Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t JoNova, Marc Morano – Climate philosopher Travis Rieder has been touring the country, trying to persuade university students not to have kids – and promoting ideas for restricting childbirth, including tax penalties against people who decide to have a child.
Should We Be Having Kids In The Age Of Climate Change?
Standing before several dozen students in a college classroom, Travis Rieder tries to convince them not to have children. Or at least not too many.
He’s at James Madison University in southwest Virginia to talk about a “small-family ethic” — to question the assumptions of a society that sees having children as good, throws parties for expecting parents, and in which parents then pressure their kids to “give them grandchildren.”
Why question such assumptions? The prospect of climate catastrophe.
…
Rieder and his Georgetown collaborators have a proposal, and the first thing they stress is that it’s not like China’s abusive one-child policy. It aims to persuade people to choose fewer children with a strategy that boils down to carrots for the poor, sticks for the rich.
Ethically, Rieder says poor nations get some slack because they’re still developing, and because their per capita emissions are a sliver of the developed world’s. Plus, it just doesn’t look good for rich, Western nations to tell people in poor ones not to have kids. He suggests things like paying poor women to refill their birth control and — something that’s had proven success — widespread media campaigns.
In the 1970s and ’80s, a wave of educational soap operas in Latin America, Asia and Africa wove family planning into their plot lines. Some countries did this when they faced economic crisis. The shows are credited with actually changing people’s opinions about family size.
For the sticks part of the plan, Rieder proposes that richer nations do away with tax breaks for having children and actually penalize new parents. He says the penalty should be progressive, based on income, and could increase with each additional child.
Think of it like a carbon tax, on kids. He knows that sounds crazy.
…
Read more: http://www.npr.org/2016/08/18/479349760/should-we-be-having-kids-in-the-age-of-climate-change
There is no evidence the world faces a climate apocalypse. All such claims are based on broken climate models which have never demonstrated predictive skill.
But people who act on Rieder’s well meaning but in my opinion scientifically unsound advice may be opening themselves to a lifetime of misery.
The West is full of unhappy couples who waited too long to have a family, thanks to the financial and social pressures of modern life. An entire industry has arisen to try to help desperate couples have a child, many of whom need medical assistance because they are too old to conceive naturally. Adding to the financial and social pressures prospective parents face will exacerbate this tragedy.
When his prophesied doomsday passes uneventfully, Rieder may have the integrity to do what James Lovelock did, and apologise for being wrong. But by then, for most people who listened to and acted upon Rieder’s advice not to have children, it will be too late to undo the harm.
Should we not also end immigratation to the USA from low carbon footprint economies??
You bring up a great point, and honestly, those countries should promote the restriction of child births more so than the first world nations. Especially considering that those countries are essentially being supported by the first world nations almost exclusively.
It’s been a while since I have looked into it, but the US feeds like half of the planet right now, and a great percentage of that is food that is literally given away for free. The same people pushing climate change have set this monstrosity up. They are never held accountable for obvious reasons.
No we don’t feed “like half of the planet” we do what we can. We can look it up together.
Nope, we aren’t feeding half the planet. Probably not even 5% after accounting for imports. We are a net exporter of grains but because of ethanol, far less than we should. And we import higher value fruits and veggies
Half, why didn’t you just look it up and enlighten us. Your post is contrarian and contributes nothing.
According to a study by McGill and the U of MN the U.S. produces enough food to feed 10 Billion people. That is more than the world population you can look that up. We provide food to many countries. countries with starving populations due to poverty typically brought on by social collectivist thinking like Travis Rieder’s who believe the solution to hunger is the same as his second (actually umptheenth?) coming of Climate Change, just reduce the number of people.
What a great planet this would be if to live on if only we could eliminate the living. Rieder is a world class fool.
In 2000, over 90% of the U.S. corn crop went to feed people and livestock, many in undeveloped countries, with less than 5% used to produce ethanol. In 2013, however, 40% went to produce ethanol, 45% was used to feed livestock, and only 15% was used for food and beverage
Paul
Exactly my thoughts, the Administration wants us to reduce our carbon footprint (while his the the largest of anyone in the world with frivolous travel), meanwhile they are importing huge amounts of people with low carbon footprints and subsidizing the increase of their footprint. Of course while they multiply and other groups are constrained the goal of fundamentally changing the country is achieved (that means voting for Democrats)
Since carbon footprints are measured on a per person basis, shouldn’t we have more kids to justify our carbon footprint?
I prefer a HEAVY tax on “Climate Philosophers”
People like this nutter should not be given additional ink or pixels, by us or ANYONE. Let their rants die an immediate natural death before their nihilistic worldview infects anyone else.
Can’t say regarding a climate philosopher but Mel Brooks was a stand-up philosopher
Just what the hell IS a ” Climate Philosopher ” ??
It’s not something observable or capable of being experimented with, so it isn’t science.
So I suppose you can say anything you want, about anything at all, and Call it “philosophy.
Mental mastication.
Does it pass the “put up or shut up test” ?
Another George Mason wizard with a pulpit to propagandize a bunch of impressionable students, who have yet to experience much of life.
His story seems to be more one of eugenics if you ask me (don’t ask me).
Disguising it as “climate philosophy ” seems as good a subterfuge as any.
G
Pol Pot is Pol Pot by any other name…”climate philosopher” It’s similar to the “political philosophy” of Paul Ehrlich and Joe Stalin “to make an omelette you’ve got to break a few eggs”
He is actually a Johns Hopkins wizard, his research interests tend to center on issues in procreative ethics and climate change ethics, with a particular focus on the intersection of the two – that is, on the question of responsible procreation in the era of climate change. He seems as qualified as anybody else in this new field – of course, he invented the field; it no longer called eugenics.
What is a “climate philosopher,” you ask? Mel Brooks had an opinion to offer regarding philosophers:
[from “History of the World: Part I]
Dole Office Clerk [Bea Arthur]: Occupation?
Comicus [Mel Brooks]: Stand-up philosopher.
Dole Office Clerk: What?
Comicus: Stand-up philosopher. I coalesce the vapors of human experience into a viable and meaningful comprehension.
Dole Office Clerk: Oh, a *bullsh#t* artist!
Comicus: *Grumble*…
Dole Office Clerk: Did you bullshi# last week?
Comicus: No.
Dole Office Clerk: Did you *try* to bullshi# last week?
Comicus: Yes!
The difference being, of course, a CLIMATE philosopher NEVER stops bullshi#ing.
Now how in the heck did I get George Mason out of James Madison. My short term memory is getting shorter apparently.
My apologies to anyone who was offended, and also to those who did not feel offended by my misteak.
But I still believe I spelled eugenics correctly.
G
I think a climate philosopher is someone who sets about to prove the adage that talk is cheap.
george e. smith,
I think you mean, Mental onanation. >:)
mental mastication.
I was thinking of a different m word, that has nothing to do with chewing.
“Climate philosopher”. Finally, a name for “climate scientists” that more closely approximates their skill set. It doesn’t change the fact that he is a nutbar, but it is at least a more honest self-identification.
How about a tax on ‘climate philosophers’. All the carpet-baggers that jump onto the easy grants for no actual intellectual effort bandwagon should be made to ‘eat their own dog food’.
Starting with this guy at about 90% at least.
How about a tax on these twatty little chin-beards. There is a robust correlation between the number of these beards and global warming.
There is also a high correlation with stupid pseudo-scientific claims made by people with twatty chin-beards.
Absolutely. By their beards shall ye know them.
http://vps.templar.co.uk/Cartoons%20and%20Politics/Beards.png
What could happen is, the message is heard and followed by most of the next generation and birth rates plummet. The baby boomer generation begins to decline in numbers but die off because of a lack of affordable health support. As the next generation ages, social security is eliminated because there are no more younger workers to continue funding. Everyone continues working until the day they die and the only populated county that remains is North Korea
Sounds like Italy today.
Sounds like every white nation these days.
So he talks to collages and other forums for intelligent folks about restricting THEIR reproduction. Wonder how that will work out in the long run?
Italy is there today. More people draw from the state than contribute in taxes. Most other white European countries are not far behind. Can see similar happening in Australia in about 30 years. I am glad I will be gone!
This is the very reason that China removed their one child policy earlier this year. They are headed towards a population crash in less than 20 years, and it is already too late to reverse it.
Unbelievable! There is already a falling birthrate in Western countries. Ever watched news documentaries from Asian and African countries? Notice the children? And those two areas hold almost a third of the world population. Try telling them to cut down.
There is an easy way to lower their birthrate: give them cheap fossil fuel generated electricity or cheap nuclear generated electricity. But that is even more abhorrent to the greens. And, besides, they are too poor so there is no money to be had shaming them and they have to work too hard just to survive to the next day so they won’t listen to this claptrap.
