holdren, 'Ecoscience', population control
I'm shocked and a little confused at the insane conservative backlash about John P. Holdren, Obama's "science czar" and this textbook, Ecoscience.
The book details some rather grotesque methods that population might be brought under control in a crisis. Nobody is denying that the strategies and techniques inside it are terrible things. But the entire outrage seems to ignore the entire reason these strategies are proposed -- a crisis of enormous overpopulation, mass starvation, famine, disease.
Is the problem one of imagination? Can people not imagine a scenario where these things are happening? I mean, if you had quizzed me on the street about what the government should do if population has raced out of control and people were starving on the streets, disease running rampant, I would have probably suggested similar measures, starting with the least extreme and moving up to the most extreme. In a survival situation, your rights go out the window, no matter who you are.
It's crystal clear if you reduce the situation from a country-perspective and to a personal perspective. Assume you are on a vessel of some sort, and you are the last people in the world. The supplies are running out, and the ship that could support 20 people indefinitely now can only support 15 indefinitely -- if 5 stay, they are going to cause the oxygen to run out and everyone to die.
I think even hardcore conservatives in this situation would agree; 5 people have to die in order for the rest to survive. I find it hard to believe anyone would justify the end of the human race in order to avoid making a difficult moral decision. Even in the face of oblivion, we have to be ready for the hard decisions. The conservative outrage against this text seems to be outrage at the concept of government ending up having to make these decisions.
I understand how disturbing that might sound, but a government is just a group of people in charge of regulating and directing activity at a national level. In the survival scenario above, there's a small government in the decision-making processes that lead to selecting the 5 to die. You might argue that the government is incapable of properly executing extreme strategies; You might say they are unfit to decide when it is time to execute them, and I'd agree with you -- It's difficult to accept that kind of power in somebody else's hands. But honestly we can't say that envisioning such strategies is not necessary or warranted.
Or is it that people don't believe such situations can occur? This seems short sighted to me too. I have heard the Quiverfull people talk about how 'The Earth will provide' etc, but no reasonable person can assume there are not limits to what the ecosphere. Everything we know about the science involved in our energy supplies shows us there is an upper limit, even if we are not there. The earth is like a giant vessel, hurtling through space, and if we have more people that can be sustained, everyone is threatened. The textbook notes this, talks about things that could be done to bring population back into control, and then clearly states that such extreme measures should be avoided if AT ALL possible. Of course they should. The extreme measures provide the counterpoint to the 'keep the population under control in the first place' argument; If you don't want the extreme measures, take steps to keep from forcing the hand.
I guess I feel there's a mental divide in a lot of conservative heads on 'personal' issues and 'national' issues. For me, too, it's hard to imagine any situation or problem in my personal life to become a problem to millions of people -- I can't even imagine a million people. But I have to acknowledge that they do exist, and that government regulation of population would have to be preferable to the government refusing to intercede in 'personal affairs' and going through famine and the inevitable destabilization that would cause. I mean, the average person is only at most 72 hours without food away from thinking a can of wet dog food is utterly delicious. How many hours does it take before other people start looking tasty, comically parodied in cartoons with two folks on a deserted island? Can anyone honestly say they'd prefer roving bands of cannibals over government supported sterilization programs?
I understand the Catholics outrage toward it, they eschew all forms of birth control as awful. But heck.
Governments already enact some measures to control population: The US has tax breaks to people with children, which are in place supposedly to support growth even if it's just the power of the voting majority holding it in place these days. China has tax penalties to people who have more then a couple children, in theory causing the population to shrink. It's the same kind of thing; Governments regulate these kind of things all the time.
Another thing is people keep labeling the book as 'supporting eugenics' and calling Holdren (and by association Obama) 'hardcore eugenicists', as seen in the Amazon.com top user review for 'Ecoscience'. This is wrong; Eugenics is the process of selective breeding in human populations in order to decrease the frequency of traits viewed as negative and increase the frequency of traits viewed as positive. Nothing in any publication of Holdren's espouses such a view. Population control in Holdren's context has nothing to do with genetic manipulation. I can only assume the association is to make people think Holdren is a totalitarian hell-bent on world domination, and to bring up associations with Hitler -- which is despicable pandering to their audience. Holdren's views are not in line with Hitler's at all. Anyway, any conservatives on my friends list, please tell me about the big deal here. If you are uncomfortable with any administration making such decisions in the advent of a population crisis, what is the alternative other than wide-spread famine?
