Reply To: A Big Prick in the Balloon of the Big Bang

[emmetb]

The argument put forth in the vid sounds logical

Sure but it is utter bullocks of course. In fact I’m so sick of people swallowing that populist b*&^^%$t. There they sit in the audience, nodding their heads in surprised concurrence to find out that so much of this internal struggle between their sefish greed and their christian duty that they were experiencing was actually wholy unnescesary! How convenient: mass immigration can never solve our problems!

Well, the guy is right about that fact; where he takes the argument from there is just self-serving retorics. And his presentation technique is not even original:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html

In the antropocene the main evolutionary pressure will be on the level of social systems, not the individual. It will be about the ability of societies to channel human potential into doing the things nescesary for our survival while avoiding wasteful conflict and, yes, also in managing the population pressure better. In the real world, there are roughly 3 possible outcomes to consider:
1. we will innovate ourselves out of this mess in some, as yet unforseen, way;
2. we slowly give up more and more of our dignity in other, as yet unforeseen, ways;
3. we cancel the playingfield with an all-out thermonuclear war.
Personally I would place my betting money somewhere halfway between 1 and 2, but that’s partly because i don’t expect to be around to collect my winnings when the dust settles on option 3.

Oh, and here’s a thought: if mass immigration won’t work why not have a lottery and mix a significant part of these gumballs. We might call that “mass alternation”. It would definitely help, because a healthy dosis of setbacks builds character, resourcefulness and hardens the individual whereas living inside a cocoon where populists tell you what you so desperately want to hear spells disaster. If we keep on allowing populists like that to spread their venomous ideas we are rotting the society from the inside out as we slowly turn people into complacent fools. We don’t need complacent fools! We need decent, hardworking folk, men and women that understand what is at stake and are willing to bring the sacrifices necessary to win a place for their children to carry on. Now if you ban immigration these people will stop coming altogether.

Ask not what your society can do for you, ask why you, as a mere individual, have earned the godforsaken right to burn your societies’ precious resources.

I know: I wouldn’t make it very far as a politician 🙂