Good luck with that
Eugenics in another guise.
http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/
I note Holdren has two children and five grandchildren. Which means that someone in his family has already violated Holdren’s own maximum of two children per family. But in truth such restrictions are always for other people; Holdren, as part of the self-anointed intellectual elite who have the deity-given responsibility to save the world from us incapable, irresponsible morons, is of course exempt from his own prescriptions. If he really believed all that malthusian nonsense he would have removed himself the planet long ago. Too bad for all of us that he didn’t have the courage of his convictions.
I don’t think “eugenics” is the right word describing this suicidal policy. It is rather its reverse ‘malgenics’, that is the poor in development countries are allowed to multiply, while his own ethinicity should diminish. A racially loaded tone on we can be heard. ‘We’ means white Americans or white Westerners, under the disguise of “rich people”.
Two issues are often combined: willingness to reduce birth rate (among whites) in Western countries, and willingness to increase net immigration from poor non-Western countries based on, among other reasons, the low fertility rate in West which is causing some risk of population decline.
Seldom people think how immigration increases consumption just like overall fertility rate, and how Western fertility would drop if there wasn’t immigration to keep it up. So do we want fertility rate to drop OR do we want immigration? Some people want immigration to PREVENT fertility rate from dropping much below 2.
“In developed countries sub-replacement fertility is any rate below approximately 2.1 children born per woman, but the threshold can be as high as 3.4 in some developing countries because of higher mortality rates. Taken globally, the total fertility rate at replacement was 2.33 children per woman in 2003.”
He is taking a lot of responsibility on his shoulders!
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
So, only rich people in the West allowed to have children !!!
Is this not a prime example of Hate Speech?
No, because he wasn’t ideologically emphasizing poor should not have children.
It is a prime example of self hate.
Only if you are trapped in a quicksand bog, with nothing credible to get a hold of.
g
Since only the rich will have access to abundant energy in his brave new world, I guess it makes sense to restrict having children to them as well.
You have to think about the children, after all.
As Hans Rosling has shown, the hest way to reduce family size is to promote normal economic growth and development:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w
This is not achieved by sabotaging a country’s electricity supply and economy based on superstitious fantasies about angry sky gods.
Rieder is on the wrong side, against human advancement and on the side of regressive and harmful prejudice. That is, he’s a typical climate elitist.
While I agree with the gist of Rosling’s presentation, I object to his using of nonlinear graphs in order to fit linear curves to try and demonstrate his point. His graph around 6:00 is a log-scale at the bottom yet uses curves with areas below to mislead visually. His graphs around 11:00 also uses a log scale at the bottom and a blatantly adjusted y-axis to give a highly manipulated linear trend. Although it doesn’t affect his conclusions, this type of graph manipulation is the same used by warmists to visually confound people who don’t know how to read graphs and to manipulate their opinions. For this reason alone, I can’t recommend or share this video with others.
The message of the video is an important antedote to lazy racist thinking that is very persistent. A surprisingly high proportion of even professional people in Europe and the US see the world as an island of western civilisation and wealth surrounded by a sea of impoverished grass-skirted savages. It’s a reassuring myth but that world is gone.
The government’s of the west are moving people enmass . They aren’t assimilating and all the problems of where ever they come from are coming with them. In some cases they have no intention whatsoever of assimilating. They are intent on transforming our culture, values, and way of life into the hell hole from which they came. That’s what I object to.
And that is the primary difference that the current western government’s are missing. The value that they place highest value on are in direct opposition to the ones in the west. Saving the soul in their mantra is more important than the well being of human life. While the US can turn the lights on, provide infrastructure, and do other things, in the eyes of the religious whacks that’s evil. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness applies only to a select few. Much like the people in climate change. The rest are blades of grass to cushion their feet upon which they stand. The philosophy of ” if it’s good, me first”, ” if it’s bad, you first”.
Rieder could be a closet islamic supremacist. The consequence of falling birth rate in the native white population in Britain is that, in that country the most popular name for a baby boy is now Mohammed.
Actually, ptolemy, that’s a bit of a crock. There are a lot of Muslims over here, but the real reason why Mohammed is the most popular name is that it’s the name of virtually every firstborn son of a Muslim family.
It’s a bit like the oft-quoted fact that most of the alcoholics in Glasgow have names that begin with M…
And over 50% of deaths occur in hospitals, so close the hospitals we’ll all live longer!
But, are you not proving the point?
Well the ONLY useful metric is which population faction is growing at the fastest percentage rate. Doesn’t matter whether the name is Singh or Jones.
g
there’s nothing wrong with Ptolemy2’s logic – he could have concluded with “the consequence is a higher ratio of muslims” – but he substituted a symptom instead – “more boys named Mohammed” – he could use a single name to represent the growth of the Muslim population due to the prevalence of that name among Muslims (your point) – you didn’t manage contradict him – instead you provided support
in the US – the increased hispanic population couldn’t be represented by a single name like that – so efforts to be clever required something else – such as the number of spanish-speakers
Well actually jeyon, I was responding to Uncle Gus.
I never gave a thought to ptolemy2’s post.
I think you will find my post under Uncle Gus; not ptolemy2.
g
Geo E Smith,
LOL!!! So was I.
What is so interesting and extraordinary about this is the sense of ‘we’. Its common to almost all climatist thinking and preaching. It signals a denial or wilful ignorance of who is doing the thing that has to be limited.
You will find all over the place statements to the effect that ‘we’ – Holland, Britain, San Fransisco, Rhode Island, should reduce our carbon emissions to ‘tackle climate change’. What is always missing is any account of who is doing the emitting. Hint, its not Rhode Island. And yet you will find activists urging Britain or Holland to reduce their emissions with no acknowledgment of what role this can play in global emission reduction. Namely, none.
When you point this out, the reply is always along the lines of, we all have to do our bit. Or, everyone could say that and then nothing would be done.
Well no. Those who are emitting the most, and whose emissions are rising fastest, namely China and India and the developing world in general, they are the ones who should be targeted and demanded to reduce. Britain, for instance, which is being urged to reduce its emissions by 80% or so by activists, does under 2% of global emissions. Shut up and go to China, and stop off at India on the way.
That is, if you do really want to reduce global emissions.
Now, move on to population. ‘We’, which seems to mean the US, are being requested to reduce birth rates. Is US population growth from births a main cause of global population growth? Certainly not. Once again, if global population growth is the problem, the place to start restraining births is the developing world. Do all the restraining you like in the US, you are not going to make a dent in it because the US is too small a percentage of both the world population and the growth.
The prevalence of this mode of thinking leads one to a quite fundamental point. The real aim of activists is not to achieve what they propose. In fact, were the measures they propose to be enacted, they would be dismayed. The reason is that the use of the measures is solely to organise the movement and public opinion. For that reason it is best to choose something which cannot and will not be done.
So, when debating the UK Climate Change Act, the nearer and the more draconian the targets the better. If possible, make it a requirement for complete elimination of all emissions by some impossibly close date. In population, demand no second children. And so on.
None of these things will happen, and if they did they would have zero effect on the supposed global problem but this is much better than if one picked measures which could be implemented and which would have an effect. Far better to demand that all energy be generated from the sun and wind than to propose realistic schemes of any sort. Because you do not want the responsibility for implementing policy. You do not want to get things done and then have people say they are not working. What you want is to get people behind your party, so you can get power and office.
When you may or may not implement these or other measures.
This is how we get to an elected form of Pol Pot. Demand idiotic proposals which no-one has either idea or intention of executing, and which, if they did, would not affect the supposed problem. But which are great emotional standards we can carry down the street during elections and demonstrations.
+97, Michel
There are enough REAL problems on earth that need attention. Climate is NOT one of them. You don’t actually have to live in a place that is under water every summer, after the rain, or a place that has to dig itself out of snow drifts every winter. There are choices.
Frankly the amount of time and money and effort wasted on something so inconsequential as climate, is something we should all be embarrassed by.
And all the effort to move so-called “climate sensitivity” by +/- 0.1 is just laughably useless exercise.
G
Sounds like the wisdom one might expect to get from the south end of a northbound horse. The net effect of convincing college students to have fewer children that they would most likely send to college is that in about 30 years we have fewer college graduates.
@DanNCFla
Not so. The colleges will just lower their entrance and graduation requirements. The university from where I recently retired from teaching is currently reducing the academic requirements for an Engineering degree by 4.5 classes. And the reduction will mostly come out of science and technology courses.
You can draw your own conclusions about the quality of college graduates in that future.
Actually, come to think of it, maybe people who believe in Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming really shouldn’t breed…for all our sakes.
