steady increase in social and biological problems proportional to population density problems. Natural population growth charts tend to be "S" shaped for this very reason. It's a peculiar bit of human arrogance to imagine that we're significant enough to bypass these laws of nature.

Christopher M
08-08-2003, 02:02 PM
Originally posted by Laughing Cow
Right now our biggest curse is industrialisation

And again, I could not possibly disagree more.

Our greatest boon is industrialization. Industrialization by it's very nature generates resources more efficiently (ie. more resources produced for resources consumed than less industrialized model). Quite clearly our only hope for properly treating growing population with a stable natural resource base is to increase production efficiency - which is what industrialization is. And of course this has allready happened; this is exactly what industrialization has permitted us to do, from the irrigation age to the train age and onwards.

Laughing Cow
08-08-2003, 02:12 PM
Christopher M.

You are right to a certain degree, simply because so far only a small section of the world has been industrialised.

Do you think we could have that that level of indusrialisation without exploiting colonies, 3rd world countries and their resources.

My point was that if we bring EVERYBODY on Earth to a 1st world living standard(which we can't no matter how well we manage resources) than even industry can't save us.

Our resources are already stretched, now imagine going four-fold on our current industries.

Most important resource we will be laking will be FRESH WATER, not to drink and bath but for the Industries which use a LOT more than people need to survive.

Next will be petroleum based products I doubt that we will be able to pump raw oil and process it as much as would be needed on a daily basis.


The other problem that the world is facing is that we have become "service orientated".
Check the ratio of Farmers/Labourers to Office workers between now and 50yrs ago.

Cheers.

Oso
08-08-2003, 03:47 PM
Chris, I couldn't agree with you more about the tapping the ocean. I've read several different takes on what we could do there and it is certainly an asset we are not tapping.

However, I am a romantic about the whole space thing so I'm biased about it.

EVENTUALLY, we would fill up this globe entirely unless we get people to stop doing more than replacing themselves. Pre-industrial societies have a need for larger families. Post-Industrial do not yet there is a holdover (naturally since so few generations have elapsed) for the larger family.

I work at a private school and see some very large family's of 3-4 kids and there is no real need for that size family beyond personal preference.

chen zhen
08-08-2003, 04:06 PM
Malthus? What a coincidence, I just read some stuff by him yesterday.:)

yenhoi
08-08-2003, 04:31 PM
Simple 'solution' 1: Get rid of all the excess, unproductive people now. Retards, seniors, untouchables, entire populations of 3rd world countries, protected tribes, and europeans, etc. Shoot them into the sun for all I care.

Simple 'solution' 2: Expand. Its easy, it will happen anyways, and no matter what, at some point in time, "space" (the other planets and stuff in between) will become commercialized and militarized and colonized and pimpified.

At any rate our star wont burn forever, and our galaxy wont continue spinning around this black hole forever (or will they) so we better do something.

...and at any rate none of us will live to see any of these things happen... mass war, mass plague, star exploding or imploding, the oceans being used correctly, or mans real expansion into "space." So whats the diff?

:cool:

ZIM
08-08-2003, 05:30 PM
Solution 1 has been tried before (http://www.facinghistorycampus.org/campus/campus.nsf/faba62ed0079f2a385256af700686540/e203a796d9b18a9785256d21005659ed?OpenDocument)

for largely the same reasons.. (http://www.facinghistorycampus.org/campus/campus.nsf/faba62ed0079f2a385256af700686540/29d992fe8356fc6285256d2100562b0c?OpenDocument)

..but we knew that, right?

Oso
08-08-2003, 06:29 PM
Nature, by and large, doesn't operate catastophically. It's almost inconcievable how one "good" war or unexpected disease could wipe out the human race. More reasonable would be a steady increase in social and biological problems proportional to population density problems. Natural population growth charts tend to be "S" shaped for this very reason. It's a peculiar bit of human arrogance to imagine that we're significant enough to bypass these laws of nature.

I agree. My point was that it IS the weeding out of a couple million here and there that is keeping us from growing too fast.

