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Thread: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

  1. #1
    Stegodon
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    Default Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    A message board friend of mine (honestly, I do like this gal) recently proposed that overpopulation really isn't a pressing issue for humanity and is, in reality, a ploy by the Rockefellers (who are evidently responsible for the UN, the Federal Reserve and something called a "Trilateral Commission") to tell us how many kids we can have. And some guy named Aaron Russo is also involved.

    I'm sure these things have been hashed over by members here in prior threads, but my search on the Dope (Rockefeller + conspiracy) didn't turn up anything helpful. Probably b/c it's too loopy to bother.

    It's really frustrating, isn't it, that there are grown adults who frame their worldview on the Bible instead of science. I've argued in favor of God's existence on the Dope many times, because I believe in the value of religion. I also recognize its limits and would like to reach out to friends who're in the dark on science and bring them into the light.

    Where do you start?

  2. #2
    Oliphaunt
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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    I care little for conspiracy theories and don't base much of anything on the Bible (and am not entirely clear on what the Bible has to do with the Trilateral Commission), but is overpopulation really that much of a problem? Isn't the problem rather the distribution of population, in that developing nations have too many babies and developed nations have too few?

  3. #3
    Stegodon EddyTeddyFreddy's avatar
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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    Where do you start? I'd suggest frontal lobotomy, but that turned out to be bad science.

    Seriously, I never have any luck getting through the faith-based belief systems with reality-based messages, myself, so I don't know what to say to help you, fessie.,
    "Dude, your statistical average, which was already in the toilet, just took a plunge into the Earth's mantle." ~ iampunha

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    Oliphaunt
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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    Quote Originally posted by EddyTeddyFreddy
    Where do you start? I'd suggest frontal lobotomy, but that turned out to be bad science.
    Depends on what results you're after.

  5. #5
    Stegodon
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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    Well I'm dropping the Illuminati part of my query, having read what Cecil has to say on the subject (so THAT'S what everyone's been talking about - I'd never read that bit of whackfoolery).

    However, I've been reading old Dope threads on the subject of overpopulation {paging Stranger on a Train, Brain Glutton, jshore, intention, BetsQ?? hello??} and those threads all annoy me. They're educational, but also irksome. Because these people, who know FAR more about the subject than I do, seem to have left out so many factors.

    They pretty much established that yes, the Malthusian theory about population growth v. food supply was incomplete because it didn't (couldn't) take into account technology. Our ability to feed ourselves grew in ways that he couldn't foresee, so things didn't collapse when he predicted.

    OK, gotcha.

    And it IS true that the population rate has stabilized in most of the developed world (in the U.S. we're on a path to 430 million in 2050) through changes in fertility rates, etc.

    But - isn't it also true that Asia and the Middle East are just itching to have our same standard of living? And isn't it the case that technological advances are bringing it to them? And isn't that going to create a WHOPPER of a problem? I hear that China is building a power plant a week. Do you think they're to the point of putting scrubbers in their stacks, or are they (as we were here, years ago) more concerned with giving their people power than keeping the air clean? What about the damning of their rivers? What about Libya's draining of its aquifers?

    intention made the argument that here in the U.S. we are profligate water wasters. No doubt. Will we change? Will we change fast enough?

    And agricultural practices, those wonderful genetically engineered crops -- doesn't homogeneity of seed strains put us at greater risk for failure? Diversity spreads the risk, but we're losing that. Aren't the pests going to keep evolving? Are we going to evolve faster?

    That's what got me about all the arguments I read here - it was just a matter of "how many people can we theoretically feed", not "at what point is the ecosystem going to collapse?" Sure, we can create more farmlands - but we lose carbon sinks (i.e. trees) in the process. We have honeybee colonies in a state of collapse. We're changing weather patterns, via AWG.

    And then what about our obligation to other species, our moral obligation? Is it really OK to crowd all of them out? Shouldn't we give a rat's ass?

    Lots of people in the old Dope threads made fun of trending, because you can't point to a line on a graph that tracks the past and assume that it's going to continue the same trajectory in the future. And it's true, you can't.

    At the same time, I don't think we understand the factors that make up the web of life that surrounds us.

    I liked intention's points about improvements in distribution systems, I think that's wonderful.

    And yet - if our current living patterns are causing problems NOW, wouldn't it have to be true that an increased population will cause more problems LATER?

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    Oliphaunt Baldwin's avatar
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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    Unless we're lucky, the population explosion will end our civilization. But the Rockefellers? It's annoying when crazy conspiracy stuff distracts from real concerns. If your friend is a true believer in her pet conspiracy, she may be impervious to facts and logic. (We had some long, long threads on the Dope with a couple of 9/11 "truthers" and one genuine Holocaust denier; it's like talking to a wall. A wall you want to punch in the head.)

    Edited to correct spelling.

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    Why so serious? Tinker's avatar
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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    http://www.trilateral.org/

    The idea that Rockefeller ISN'T manipulating world policy is more mushy headed than the idea that he IS. What's dodgy is the idea that some git on the street knows precisely what Rockefeller is up to.