I see this guy as Nature’s way of reducing the prevalence of stupidity in the population. Darwin in action!
Ironic isn’t it. CAGW say skeptics don’t believe in evolution.
CAGW wants to throw themselves and everybody else over the cliff, I’m not going with them. I see a very different future.
If only his parents had been as clever and considerate as him …..
well put 🙂
It’s so much warmed over Paul Ehrlich philosophy.
Which was warmed over Malthusian philosophy – and just as incorrect
Climate Change, the gift that keeps on taking
In 1985 Holdren predicted a billion deaths from climate-related famine by the end of this decade. Since then, famine has plummeted and billions have longer life expectancy thanks to fossil fuel-powered industrialization and agriculture.
So…. when he’s old, he doesn’t want a younger next generation to be working to provide his pension, then?
He’s progressive so he doesn’t need people to provide his pension, he has the government and, as we know, governments have as much money as they want to spend
We already have a heavy tax on children. If you aren’t rich and both parents have to work to put food on the table, you probably need daycare. Where I live, daycare is ruinously expensive.
“Where I live, daycare is ruinously expensive.”
Trump is going to let you deduct that cost from your taxes.
Welfare mothers should be trained and tasked to providing child care out of local churches and community centers.
Welfare mothers should have their tubs tied so as not to burden the rest of us with any additional children.
Yeah, tubes not tubs. Was eating pancakes with real maple syrup and not paying attention.
It’s called Kindergarten; soon to be pre-kindergarten so they can start brainwashing your brats sooner.
g
This where Leftists show their true moral depravity and anti-human agenda behind the CAGW scam.
As Ottmar Edenhofer of the IPCC once said, “We redistribute the world’s wealth de facto through climate change policy”… Christiana Figueres, another IPCC official said, “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting for ourselves the task of intentionally, within a difined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least the last 150 years.”
Leftists HATE the idea of inalienable rights where free men can live their lives as they see fit and and have the right to freely interact with other free men to achieve mutually beneficial agreements , without the use of force or coercion, which is the true definition of capitalism..
Leftists also HATE the concept of individual property rights where individuals are free to create wealth and have the right to own the fruits of their ideas and labor and to do whatever they like with it,
Leftists’ CAGW agenda was to create a climate of fear to extort $trillions from taxpayers and to create CAGW policies where central governments controlled every aspect of our lives: how many kids we can have, what cars we can drive, what kinds of energy we can use, where we can live, how much money we can keep, what we can eat, what energy taxes would be, etc.
Leftists will ultimately fail miserably because once this stupid CAGW scam implodes under the weight of empirical evidence (which has ALREADY disconfirmed the CAGW hypothesis) the blowback against Leftists will be profound.
Leftism is a despicable construct based on governments initiating force and coercion against free men to extract as much power, control and money as possible from the governed.
No thanks…
The demonic influence of Marx, Darwin & etc. will not die, it seems, eternal vigilance is necessary. Without God anything is possible.
Oh dear!
everything is permitted. Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche.
Darwin has nothing to do with Marxism, progressives, socialism, or any political -ism. Darwin developed Evolutionary Theory, and that’s it.
Evolutionary Theory has no moral or ethical content.
Likewise, god has nothing to do with morality because blindly following orders — even supposedly divine orders — can never be moral. Morals are about choice of behaviors. Choice requires conscious thought. For that reason, blind obedience can never, ever, be moral behavior, even if that behavior is acceptable.
If someone follows biblical or koranic commandments after thinking about them and deciding they are right, then they are following those commandments after their own personal decision and on their own personal authority, not god’s. Morals always come back to human choices. To suppose morals come from obedience to divine orders is to be in a state of delusion, or perhaps in a state of deep ignorance.
Pat Frank,
“Likewise, god has nothing to do with morality because blindly following orders — even supposedly divine orders — can never be moral.”
It seems kinda obvious to me, that people don’t have to obey God, real or not . . I mean, surely you noticed the affair in the Garden? . . Etc. etc. etc ?
And you might imagine that those who believe in God are blindly following orders, but that’s you imaging things, not believers doing things . . (and the blindly following thing is actually part of your “religion”, right?)
I suggest you rethink the whole God thing, without the presumption that He does not exist. Unless you do, I see no way for you to relate to “believers” rationally . . I was a non-believer most of my life, and didn’t realize just how . . thin the logics of atheism (including Evolution) are . . till I no longer assumed they were necessarily so, so to speak.
PS~
Please consider this Law; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Can one blindly obey such a Law? . . Is it even possible?
John,
As always, you could not possibly be more wrong.
Why should anyone rethink the God thing? There is no evidence in support of the God hypothesis, nor really is there any against it. It’s completely unscientific, because it’s not possible to test the hypothesis and show it false. Neither is there any actual evidence in its favor.
The whole point is indeed to take it on faith, ie blindly. If God were logical or demonstrable scientifically, then there’d be no need for faith. ‘Without blind faith, belief in God has no redemptive value.
As Luther said, “I must tear the eyes out of my reason, in order to be a Christian.” As an Early Church Father said, “I believe precisely because it is absurd.”
The Scholastic philosophers were barking up the wrong tree in attempting logical proofs of God’s existence. It took later Protestant theologians to recognize the truth that Christianity requires a God Who hides Himself. By faith alone are you saved, not by works. So says the Bible. The Church might differ.
Darwin was a scientist, who got much right about the natural world. To the great advancement of human knowledge and understanding.
Marx was a philosopher, who got it all wrong about everything. Disastrously.
If you follow ‘Love thy neighbor’ because god says you should, John Knight, then your behavior is not moral; merely law-abiding. If you follow it because you’ve decided it’s a good idea, then you are being moral, but on your own authority, not on god’s.
That is the point of my prior post. I regret you missed it. Morality originates in humans, not in god.
Pat,
Besides which, if humans emulated God, we would behave as evilly as we wanna be.
We’d practice genocide on a massive scale, let babies be born just to suffer miserably every day of their short lives, let other animals be eaten alive from withing and deny heaven to the vast majority of people.
We learn in the OT, Isaiah 45:7 that “God created evil”, yet in the NT, 1 John 4:8 that “God is love”. Go figure.
The commandments of which God are you going to follow?
Anyone who lumps Darwin with Marx is not being fair or objective or accurate. Darwin didn’t invent anything, he merely sought to describe the actual functioning of nature. And he made a good job of it. He correctly described selection as a process for speciation and diversity. His hypotheses pointed to an objective and absolute truth that was ultimately confirmed by our understanding of the role of DNA in sexual reproduction. That evolution occurs is not a fault, and no one save for God (if you think He’s the architect of our existence) Gaia/Mother Nature can be blamed. Evolution is just nature’s way, the way we reproduce by sexual reproduction and an occasional imperfect gene replication. If that reality offends you, maybe you can take some small solace in considering that no human being came from a monkey, and that we all came only from our two parents. Perhaps you could consider the inspiration in an ancestry tree that relates all of us to each other, to all life on this planet, an idea more awesome and powerful than any religious dogma or creation mythology as far as I’m concerned. As for Karl Marx, he FALSELY claimed to understand human nature and human politics, FALSLY claimed to have invented a better way to organize society, that his was a scientific endeavor, FALSLY implied that “we” could collectively direct lives and perfect humans for the betterment of “society.” Marx was reckless and filled with hubris common among self-hating misanthropists who are irrationally wed to their own ideas without evidence. Marx could no more define the outcome of socialism than Kevin Trenberth can define “sustainability.” Marx gave us Stalin and Mao’s cultural revolution and Pol Pot, and Venezuelan suffering today. Among Marx’s progeny, we have Communists, Stalinists, Maoists, Lysenkoists, Progressives, Eugenicists, and other misanthropes and alleged environmentalists, from among which come some of the most infamously wrong predictions in the scientific record.
Shawn Marshall– One’s belief or disbelief in God is not a prerequisite to the establishment of morals and ethics.
Our natural and inalienable human rights exist because of the very nature of man.
As sentient beings, human existence depends on our ability to think rationally, logically and creatively as our existence doesn’t depend on pure animal instincts that are hard-wired into our DNA, but rather through human action derived from conscious thought and utilizing we’ve been taught.
Accordingly, whatever individuals create and produce with their minds, individuals have the sole right of its ownership and are free to use that property however they like for their best interest. No man, or entity of man, has the right to initiate force or coercion against the life, liberty and property of others.
Eventually complex communities, societies, city-states and sovereign nations evolve with courts and governments organized for the sole purpose of protecting, defending and maximizing human’s individual inalienable rights.