Better medicine and industrialization has led to a bread and circuses society that hasn't had the sense to slow down population growth. Millennia of muscle powered agrucultural societies has bred into us some need to produce more offspring than we need. Due to high infant mortality rates and a gestation period of 9 months and the fact that it is actually a bit harder to impregnate a woman than most people think led to families trying to crank out kid after kid in hopes that enough would survive to become the workforce on the farm. This continued well into the early 20th century.

too dang tired to continue

what the hell did I start;)

ZIM
08-08-2003, 06:59 PM
When tornados take over the world
There'll be no time for fretting
No fussing and complaining anymore
When tornados take over the world
You won't have your folks
To blame for all the stuff that's your fault

Your friends will be swirling
Right above your disembodied head

When tornados take over the world
All the things in the fridge
That fell on the floor will disappear
And all of your neighbors
Will be waving their flashlights at your house

Your friends will be swirling
Right above your disembodied head

When tornados take over the world

-TMBG (http://www.tmbg.org/band-info/songs/lyrics/WhenTornadosTakeOvertheWorld.html)

Heck, Oso, I dunno...

Christopher M
08-09-2003, 01:56 PM
Originally posted by Oso
Better medicine and industrialization has led to a bread and circuses society that hasn't had the sense to slow down population growth.

Sure, but none of this will change the the S-shape of the growth curve, as you noted.


Millennia of muscle powered agrucultural societies has bred into us some need to produce more offspring than we need.

I'm not sure this is the case. You need 2 children per family to grow to adulthood to break even. Comparing birth rates by industrialization and SEC, the top end is around this mark.

Christopher M
08-09-2003, 01:58 PM
Originally posted by ZIM
..but we knew that, right?

No, no... you're wrong. The Nazi threat existed only because every Nazi was inherently an evil person. There are no remnants of their logic in our society, because we'd recognize it immediately for the evil that it is. :eek:

I mean, we'd never close down mental health institutionalization, would we? :eek:

Christopher M
08-09-2003, 02:04 PM
Originally posted by Laughing Cow
Do you think we could have that that level of indusrialisation without exploiting colonies, 3rd world countries and their resources.

Yes. In fact, we'll get that level of industrialization by stopping that exploitation so that industrialization is free to spread. It's the exploitation that's holding the system back, not empowering it.


The other problem that the world is facing is that we have become "service orientated".

This isn't a problem, again it's a boon. Service is oriented towards distribution of food, goods, and information. Distribution permits healthy, environmentally-friendly, and humanitarianly equal living. Industrialization permits more resources to be made with fewer consumed with fewer man-hours labour needed; hence a switch in human labour from production to service.

Laughing Cow
08-09-2003, 02:56 PM
Christopher M.

1.) Industrialisation needs a lot of resources, in many places there exists NO infrastructure or the needed resources to support it.

Example:
Middle east lacks the neccessary water for heavy industry,
China & Asia many regions still do not have access to electricity and similar.

At the moment there is a move of shifting even the service industry to "poorer" countries( India & China), hence we are still exploiting poorer nations as they will offer cheaper labour/services.

2.) Yes, service orientated is what is happening in some areas of the globe.

Problem is that in order to distribute goods you FIRST need to create them, those cost resources and human labour.
Hence the shift to produce in 3rd world and similar countries as 1st world countries either don't want to provide the labour or would cost too much.

Problem is that 1st World countries are starting to face the same problems as the british empire did.

Production of goods and services is being done abroad, unemployment at home, brain-drain, etc.

Look at the IT-schooling in the states a lot of students study in the states and tahn leave and go back home in order to directly compete with US IT-Industry.

In short you can afford your current lief-style BECAUSE your goods are produced in countries where labour is being exploited, bring those countries to 1st world standard and you won't be able to afford the same goods as they won't be any cheaper than if they were produced in your home-country.

Cheers.

Christopher M
08-09-2003, 09:29 PM
Originally posted by Laughing Cow
Industrialisation needs a lot of resources

... to produce a lot of output. A less industrialized model needs even more resources to produce the same output. If there is a complaint here, it is against the volumes of output, not the process of industrialization, which clearly conserves resources.


in many places there exists NO infrastructure

... which has absolutely nothing to do with relative frequencies of consumption of a stable natural resource supply.


At the moment there is a move of shifting even the service industry to "poorer" countries, hence we are still exploiting poorer nations as they will offer cheaper labour/services.

How is this exploitation?


Hence the shift to produce in 3rd world and similar countries as 1st world countries either don't want to provide the labour or would cost too much.

Is there anything wrong with this?

Also, it seems to contradict the previous remark. Are you trying to say that poorer countries are being shifted to production or to service? You've claimed both.


Problem is that 1st World countries are starting to face the same problems as the british empire did... Production of goods and services is being done abroad

How is this a problem?

Also, are you saying that foreign production is a problem or that it's a self-serving act of exploitation? You've claimed both.