    David Icke and Alex Jones are shills for the Illuminati to make their plots seem fantastical.


    And agricultural practices, those wonderful genetically engineered crops -- doesn't homogeneity of seed strains put us at greater risk for failure? Diversity spreads the risk, but we're losing that. Aren't the pests going to keep evolving? Are we going to evolve faster?
    That's why there are terminator seeds.
    "And I hope I don't get born again, 'cuz one time was enough!" -- Mark Sandman

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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    Quote Originally posted by Baldwin
    If your friend is a true believer in her pet conspiracy, she may be impervious to facts and logic. ...it's like talking to a wall. A wall you want to punch in the head.)
    You win the thread. 8-)

    P.S. Can I put that in my sig?

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    Oliphaunt
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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    Quote Originally posted by Baldwin
    Unless we're lucky, the population explosion will end our civilization.
    But why? Many countries, it's true, have too many people and too little food, but many countries have the exact opposite problem.

  10. #10
    Why so serious? Tinker's avatar
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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    The problem isn't overpopulation it's overconsumption. It's not so much that the population is growing, it's that the per capita footprint of individual humans increases greatly as we become more advanced. Maybe we will soon reach a threshold where gains in efficiency will surpass consumption growth rates, but we haven't yet. The population is stabilizing of its own accord or so it seems. Maybe it's due to some Trilateral/Bilderberg magic.
    "And I hope I don't get born again, 'cuz one time was enough!" -- Mark Sandman

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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    I was coming in to say that the "overpopulation" problem can equally be framed as an "overconsumption" problem but Tinker beat me to it. I take the radical position that there is NO overpopulation problem, and anything that is viewed as such is actually an overconsumption problem. Calling it overpopulation does not lead to any solutions, and is likely to lead to abhorrent public policy conclusions.

    Here is a thought experiment for those convinced of the "overpopulation" problem:

    Let's say we could, with no practical or ethical difficulties, adjust the population to a sustainable level. The quickest way to do this would be to obliterate a continent (there are probably other ways, but I expect all would be subject to the same problem.) Which continent would you obliterate?

    Where the overpopulation is - Africa, or Asia? They consume very little (many orders of magnitude less than a North American, per person), and if the remaining population maintains its rate of consumption, then the problem would remain (because we don't have enough Earth to support even just industrialized countries at their current rate of consumption).

    Or where the consumption is - North America and Europe? We consume a lot but there aren't very many of us; most of the world's population would remain.

    How else could the problem be solved without addressing consumption?

    Every answer I have ever heard to this question is either unabashedly racist, disregards women's reproductive sovereignty, or is to "educate women" - because of the proven fact that educated women have fewer children. I am all for educating women, but I find this "solution" problematic, not least because it will never work in time to solve our current ecological crisis.

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    Stegodon
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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    The way I see it, we're GOING to solve problems that arise that threaten our existence (particularly as Americans, if not as human beings). It may take awhile, and we may wipe out a bunch of other species first, but we'll get there. The question is, how quickly? And with how much suffering along the way?

    To me, it just makes sense to keep our population from exploding, to encourage women (in the U.S. especially) to have no more than 2 children. To me, that buys us time to adapt to changes. Global warming is going to bring us a bunch of changes, at least that's what I've read (because I stay away from the Republican crap published on NOAA's website, but that's another thread). If we don't have as many people to support, it just makes sense that it'll be easier to adapt. As compared with straining every ecological system to its limits.

    Which, many people would argue, we're already doing.

    More people can only make that problem worse.

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    Why so serious? Tinker's avatar
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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    America would have negative population growth if it weren't for immigration.
    "And I hope I don't get born again, 'cuz one time was enough!" -- Mark Sandman

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    Stegodon
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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    Immigration AND Paul Ehrlich's 1968 book "The Population Bomb". And Soylent Green. There was a big campaign in the 1970's, which people seem to have forgotten.

    It seems like 3- and 4- child families are becoming more common now. We've forgotten. Kind of like the way SUV's entered the marketplace, following a period of more sensible, fuel-efficient design.

    I think overpopulation issues are something important for women to consider.

    People don't want to talk about it, though. Especially women.

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    Why so serious? Tinker's avatar
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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    The idea of treating children like a consumer product is repulsive. If we want to reduce our impact we should consume less, not breed less.
    "And I hope I don't get born again, 'cuz one time was enough!" -- Mark Sandman

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    Stegodon
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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    People who've already been born - sure. Although I think you'll find plenty of instances where that's exactly how we've looked at each other.

    Theoretical children who don't yet exist - I don't think so. We're self-conscious and we have choices. One of our choices is how much impact we're going to have on the planet. More kids = greater impact.

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    Stegodon
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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    Quote Originally posted by Baldwin
    Unless we're lucky, the population explosion will end our civilization. But the Rockefellers? It's annoying when crazy conspiracy stuff distracts from real concerns. If your friend is a true believer in her pet conspiracy, she may be impervious to facts and logic. (We had some long, long threads on the Dope with a couple of 9/11 "truthers" and one genuine Holocaust denier; it's like talking to a wall. A wall you want to punch in the head.)