The reason Socialism in all its forms (Fascism, crony crapitalism, Progressivism, Democracy, Theocracies, Kleptocracies, etc.) fail is that they are all based entirely on the immoral premise of the initiation of force or coercion against individuals without their consent, backed by the barrel of a gun…
All these anti-human constructs will eventually fail are because they are the moral and ethical antithesis of man’s nature, and they all fail to respect, defend and protect the inalienable rights of individuals, which is essential for man’s very survival and man’s ability to thrive.
Communists are socialists with a monopoly on guns.
Pat rank,
“If you follow ‘Love thy neighbor’ because god says you should, John Knight, then your behavior is not moral; merely law-abiding. If you follow it because you’ve decided it’s a good idea, then you are being moral, but on your own authority, not on god’s. ”
I don’t do blind faith in human authority . . you’re going to need more than simple declarations to convince me you even realize what morality means, let alone that you are master of what is and is not moral. Seriously, the lack of even an “it seems to me” in there somewhere, renders your head waaay to big for me to compete with ; )
Attempting to obey; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, cannot be a moral act, because . . ?
Is attempting to stay within the posted speed limit also automatically not a moral action, simply because it is posted? Please explain with a bit of depth . .
Ain’t nothin’ new under the sun ….
~ Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.
And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face…
Gabro has attempted the same silly game before with me . . He believes, apparently because some person told him so, that “The whole point is indeed to take it on faith, ie blindly.” . . but he never did support that idea with anything but repetition . .
You get into your car, you insert a key and turn it, because you have faith that this action will cause the car motor to become very active, and be able to propel the car, and you, about. It’s not blind faith, though.
The notion of blind faith is just some crap some zealous anti-theists made up so they could trick gullible people into believing something that doesn’t make any sense, but would cause them to be hostile to people who believe things they don’t, as far as I can tell. Sorta like social justice warriors/black lives matter and such . ..
And check out this megalomania act;
” There is no evidence in support of the God hypothesis …”
This mega actually believes he knows what every single person that ever lived has observed . . He really believes, as far as I can determine, that if he is unaware of or rejects evidence, it doesn’t even exist, because he is unaware of or rejects it . .
The rest of us? Throughout history? Including many famous scientists? Just fools who believe things for no reason . . or agree with Gabro ; )
John Knight, you’re arguing things I have not maintained. My point is this: obedience is not morality. Do you have trouble with that concept?
Doesn’t moral behavior require thought and personal choice? If you disagree then we have no grounds for conversation.
Mickey Reno, really well said.
Pat,
“John Knight, you’re arguing things I have not maintained.”
Not true, I say.
“My point is this: obedience is not morality. Do you have trouble with that concept?”
Had you said * obedience is not necessarily morality* I’d agree wholeheartedly, but you didn’t. You said it can’t be moral to obey.
I say, that depends on who and what you obey. I asked about posted speed limits, and surmise you get that point . .
To expound on what I think is “missing” from your broad-brush approach to the matter, I see it as ignoring the effects one’s obedience might have on others. Socrates comes to mind . . and if your child saw you disobey the law for instance, there arise complexities that I think you would grant change the nature of the matter at hand . . And, when it comes to a Creator God, I have this crazy notion that He counts too . . and I have a moral responsibility to obey Him, much as a child does, to some extent, to obey their human parents.
I owe Him everything, He does not owe me anything. On what “moral” grounds can I disobey; Though shalt love thy neighbor as thyself? Those are His children too, ya see.
John, if you obey a speed limit slavishly, it’s not a moral action even if it has good outcomes.
But I surmise you obey the speed limit because you judge it’s a good and reasonable law.
Would you agree that obeying an immoral law is, well, immoral? Would you choose to disobey a truly immoral law? For example, would you oppose a law requiring abortions after two children?
If your answer is yes, then you implicitly agree that obedience to the law does not define morality, and that you follow speed limit laws by moral choice rather than by strict obedience. That makes my point: morality resides in the choice, not the action.
Further recall that obedience to the law was disallowed as a defense to Nazi camp guards.
As regards children, as you know they are not morally competent. For them, rote obedience is categorically different from that of adults.
We apparently have a different concept of god’s obligations, John. If god created you, he owes you everything. To create into need and danger and then abandon is the height of immorality.
Mr. Frank,
“John, if you obey a speed limit slavishly, it’s not a moral action even if it has good outcomes.”
Slavishly? Please . . just obey, not slavishly obey, is what I asked about. Stacking the deck rhetorically is not helpful to honest discourse, I feel.
“But I surmise you obey the speed limit because you judge it’s a good and reasonable law.”
I meant you, particularly in situations where one has no way of determining whether the posted limit is a good and reasonable one (“simply because it’s posted”). I suggest that you have no logical grounds for declaring that can’t be a moral action . . and suggest it likely has been (non-slavishly) on your part at times. So too, I suggest, a person might (non-slavishly) make an effort to comply with “love thy neighbor as thyself”, and that be a moral act on that person’s part.
“Would you agree that obeying an immoral law is, well, immoral?”
Sure, but you’re leaving out the *which you see as (immoral)* aspect, which to my mind vastly oversimplifies the situation we, as humans, are actually in . . In dealing with others, things very often become difficult to simplify to a clear cut; this is moral/this in not moral sort of level, I’m sure you would agree.
Now, you apparently have no compelling reason(s) to believe God exists, but I am not you, and I have witnessed things which don’t leave me able to rationally deny He does exist. So, for me, obeying that law I am convinced He “posted”, becomes much like obeying a speed limit sign, which you (presumably) believe was posted by a competent authority, and so can be a moral act to obey (and indeed an immoral act to disobey).
“As regards children, as you know they are not morally competent. For them, rote obedience is categorically different from that of adults.”
(obedience is obedience, sir . . the “rote” part is more rhetorical stacking of the deck, it seems to me.)
We, compared to Someone who makes galaxies, are not even as children are to adult humans, it seems clear to me . . and one would think someone as intelligent as you obviously are, would recognized that, frankly.
“We apparently have a different concept of god’s obligations, John. If god created you, he owes you everything. To create into need and danger and then abandon is the height of immorality.”
You must say why, sir . . or I just hear a man bitching about a hypothetical creator of galaxies not creating only vegetables he bathes in warm sunshine and gentle rains. If He offered you the choice right now, to have never been alive at all, or to be born into this world where need and danger exist; What say you? . . or, the choice of being made like those veggies, or being born into this world?
PS ~ abandoned? Perhaps the young child feels abandoned on her first day of school . . but that don’t mean she has been. Being away from mom and dad is a part of growing up, which she will either experiences, or never matures as her parents wish.
(He’ll be back soon enough, and forever is a long time ; )
John, in writing, “…a speed limit sign, which you (presumably) believe was posted by a competent authority, and so can be a moral act to obey (and indeed an immoral act to disobey).” you have exported moral authority into an external body; your “competent authority“.
In your system, the moral, or not decision rests with them. You merely accede. You have put yourself into the position of a child relative to a parent, leaving you free to obey by rote.
Once you give away authority, you have no further decisions to make. You have negated any internal standard by which to make moral choices. Every decision is external to you. Your subsequent obedience is mindless — meaning decision-free — and can not be an exercise in moral action.
None of that is rhetorical. It follows directly from the conditions you have outlined. You may feel virtuous in your behavior, but it’s not moral. Mindless obedience cannot be moral.
Truly, you cannot see the cruelty of creating a living being and then abandoning it into need and danger? Doing so would be the action of a sadist.
Pat Frank,
I noticed you cut yourself out, so to speak, in this quote;
John, in writing, “…a speed limit sign, which you (presumably) believe was posted by a competent authority, and so can be a moral act to obey (and indeed an immoral act to disobey).” you have exported moral authority into an external body; your “competent authority“.
Why, one wonders? . . I will not concede that you would (in reality) be exporting moral authority to anyone, simply because you conform to what you believe a competent authority has informed you is the safe speed limit. (Nor grant you would not be performing an immoral act, for disregarding such a sign) . .
“In your system, the moral, or not decision rests with them.”
Say what? Your decision to limit your speed (or not) would still rest with you, would it not? The competent authority’s decision was to post the sign, not slow your car down . . which is the slavish approach God could have taken it seems to me. And, loving one’s neighbor is no where near as “rote” an act as slowing one’s car.
You apparently don’t grasp that aspect of the “love thy neighbor as thyself” instruction at all . . it’s like you’re thinking it says “clap your hands whenever you see your neighbor” or some such simplistic thing . . . There’s all sorts of potential “deciding” that one might still have to do, after deciding to make the attempt to do as that “Posted Sign” directs . . and one wonders why you don’t assume that is true, frankly . .
“Truly, you cannot see the cruelty of creating a living being and then abandoning it into need and danger?”
Not when I consider the alternatives. Vegetable like existence (no need or danger and/or no awareness of need or danger), or not existing.
