webdiplomacy.net

Kingdroid u have anything productive to say? fuck off elsewhere.

ILN wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 14, 2019 8:15 pm

I don't think there's a population problem. I don't think the population can grow indefinitely either, and there certainly is a cap, but we are very far from reaching that cap.

As far as living space is concerned, there is plenty of it.
For water, ending wasteful practices, making agriculture more efficient, waste water treatment, and desalination technology improvements will ensure there will be enough water.
For food, hydroponics, automated farms (weed picking robots, etc), efficient practices, vertical farming, desalination technology, ending wasteful policies (such as supply management of dairy in Canada, where daily producers flush thousands of liters of milk down the drain to keep prices high), and reducing food waste.

Also, 'overpopulation' will solve itself; Developed nations have lower fertility rates. As China and India will become developed as well, their populations will start to decline as they have in Europe and North America. As nations around the world develop and living standards rise, fertility rates will drop. In fact its predicted the world population will plateau.

So overpopulation is not a problem. Though that's not the reason, as even if it were, it would still be ok for nations with low fertility rates to have programs aimed at boosting it rather than make up with immigration. With immigration they are taking the burden of overpopulation entirely on themselves and its not fair. Countries should be responsible for themselves.

I wouldn't totally agree with that. Whilst we have been able to muddle through so far, is this really sustainable? Many, many studies have been done on it. e.g. like this one study from 2002 which said we were already using 120% of the biosphere (i.e. we are using resources faster than they regenerate):

https://www.pnas.org/content/99/14/9266.full

An article which summarizes lots of studies is here. Global Footprint Network now estimates we are exceeding Earth's sustainable productivity by 60%:

https://qz.com/1347735/how-many-people- ... -infinite/

And this is only going to get worse and worse as the world gets richer (again the overuse correlates with increase in world living standards) even if the population growth rate declines. Even if we ignore climate change we can see this stuff in action like the pacific plastic patch and the rise of microplastic polution...or the wiping out of fish stocks like the collapse of the Atlantic cod or the increasing rate of species extinction:

https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/pro ... on_crisis/

I am bullish on technology too and there are plenty of other crazy things we can stop doing (to add to your examples - growing rice in Australia - madness) but given how far we are already over the carrying capacity of the planet I am not sure it is enough.

And, to expand on where I am coming from, while we are concerned about this we are hitting a demographic crisis in many Western countries. The ratio of workers to retirees in the US which was at a high of 16 to 1 in 1950 will be around 2 to 1 in 2035:

http://www.crfb.org/blogs/number-worker ... -declining

Again, hopefully technology will help us ease the burden of so many retirees whether through increased living standards or improved technology to keep them independent longer (I am really looking forward to autonomous cars). But as as solution governments (like Australia) have been trying to stop the natural decline in fertility to try and prop up population growth. Given that we are already over the carrying capacity of the planet I think this is madness, even though countries like Australia or the US or Canada may not themselves be overpopulated. If we really need more people in specific countries to prop up the economy we should import them.

ILN wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 14, 2019 8:36 pm

I'm not even arguing against immigration, or arguing for increasing fertility rates.

I'm arguing that its completely absurd to push for immigration while at the same time discouraging having children. It makes no sense. You have immigration to make up for a low fertility rate.

Encouraging immigration and discouraging having children is essentially population transfer.

And overpopulation is not even a problem.

Supposing it is, however, why would the nations with low fertility rates be responsible and obliged to make up for the offenders? Let the countries with high fertility rates experience all the issues that come with overpopulation and deal with the problem. They will for sure find solutions. China had the one child policy, and it worked.

It isn't absurd if you believe the planet is over carrying capacity already which is backed by many, many studies. Again, I am arguing specifically against programs to increase the fertility rate above replacement (as I mentioned earlier with the Peter Costello, the former treasurer of Australia quote), NOT about actively trying to reduce the population.

Be specific - Which nations are the "bad ones"? As you have already stated population growth is already falling, and this is happening even in the poorest countries. I don't really want to go down this path as the "us vs them" is not helpful, but if you really want to go there you can also argue that "bad nations" are ones which are the most profligate with the worlds resources. As it says in Scientific American:

“With less than 5 percent of world population, the U.S. uses one-third of the world’s paper, a quarter of the world’s oil, 23 percent of the coal, 27 percent of the aluminum, and 19 percent of the copper,”

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... on-habits/

If you insist that some countries are "bad" perhaps we can do some resource usage comparisons to see how true that really is.

flash2015 wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 15, 2019 12:20 am

ILN wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 14, 2019 8:36 pm

I'm not even arguing against immigration, or arguing for increasing fertility rates.