Look at the IT-schooling in the states a lot of students study in the states and tahn leave and go back home in order to directly compete with US IT-Industry.

This isn't brain-drain. Foreign students are expected to return to their countries of origin. Brain-drain is when citizens leave their country after training there.


In short you can afford your current lief-style BECAUSE your goods are produced in countries where labour is being exploited

You're going to have to establish what the nature of this exploitation is before using it as the lynchpin of your conclusion.

Also, would you mind generalizing the pronouns in these kinds of remarks? Thanks.


bring those countries to 1st world standard and you won't be able to afford the same goods as they won't be any cheaper

Unless they're brought not just artifically to 1st world standards, but brought there internally through industrialization which generates more output for less resources consumed, by definition, allowing productivity per man hour to increase rather than decrease.

Which is the only way it has ever happened; and, presumably, the only way it ever will happen.

TonyM.
08-10-2003, 09:28 AM
When I was a child none of the old people I knew took daily medication. They were healthy. Now all of the old people I know take multiple medications daily. Most are unhealthy, but they live two tears longer. Most of the forests I knew as a child in Louisiana, West Virginia and especially Maryland are now gone. Replaced by shabby housing developments. People are stupid and tiresome as a rule.

fa_jing
08-11-2003, 09:25 AM
This is ridiculous, Oso. All systems of co-existance must eventually promote equality of human rights, or eventually the masses will wake up. Kill off? You first, since you advocate it. Forced sterilization after 1 or 2 live births? Your children first.

CM is correct, the world is NOT overpopulated. Big Myth, but it went out with the 70's. The population is poorly distributed. There is a ceiling that will be hit, within 100 years, and voluntary birth control with incentives is the best solution I can think of. But until that point, we are just fulfilling our evolutionary destiny by reproducing as many offspring who will themselves oneday reach child-bearing age as possible. We are wired for this, that's why most of us are here, and it should not be restricted without good cause. Certainly if my parents had stopped after two children, I'd be missing two sisters and niece or nephew on the way. All of us were cared for reasonably well. We took up each other's space growing up, had to smell a few more far.ts and breathe a little less oxygen than otherwise necessary, but it was worth it.

chen zhen
08-11-2003, 09:31 AM
.

Surferdude
08-11-2003, 09:40 AM
Hahahahahaha

Oso
08-11-2003, 10:21 AM
HA HA HA HA HA HA

FOOLS !!!!


:cool:

Christopher M
08-11-2003, 06:24 PM
Originally posted by Oso
Better medicine and industrialization has led to a bread and circuses society that hasn't had the sense to slow down population growth.

If you want to consider the logic behind eugenics (and I think you should, if only to understand it rather than demonize it, so that you can recognize similar thoughts in your own viewpoints), I think there's much better arguments than the overpopulation one.

The medicine issue you've brought up is a good one. Consider that evolution works by: whoever leaves behind the most viable offspring has the greatest influence upon the population gene-pool; and thus, the species "evolves towards" that standard. In animal populations, this generally works to breed in strengths and breed out weaknesses. For instance, individuals genetically prone to illness will leave behind less viable offspring: so those genes will be bred out of the population. Conversely: strong, intelligent, patient, ambituous, skillfull, quick individuals will leave behind more viable offspring; so the species as a whole will become stronger, more intelligent, and so on, over time.

Now: is this the case for the human race? There are a variety of things at play here. Modern medicine, by allowing sickly individuals to survive, prevents illness from being bred out of the population. Various people have also put forth arguments relating things like SEC to positive traits (like ambitiousness, patience, etc) and noted that success here is related inversely to reproductive success for humans, unlike other animals.

What implications does this have for the evolution of the human race?

Please note that I'm not suggesting any particular answer to this question.

Oso
08-11-2003, 07:29 PM
Chris,

ok,

#1 You're smarter, more well read than I am and surely more educated. I'm guessing sociology or something. Maybe blended with anthropology.