As you seem to “judge” the matter, God would be unable to generate autonomous entities that ever even faced real moral decisions, without being a monster for doing so, it seems to me. With nothing serious on the line (need/danger) how can a decision even be rationally called moral or immoral?
+1000
“Leftists will ultimately fail miserably”
Failure is success.
John, your use of “competent authority” is become equivocal. Your original meaning was in the context of moral authority.
In the traffic example of your most recent post, you’re using it as fit to appraise safety.
Shifting ground in meaning makes your argument incoherent.
You obey god because you have decided that you must. Every choice you make after that is derivative, and without moral content.
Last word to you.
This philosopher wants to kill the “Anthropocene” that has just begun! Thus, the Post-Anthropocene is near..
What on Earth is a “Climate Philosopher”?
I thought philosophy was a discipline based on fact and followed logical propositions.
Western Universities are full of these under-educated, none too bright marxist “philosophers” who seem to contribute nothing to society. Reduce their funding and make them do some proper work.
We have no indication that Rieder is a Marxist. Throwing around such labels without justification is not helpful and doesn’t reflect too well on your own education.
Marxists come in many packages with many labels – for example:
Trotskyites, Leninists, Maoists, Stalinists, Shachtmanites, etc.
When I was at McGill in the 1960’s. there were about a dozen different Marxist groups – so many that their group names were extremely long – just to differentiate them.
In general, we observed that they fit into two groups:
1. The make-love-not-war, dope-smoking Harpo Marxists,
and
2. The nasty, angry, violent Groucho Marxists.
Most climate alarmists have embraced a Harpo Marxist approach and a few are Groucho Marxists – they just do not realize it – they think they are “Progressives”.
Regards, Allan 🙂
As if his intention is to save the world… . A Marxist by any other name ? The entire CAGW movement’s agenda is Marxists. It’s communist. The top ranking officials in the IPCC have said so. There is an entire list of who’s who in the CAGW field who have nothing but disdain and contempt of the government, the way of life, and economic engine of the United States.
Further, they have continously from the beginning tried by legal means to silence anyone who disagrees with them . They have used every resource that is available to them that is common to communism. Are you a Deiner? War crimes should be brought against you. What year did I hear that? Oh yeah, 2000 or 2001. How many of the predictions have come about? Zero. Oh, it did get warmer, far below any of the models, and way below that 95% certainty rate. Then there is data stretching. In fact NOAA just did that within the last year again. How much of the warming is real ? I suppose you were speaking out against the people who tried or are trying to bring charges against skeptics by using RICO ? That’s real American of them isn’t It?
Michael, think we are too stupid or uneducated to know a Marxists when we see one ? Where ever you stand in that structure, you’re just a useful idiot. If you had any education, you wouldn’t be supporting them. When a leader emerges among the competing individuals in a communist structure, the leader kills off the those who were in front first. That’s a fact. You’ll be shot, the skeptics will be re educated.
“long names” wasn’t that one of the gags from Life of Brian???
Good one, Allan.
rishrac, I agree that many leaders of the CAGW movement are closet Marxists or sometimes overt ones. However, CAGW has many more believers than Marxism has followers. Therefore, not all CAGW believers can be Marxists.
Some people like to lump together all world views they despise … alarmist = liberal = socialist = Marxist = … that may be convenient, but it is inaccurate.
Then they are useful idiots. CAGW is vehicle. All the goals and solutions are communist, whether those who believe in CAGW are communist or not. CAGW already paints a picture of the seething masses calling for action on global warming, when in actuality no one gives a crap. A tried and true communist tactic.
The world seems full of these “fartists”
Phiosophy is entirely not amenable to fact. Philosophy is what we use to deal with non-factual (subjective) things. If things are fact-based, then science, logic and reason can be used, there is no need for philosophy with facts. Facts do not change based on how you feel about them. At least that is my opinion.
Philosophy is the art of convincing you that something that isn’t true actually is
I thought it was “a walk on the slippery rocks”.
Philosophy based on fact? That was never evident in any philosophy course I was ever obliged to take. My takeaway was that philosophers tend to be people who have trouble understanding facts and therefore rationalize ad nauseum.
Has it occurred to him who might support pensioners in a few decades time, when there are no young people around?
I have no problem with this guy deciding not to have children.
Maybe he could go one better and off himself while he’s at it.
+1…(or should that be -1!?)
ROFL!
I think that goes over the line. Let’s try to keep ourselves more civilized more civilized than the CAGW social warriors.
Firstly, it’s necessary in a civilised society that all views be heard.
Secondly, it’s far more civilised to suggest advocates practise what they preach, than it is to have those same advocates calling for dissenters to be jailed, exiled or killed.
So much to say but let’s start with “WTF is a ‘Climate Philosopher?'”
Just another snout in the trough.
Paul Erlich, is that you?
..Well, the only good thing about this idea. is that only liberal “Green” millennials” will listen to him !! Less future Climate Alarmists has to be a good thing for Mother Earth !
I can’t help but observe it would be a good thing if those that listened to Travis Rieder and believed his claim would take his advise on strictly avoiding procreation.
1. Population growth is taking place especially in poor countries where lots of young people already alive will keep the future population growing. In the richer countries there are already countries with a negative growth rate = diminishing populations: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2002rank.html#ni
2. A negative growth rate causes a lot of problems. Think about an enormous aging and not any more working population and about not enough youngsters to take care of the elderly. Examples: Japan, in the future China and the countries in Europe with an already negative growth rate.
3. Countries with a positive fertility rate (= more than 2 children per woman) face future population growth, less than a fertility rate of 2 means future population loss. Countries with a high positive fertility rate can be found in Africa and the Arabic world: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html#ni Population growth in important parts of South East Asia and Latin America is already firmly slowing down.
So Travis Rieder is travelling and speaking in the wrong countries
4. The more economic development, the less children a woman. So the only thing you have to do when you want a more stabilized world population is to stimulate development in the poor countries. Give the world population free internet and help them building and maintaining infrastructure inclusive modern education. And not to forget: give them cheap and reliable energy.
Total fertility rate (TFR) versus human development index (HDI)
Countries with a already negative growth rate (see the list under 1.) and the ones facing a future negative growth (fertility rate less than 2, see list under 3.) would be smart as they stimulate the birth of children there where the birth rate is lowest: often with well educated younger people (for example middle class people that had to rent money for studying) and which are working both. The youngsters that are going to have children much later – or not.
So Travis Rieder is speaking to the wrong groups also.
The root belief of all environmentalists (including CAGWists) is that there are too many brown babies,
Environmentalism (including CAGWism) is the last socially acceptable form of racism.
Walter, a strange ‘reply’. Please quote the sentence you are referring to.
The point is that the demographic fact is that European decended populations are shrinking. This is something that is well known, and towards them an anti-natalist position is otiose. Why then urge anti-natalist polices? Who are they aimed at? They are aimed at people of color. They are racist.
Walter Sobchak: “Why then urge anti-natalist polices? Who are they aimed at? They are aimed at people of color. They are racist.”
China’s one child policy is well known. Being very poor at that time, China did foresee problems when there would be more than one and a half billion people in their country and I think they were right. There are very poor countries without enough future possibilities for their exploding population. Think about a country as Yemen. And there are many more to mention.
I would prefer a more nuanced judgement. Besides that, you didn’t quote the sentence you were reacting on. So no judgement from you is the best.
Mr Rost,
“So Travis Rieder is speaking to the wrong groups also.”
In general (in your opinion), what shade of folks best represent the groups that Rieder should be speaking to, so as to best achieve his goal?
“In general (in your opinion), what shade of folks best represent the groups that Rieder should be speaking to, so as to best achieve his goal?”
Don M, thank you for your question. I will try to limit myself in my answer, but, as aspects of ‘demography’ are not broadly known, I will first give some introduction.
In the seventies “demography” was one of the parts of my study human geography, the geography of developing countries was another one. I learned about de demographic transition model: first starvation goes down (because of modern medical and sanitary developments) and later (because of economic development) the birth rate goes down. In general (!) it is a kind of automatic process which was first visible in the western countries. First people got a lot of children, the kids could work for them and would take care of them in their old days. But a lot of the young born kids died early and population growth was low because starvation was high. With modern developments (sanitation, medical) the starvation rate fell rapidly, creating a big population growth. When (as in Europe) people got richer, it became expensive to have your children grown up. Furthermore, child labour became prohibited, old age provisions diminished the need to have children for the old day and because child starvation diminished, all was resulting in the heavy burden of having big family’s. The wish developed to diminish the number of children per family and ‘family planning’ made such possible. In the first part of the demographic transition model countries had high birth rates but also a high starvation, in the last part countries are having not only low starvation rates but also low birth rates, both situations (first and last one) resulting in low population growth. In between, you find the explosive population growth.