    Edited to correct spelling.
    Bahahaha! Perfect!

    And personally, I find the anti-vaxxers the most annoying, because they're actively harming people, so I feel like I can't walk away from the argument.

  18. #18
    Why so serious? Tinker's avatar
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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    fessie Well when you say that 3 children is over the line then you're drawing way too strict a distinction. Society is structured in such a way so that we need people to be born to support the old or else the old put and unfair burden on the poor. Having too few kids won't result in a reduced footprint, it will result in robots. So instead of consuming people, we'll have consuming machines.
    "And I hope I don't get born again, 'cuz one time was enough!" -- Mark Sandman

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    Stegodon
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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    I don't want to be in charge of deciding exactly where the line should be - and I sure as shit don't want any institution given that power.

    But unless I'm mistaken, there have always been plenty of people just itching to come live here and enjoy our benefits. For example, if the good folks over in Bangladesh and other coastal regions get washed out of their villages due to rising water levels (due to the global warming that we've helped create), wouldn't it seem appropriate to offer them a spot over here?

    Furthermore, it seems to me (and again, this might be better addressed in a separate thread) that a lot of our liberties are the result of the abundance that exists in this country, and of the fact that ordinary people have had sufficient access to natural resources. When you consider the warlords of Africa, the Saudi monarchy and the various looney-tunes in the Middle East, isn't there a pretty strong correlation between being a land of plenty and having plenty of personal liberty, and its inverse? Isn't it the case that when there's enough to go around, people share better? Or am I totally off base about that?

    As our natural resources become more scarce, I'd hate to see our national character change. I want us to continue to be a country where families have the option of raising several children if they wish.

    I know the human race has solved myriad problems in the past - just in the recent past, people drastically improved crop yield via petroleum-based fertilizer. I understand that improvements have been made and more will come.

    But I'm concerned that the stress we're putting on the environment, via pollution and global warming, may change our access to natural resources, our ability to grow crops, and our supply of fresh water, more quickly than we're able to adapt.

    And then what happens?

  20. #20
    Why so serious? Tinker's avatar
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    Default Re: Rockefeller and the UN and Overpopulation ::sigh::

    Quote Originally posted by fessie
    I don't want to be in charge of deciding exactly where the line should be - and I sure as shit don't want any institution given that power.
    We agree on that, though there is the underlying message of this thread that people do use information tactics to implement eugenic policies. The OP was cracking wise about someone who thought David Rockefeller had some kind of preternatural control over our breeding, but you also mentioned a strong push to limit breeding in the latter half of the twentieth century. So while there isn't an agency actively controlling our breeding habits there are forces attempting to influence them.

    But unless I'm mistaken, there have always been plenty of people just itching to come live here and enjoy our benefits. For example, if the good folks over in Bangladesh and other coastal regions get washed out of their villages due to rising water levels (due to the global warming that we've helped create), wouldn't it seem appropriate to offer them a spot over here?
    That's called 'Brain Drain' when the educated populace is replaced by an uneducated one. Yes, some Bangladeshis will come over and get educated, but there is something to be said for tradition and demographics in this. At the same time you are depending on the Bangladeshis breeding more than we do, why is it better for Bangladeshis to breed than for Americans?

    Furthermore, it seems to me (and again, this might be better addressed in a separate thread) that a lot of our liberties are the result of the abundance that exists in this country, and of the fact that ordinary people have had sufficient access to natural resources. When you consider the warlords of Africa, the Saudi monarchy and the various looney-tunes in the Middle East, isn't there a pretty strong correlation between being a land of plenty and having plenty of personal liberty, and its inverse? Isn't it the case that when there's enough to go around, people share better? Or am I totally off base about that?
    Africa is one of the most resource rich areas on the planet, their problems are not related to lack of resources, but due to an inferior bureaucratic tradition that enables them to utilize their resources more effectively.

    As our natural resources become more scarce, I'd hate to see our national character change. I want us to continue to be a country where families have the option of raising several children if they wish.
    I agree with you, but the problem doesn't change whether we have more American children, Bangladeshi immigrants or domestic robot servants.

    I know the human race has solved myriad problems in the past - just in the recent past, people drastically improved crop yield via petroleum-based fertilizer. I understand that improvements have been made and more will come.
    Yes, and it's not just about chemical improvements but also systemic ones. Efficient division of labor makes the biggest differences.

    But I'm concerned that the stress we're putting on the environment, via pollution and global warming, may change our access to natural resources, our ability to grow crops, and our supply of fresh water, more quickly than we're able to adapt.
    I agree, but this is more of an issue of consumption than breeding.

    And then what happens?
    Well it's likely we'll move toward a more fully recyclable culture, I expect that to be more prevalent in the future.
    "And I hope I don't get born again, 'cuz one time was enough!" -- Mark Sandman

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