I'm arguing that its completely absurd to push for immigration while at the same time discouraging having children. It makes no sense. You have immigration to make up for a low fertility rate.

Encouraging immigration and discouraging having children is essentially population transfer.

And overpopulation is not even a problem.

Supposing it is, however, why would the nations with low fertility rates be responsible and obliged to make up for the offenders? Let the countries with high fertility rates experience all the issues that come with overpopulation and deal with the problem. They will for sure find solutions. China had the one child policy, and it worked.

It isn't absurd if you believe the planet is over carrying capacity already which is backed by many, many studies. Again, I am arguing specifically against programs to increase the fertility rate above replacement (as I mentioned earlier with the Peter Costello, the former treasurer of Australia quote), NOT about actively trying to reduce the population.

Be specific - Which nations are the "bad ones"? As you have already stated population growth is already falling, and this is happening even in the poorest countries. I don't really want to go down this path as the "us vs them" is not helpful, but if you really want to go there you can also argue that "bad nations" are ones which are the most profligate with the worlds resources. As it says in Scientific American:

“With less than 5 percent of world population, the U.S. uses one-third of the world’s paper, a quarter of the world’s oil, 23 percent of the coal, 27 percent of the aluminum, and 19 percent of the copper,”

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... on-habits/

If you insist that some countries are "bad" perhaps we can do some resource usage comparisons to see how true that really is.

Certain nations with certain ethnicities have produced a disproportionate amount of scientific discoveries and inventions. By reducing their proportion of the world population in relation to the population of less innovative nations and ethnicities, we are breeding out the cream of the crop of the human population.

There was an interesting Guardian article a few years back on the subject of the rise of the far right in Eastern Europe. The article talked about eastern Europeans moving to western Europe to work before returning home. It was discovered that a great many of these people had their first experience of multicultural living in places like London and Paris, and concluded that they hated it. They returned home vowing never to let the same thing happen to Poland / Austria et al.

I'll see if I can find it again later.

Oh, an interesting observation from the Czech Republic (or whatever they call themselves now). They don't have many black people, and those that are there tend to be unskilled straight off the boat types. That leads to the bizarre experience that virtually every single black man you see is either a cleaner, a pimp, a drug dealer, or a tourist (usually American). That must be a driver for racist thought, when your daily experience confirms far right propaganda over and over again.

Octavious wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 15, 2019 11:50 am

There was an interesting Guardian article a few years back on the subject of the rise of the far right in Eastern Europe. The article talked about eastern Europeans moving to western Europe to work before returning home. It was discovered that a great many of these people had their first experience of multicultural living in places like London and Paris, and concluded that they hated it. They returned home vowing never to let the same thing happen to Poland / Austria et al.

I'll see if I can find it again later.

Oh, an interesting observation from the Czech Republic (or whatever they call themselves now). They don't have many black people, and those that are there tend to be unskilled straight off the boat types. That leads to the bizarre experience that virtually every single black man you see is either a cleaner, a pimp, a drug dealer, or a tourist (usually American). That must be a driver for racist thought, when your daily experience confirms far right propaganda over and over again.

Anecdotally I understand this lack of “variety” is true of Vienna. My English cousins had a few weeks vacation there in 2018 & told me how they were shocked that everyone, doing everything, were still white Viennese (The only “others” were fellow tourists, which for them was completely unexpected).
If I was a betting man, I’d bet the Viennese want to keep it that way...

@flash. I wasn't saying there are 'bad countries'. You probably inferred that from me saying biggest offenders. I meant offenders only in the sense of contributing to 'overpopulation'. I am aware that the US is a massive polluter relative to it's population size

leon1122 wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 15, 2019 5:27 am

Certain nations with certain ethnicities have produced a disproportionate amount of scientific discoveries and inventions. By reducing their proportion of the world population in relation to the population of less innovative nations and ethnicities, we are breeding out the cream of the crop of the human population.