History shows it is rather easy to diminish starvation. It is more complicated to create the whole societal shift that makes people want less children and that enables ‘family planning’, all together resulting in a more or less automatic going down of the birth rate, even in a growing number of cases below the population stability level.
In short, for a lower birth rate in countries with a high population growth you need economic development in combination with the wide availability of family planning opportunities.
In my opinion (and some experience), nearly all big family’s in countries with fast growing populations already have the wish to diminish the number of children. While you find the biggest family’s mostly in the poorest countries, the opportunities for family planning are lowest just there where most (local) people want family planning. The bottle neck to get smaller family’s most often is the availability of family planning at (hardly) no cost.
If Travis Rieder wants to diminish the world population growth, he should be speaking with people that influence the availability of family planning in countries with a high population growth. In doing so, he would not only help individuals and family’s who are desperately searching for means to get less children, but he also should reach his own goals in a very effective way.
In conclusion, the only efficient way to stabilize world population is to help countries and individuals to reach the last stage of the demographic transition which is shown in the simple but clear graph in the next link: http://slideplayer.com/slide/7828865/
(For a bit more information: keep clicking on the image you get)
To pick a small point….
Zero Population Growth (ZPG) varies by couintry, but — in developed countries — is typically associated with a birth-rate of 2.3 (to account for non-childbearing couples, etc.)
Correct me if I’m wrong here.
Hello Ross King, I also learned another number, 2,2. That’s why we have to look at the definition CIA uses.
Up here the CIA Factbook gives an explanation for the number they use: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/docs/notesanddefs.html?fieldkey=2127&term=Total%20fertility%20rate . I ever learned 2,2 child per woman IN THE FERTILE AGE will keep the population stable. I think this is the difference with the number CIA uses: they look for all [newborn] women: “This entry gives a figure for the average number of children that would be born per woman if all women lived to the end of their childbearing years and bore children according to a given fertility rate at each age.” If (!) The old number we learned, 2,2 (or 2,3) is higher than the CIA gross 2 (one boy and one girl) for every woman + man because not every newborn girl will reach the end of the fertile age and so will reproduce. And the ‘old fertility rate’ looked for all the women IN THE FERTILE AGE. The CIA uses another definition and names 2 as the replacement factor needed: “A rate of two children per woman is considered the replacement rate for a population, resulting in relative stability in terms of total numbers”. Therefore in their way of defining and measuring their Total Fertility Rate TFR they can use the number ‘2’ I think. To keep it simple for not-demographers.
Technically, I think the number must slowly decline as premature deaths from disease and other causes is reduced. Of course, with global doom arriving any day now, it’s all irrelevant. CAGW will kill us all by about 3pm tomorrow, or so I gather.
They love people so much, they don’t want any more of them born.
Hm. Ask him if he “loves animals.”
Ask them his position on “future animal births.”
Yeah, imagine all the feral cats and dogs inheriting the earth once we humans are extinct!
When crazy people have a platform in the media…
The depth of hatred toward human beings is astonishing.
University graduates having fewer children. Count me in! Where do I donate ( not sperm obviously!). Given the massive bias to the ‘ liberal’/left in universities that would be a great outcome although a bit long winded for mine. But then I/m not a fascist and am happy for the current generation of greenl/eft imbeciles to live out their lives and see their lunatic ideas crash and burn so we will be cured like we were cured of slavery, of the subjugation of women ( a work still in progress but over the hump in the West), race based fascism and communism..
If this doesn’t highlight the enviromentalists’ [sic] misanthropic project, nothing will
Encouraging college students not to have children…..what an excellent idea.
There was a recent “documentary” which chronicled the effects of such a policy. It is called Idiocracy.
Mike Judge, the director of this “documentary” says it is scary how the real world is starting to show the effects of this policy.
There is a tax on children already. It’s called college tuition.
There’s been a tax on having children since about 1960 in the “West”. Currently, the cost of raising a child(less education) is well over $100,000. Add in education, mostly hidden in taxes, and it’s over $150,000. With a median annual income of ~$51,000 and 3 kids most of their income is going to raise their kids, mostly in the form of taxes and payments for eduation.
The other point both Rieder and Rosling miss is savings. The Puritan idea of “thrift” meant mostly using money purposefully, including minimizing waste and saving for the future. Those savings promote economic development and in the end pay for retirement or healthcare in old age,
Unless you get stuck with negative interest rates.
Your cost estimates must be out of date, philohippous.
The US Govt gives the cost of raising a child until age 18 as $241,080 in 2012.
http://blogs.usda.gov/2013/08/14/what-does-it-cost-to-raise-a-child/
The cost of raising children is huge and largely hidden. In the US, housing near better schools is significantly more expensive, often subject to higher tax rates, and may be more distant from the workplace. Distance equals additional commuting and daycare/after-school-care costs. Add in clothing, food, life-enrichment activities such as sports, tutors, field trips, in-school activities and the investment in time and money accumulates daily. Career decisions are subject to surprising new limitations on travel, relocation, and working hours. During the life stage where the childless enjoy the fruits of their careers and save for retirement, those with children face costs of 10-100k dollars per college student per year. After graduation most children could benefit greatly from a bit of help while establishing their own careers. At some point there may be grandchildren to spoil.
The fact is that those who have no children usually have no understanding of the sacrifices it takes to birth, feed, house, clothe, socialize, and educate children, and to help them establish productive lives and healthy families of their own. Sadly, many of these folks also have little appreciation that it will be this new generation which will pay for the infrastructure, defense, and social services they will expect during the 20-30 years they will live after retirement. Sadder still, they will never see their children grow, learn, and prepare to take over the world. And they will be a bit less wise and human for the loss.
Oh, boo hoo! Don’t complain to childless-me how expensive your children are, as I’m forced to pay for their healthcare, housing, education, …
Sleep
You do pay a very small percentage of the cost, but at some point you will expect to receive as much benefit as those who made far greater sacrifices. Your comment eloquently makes the point I attempted to cover in my second paragraph.
No. You are wrong, and abusing language. No-one forces you,on pain of imprisonment and forfeiture of property, to send your child(ren) to college.
Correct. I educate and socialize my offspring so that they can enjoy their best possible lives and contribute their full potential to making the world a better place going forward. That includes paying taxes to support you and your quality of life as you age. You are welcome.
We are in the process of turning women into faux males. Where do the mothers of the future come from ? Seems like noone cares.
Here is a very spare bio:
http://www.bioethicsinstitute.org/people/travis-n-rieder
The news media is not doing its job. They should be ridiculing this idiot, not elevating and amplifying his stupidity.
…Oops….Tesla bursts into flames during test drive in France !
http://video.foxnews.com/v/5085272299001/tesla-bursts-into-flames-during-test-drive/?intcmp=obnetwork#sp=show-clips
https://mic.com/articles/152044/watch-a-tesla-model-s-burst-into-flames-during-a-test-drive#.49Bl8LuvP
The language of the ideologically motivated warrior annoys me just as much whether it’s Travis Rieder or Eric Worrall.
[your language generally annoys us moderators =mod]
Anonymous moderator said:
“[your language generally annoys us moderators =mod]”
If you wish to criticize me personally, and you’re not just performing the role of a neutral moderator upholding the rules, would it be too much to ask for you to do it under your own name, and not with your anonymous moderators hat on?
[that is how this shop operates with anonymous moderators, if you don’t like the way it operates then don’t comment here =mod]
I wasn’t complaining about moderation being anonymous. I was complaining about an anonymous moderator becoming a participant rather than just moderating, while still remaining anonymous.
When I first came here I was criticized for cowardly hiding behind a name that wasn’t my full real name, while criticizing others, and I thought, you know what, they’re right. So I started using my full real name. I even provided enough details for people to be able verify I am who I say I am.
But, hey, it’s your site, and you can do as you please. I have no power to make you do anything.
While this is sad, he does have a point. Here in Massachusetts, section 8 welfare recipients recieve 10’s of thousands of dollars per child in benefits.
This seems to be a career choice of lazy persons and part of the problem liberals greedily created themselves just for votes and other gov perks they themselves recieve.
It’s been a big green watermelon all along. Control, control, control. Cranks emanating gaseous theories usually on the public dime.
Btw Trump is our Corbyn.
troe
“Btw Trump is our Corbyn.”
Do you mean not merely unelectable but actually rejected overwhelmingly by his own [Century plus old] party.
And an unfortunate hair problem??
Auto
auto
Odd response, that comment above. See, trump got more votes than has any other recent (or ever) nominee for that 140 year old party.
