From: AaronLynch@aol.com
Date: Sun 07 Sep 2003 - 21:33:45 GMT
In a message dated 9/7/2003 3:17:52 PM Central Daylight
Time, ecphoric@hotmail.com writes:
> Subj: Re: Time article and letter to editor
> Date: 9/7/2003 3:17:52 PM Central Daylight Time
> From: ecphoric@hotmail.com (Scott Chase)
> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk
> Reply-to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
> >From: Keith Henson <hkhenson@rogers.com>
> >Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> >To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> >Subject: Time article and letter to editor
> >Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2003 12:43:58 -0400
> >
>
>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030915-483269,00.html?
> cnn=yes
> >
> >Interesting article on the Saudis.
> >
> >Humans almost certainly have a psychological tendency to go to war with
> >neighboring tribes when the per capita income is falling. (I.e., the
game
> >has been eaten and they are going to starve.) Even if the attacking
tribe
> >lost and every male was killed, females and children (who carried the
same
> >genes) were normally absorbed by the winners.
> >
> >In any case, evolution favored those who resorted to violence over those
> >who quietly starved.
> >
> >A proposed mechanism to couple bad economic situations to wars is that
> >under conditions of looming privation xenophobic memes leading to wars
> >replicate well. This can even be seen in the US where neo-nazie
movements
> >become more common in bad times.
> >
> >Population growth rates above growth in economic productivity are highly
> >correlated with areas where xenophobic memes induce fighting. In this is
> >should be noted that the per capita income in Saudia Arabia has fallen by
> >about three quarters over the past generation from smaller oil income and
> >rapidly rising population.
> >
> >Easter Island is a long ways in both time and space from the Mid East,
yet
> >there may be a lesson in the gruesome history of that isolated place.
The
> >American Southwest about 1250 CE is another example of privation induced
> >wars and population collapse. (See LeBlanc)
> >
> >Unfortunately, the current US administration is utterly opposed to
> >population limiting steps that would improve the per capita income,
though
> >that probably lies behind reversing the tide of violence in Northern
> >Ireland.
> >
> >
> What population limiting steps? Contraception? Abortion? Sterilization?
>
> Where? The U.S.? Saudi Arabia? Are these steps supposed to be a matter of
> choice or gov't imposition?
>
> Implicit in this Malthusian claptrap would be the canard of the affluent
> intelligent people having fewer babies and thus stable K population levels
> where the poor dumb folk are sprewing gametes all over the place ("stupid
> people are breeding" AKA r-strategy). Thus, these steps to curb population
> growth would have the untermenschen as their target. They are the ones who
> are underprivilileged, feel the tears of privation and serve as fermenting
> vats of xenophobic "memes".
>
> As conservative as Dubya is, I haven't yet seen Roe vs Wade overturned nor
> contraception banned in the US. I would foresee us having a lot of
problems
> imposing planned parenthood upon a fundamentalist Islamic state such as
> Saudi Arabia, in the hopes of socially engineering privation and terrorist
> "memes" away. Imposing abortion (or other "population limiting steps")
upon
> our own people would be bad. Trying to do this to another nation would be
a
> pretty nasty situation too.
>
> There's always forced sterilization. Didn't the US already impose this on
> the "inferior" folks within our borders back in the day? There's not much
of
>
> a line to be crossed between Malthusian talk and eugenic action.
>
> Population limiting steps (contraception, sterilization or abortion),
should
>
> be a matter of individual choice, not gov't edict. That's the most
important
>
> part of pro-choice.
Hi Scott.
I don't think Keith was suggesting forcible birth control.
Rather, he seems to be referring to the Bush
administrations blockage of UN and USAID funding to
organizations that give women the option to practice
contraception. Much of the religious right here in the US
regards such things as condoms as being morally wrong, and
consider abstinence to be the only legitimate option for
birth control.
The problem is that in the most conservative Islamic
societies, women do not have a right to abstinence from
marriage. They must accept the husbands their fathers
arrange for them. Once married, they effectively lack any
right to refuse sex from their husbands, too. Such women
lack the right to abstinence that is generally taken for
granted in the US. (Many also lack other basic rights, such
as the right to refuse beatings by their husbands.) They
also often lack the right to decide how any of the
household money is spent, too. This effectively gives them
no right to spend household money on such things as
contraception. Under such circumstances, the only "right to
choose" if available at all, is supplied by charities,
including population programs. These include programs that
receive UN and US funds.
Women who want to choose not to have a fifth child (etc.)
often want to stop having children because the feel they
cannot afford to have children. In many cases, they cannot
even afford contraception. The question is often one of
whether women who do not feel they can even afford cheap
contraception can afford something as expensive as another
compulsory childbirth, and whether or not these women
should have any say in the matter at all.
--Aaron Lynch
Thought Contagion Science Page:
http://www.thoughtcontagion.com
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