he thinks the powers-that-be will engineer a dieoff down to a more sustainable level

We know that life is cheap to most people. (Unless it is yours - then it gets expensive) And we know that most people LIKE being comfortable.

So when you have an equation like this:

Total_Energy = Number_of_People x Personal_Energy_Useage

And Total_Energy is dropping - how do you balance the equation? Cut into Personal_Energy_Useage (and perhaps effect your comfort)? Or cut somewhere else?

I'm slightly concerned about this idea of the powers-that-be engineering a dieoff down to a more sustainable level... a scary thought...

Whilst I don't like to give credence to such a wild idea, I do think the scenario isn't as blazingly insane as it appears to be. I'm not sure if this makes me a doomer, paranoid or something worse?

Historically monarchs and those in charge of countries have been capbable of the most obscene, massive and staggering acts of criminal violence directed at their own people and foreigners.

I think there is a definitely tendancy, especially in the United States, to contemplate and even condone the idea of a "die-off". I'm thinking specifically about the success of these ghastly, quasi-religious "novels" about the rapture and the wheat being seperated from the chaff... Now one can dismiss these writers as borderline lunatics and religious fanatics, but what of their readership?

Are these books just harmless crap, or do they represent something more sinister in the American psyche? Does it mean that there are a substantial number of Americans who would be aminable to the idea of genocide? Because it would appear this "God" is willing to instigate genocide, leaving only a few thousand behind. This is the "God" thing raised, or should that be debased? to the level of a ghastly, perverse, parody of Hitler. Not God the Father, but God the Annihilator! It's striking how many of these extreme, Christian cultists in the US have somehow turned the figure of Jesus into a muscular warrior armed with a sword, a figure that bears a remarkable resemblance to Nazi inconography.

If one looks back at the last sixty years one can see that there have always been fringe elements in the US that have toyed with the idea of nuclear war as a solution to the "communist threat", the point is, these extremists were always kept at arems length from the reins of power, they were counter-balannced by realists who were sane. Now, a radical, extremist, cult has taken over the Whitehouse! This makes a profound difference, and is why we are living in very dangerous times.

"Armageddon" would "solve" an awful lot of problems. The slate could be wiped clean and we could start again afresh, in a world rebourn. A new world, that will rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the old!

Hi MacDuff,

Who was the UCLA fusion expert? I know some of them there but not all...

ciao,
Bruce

he thinks the powers-that-be will engineer a dieoff down to a more sustainable level...a scary thought...

I don't believe this kind of thinking is too far fetched. For an "ends justify the means" type of person, this approach has obvious benefits. Reducing the population to 1/5th to 1/100th of current levels would allow the remaining resources to be stretched much further and even place us withing bounds of a sustainable population. Some might even justify it as being more humane than allowing mass starvation and war to 'naturally' correct the problem, with the side benefit of preserving infrastructure and conserving the resources a global war would entail.

My intent is not to advocate this policy, but merely point out how tempting this idea might be to those in power, especially if things become sufficiently horrible.

For what it's worth, in a private conversation on the subject of overpopulation with my Anthropology professor in 1992, he mentioned that there was a group of misanthropic biologists, from a number of universities around the world, looking into our 'options' to deal with overpopulation along this line of thinking. It could have been a rumor, but he appeared to believe it.