Now, he has been rejected by many of the recent and consistent losers (er, Washington-paid-TV-media-elites) of that party. But he has received more VOTERS than any of those recent-and-consistent losers.
Trump got 44% of the GOP primary and caucus votes, and a majority of delegates under the rules of the various state GOP committees. That doesn’t look like overwhelming rejection to me.
I’m sure that Travis Rieder has already been castrated.
My 94 year old uncle tells me it also prevents prostate cancer.
But really, who is going to pay for his Social Security ? I already figure that those who produced tax paying citizens should get extra credits.
Not sure about prostate cancer, but it sure prevents testicular cancer.
And children
You know that “climate science” is far more about ideology than about science when all solutions converge on socialism.
In the linked NPR article, it states that he himself had to be persuaded by his wife to have even one child. He is in equal measure a victim and an apostle of the CAGW delusion.
Obama irks La. flood victims with memo warning them not to discriminate
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/aug/19/obama-offends-louisiana-flood-victims-me/
“…Rieder’s well meaning…advice…”
Well meaning?
Here he is on Clinton v. Trump. I think he types with forked keystrokes: http://pilotonline.com/opinion/columnist/guest/travis-n-rieder-is-the-lesser-of-two-evils-an/article_de150392-fc73-558c-b986-b5f2e3c59992.html
Better hurry if you want to make a comment on National Public Radio.
That network will no longer permit comments on its reports as of 23 August.
Those who have grave doubts about the fairness and objectivity of NPR’s reporting on “climate change” lament the loss of our ability to draw attention to evidence and opinion that contradicts or fails to support the dangerous global warming conjecture.
NPR’s comment section was heavily edited. The moderators not only deleted comments with dissenting viewpoints, but modified their content. Their unscrupulous efforts reinforced the viewpoint that NPR is a propaganda outlet.
Enough people had become wise to NPR’s practices, that the cessation of comment sections is nothing less than the addition of another layer of camouflage to their not- so- well hidden agendas.
So we’re supposed to not have kids…and have open borders
They could just put more hormones in our water….
Don’t give them any ideas.
I suspect that Travis Rieder has not read “How civilizations die & why Islam is dying too” by David P Goldman, who also writes as Spengler at Asia Times. Put simply, countries that don’t breed to enlarge their population & culture will fail. Only the USA & Israel are breeding above mere replacement levels. He wrote this on 31st May in an article about Erdogan & Turkey.
Turkey’s demographic winter and Erdogan’s duplicity:
“Muslim countries that achieve a high rate of adult literacy jump from infancy to senescence without passing through adulthood. Like their Iranian, Algerian and Tunisian counterparts, Turkish women reject the constraints of Muslim family life as soon as they obtain a high school education. The shock of sudden passage from traditional society into the modern world has produced the fastest-ever fall in fertility rates in the Muslim world.
Iran, whose fertility rate fell from 7 children per female in 1979 to less than 1.8 today, has the fastest-ageing population of any country in the world. Turkey has an average total fertility rate of 2.18, or just at replacement, but the split between ethnic Turks and ethnic Kurds will make Turkey’s present geographic configuration untenable.
The Kurds’ courage and military prowess leave Turkey in a quandary. Any effective action against ISIS enhances the Kurds’ political standing and advances the day when they will have their own state including the northwest of Iraq and the southeast of Turkey, as well as the southwest corner of Iran and a large swath of northern Syria. But Turkey cannot abandon the NATO alliance, which stands as a guarantor of its territorial integrity. It has no choice but to play both sides, playing the public role of an alliance member while covertly sabotaging the effort to destroy ISIS.
That is the origin of the present refugee crisis.”
Those who wish to have a worldwide view should probably desist from reading their dead tree press.
http://atimes.com/2016/05/turkeys-demographic-winter-and-erdogans-duplicity/
I sometimes wonder what would happen if North America traded places with Africa. A complete human population swap. We would leave behind the First Nations of course. It leads me to conclude that it doesn’t matter where you are as much as what you do when you get there.
Incidentally African countries still have high birth rates, even as the rates from China and India (the world’s 2 most populous countries) have dropped. Japan has a birth rate of 8 (per 1,000 people) while most African countries are in the 40s. Most western countries are in the 10-15 range.
I see that the perna-wrong Ehrlich has a heir-apparent.
The anti-life agenda of the modern western statist is across the board — from celebrating abortion to any form of non-procreative sex , ie : mutual masturbation .
I guess he hasn’t gotten the memo. World population is near a peak and we are heading for a decline in our lifetime possibly.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/01/11/overcrowding-nah-the-worlds-population-may-actually-be-declining/
Seems we should be encouraging educated, wealthy, intelligent couples to have more children.
If there is any “surplus” population, it is the troughers who live on the backs of the producers. Society needs farmers, miners, etc, it does not need parasites, such as Climate Philosophers.
There is no evidence the world faces a climate apocalypse. On the other hand, there is some significant evidence that Western Civilization is in danger of collapse from, among other things, not having enough children! Read David Goldman’s “How Civilizations Die”. https://www.amazon.com/How-Civilizations-Die-Islam-Dying/dp/159698273X/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1471702404&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=David+Goldman+how+Civilizatioms+die
Paul of Alexandria—I suspect the declining birth rate in most western European countries is the reason the PTB are encouraging all this immigration–bodies to work, pay taxes, and support the “pensioners”
w/o kids there is nobody to work to pay his pension/social security.
He who has the smallest carbon footprint, wins. His fondest climate hope is to die young.
Moron.
’nuff said.
And then there’s always forced abortion.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), an organization promoting “the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity,” prepared a report for the UN’s 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference that called for “reducing population in the interest of the environment.” At the conference itself, Zhao Baige, China’s vice-minister of National Population and Family Planning Commission, pointed to China’s policy of forced abortion as a necessary means of controlling CO2 emissions. “”I’m not saying that what we have done is 100 percent right,” she said, “but I’m sure we are going in the right direction and now 1.3 billion people have benefited” (Xing, “Population control called key to deal“).
Where one-child policy (i.e. forced abortion) reflected the psychosis of the ruling minority, selective-child policy (i.e. Pro-Choice) reflects the psychosis of a general population (and a ruling quasi-religious minority).
I had a very earnest young woman turn up at my door asking me to sign a climate action petition of some sort. So I talked about what was concerning her, got the usual responses. I tried reason and even proposed a look at data and got no traction, she looked at me like I was some kind of neanderthal.
Her parting shot was angry and she told me that while I was uncaring she intended to do her part in that she never intended to have children.
I decided to take the high ground so I wished her well with her decision, further more I wished for her a long and happy career and life and to be blessed with good taste and the opportunity to purchase and enjoy all the expensive trappings her heart could desire.
She looked confused and asked me why I was being so nice to her, after all we had a fundamental disagreement on all that she held dear.
“Ah” I said “I am playing the long game. In your case my descendants will be able to pick up a lot of really nice stuff at your estate sale for pennies on the dollar”
Ha! Nicely played! She’s probably going to be thinking about that conversation for the rest of her life.
Very funny, but also very sad — the CAGW indoctrination of the young generation really amounts to mental cruelty.
The population control fetish has a long and depraved history culminating in selective-child. I guess women and men having been making the politically incorrect choice. It’s for our Posterity.
To paraphrase Spiro Agnew — Malthusian misanthropic malcontents.
Things get curiouser and curiouser as the crazies find their voice.
This is the third such story in the past couple of days.
Travis Rieder has gone over to the ‘Voluntary Human Extinction Movement’. Yes, there is such a movement in today’s world (http://www.vhemt.org).
I wish the members of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement much success in not breeding. 🙂
Unfortunately no. Several years ago they held a convention and proudly posted pictures of their kids! Like progressives/leftists the world over, they don’t understand the concept of ‘hypocrisy’.
Are there any Shakers left?
I do remember reading an account some years ago that the Shakers were no more. Someone could have restarted them since, though.
When we Nationalists take power, we will mass-produce genetically prefect white babies using a special breed of pig. A healthy 1,500ppm will be the goal. Chosen ones like Rieder, inconsolable. Maybe he can move to Israel and not have babies or energy there.
Gattaca?
Why should we trust anything a girly-man says who can’t seem to wipe the remnants of a Fudgsicle from his mouth and chin?
Since we are not to have the children to fund our pensions must we commit suicide rather than retire?
Perhaps so. That would reduce our lifetime carbon footprint even further.
How are we to deal with those too spineless to do the decent thing? Recreational homicide or state-sponsored cull? Will the exceptionally gifted and energetic be spared or will it be: “Time’s up. Die”? And if they are to be spared, can the sick and the unemployed be terminated early to compensate?