#2 I'm gonna have to look 'eugenics' up before I respond.;)

ok, my dictionary was right here...who the hell is 'practicing' eugenics?

used to be a good midwife had a handy hairpin....the beginning of eugenics??

so called modern 'civil' and 'moral' rights have had a lot to do with what is considered a viable offspring. What kind of life does a severely retarded baby have to look forward to?

take this act of selfishness for example:

I know of a couple that tried to have children for years and years. 4 miscarraiges. Yet they kept trying. On the last try they concieved but early on knew through testing that the child was going to have problems, serious ones. Do they abort? No. So, during the childs first 3 months of life it stops breathing on a daily basis. (It was not a premie, past full term even) Over the first year it has had to have numerous operations to adjust it's clubbed feet and hands. still more to come. At almost a year old the child is not even beginning to speak or make noise at all. Yet, I have heard this couple speak of 'god's will' and how god wanted them to have this child. imo, god was telling them they couldn't/shouldn't with the 4 miscairrages. yet, through modern medicine they were able to bring this child who will most probably have zip in the way of quality of life into the world. To what end? Their own personal need to have a child. I only hope that they stop with this one. Please note my ire is directed at the selfish people that insisted on carrying through the pregnancy against all reasonable advice that the child would not have a good quality of life.

It is this sort of emperative to bear children that needs to be examined.

In this example the need is from the bible. but that's a whole nuther subject.


#3 I'm frikkin' tired.

so, I did 1,2 and 3 and then had to go look up 'eugenics'

still not really a cohesive post, imagine that.:)

d a m m i t.....(edit: we can say crap and hell but not ******?)

ok, so if eugenics is the science of improveing the human genome how does it apply to what we are talking about?

modern medicine is NOT improving the human genome. It's doing exactly the opposite.

call me elitest but I'm all for improving the human genome.

and one step towards that is to get rid of the stigma on interracial couplings. I think it can be argued that only when we are trully one h o m ogenous ( :rolleyes: ) race will we actually have all the good stuff in one package.

enough

sleep beckons

Christopher M
08-11-2003, 07:48 PM
By eugenics I just meant selective population/reproductive control; sorry for the confusion.

I didn't mean to suggest that anyone was for or against eugenics, or that anyone was or wasn't practicing it, so much as just to lay down the strong argument for it.

I agree, as you noted, that there are both ways in which eugenics is part-and-parcel of our society, and ways in which we do the exact opposite.

It's certainly, at least, a complicated issue.


call me elitest but I'm all for improving the human genome

On the other side of the issue, the powerful argument is: by what standards is "improving the human genome" an imperative which trumps people's own reproductive freedom. And, moreover, who is it that decides what "improvement" is?

Here we get beyond biological theory and into political theory; as politics would be required for any implementation (one way or the other) of the biological/sociological theory.

And we also get directly at what is, imho, perhaps the primary problem of politics, and the lynchpin of various political models: the tradeoff between individual freedom and models of collective improvement (again, where determining the definition of "improvement" is a crucial problem).

Does individual freedom get curtailed in the goal for collective improvement? Or does collective improvement get curtailed for the goal of individual freedom? In either case, how is it decided what constitutes improvement?

fa_jing
08-12-2003, 01:36 AM
On a similar note, but different topic: how about trying to skip alot of biological evolution by projecting what it would lead towards, i.e. eventually the pro-creation, love-society impulses as traits winning out over the destructive, propogate-through-violence traits. Both have lead to reproduction in the past, but it seems that for humans, the former is more powerful and more effective and leads to more reproduction and self-propagation. Besides being a way to live that is overall more appealing to the vast majority of us. So now that we have less of the factors that weeded out traits through conflict or disease in the past, it makes sense to try to duplicate what biological evolution would have brought us through societal evolution. In other words, though we may no longer breed out undesireable traits as before, we should try to transcend our biological constraints mentally through the influence of society, in order to reach a state of evolution that is otherwise only attainable through generations of brutal conflict.

ya with me?

yenhoi
08-12-2003, 09:16 AM
yes.

crush the weak. take food.

:)

Christopher M
08-12-2003, 12:06 PM
Right; there's biological evolution... and then there's cultural evolution. The latter is a different beast, and surely has effected us quite a bit.

But social intervention based on goal-oriented cultural evolution has the same problems as that based on biological evolution: determining what the goal is, and justifying the violation of personal freedoms in it's pursuit.

I think people certainly do pursue this idea in a voluntary manner; I think this has been the stated goal of philosophy and religion for at least a couple thousand years.


eventually the pro-creation, love-society impulses as traits winning out over the destructive, propogate-through-violence traits.