This is such blatant racism. The Islamic golden age brought us some of the biggest developments in mathematics and astronomy in over 2000 years, culture definitely has an effect on discovery and invention, but not race/ethnicity.

And as a matter of perspective. Those nations which invented things like capitalism used it (like literally the technology of investing capital to make profits) to conquer, control, enslave and kill. Hundreds of millions died in famines, millions others enslaved.

Exploitation of others is no reason to claim you are the 'cream of the crop'. And environmental resources currently being exploited by these 'discoveries' - mostly oil, plastic, nuclear, and the likes are exploiting the future life supporting capacity of the planet.

The cause of the problem, and so far resisting efforts to be part of the solution.

And just to be clear, look at the Dutch East Indies Company, it was a piece of financial technology which allowed investment in that company which is the best example of the harms of capitalism. (never mind the British growing their empire by lending people money to buy train track from their capitalists, and then using military force to ensure the loans are paid back...)

This is such blatant racism. The Islamic golden age brought us some of the biggest developments in mathematics and astronomy in over 2000 years, culture definitely has an effect on discovery and invention, but not race/ethnicity.

I never specified any race or ethnicity, nor did I deny that Arabs have contributed to the development of science and technology. Some others however...

As for your rant against capitalism, that is built upon a certain level of industrial and technological development. You cannot have mass capitalism as we know it (or exploitation as you call it) at a subsistence level of development. Therefore, capitalism, for better or worse, is an indicator of the progress of one's civilization.

leon1122 wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 17, 2019 3:00 am

This is such blatant racism. The Islamic golden age brought us some of the biggest developments in mathematics and astronomy in over 2000 years, culture definitely has an effect on discovery and invention, but not race/ethnicity.

I never specified any race or ethnicity, nor did I deny that Arabs have contributed to the development of science and technology. Some others however...

As for your rant against capitalism, that is built upon a certain level of industrial and technological development. You cannot have mass capitalism as we know it (or exploitation as you call it) at a subsistence level of development. Therefore, capitalism, for better or worse, is an indicator of the progress of one's civilization.

"progress", is not automatically a good thing. It doesn't equate to respect for rights, or moral development. And one culture having concentrated more wealth than another isn't evidence that 'certain ethnicities' are better at making it progress.

Also, if it is about culture ie things like business practices and banking culture in Holland which allowed them become a world power... Any ethnicity can adopt said culture, and we can stop worrying about Eugenics, migration and population control.

If the 'progress' you describe is so desirable, then guess what, success breeds success. People will copy the successful strategies whenever they can. You can even look at post-colonial societies (and I'm including Ireland in this) which copied strategies colonial rulers used to exploit their people... After colonialisation, they continued the practices they were used to, the ones they knew worked.

It is very difficult to stop this from happening. And it is not down to ethnicity. You don't have to be white/European to oppress and exploit an African nation (though it helps) many different ethnic groups in Africa do a fantastic job of it all on their own. (never mind the Irish state...)

Unless your vision for humanity is living in peace and harmony until the next meteor wipes us out, then progress is without doubt a good thing. We live in an indifferent universe and our choice is to make progress or die, just as it has been for countless millennia. To become a species that can spread out across the stars, to at least be able to actively defend our own planet, is a higher priority than any other goal.

In some respects climate change is a good thing. It is a major problem that will demand all our ingenuity and effort to triumph over, and will be a driver of progress for decades to come. If we didn't have a problem like climate change, we'd have to invent one.

At what cost?

Progress is discussed at length in this video
https://youtu.be/tmk47kh7fiE but my point is more general still. It wasn't just exploitation of women and people of colour which built the modern capitalist industrial society we all enjoy (because 'we' are all on the Internet). We have also 'progressed' to destroying our environment, towards a population of 10-11 Billion, which may or may not be sustainable.

The problem isn't that 'progress' means increased productivity per person, it is that the cost borne by the environment of that productivity is not calculated. Each individual may be able to do more work than their great grand parents, but only by using machines powered largely by oil... And potentially destroying our environment before we do any of those lovely exploration survival ideas you seem to like (which I could rail against on their own, but I don't need to).

We know for a fact that we are currently living through a mass extinction event (the 6th the earth has seen) and we have only progress to blame.

Sure it is great that millions have been dragged out of poverty, increased life expectancy, but over use of ecological systems which we live in symbiosis with, and which can not grow exponentially... Yeah, progress without taking into account the effects could be disaster.