The book details some rather grotesque methods that population might be brought under control in a crisis. Nobody is denying that the strategies and techniques inside it are terrible things. But the entire outrage seems to ignore the entire reason these strategies are proposed -- a crisis of enormous overpopulation, mass starvation, famine, disease.
Is the problem one of imagination? Can people not imagine a scenario where these things are happening? I mean, if you had quizzed me on the street about what the government should do if population has raced out of control and people were starving on the streets, disease running rampant, I would have probably suggested similar measures, starting with the least extreme and moving up to the most extreme. In a survival situation, your rights go out the window, no matter who you are.
It's crystal clear if you reduce the situation from a country-perspective and to a personal perspective. Assume you are on a vessel of some sort, and you are the last people in the world. The supplies are running out, and the ship that could support 20 people indefinitely now can only support 15 indefinitely -- if 5 stay, they are going to cause the oxygen to run out and everyone to die.
I think even hardcore conservatives in this situation would agree; 5 people have to die in order for the rest to survive. I find it hard to believe anyone would justify the end of the human race in order to avoid making a difficult moral decision. Even in the face of oblivion, we have to be ready for the hard decisions. The conservative outrage against this text seems to be outrage at the concept of government ending up having to make these decisions.
I understand how disturbing that might sound, but a government is just a group of people in charge of regulating and directing activity at a national level. In the survival scenario above, there's a small government in the decision-making processes that lead to selecting the 5 to die. You might argue that the government is incapable of properly executing extreme strategies; You might say they are unfit to decide when it is time to execute them, and I'd agree with you -- It's difficult to accept that kind of power in somebody else's hands. But honestly we can't say that envisioning such strategies is not necessary or warranted.
Or is it that people don't believe such situations can occur? This seems short sighted to me too. I have heard the Quiverfull people talk about how 'The Earth will provide' etc, but no reasonable person can assume there are not limits to what the ecosphere. Everything we know about the science involved in our energy supplies shows us there is an upper limit, even if we are not there. The earth is like a giant vessel, hurtling through space, and if we have more people that can be sustained, everyone is threatened. The textbook notes this, talks about things that could be done to bring population back into control, and then clearly states that such extreme measures should be avoided if AT ALL possible. Of course they should. The extreme measures provide the counterpoint to the 'keep the population under control in the first place' argument; If you don't want the extreme measures, take steps to keep from forcing the hand.
I guess I feel there's a mental divide in a lot of conservative heads on 'personal' issues and 'national' issues. For me, too, it's hard to imagine any situation or problem in my personal life to become a problem to millions of people -- I can't even imagine a million people. But I have to acknowledge that they do exist, and that government regulation of population would have to be preferable to the government refusing to intercede in 'personal affairs' and going through famine and the inevitable destabilization that would cause. I mean, the average person is only at most 72 hours without food away from thinking a can of wet dog food is utterly delicious. How many hours does it take before other people start looking tasty, comically parodied in cartoons with two folks on a deserted island? Can anyone honestly say they'd prefer roving bands of cannibals over government supported sterilization programs?
I understand the Catholics outrage toward it, they eschew all forms of birth control as awful. But heck.
Governments already enact some measures to control population: The US has tax breaks to people with children, which are in place supposedly to support growth even if it's just the power of the voting majority holding it in place these days. China has tax penalties to people who have more then a couple children, in theory causing the population to shrink. It's the same kind of thing; Governments regulate these kind of things all the time.
Another thing is people keep labeling the book as 'supporting eugenics' and calling Holdren (and by association Obama) 'hardcore eugenicists', as seen in the Amazon.com top user review for 'Ecoscience'. This is wrong; Eugenics is the process of selective breeding in human populations in order to decrease the frequency of traits viewed as negative and increase the frequency of traits viewed as positive. Nothing in any publication of Holdren's espouses such a view. Population control in Holdren's context has nothing to do with genetic manipulation. I can only assume the association is to make people think Holdren is a totalitarian hell-bent on world domination, and to bring up associations with Hitler -- which is despicable pandering to their audience. Holdren's views are not in line with Hitler's at all. Anyway, any conservatives on my friends list, please tell me about the big deal here. If you are uncomfortable with any administration making such decisions in the advent of a population crisis, what is the alternative other than wide-spread famine?