Are you assuming the existance of "destructive, propogate-through-violence" traits/drives?

http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:4DnZSw9AIwAJ:collection.nlc-bnc.ca/100/201/300/cdn_medical_association/cmaj/vol-165/issue-8/pdf/pg1075.pdf+%22eros+and+thanatos%22%2Bfreud&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

http://www.books-reborn.org/white/articles/2002_Eros.html

http://www.pdc.co.il/dthinst.htm

fa_jing
08-12-2003, 01:09 PM
Actually your links, while interesting, are off-base to my statement. These links describe the death impulse as in a natural state of flux with the live/sex impulse, and contrary to it. But I was pointing out that if you take the theory of evolution at face value, all of our traits exist due to them being beneficial to propogation of the genes. The destructive impulse may exist as a natural and necessary opposite to the creative impluse, as Freud suggested. However, my point was that "propogation through destruction of others" is additionally an evolutionary concern, and can be best observed through the behavior of Lions - roving bands of male lions, upon encountering a pride of lions, kill both their male rivals who were already there, and the cubs that were produced as a result of the union between the previous male lions and the lionesses. In the case of humans, those who killed and subdued neighboring tribes/groups were able to propogate their own offspring to a greater degree then SOME peace-loving groups, especially those which they conquered. And we cannot forget the role (albeit small) that violation of women has played in mankind's evolutionary history, especially during war and violent conflict. Like I said before, the peace-love thing is actually more effective for propogation for humans in the long run, but our evolutionary history contains both elements and both have lead to increased reproduction in the past, though it seems paradoxical. That in my opinion is why someone that you would never expect it of, an otherwise reasonable person will at times commit an act of violence or rape. In me personally, the love-propogation current runs strongest, but less so than in a couple friends and ex-friends I know, who like to play out domination, violence and other fantasies with their lovers. I think that this is pretty much what you would expect from the scenario I described - the various impulses existing to different degrees in different people, but with the love-society impulse dominating in the human race as a whole. Of course it is easier to say "the demon made him do it," which places responsibility on a source external to the person being considered, and may not be a bad abbreviation, depending on your world-view, how you define internal/external, etc.

Here I would like to differentiate between the "propogate through self-defense of a community against aggressors" - violent impulse, which runs in pretty much everybody, and is very much compatible with the love-society, vs. the "propogate through aggression against others" - violent impulse, which has no place in the love-society.

JMO

KFord
08-12-2003, 01:53 PM
You guys are making my head hurt. LOL, I didn't think anyone responded to my remarks. Now I come back and see all of this. All very interesting.... I have now decided that we will see the end when we can no longer support the amount of IT support it takes to maintain all of the arguments online at once. J/K

Honestly, what do you guys do that you have the time to debate like this?

fa_jing
08-12-2003, 01:57 PM
Hey, last night I couldn't sleep, that was my first post. This one took me about 15-20 minutes. IT work, stuff is running and I have the computer in front of me all day long - big temptation to surf.

PS makes my head hurt too,I'm not debating, just speculating-- so glad that I don't run the Universe --would muck up everything.

Christopher M
08-12-2003, 02:37 PM
Sorry, I meant to call into question these categories with those links, not establish them.

As nomenclature, let's establish a catalytic drive vs an analytic drive; where catalysis drives towards unity and analysis drives towards individuality.

Then let's establish a success drive vs a failure drive; where success drives towards individual and species health and propagation, and failure drives against it.

You mentioned the example of animal predatory and violent mating selection habits. This accords to the analytic drive (contra unity; derivation of self vs other relations; entropy), but also to the success drive.

You also mentioned the example of individual human aggression and violent dominant behavior. Again this accords to the analytic drive; but this time to the failure drive.

If this is the case, then we must dismiss the association of catalysis with success and analysis with failure.

Freud's Thanatos, then, is the analytic drive; not the failure drive. He meant it as a description of the human social and biological animal.

Given the realities of evolution, of which he was aware from Darwin, it's clear that the fundamental drives for animals must be productive, or else the animals wouldn't exist.

Given this, what is the source of the human failure-based behavior?

Is it reasonable to associate it, as you did, with the success-based analytic behavior of animal predation and mate selection?

Or are these two very different things?

Oso
08-12-2003, 02:52 PM
ok, dude, now you're just being a smarty pants;)

I think it's time to divulge exactly what it is you do for a living.

I know when I'm outgunned.:D

so, what, you teach?

fa_jing
08-27-2003, 09:50 AM
hey, let me resurrect this gay thread because here is an article dealing with some of the same material:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=13&articleID=000D2103-1FEC-1F30-9AD380A84189F2D7

Former castleva
08-28-2003, 10:42 AM
Neoteny material.

Since when was Jared Diamond an evolutionary biologist?

Surferdude
08-29-2003, 10:51 AM
So did anyone hand out condoms yet???:D :p