Or perhaps we”re not seeing the joke in Travis Rieder’s modest proposal. He left off the /sarc tag or something.
Just bring back cigarette smoking into the movies.
The Left hasn’t been able to kill Western Civilization. Yet. But they might talk Westerners into not creating future generations. It will take a little longer, but it will be just as effective.
Reider seems to keep himself ensconced in his ivory tower totally separated from reality. The low growth rates that he proposes have been a recognized problem in Europe, the US, Japan and China for many years. China recently ditched their “one child” policy once they recognized where they would be heading in the future based on verified models. The developed world has been at negative growth for decades. Reider seems intent on putting the developed world into a highly negative death spiral, while the developing world’s population grows at a rate in excess of their rate of economic development. The result of such disastrous policies, in my opinion, would be a shrinking developed world struggling to feed an overpopulated Third World run by a cabal of globalist elites who are totally isolated from the starving masses which their policies created. Reider’s policies would herd the human race into the most dystopian future imaginable.
We can debate endlessly whether climate is a real threat – clearly contributors to this forum think not However it is also clear that increasing populations are a real threat to the sort of stable, comfortable, well resourced lifestyle we enjoy in most of the west.
A time will come when technical and scientific progress is unable to offset the pressure on resources as less well endowed nations aspire to middle class western standards of food, energy, housing, material wealth, travel etc. More space will need to be devoted to the provision of these better standards with increasing urbanisation. Except in countries with very low overall population densities there will be less countryside for all to enjoy. Water resources will be under threat, raw materials will be under pressure, pollution is likely to increase without major changes to recycling and control technologies etc.
Compared to climate change from carbon emissions, the consequences of uncontrolled population growth are far more severe, more immediate, and much easier to forecast with confidence.
Human beings are nothing more than animals with sophisticated skill sets. Uncontrolled population growth cannot continue unabated into the indefinite future and will end in a sharp unpleasant correction at some point as human beings compete for a critical (food, water, energy, materials etc) resource.
A far better strategy would be to recognise the impending stresses and fix the issue thoughtfully before it turns into a real and insoluble problem.
..Your kind of worthless rant has been claimed many times in the past and failed each time and it will continue to fail in the future…The ingenuity of Humans will never cease..
No. Best to let the future deal with their problems. It’s not out job, any more than it was the job of the people of 1900 to deal with ours.
You are free to let your sophistry die with your generation.
I recall the test tube thought experiment from microbiology classes 50 years ago (and subsequent revisions).
The thought experiment: Start with a test tube filled with nutrients and one bacteria. Assume each bacteria splits every minute. After half the food in the test tube is gone, how long before all the food is gone?
Standard answer is one minute.
Revised answer – slightly longer since they will start to cannibalize each other and eat the dead as food becomes scarce.
Soylent Green anyone?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green
Total fool. Seems to be unaware of the law of unintended consequences.
Where one-child policy (i.e. f-orced a-bortion) reflects the psychosis of the ruling minority, selective-child policy (i.e. P-ro-Choice) reflects the psychosis of a general population (and a ruling quasi-religious minority).
If the “Climate Philosopher” thinks excess of people are the problem, why don’t he commit suicide to help “save the planet”? 😀 ahahah
Well, yeah. Seriously, why not indeed? But there’s the left in a nutshell: do as I say, not as I do. That’s why they all drive internal combustion cars, take vacations suing jet aircraft, consume produce and other goods delivered by truck, etc etc.
Stinking bare-faced hypocrisy is absolutely the order of the day.
I think that the term “Climate Philosopher is an Oxymoron. Philosopher comes from the Greek for “lover of wisdom. There is precious little of that in current ‘Climate Science’.
If you want to have fewer births in the world educate all the women of the world,if you take a look were the fewest childern are born, it is in most advanced countries.
Material girls realizing the stereotype attributed to boys.
Setting aside the whole inanity of AGW, the places where this do-gooder needs to do some much-needed work is in Africa and the Middle East. The fertility rate in most western nations, the US is an exception, is below replacement levels. Given the Ponzi schemes we call social welfare, we need a certain population of workers to support the takers. Hence the scramble for immigrants. Stupidly, we think any immigrant will do and find that we often import unemployable people who also end up on the dole, making us working stiffs into even greater tax slaves.
There’s nothing stupid about it. The left kept being thrown out of power in the West, so they decided to import a new people who would vote for them.
The Nazi’s had a population control plan too . They even got very specific however the world including most
Germans weren’t fond of it . Let’s tax university professor’s until they get real jobs .
http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/06/21/2016-04-10-family-ethicist-rieder-0029-edit_custom-1a10f9a95f1400982ae78ee8b5d9b5cf0ecf1ec5-s1600-c85.jpg
Travis and Sadiye Rieder read a book with their 2-year-old daughter, Sinem, in their Maryland home. Travis is a philosopher and ethicist who argues against having too many children, for moral and environmental reasons. His wife always wanted to have a big family.
I was hoping this guy’s genes would reach an evolutionary dead end. But apparently not. Population control is what the Greens have always wanted. It has always been their number one goal. Because the early predictions they made in books like “The Population Bomb” bombed, they’re not as outspoken about it as they used to be, but it’s still their goal. This “Climate Philosopher” Rieder tours the country to scare people with statements like this:
“4 degrees of warming would be ‘largely uninhabitable for humans. It’s gonna be post-apocalyptic movie time,’ he says.”
Has he ever thought about giving up his traveling to help save the planet? Couldn’t he do teleconferencing or send out a video? They probably wouldn’t pay him as much to do that, so travel it is. Here’s just one example of the harm his scaremongering tours have caused — a mother telling her children to never make her a grandmother:
At the New Hampshire meeting, 67-year-old Nancy Nolan tells two younger women that people didn’t know about climate change in the 1980s when she had her kids. Once her children were grown, “I said to them, ‘I hope you never have children,’ which is an awful thing to say,” Nolan says, her voice wavering. “It can bring me to tears easily.”
I have a very personal dislike for ‘population control’ authoritarians.
I am one of 13 siblings. And my parents have endured all kinds of horrific insults over the years by these ‘do-gooders’ who believe themselves to be the arbiters of all things ethical.
Who appoints the ‘ethicists?’
Why doesn’t Travis just follow up his beliefs to their logical conclusion and kill himself?
Another manifestation of anti-humanism, which has a long history among the Progressives. Who are the people most likely to listen to this nutter, and voluntarily follow his advice. Oops. Just like the Eugenicists pushing abortion, it’ll backfire on the class they don’t want to thin.
It is not publicized widely, and Climate philosopher Travis N. Rieder apperently have not heard about it yet, but population explosion was over 25 years ago.
Since then global population under 15 is stable, somewhat below 2 billion. So, birth control is the solution for a non issue, the real problem is increasing longevity. This is why world population still keeps increasing.
Therefore Travis N. Rieder should go for restricting health care &. public sanitation, while promoting a healthy dose of lethal contagious diseases. That’s what responsible Bioethics experts do, don’t they?
“Ethicist”: A professional who teeters on the thin line of acceptable truth in order to hold onto a position.
College costs are an existing tax on children. The “philosopher” seems not to know that in every developed country, the birth rate has fallen or is falling to below replacement levels. This is because not everyone finds children fun, they are in fact expensive, and some people feel they can’t afford them. Of course, never mind the facts.
Climate Philosopher is interchangeable with Climate Consultant (a lot of them out there), Climate Evangelist, Climate Psychologist, Climate Meta physicist, and Climate Science Adviser to the President.
These are the same sad old people who never got over the fact that Paul Erlich’s “Population Bomb” turned out to be completely and devastatingly wrong. They also do not admit that European, white populations across the world are in stasis, or declining. (check Germany’s fertility rate, for example)
What Rieder refuses to say is that the real problem he wants to solve is this: How do rich white people across the globe get rid of all the surplus brown and black babies which scare them so???
That is EXACTLY what he wants to do, no matter how many words he may mince about it.
Given the nonsense so many college students are trained to believe. Them having fewer children might not be such a bad idea.
Children are the future of any society. Any society that wants to restrict children HAS NO FUTURE. If Travis Rieder wants to restrict children, then he’s actively trying to get his society to commit suicide. I suggest that when it comes to suicide, he should begin with himself. He’s certainly of less value to society than any random child would be.
Apparenty Rieder has kids: http://grist.org/living/can-you-have-kids-and-still-be-a-good-person/
“Do as I say”?
Slate: “Indeed, according to experts’ best estimates, the total population of Earth will stop growing within the lifespan of people alive today.
And then it will fall.”
Birthrate is dropping even in previously high rate countries. Demographers are uncertain as to cause.
Maybe because we’re all gonna live for centuries? (Unless we die too soon.)