h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanks for an honest summation of your views. You have know given me the justification for utterly opposing Druidry.

Call me selfish, call me egocentric, but as a human I value human life. As far as I'm concerned, a planet without humanity *would* be the (metaphorical) end of the world. These gods and spirits of yours that would be left behind - they don't exist.

So far I have used 'disrespectful' adjectives to describe your faith. Rum. Silly. Barking. I'm now happy to add...dispicable.

...or even Despicable.

Hi Ed!

On one hand, we have those who worship human-centric Gods, who get themselves into dreadful pickles trying to answer questions like "if God is good, why does he allow famine/plague/flood/football?" And you don't approve of them.

On the other hand, we have Math, whose guiding spirits are more even-handed in this respect if no other, but you don't approve of them because they aren't fairy-tale human-centric like the other lot.

Tell me, what *is* the correct response to a species whose numbers qualify them as "vermin" or "plague"; who threaten the very existence of their own habitat?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I've already said I don't know. But not that!

Happy to remain human-centric and unbalanced.

Gods!, the strange and irrational beliefs that some people espouse. It's dangerous stuff like this that has melted the polar ice fields, despite Math's best efforts. According to my Independent newspaper yesterday, the average European used to get by on 90% of what a typical present-day African consumes. Then we discovered oil, and we've lived off it ever since. It's all a bit too real, and a bit too frightening. D'you wanna come hide in this corner with me?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I think Ed is wrong to disassociate the well-being of the planet with the well-being of humanity. The correct response to overpopulation and unsustainable use of resources is to breed less and use less. We can, however, work this out simply by being rational() about it, not by invoking the spirit world, and when/if it is achieved it will come about through hard-headed decisions pertaining to our long-term future.

And these decisions will be made by economists and ecologists, not religous types. I'd say that there isn't much difference with our views of what we want to happen in the future, but there is no need to get spiritual to want it.

P7:

Hi Pedro! But there's no need *not* to get spiritual either. It's high time you and your minority buddies stopped trying to railroad the rest of humanity into your odd way of thinking!

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Get spiritual if you must, P-C, but there is no *need* for it. If we want a long-term future for humanity, then we must be sustainable. If we want a rich, diverse world for our descendants, then our population must tumble dramatically (5% of present pop. sounds good to me). This is simply common sense.

OK, if you need a hobby though....

>>I think Ed is wrong to disassociate the well-being of the planet with the well-being of humanity.

I don't. They are related in plain old non-spiritual ways.

If you start with Druidic mumbo-jumbo, with its fantasies of a non-existent rural Celtic golden age, you will come up with unworkable solutions such as a rapid population decline to 5% of current. After all - Saving The Planet is more important than saving humanity.

If you start with the premise that we must start to ensure that our planet will continue to support humanity...now we can talk sensibly. But nobody is going to listen if we start by proposing some sort of mystical Gaia.

(I do wish folk would stop mis-using Lovelock)

Surely saving the planet is *the same as* saving humanity?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Not according to Math, who says that our disappearance wouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things. I beg to differ, egocentric me.

I mean...in a way he's right. But if we really want to be nihilistic, we might as well launch the nukes.

5% in 200 years? How? Without unnacceptable measures and unachievable technology? Eg how will the far fewer active people continue to support the far larger aged population? Or do we get killed off? Or what?

So if we can't have the planet, no-one can? Yes, I know we're all being fairly light-hearted here, but your human-centric perspective gives rise to comments as above. Math's beliefs inform his thoughts, feelings and actions, and I can't help feeling that his approach is (pragmatically) superior to yours in this respect.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

How exactly are you plannig on reducing the world's population to 5% of what it is now? Apart from killing or sterilising larger numbers of people, the only way I can think is to restrict parents from having more than one child. So what about the people who want large families, and can look after more than one child? Will the government, in the guise/instigation of religion, *force* people to only have one child, through punishments like fines or jail? Does this sound uncomfortably like a totalitarian government to anyone? This is an example of why *any* religion is dangerous, even seemingly peaceful ones like druidry (et al) if (and when) the practitioners start to *know* that their way is the *only* way.

Here's an alternative for you, how about using our hard-earned technology and intelligence to find another planet to inhabit?

I am totally against the ruin of this planet, and unknown numbers of species, in the name of human development, but equally, I think it's abhorent that anyone could suggest that it wouldn't be such a bad thing if humanity ceased entirely.

<>

OK. A population of 300m people (which was what it was around 2,000 years ago, with all the cultural diversity and geniuses needed to be perfectly interesting) would *not* be a rapid process. It would probably take a few hundred years, more than 200, but I'm not doing the sums. Given that, in Europe, as people (well, women, probably) get wealthier, they tend to have less children, it seems eminently plausible to me that this could happen with benign policies promoting it. Remember, an average of 1.9 children per woman and the population will plummet in a timescale of centuries, if not decades. No need for Chinese-style family planning. I can't see any reason why this level of population is not sustainable indefinitely, AND there would all the variety etc. that makes the 21st century so interesting.

Sorry, my prev post requires a coupla things to happen.
Infant mortality must be very low globally, like today in the West, for obvious reasons. And people throughout the world must have a higher standard of living than they do at the moment, so they don't rely on children for economic reasons.

PC - I forgot - you don't do irony. I'm far from proposing pressing the red button.

>>I can't help feeling that his approach is (pragmatically) superior to yours in this respect.

Math may well be a thoroughly decent, well meaning person. But he has espoused a view which *if taken to its conclusion* is utterly wrongheaded. He may well be decent enough not to follow through, but to abandon that part of his belief, leaving himself with the good bits. Faith gets in the way of such pragmatism.

Some people who follow faiths are less decent. Anti-human-centric views can also lead to nonsense such as disinterring guinea pig farmers' grannies.

U666:

In the context of this discussion, they *can't* look after more than one child; no-one can. This is not a happy scenario, but it's closer to pragmatic reality than it's ever been before. In extremis, 'human rights' must give way to human survival, wouldn't you say?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I doubt the population will be reduced to anything like 5% without a major disaster.

OK, saying the average is 1.9 kids per couple, that's only .1 per cent below the "sustainability" whatsit. And that's *only* in the west, I'd guess.

It'd take centuries even if the entire world had an average of 1.9 kids per 2 people, and taking divorce rates, not to mention those people who don't have a "1.9 kids, a dog and a station wagon in the suburbs" kind of life, that's *not* going to happen. People aren't a mathematical equation, people pretty much do what they want and screw around with any kind of 'rational' ideals about life.

And who's to say that the current trend towards having fewer kids is going to last even another decade, let alone centuries? Just look at the changes in lifestyle and family life over the last 50 years.

The *only* way we will be able to reduce pop. numbers is to have a regulatory system, ie, government.

Or, if it did happen to happen *just like that*, without any outside intervention into people's lives, then why does religion have anything to do with it?

<>

No, but why trample over human rights in the hopes that your solution (which I think is impracticable and highly unlikely to work) is the *only* one.

It's far more likely to cause political and social problems.

<>

Er, no, that's wrong. The population in Western Europe is falling at the moment, mainly because women are choosing, for economic reasons, to have fewer children. I don't think that it's a big stretch to expect women on other continents to make the same kind of decisions *based on similar economic circumstances*.

As for individuals who want more children, who cares? It's the average that counts. Anyway, something like only having family allowance for a woman's first two children would be a disincentive to having more kids than that, and is hardly draconian.