Leave only a tiny sample

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7 responses to “Leave only a tiny sample”

1. 

   iknklast

   Sep 12, 2026 5:00 AM

   That’s the same one Dubya was determined to remove protections from. He also had ‘higher priorities’. It pains me to have to continue asking this (and it’s rhetorical, so don’t feel like you have to answer), but WHAT PRIORITIES COULD POSSIBLY BE HIGHER THAN PROTECTING THE WORLD WE ALL DEPEND ON?

   I always read about people settling land that is ’empty’ or developing land that has ‘no inhabitants’. Even if you don’t notice the indigenous people occupying the land, it is not empty. The reason they usually want to settle or develop those lands is precisely because they are NOT empty. If an area supports a lush flora and a diverse fauna, it can support life, and becomes desirable land. If it cannot…well, humans have demonstrated that they are also willing to develop deserts, though polar ice caps are still relatively human free (not quite; there are settlements in Antarctica now, and people living in the frozen tundra).

   A college friend of mine (she was from London, and visited wilderness areas and other areas of the US extensively; she couldn’t figure out why more US citizens didn’t love traveling their own beautiful country) saw all the vast stretches of land, and said we could increase our population by huge numbers of people. She was studying Ecology – I didn’t understand how she couldn’t tell there were good reasons for not settling there. Should we put houses up and down the walls of the Grand Canyon? Suburbs stretching all the way up Pike’s Peak? And what about the heartland? Much of that land is being used for agriculture. Put people there, and we lose our ability to feed the people.

   She was a lovely woman, but she had the same failing as many of the others in the Environmental Science program. She refused to accept the reality that the world was overpopulated. As long as there is a foot of land without someone standing on it, or building a house on it, they seemed unable to recognize the fact.

   Of course, that is another aspect of the left…the concept that even noticing overpopulation is ‘racist’. It isn’t. It’s realist. I am not a eugenicist. I do not propose killing off vast swathes of people (that wouldn’t be great for the environment, either, because you need to do something with the bodies). I do know that there is no environmental problem we will solve while there are eight billion humans in the world, and climbing.
2. 

   twiliter

   Sep 12, 2026 7:01 AM

   There is one (very unpopular) solution that could result in the rewilding of vast amounts of land, possibly regenerating most of the Amazon rainforest, and many other places. I understand that the UK was heavily forested before human intervention. Let’s save what wild lands we have left! It’s not just Big Oil. Destroying nature in the name of capitalism is probably the most disatrous problem of our time, worse than any nuclear war, AI apocalypse or pandemic, and is projected to ruin the entire planet over time; it’s virtually inevitable unless people evolve on a different path than the current one.

   There is data to support this idea, but alas, people want their butter, bacon, and burgers, and so many of them don’t want to think about where this stuff comes from and what the consequences are, much less do anything about it. A gradual move away from animal exploitation is possible, but I think it’s not probable considering human nature and how many people remain ignorant, or don’t give a rat (or are just mean and stupid you know, like Trump voters). I won’t live long enough to see either scenario, but my grandkids might. I’m not just on some soapbox here, like Screechy accused me of a while back. The situation is real.
3. 

   Piglet

   Sep 12, 2026 7:03 AM

   The good thing is that we don’t NEED eugenics or coercion, and we never did. All we need is education and contraception and healthcare, and once we have those things, pretty much everyone chooses to have 0-2 children. You get the odd freak like Elon Musk, but most people want a couple of children who will survive to adulthood, rather than having 6 to get 2.
4. 

   iknklast

   Sep 12, 2026 8:31 AM

   Piglet, that has been my point completely. People can’t hear…they don’t want to hear. They don’t realize that the reason we have big oil, big ag, and so forth is because we have big population.

   And the idea that they are having lots because most of them die? Yes, the infant death rate is high in many of the poorer countries, but the people supporting big population use numbers like that to impress, depress, or whatever. The highest infant mortality rate in the world is 101.3 out of 1000 live births. Of course, not all of them die at birth; the highest country for that stat is Niger (also Nigeria has this rate) at 111-116 per 1000 live births.

   That doesn’t cover those who die after the age of five, of course, but I am pretty sure it still doesn’t get to 67%. The main issue in many of these places, of course, is that without a social safety net their kids have to take care of them in their old age, so spreading out the burden is positive…from one point of view. But it has negatives, as well. Either they will divide whatever property they possess at death among a number of beneficiaries, reducing the amount everyone gets, or they will leave it all to one, hoping that one will do a good job with elder care.

   I suspect that increased education, etc, for women is supplemented in many countries by the fact that there is a social safety net, so they don’t need to rely on adult children to take care of them. Taking care of six or seven requires much more money than raising one (unless you are like a lot of men and split, not bothering to pay child support). That adds another factor into an already complicated equation.
5. 

   Bjarte Foshaug

   Sep 12, 2026 11:07 AM

   The astronomical improbability of being born is often held up as the ultimate stroke of luck. The famous opening paragraph of Richard Dawkins’ Unweaving the Rainbow comes to mind. I would turn the sentiment on its head. There is no possibility of any bright future at this point, which is why my heart sinks into my stomach whenever I hear that someone is expecting children and why I want to vomit whenever people talk about a “fertility crisis”. Those of us who have the terrible misfortune of being born into this dystopian, doomed world can’t save ourselves, but there is no excuse for inflicting the same cruel fate on anyone else.
6. 

   iknklast

   Sep 12, 2026 12:38 PM

   Well said, Bjarte.
7. 

   twiliter

   Sep 12, 2026 1:21 PM

   Agree, Bjarte. My daughter was born in 1988, and in her wisdom has stopped at 2 children, which I think is reasonable, but I worry a little about how the exponential enshittification of the planet will affect them. It’s pretty bad already. I’d like to think Pinker’s optimism is justified, and I try but…