Hi all.

In Australia we have a policy of promoting multi culturalism.
Has it worked ...on the whole I would say yes.
Was it easy and flowed like a river of fluffy littens ...definately not.
In our experince we have found the initial imagrants or infux of new culture has been great people wanting to improve their circumstance and add to ourcountries values and culture. The first generation usullay have the bigger issues as the dream fades and they fight the hardest against inherent racism and the estab;lished culture. the third gen are useally the ones who are accepted this can be seen in the comicfield with all cultural people " taking the Piss out of themselves " a very Australian thing.

Any " new " country and Inclue the US in that has an inherited culture from England ( which I'm pretty sure you fought a war with to get away from ).So rather than multiculturism Diluting existing culture it forcesa new overall culture to emerge one with a new way of seeing the world and being a part of the global community . hey we even get a place in the Euorvision Song contast because of our cultural stance.

The original people of Australia have only just receltly been allowed by our previuos england centic culture to emerge as equals which i belive is a direct result of the infuence of acceptance of other migrationg cultures into Australia.

Saw this related tweet:

Apparently there is a common social cohesion argument re:immigration in the US

Check out @Noahpinion’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1 ... 86114?s=09

Today my country experienced the worst terrorist attack in our history. Those of you who know New Zealand know that we have always been multicultural, and that we have almost no history of terrorist attacks, none at all in my lifetime until now.

I came to this forum to see if anyone was discussing the attack, and instead I find this thread which is effectively a nationalist manifesto. The attack was perpetrated by white nationalists. Nationalism ruins nations.

Back to NE's original post... the fallacy (although not a formal one) here is that if something has some bad effects, it must be abolished. If his quoted article describes actual effects, that does not mean that multiculturalism is overall an evil. Otherwise, we would avoid ice cream because it makes us fat... walking because I step on nails occasionally... or love because it hurts. Multi-culturalism has some negative effects, perhaps... but it also broadens our understanding of self, enables us to see our own shortcomings, teaches us truth through interaction (if you believe in the dialectic,) gives us opportunities to be gracious (and to have grace given,) presents humor, improves menus, let's us study consequences of our attitudes/beliefs, and actually slows down radicalism. Of course, these potential benefits won't occur if we are NOT multi-cultural within our culture. As long as the "us-them" remains our focus instead of the possible "us+them= WE" dynamic.

LeonWalras wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 15, 2019 8:39 am

Today my country experienced the worst terrorist attack in our history. Those of you who know New Zealand know that we have always been multicultural, and that we have almost no history of terrorist attacks, none at all in my lifetime until now.

I came to this forum to see if anyone was discussing the attack, and instead I find this thread which is effectively a nationalist manifesto. The attack was perpetrated by white nationalists. Nationalism ruins nations.

Amen. Fuck ultra nationalists, fuck fascists, fuck white supremacists.

Complete side point here but the weirdness of the discussion on having children being bad/universities being leftist propaganda outlets on page 3 seems to have passed completely uncommented on.

Flump lays out a massively oversimplified version of an argument they don't agree with. The conversation then deviates onto an entire page of other likeminded individuals laughing at the argument while flash tries to engage a bit with the ideas behind it and at no point did anyone stop to think that maybe there was some more depth or nuance to the idea than that given in the passing reference to it in Flump's comment. Seemed like there was a real willingness to condemn without honest intellectual engagement first.

You're welcome to say how it's oversimplified because, as I literally said on page 3, I'm not a progressive and probably not a completely accurate source of what they believe.

Seen tons of people (on various sites, twitter, etc) being fed up with multiculturalism and I'm trying to understand their points, but I think the main issue they dislike is demographic change.

I want multiculturalism for my country, yet it doesn't happen. I would love to see other faces, other lifestyles when I walk around. Nobody visits us, nobody settles in my country.

The foreigners that came to stay have made great laws and change my country for the better. We finally have laws that require customer service to speak to you and not treat you like dirt, we have laws not to beat up women, we have laws that protect children (yes, my country is that regressive that we needed others to force us to make changes)

It was very common in my country for a child abuser to get a slap on the wrist and blame the child for seducing him. Not even kidding, the more sexual deviant you are, the more you would get a pass. We've changed but not much. We need foreign influences, my country was vile and corrupt without them.